Microsoft Previews Longhorn Via BetaBy Justin Lee, theWHIR.com
May 11, 2007 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — As anticipation builds over the upcoming release of the next generation of Windows server, Microsoft (microsoft.com) recently began offering the public a beta and feature-complete version of Windows Server Longhorn.
The Longhorn Beta 3 release, available for download on the company’s Web site, is the last time the product will be available for testing and feedback before the server update is available sometime during the second half of this year.
Microsoft has taken a significantly hosting-centric approach with the Beta 3 release, says Bill Staples, product unit manager for IIS at Microsoft.
“We’ve been focusing on three main things that hosters have told us are really important to narrow in on with this release,” says Staples, who says that the company has been working on IS7 for almost four years. “The first is robust hosting for more Web sites ? increased security and scalability of hosting lots of sites on a single server. Second thing is lowering support costs for hosters. The third main thing is expanding our application management support.”
The innovative technology behind Longhorn Beta 3 allows administrators to more easily automate tasks across Windows servers on a network. Previously available as a separate add-on, the technology is now built directly into Longhorn and users will be able to try it out for the first time.
With the launch of Longhorn Beta 3, Microsoft is also offering the IIS7 Go Live (iis.net) license, enabling customers to host Web applications and .NET 3.0 Web services on Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3 in live production environments. Several Microsoft hosting partners, including MaximumASP, DiscountASP.net, Applied Innovations, Hostmysite.com, and WebFusion, are offering free IIS7 Beta hosting, allowing their customers to test and optimize Web applications for IIS7.
“There are three primary tenants to the server: control, protect and flexibility,” says Michael Joffe, senior product manager of Windows-based Hosting at Microsoft communications sector. “Control: getting the most out of your server, controlling your network and controlling your Web infrastructure server. Protect: we’ve taken security to a new level with this particular release for both hosting scenarios as well as enterprise scenarios. And flexibility, particularly because IIS7 is modular, allows hosting provider or enterprise provider to customize the experience.”
Microsoft Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3 offers users many new enhancements including a more secure, extensible platform for effectively managing and reliably hosting Web applications and services.
Microsoft Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3 also gives customers a preview of two new Longhorn features. The first is the new, always-on firewall, Server Manager, designed to keep the server firewall up 100 percent of the time.
This requires server administrators to unlock the firewall using the Server Manager console when they want to install components. This brings us to the second feature, an installation option called Server Core. Administrators can use Server Core to install components needed for certain server roles, omitting any extraneous components from the system.
The server also will intelligently detect what dependencies and restraints the roles will have once installed, configuring the server automatically to run most effectively in those cases.
As Longhorn nears its release date, Microsoft is hoping to get as much feedback from hosting providers during the coming months to make any necessary improvements to the Windows server, says Joffe.
“This program is unique in that we wanted to get hosters feedback early in the process in the sense that hosting is not an afterthought. It’s definitely at the front of everyone’s minds as they were creating this Web server,” says Joffe. “This really allows the product teams to work closely with the hosting partners and really validate the scenario to make sure that it is more reliable and more secure.”
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