Windows Server 2008 goes gold

Microsoft have now released Windows Server 2008 to manufacturing in the same week as Vista SP1 has also been finalised.

Release candidate code has been available since December for various subscribers such as Technet, MSDN and Microsoft partners.

The reviewers’ guide says:

Windows Server 2008, built with web and virtualization technologies, enables you to increase the reliability and flexibility of your server infrastructure. New virtualization tools, web resources, and security enhancements help you save time, reduce costs, and provide a platform for a dynamic and optimized datacenter. Powerful new tools like IIS7, Windows Server Manager, and Windows PowerShell, allow you to have more control over your servers and streamline web, configuration, and management tasks. Advanced security and reliability enhancements like Network Access Protection and the Read-Only Domain Controller harden the operating system and protect your server environment to ensure you have a solid foundation on which to build your business.

So, we return to having BDCs read-only domain controllers as an option, which makes great sense from a security point of view, especially for branch locations where physical security may be less well implemented. Further security measures such as Network Access Protection (NAP) should help to provide an extra layer of defence for corporate environments where securing the perimeter is becoming harder, simply because it is so much harder to define where the perimeter actually is. PowerShell is on my list of new year resolutions as something to learn a lot more about. I’m always a believer in using the command line to deal with repetitive tasks and bulk processing, and PowerShell has been written from the ground up to make this so much easier.

There’s a whole raft of tools, training, downloads, and information available. This press release page provides some useful links.