So at the end of my Vista week of review, I said I was going to cover why Windows Server 2008 is a completely different beast than we're used to looking at. I know I've mentioned it before, but I'll say it again: I'm a Linux guy. Of course, I know Windows too (after all, being an operating system bigot is no way to get hired in today's world), but I'm always going to try and advocate the use of an open platform. That having been said, no one platform can satisfy the needs of everyone all at once. What works for some, won't work for others. If you're going to host web sites, something for e-commerce or some such thing, I'm going to suggest apache on Linux. If you're looking to administer 40-some Windows XP machines, I'm going to recommend Windows Server. Getting down to the meat of things though, Windows Server 2008 really does more than any previous edition of Windows Server has. What exactly? Keep reading.
Imagine, if you will, a server without a GUI. This server runs Linux, has a bunch of network oriented services, and needs to serve an unknown number of clients at any given time. Top it off with the fact that you won't be logging into it very often. Since a GUI won't be running 100% of the time to support unlikely local logins, you've got all those extra resources for clients.
One of the major problems with Windows Server is that you've always had to run a full GUI while handling services at the same time. If you're not going to touch the box that often, what sense does that make? Enter Windows Server 2008 core; it doesn't have a GUI per-say, but it can if you want it to. You can run certain .NET framework applications on Core. For example, a reduced version of notepad, task manager, etc. You're still running a minimal GUI environment, with access to command prompt as your main interface. From here, you can even launch Power Shell on core (which is by far more exciting to use). A Server Core system will offer definite measurable performance gains in any service you run on it. Add to that the security benefit of a slimmed down operating system, providing a smaller attack surface (less software to attack).
Okay, so core may be cool, but we're not done yet. Remember how I was complaining that it makes no sense to restart so often for non-kernel updates on Vista? Well, it's time for me to give some kudos to Microsoft, as promised. Windows Server 2008 has a drastically reduced need for restarts involving updates. Given that I've been working on a W2k8 server for a month or two now, it's a definite improvement. And while we're on the topic of server reliability, Server 2008 makes use of Self-Healing NTFS. Self-healing NTFS will repair file system related issues on the fly, on an online disk. Previously, such repair required a reboot into a safe mode type environment with something like chkdsk. This isn't something you have to set, it's something that happens automagically (Yes, automagically really is a word). If your system detects corruption, it'll lock down the area of corruption to make it inaccessible while repairing issues. Need to add another CPU to your server? So long as you've got the right hardware, you can just slap it in there without having to reboot. Additionally, assuming your hardware supports it, you can hotswap a CPU on the fly without a reboot as well. Of course, you'll still need at least ONE CPU in there.
Virtual machines are big now. If you need to run multiple different operating systems and you've got a fairly beefy box, there's no reason not to use virtual machines. Previously, we had VMware products for server level virtualization. In Server 2008 comes Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization system. As its name suggests, it's a hypervisor that sits between your VM's and your hardware at the kernel layer. If you've ever heard of Xen, it's pretty similar in concept and design. Hyper-V can even act as a Xen hypervisor. This is great if you've got a Xen enabled operating system and you want to get all the benefits such a configuration can provide. Running Hyper-V on Server 2k8 Core has some pretty impressive results as well.
A common reason to use Windows Server is for Active Directory. Server 2008 still has active directory, of course. In addition to AD though, you can also set up a "Read-Only" domain controller, or RODC. What use could this be? Well, let's assume you're dealing with a large corporation, and you need to set up a DC at a smaller office. Unfortunately, due to budget constraints and lack of security at the site, a normal domain controller might cause problems upstream. That's where a read-only DC comes in; everything from normal AD is there, except for client passwords. Plus, you have the added benefit of knowing you won't have to replicate changes upstream, thereby reducing bandwidth usage.
Finally, let's talk about clustering. Clustering involves taking several machines and making them behave as a group, or one intelligent machine. In Windows Server 2008, you can cluster physical machines with Hyper-V virtual machines to achieve maximum uptime. Imagine for a moment that you're taking down one machine that exists within a cluster, that is currently hosting your virtual machine in charge of your website. Rather than be concerned about migrating this VM somewhere else, you can just bring it down. The cluster will start the VM elsewhere and you will have prevented any downtime. Not only can you cluster Hyper-V, but you can also make use of Network Load Balancing in your cluster. This means that if that one box with your VM is getting hammered, you can offload some traffic onto another node on the same cluster running the same VM (presumably).
If you're interested in learning some more about what W2k8 server offers, check out these whitepapers. It's definitely worth a look, and may help you decide what you want to run next time you set up a server box. Hopefully I've catered to some of our hardcore Linux readers, and even our hardcore W2k3 server readers in the features I mentioned. Rest assured though, there way more features in there than I can fit on this blog. For the next post, I'll continue the ARP exploit I started a couple months back (Sorry for the delay!)
