An Overview of Windows Server 2008 R2 - IIS, Active Directory, and Win 7
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All right now, let’s check out this new beast that is called IIS 7.5. The server core is capable of supporting ASP .NET and PHP technologies. There’s an integrated PowerShell provider. You'll find a lot of new additions to improve administration. You will also find lots of IIS manager modules. Logging and tracing capabilities received a makeover. As expected, there's a huge range of security patches, improved security, and extended protection...
The administration tools are centralized and you can technically deploy, set up, configure, and manage your entire Web infrastructure from one place. Performance is improved via dynamic caching and compression. Scalability (in the case of Web farms) comes from HTTP load balancing and request handling/routing. There are new media delivery options. Filtering options and server foot-printing can prevent unauthorized access.
One year ago when Windows Server 2008 was released, we all knew it was going to focus on running Vista on client machines. And it brought lots of enhancements targeting Vista, starting from administering Vista clients up to improving performance when having those kind of clients within a domain. It also included lots of user-friendly additions. This time it was expected to fully support Windows 7. And that’s how it delivers.
The following features are only possible when Win 7 is on the client machine(s). First we have DirectAccess, which is nothing but Microsoft’s attempt to “make it simple” for the VPN connections that organizations were already implementing to give their users the ability to access resources from the company’s intranet. Improvements to the RDP brought a renowned “remote desktop” utility that is more secure and faster.
Performance is improved due to technologies like BranchCache. It is a practical caching that does wonders in the case of branching scenarios. It caches not only HTTP but also SMB, frees up bandwidth and other resources, and delivers more speed from the client’s perspective. Another performance improvement comes from the ability to have read-only DFS replicas as well, not only read-only domain controllers.
Microsoft touches another area where there was a need, and usually network techs implemented workarounds to solve this. I'm talking about fault-tolerance between sites.
Say your company has numerous sites, and they are interconnected with VPN tunnels. Those are relying on Internet connectivity (which comes from ISPs) and network devices (that can go bad, lose power, etc.). Agile VPN is the new addition that allows multiple paths. Should the network route go down for whatever reason, another path is used. And the connection has not been lost.
In terms of security, BitLocker was extended to removable drives as well. And we have already mentioned the additions such as the VDI (virtualized desktop integration) a bit earlier when we talked about virtualization enhancements. Win 7.0 introduced the so-called RemoteApp & Desktop feeds, which helps alleviate problems the user may have experienced when running virtualized apps. RDS is implemented into to UI of Win 7.
And finally, let’s mention those additions that stand out when it comes to the Active Directory. First—let’s all yell hooray for the Recycle Bin. What? Yes! In the case of R2 functional level, the Active Directory has the garbage can where you can find those AD objects that you deleted by mistake (or not). And they can be restored, too.
The Administration Center has received a new UI with a few more functions. It’s based on the PowerShell cmdlets, so it means more seamless and varied administrative tasks. Another feature for which we’d somehow say “it was time!” is the offline domain join. The process can be automated with an .xml file and the tool is called djoin.exe. Should you want to read more about AD enhancements, check out this blog post.
That is it for now. Windows Server 2008 R2 brought amazing features, including a few where system administrators are compelled to say ‘oh, finally.’ And with virtualization, it was obvious; Hyper-V 2.0 needs to be competitive.
Next: Final Thoughts >>
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