Important Features of Windows Server 2008

Important Features of Windows Server 2008

Some of the most important features of Windows Server 2008 include virtualization, server core, IIS 7, role-based installation, Read Only Domain Controllers (RODC), enhanced terminal services, network access protection, BitLocker, Windows PowerShell, and better security. In this section these different important features of Windows 2008 Server will be discussed.

The first feature of Windows Server 2008 is virtualization, Windows version of virtualization is called Hyper-V which enables the creation and management of a virtualized server environment, this allows the combining of various different servers to be moved onto one or fewer servers, and it also provides more efficient uses of hardware and administrative resources. This feature is a vast improvement over Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 because it had to be installed separately from the server OS, this new version comes combined with Windows Server 2008, so it operates many times more efficiently than Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, and offers better features for managing the virtual servers.

The next feature of Windows Server 2008 is the Server Core is for those uses that don’t require the whole Windows Server 2008 package, the Server Core just has the bare minimum for what is needed in a certain server setting, and a Server Core installation can support these different roles:

• Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS)

• Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS)

• Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS)

• DHCP Server

• DNS Server

• File Services

• Print Services

• Streaming Media Services

• Internet Information Services (IIS)

• Hyper-V

One of the only downsides of a Server Core installation is that is does not include a graphical user interface (GUI), which requires the use of the command prompt.

Another feature of Windows Server 2008 is IIS 7 is internet information services, and is a program that can be added on to Windows Server 2008, Either through the GUI, or through the Server Core mode, which both can be automated using unattended installation. IIS 7 is a web server application which features HTTP modules, security modules, content modules, compression modules, and logging and diagnostics modules. IIS 7 used to be the most popular web server, with nginx and apache passing it in popularity, two other types of web servers.

Role-based installation is another important feature of Windows Server 2008, it is much like Server Core, but not as extreme, it includes all the features that