Monday, November 24, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Vista Week: Day 6
At last, the final day of Vista week. Today I'm going to tell you about my experiences with Vista multimedia, then I'll give you my conclusions about the Vista OS.
First on our list is DVD playback. I've heard rumors that if you have Vista Business Edition, you can't watch DVD's without installing some sort of DVD software. Not sure about this one, because I have DVD software installed from the OEM on my laptop. Corel's WinDVD comes in handy when watching DVD's, but on one of my previous laptops, it would crash in Vista. Fortunately, that is not an issue on my current laptop. Early on, I noticed that Vista used to cause periodic black screen occurances during movies. In other words, I would be watching a movie, then for a split second, my entire screen would go black before returning to the movie. Audio would continue to play, and the movie never stopped playback during this issue. I never figured out what this was exactly, but my initial thought was that it had something to do with Vista DRM schemes. Fortunately, I don't seem to have this issue anymore. WinDVD will upscale DVD's to 1080p/60 (assuming your computer supports doing so via graphics card / monitor resolution), making it very useful as a DVD player. Also, WinDVD now plays Blu-Ray discs! Of course, you need a blu-ray drive to make use of this functionality, which I don't have or need.
If you watch multimedia on your machine that you've retrieved from the internet (Don't want to know how), Windows Media Player is useful, but only to a certain degree. If you're watching a video clip of previews of the latest shows out of Japan, for example, fansubbers like to throw these video's in all sorts of weird container formats that you may not be familiar with. We all know about .avi's and .wmv's and whatnot, but have you ever heard of .mkv ? How about .ogg? Not only that, but there are codecs involved with containers or formats. What do you know about the H.264 codec? If you check out high definition movie previews through Apple, you'll probably learn that they compress their high definition previews in H.264. When it comes to codec / format hassles, I like Zoom Player. Zoom Player is available as freeware, and will help you with installing any kind of plugin or codec that is needed to play a given video / audio file. From the common to the mundane, Zoom Player probably knows what you need to play it. There is a paid-for version of the software that allows playback of DVDs.
Since I've already mentioned Winamp 5, I won't go into detail what it does. When it comes to multimedia (specifically music) on Vista though, this program is key. Additionally, if you are an Apple nut, you'll probably want to grab iTunes. Be warned though, iTunes on Vista has been problematic for many users, some of whom claimed that after installing the latest iTunes and plugging in their ipods, Vista would blue screen. More than likely this issue has been fixed, but aware that issues could arise.
Another interesting ability of Vista Ultimate is it's media extender functionality with the Xbox 360. With Ultimate, you are able to stream videos to your 360 from your PC. This can also be done with music, for use in such a case where your home theatre speakers are more powerful than your PC speakers. The set back is that this can be relatively difficult to set up, if you're not aware of what you're doing. Some video formats will not be compatible with the Xbox, but they can be transcoded on the fly through a program called Transcode 360. Even with this program though, some formats like .mkv will perform horribly when streamed. Additionally, firewalls can get in the way, as well as anti-virus software. Finally, sometimes the service will just not want to work. If you really want this feature but don't want Vista Ultimate, Windows XP Media Center edition has this functionality as well.
Overall Ratings:
Multimedia playback - 7/10; Vista certainly has some nice features in multimedia playback, and the ability to use Ultimate as a multimedia box for your Xbox is a great idea, but it gets bogged down by other flaws. Weird playback issues with some platforms (black screens, for example) can ruin the experience.
Extender functionality - 8/10; Awesome idea, but one that is still in its infancy. If more support for different formats is added, it has the potential to be one of the greatest revolutions for digital media usage I've ever seen. Unfortunately, due to the legality of including such formats in their software, I doubt it'll happen. Keep your fingers crossed!
Vista's Final rating:
216/280 or 7.7/10
Am I surprised? Not really, no. Vista's bad reputation was largely due to the fact that companies responsible for writing device hardware drivers aren't staying on top of the game. Of course, these manufacturers place the blame on the operating system vendor. Then again, it is equally Microsoft's fault for having shipped an operating system they were highly aware would have issues. Overall though, I think the operating system is pretty usable. If you bought an OEM machine and it has Vista on it, I don't think you should feel the need to downgrade to Windows XP. It's important to remember that not all OEMs will continue supporting users who clear out the original OS that shipped with the machine. Not only that, but you have no guarantee that your OEM hardware will work on XP (No reason why it shouldn't, but are you willing to take the risk?).
So am I going to switch over to Vista now? No, not at all. I do intend to keep it around though, as it has proven it has its uses. It does have some critically appealing features, some of which that we've only just begun to discover (No thanks to Microsoft's wonderfully useful documentation). Despite all of Vista's new features though, I will continue to remain a Linux advocate, and give credit where credit is due.
