One of the coolest new features coming in Windows Server 2008 (formerly Longhorn Server) isn't really a feature -- it's a whole new version of Windows.
The feature is called “Server Core”, and it will only take one-sixth of the disk space of a normal Windows 2008 installation. Designed to not need as many patches or hot fixes, “it's a version of Windows that does not, in fact, use windows”, but rather leverages the command line for rapid administration and management.
When Port80 Software arrived at Microsoft’s TechEd conference last week, we had no idea that IIS7 was going to become the lucky number seventh “Server Core” installation option in the upcoming Windows Server 2008 operating system. This designation finally puts IIS on the level with Windows server core features like Terminal Services, Network Access Protection, Virtualization, Server Management and Backup, and Server Core/BitLocker, and is designed to get Internet Information Services/IIS Web servers up and running quickly and securely in a command-line-only environment. This was announced in the TechEd keynote address by Microsoft's senior vice president Bob Muglia, drawing intense applause from the crowd.
Some of the Port80 Software team in the audience fainted…
Microsoft IIS, long the “red headed stepchild” of Windows, has informally become one of the most popular and widely deployed Web servers that deliver the World Wide Web. Now, with IIS7 formally becoming a Server Core player, the news could not be better for customers. IIS Product Manager Brian Goldfarb said at TechEd that this will effectively cement IIS as a principal feature of Windows Server into the foreseeable future.
Projects like Windows Communications Foundation (Indigo) and lingering bad religious wars over the Apache vs. IIS choice had left the impression in some folks’ minds that IIS may go the way of the dodo bird and be replaced by other systems. This ain’t happening, and as IIS’ Brian Goldfarb said, “You have to have Port80.”
Of course, Brian: If you are on Microsoft IIS Web servers, you got to have Port80 Software!
Actually, Brian Goldfarb said, more precisely, “You have to have port 80,” and IIS is HTTP/HTTPS on Windows.
We at Port80 are excited that IIS is here to stay and has been elevated from that Web server “everyone gets for free” in Windows to the world class, core server role that we all know Internet Information Services/IIS is in our real-world deployments of Web sites and applications.
Kudos to Microsoft for boldly keeping a product brand that has often been incorrectly attacked in the press, maligned by zealous Apache-philes, and yet the product most corporations rely on to deliver Web content everyday. With new extensibility and modularity features baked into IIS 7, it is only going to get better and better.
Port80 has already demoed the first IIS 7 Web application firewall at TechEd 2007, ServerDefender, and we will have our current tools ported to IIS 7 and Windows Server 2008 by early 2008, just in time for the next Windows server OS.
200 OK to that!
More to come,
Port80 Software