You must move to Windows Server 2008

The place: Continental Airlines secondary hub site in Newark, N.J.

Location: Something of a basement with wires coming down from the above check-in terminals.

The problem: Change.

On my left were a bunch of yellow, 386 systems with 5.5-inch floppy drives running the majority of the software on black screens with green text. On my right were servers running Windows Server 2000, waiting to take over. New software running on brand-new hardware — there would be challenges ahead. Though Continental Airlines was (and is) a leader in pushing through the changes, this was not an exciting moment for all involved. Some prefer “the devil they know” over change.

Is that how you feel? Then perhaps you’ve already decided you’re not going to touch Windows Server 2008. In fact, the title of this post may have already set your blood boiling. But I urge you to keep an open mind and read on before clicking the Comment button.

Windows Server 2008 is absolutely awesome. There, I’ve said it. Now let me tell you why. First off, it is based on the same architecture as Windows Vista (also an awesome product from an architectural perspective). Improvements in Vista are in Server 2008, such as Address Space Load Randomization (ASLR), a better firewall, and BitLocker. There’s also enhanced management, a rewritten networking stack that includes IPv6, and so forth. Add to that enhanced diagnostics and monitoring, memory, and file-system improvements such as self-healing NTFS. I can go on and on and talk about hot-swappable processors and memory and dynamic drive partitioning — but the point is made.

For all you Linux lovers: Server 2008 now has the Server Core flavor. Why install all that jazzy graphic stuff when you can work from the command line? That’s what people have been saying for years! Sure, the GUI is pretty. Sure, it’s easier for most people to work with. But it’s resource-intensive and doesn’t satisfy many admins’ desire to rough it a bit. We have five-star hotels — yet some people (even if they have the money stay at such a hotel) prefer camping. So the baggage in a Windows server is being left behind with Server Core.

PowerShell will be automatically included as the new extensible command-line shell and task-based scripting technology. Any admins who have had a chance to see it demonstrated or to work with it in Exchange 2007 will attest to how incredible (or “Power”-ful) it is. The developers took everything you can do from the GUI and made it possible from the shell.

Hyper-V virtualizes servers at the kernel level of the OS. In fact, if you want to learn more about all of this directly from Mark Russinovich, you can watch his incredible (40-minute) discussion of Windows Server 2008, MinWin versus Server Core, and Hyper-V.

Beyond the big sellers of Server 2008, there are enhancements to the Active Directory, Group Policy improvements (in fact, Greg Shields, the famous tech guru, announced that the new improvements are “mostly” down-level compatible), Terminal Services, and IIS 7 — the list goes on and on. (For more insight on — and praise of — Windows Server 2008, check out the InfoWorld Test Center review by Tom Yager and Longhorn secrets by Sean McCown.)

Continental Airlines made the change to Server 2000. Planes didn’t fall out of the sky, and the company didn’t fold. In fact, Continental continues to be the first to roll out Microsoft products on the enterprise level. You can read about its transition to Vista. Although many have complained that Vista is not the way to go, the powers that be at Continental disagree. Server 2008 will obviously be next for the airline.

Now, if there are logical reasons why you should not, or can not, move to Server 2008. What are they? We’d like to know.