Windows Server 2008 is the most advanced Windows Server operating system yet, designed to power the next-generation of networks, applications, and Web services. With Windows Server 2008 you can develop, deliver, and manage rich user experiences and applications, provide a highly secure network infrastructure, and increase technological efficiency and value within your organization.
Windows Server 2008 builds on the success and strengths of its Windows Server predecessors while delivering valuable new functionality and powerful improvements to the base operating system. New Web tools, virtualization technologies, security enhancements, and management utilities help save time, reduce costs, and provide a solid foundation for your information technology (IT) infrastructure.
A Solid Foundation for Your Business
Windows Server 2008 provides a solid foundation for all of your server workload and application requirements while also being easy to deploy and manage. The all new Server Manager provides a unified management console that simplifies and streamlines server setup, configuration, and ongoing management. Windows PowerShell, a new command-line shell, helps enable administrators to automate routine system administration tasks across multiple servers. Windows Deployment Services provides a simplified, highly secure means of rapidly deploying the operating system via network-based installations. And Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering wizards, and full Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) support plus consolidated management of Network Load Balancing, make high availability easy to implement even by IT generalists.
Virtualization with Hyper-V
Virtualization is the process of running multiple operating systems on the same hardware (as many operating systems as your hardware can handle). With Hyper-V, you can buy one high-end server to run all your organizational needs, giving you the benefit of true role based server functionality. This in turn helps cut IT costs.
Running today’s intense applications on the same operating system can cause many issues. An example would be running an Exchange Server on a Domain Controller, which is not recommended at all. However this is commonly done. A client we have runs 4 servers on one physical server. What we did to make this is is we made the physical system strictly a Hyper-v member server. The Virtual machine was the main Domain Controller. The second Virtual Machine is their Exchange Server. The third Virtual Machine was their Accounting server, and the forth virtual machine served as a file server. The client's network has never been faster. The upgrade was less than half the cost of having 4 physical servers.
Advantages of Virtualization are huge. Instead of spending the money for 4 servers, one high-end system was purchased, saving thousands. You can also chain 2 physical servers together utilize the high-availability features of Hyper-V. If your physical server goes down the other server can start the virtualization in minutes. That means your downtime is only a few minutes with no data loss. Backups are a lot easier as well. Restoring a virtual machine to a Hyper-V instance takes minutes. Restoring a physical machine takes hours. Best of all, Hyper-V is free with server 2008 R2.
Contact us today to discuss implementing Hyper-V in your environment