For the next blog post, some of you have asked about Windows Server 2008. We'll take a look at what makes Windows Server 2008 one of the biggest changes in Windows operating systems since Microsoft ditched DOS!
First on our list is DVD playback. I've heard rumors that if you have Vista Business Edition, you can't watch DVD's without installing some sort of DVD software. Not sure about this one, because I have DVD software installed from the OEM on my laptop. Corel's WinDVD comes in handy when watching DVD's, but on one of my previous laptops, it would crash in Vista. Fortunately, that is not an issue on my current laptop. Early on, I noticed that Vista used to cause periodic black screen occurances during movies. In other words, I would be watching a movie, then for a split second, my entire screen would go black before returning to the movie. Audio would continue to play, and the movie never stopped playback during this issue. I never figured out what this was exactly, but my initial thought was that it had something to do with Vista DRM schemes. Fortunately, I don't seem to have this issue anymore. WinDVD will upscale DVD's to 1080p/60 (assuming your computer supports doing so via graphics card / monitor resolution), making it very useful as a DVD player. Also, WinDVD now plays Blu-Ray discs! Of course, you need a blu-ray drive to make use of this functionality, which I don't have or need.
If you watch multimedia on your machine that you've retrieved from the internet (Don't want to know how), Windows Media Player is useful, but only to a certain degree. If you're watching a video clip of previews of the latest shows out of Japan, for example, fansubbers like to throw these video's in all sorts of weird container formats that you may not be familiar with. We all know about .avi's and .wmv's and whatnot, but have you ever heard of .mkv ? How about .ogg? Not only that, but there are codecs involved with containers or formats. What do you know about the H.264 codec? If you check out high definition movie previews through Apple, you'll probably learn that they compress their high definition previews in H.264. When it comes to codec / format hassles, I like Zoom Player. Zoom Player is available as freeware, and will help you with installing any kind of plugin or codec that is needed to play a given video / audio file. From the common to the mundane, Zoom Player probably knows what you need to play it. There is a paid-for version of the software that allows playback of DVDs.
Since I've already mentioned Winamp 5, I won't go into detail what it does. When it comes to multimedia (specifically music) on Vista though, this program is key. Additionally, if you are an Apple nut, you'll probably want to grab iTunes. Be warned though, iTunes on Vista has been problematic for many users, some of whom claimed that after installing the latest iTunes and plugging in their ipods, Vista would blue screen. More than likely this issue has been fixed, but aware that issues could arise.
Another interesting ability of Vista Ultimate is it's media extender functionality with the Xbox 360. With Ultimate, you are able to stream videos to your 360 from your PC. This can also be done with music, for use in such a case where your home theatre speakers are more powerful than your PC speakers. The set back is that this can be relatively difficult to set up, if you're not aware of what you're doing. Some video formats will not be compatible with the Xbox, but they can be transcoded on the fly through a program called Transcode 360. Even with this program though, some formats like .mkv will perform horribly when streamed. Additionally, firewalls can get in the way, as well as anti-virus software. Finally, sometimes the service will just not want to work. If you really want this feature but don't want Vista Ultimate, Windows XP Media Center edition has this functionality as well.
Overall Ratings:
Multimedia playback - 7/10; Vista certainly has some nice features in multimedia playback, and the ability to use Ultimate as a multimedia box for your Xbox is a great idea, but it gets bogged down by other flaws. Weird playback issues with some platforms (black screens, for example) can ruin the experience.
Extender functionality - 8/10; Awesome idea, but one that is still in its infancy. If more support for different formats is added, it has the potential to be one of the greatest revolutions for digital media usage I've ever seen. Unfortunately, due to the legality of including such formats in their software, I doubt it'll happen. Keep your fingers crossed!
Vista's Final rating:
216/280 or 7.7/10
Am I surprised? Not really, no. Vista's bad reputation was largely due to the fact that companies responsible for writing device hardware drivers aren't staying on top of the game. Of course, these manufacturers place the blame on the operating system vendor. Then again, it is equally Microsoft's fault for having shipped an operating system they were highly aware would have issues. Overall though, I think the operating system is pretty usable. If you bought an OEM machine and it has Vista on it, I don't think you should feel the need to downgrade to Windows XP. It's important to remember that not all OEMs will continue supporting users who clear out the original OS that shipped with the machine. Not only that, but you have no guarantee that your OEM hardware will work on XP (No reason why it shouldn't, but are you willing to take the risk?).
So am I going to switch over to Vista now? No, not at all. I do intend to keep it around though, as it has proven it has its uses. It does have some critically appealing features, some of which that we've only just begun to discover (No thanks to Microsoft's wonderfully useful documentation). Despite all of Vista's new features though, I will continue to remain a Linux advocate, and give credit where credit is due.
For the next blog post, some of you have asked about Windows Server 2008. We'll take a look at what makes Windows Server 2008 one of the biggest changes in Windows operating systems since Microsoft ditched DOS!
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