Windows Vista Update

What is Microsoft Windows Server Codename Longhorn?

Microsoft Windows Server code name "Longhorn" is the next generation of the Windows Server operating system that helps information technology (IT) professionals maximize control over their infrastructure while providing unprecedented availability and management capabilities, leading to a significantly more secure, reliable, and robust server environment than ever before. Windows Server "Longhorn" delivers new value to organizations by ensuring all users regardless of location are able to get the full complement of services from the network. Windows Server "Longhorn" also provides deep insight into the operating system and diagnostic capabilities to allow administrators to spend more time adding business value.

Windows Server "Longhorn" builds on the success and strengths of the award-winning Windows Server 2003 operating system and on the innovations delivered in Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2003 R2. However, Windows Server "Longhorn" is far more than a refinement of predecessor operating systems. Windows Server "Longhorn" is designed to provide organizations with the most productive platform for powering applications, networks, and Web services from the workgroup to the datacenter with exciting, valuable new functionality and powerful improvements to the base operating system.

On This Page

	Improvements to the Windows Server Operating System
	Benefits of Windows Server "Longhorn"
	Windows Server "Longhorn" Technologies
	Windows "Longhorn" Server and Windows Vista Better Together

Improvements to the Windows Server Operating System

In addition to new functionality, Windows Server "Longhorn" provides powerful improvements to the base operating system over Windows Server 2003. Notable improvements include those to networking, advanced security features, remote application access, centralized server role management, performance and reliability monitoring tools, failover clustering, deployment, and the file system. These improvements and many others help organizations maximize the flexibility, availability, and control of their servers.

Benefits of Windows Server "Longhorn"

Windows Server "Longhorn" delivers four primary benefits:

Benefit	Description
Greater Control	Windows Server "Longhorn" allows you to achieve greater control over your server and network infrastructure, permitting you to focus on your most critical business needs by providing:   Better management over your infrastructure with policy-based networking. Deeper insight into the operating system and infrastructure, allowing you to take appropriate actions sooner, reducing time to resolution. New tools to easily and centrally install, configure, and manage server roles and resources and reporting only useful and uncomplicated information to assist troubleshooting. New scripting and monitoring technologies to centrally manage servers and automate tasks Increased security and management of servers located in remote locations.
Higher Availability	Windows Server "Longhorn" gives your users an increased availability to maximize uptime and productivity by delivering:   More responsive systems by actively monitoring the state of installed roles and providing proactive data about potential failures, reducing potential downtime.   Completely redesigned advanced clustering capabilities that offer unprecedented availability in case of a hardware failure.   New option for installing a number of key server roles in a manner that requires less servicing.
Greater Flexibility	Windows Server "Longhorn" provides you with the flexibility to meet your changing business needs by including:   Enhanced interoperability and compatibility advancements to ensure a seamless heterogeneous experience.   New deployment options that offer the most flexible and cost-effective methods for your environment.   New solutions for users who are mobile and remotely connected, allowing them to securely and seamlessly access critical resources and applications.   Enhanced manageability options, such as true delegated administration, allowing you to manage your environment in a manner that suits your business? security and auditing needs.
Fundamentals	Windows Server "Longhorn" provides you with a solid foundation on which you can run your business by delivering the security, reliability, and performance you need by including:   A more manageable and secure computing experience for PCs and servers through policy-based administration.   New scalability advancements that enable you to deploy even the most demanding infrastructure for your business.   Advanced reliability enhancements to reduce loss of access, work, time, data and control.   A next-generation networking stack for improved security, performance, and scalability.

Windows Server "Longhorn" Technologies

Greater Control

Maintaining control of the servers on a network?and, more importantly, access to the servers on a network?is a fundamental priority for network administrators. To this end, Windows Server "Longhorn" contains two new areas of functionality to help administrators extend and maximize their control over access to network servers: Network Access Protection and Internet Information Services 7.0.

Network Access Protection (NAP): A new framework that allows an IT administrator to define health requirements for the network and to restrict computers that do not meet these requirements from communicating with the network. NAP enforces administrator-defined policies that describe the health requirements for the given organization. For example, health requirements may be defined to include all updates to the operating system be installed, or having anti-virus or anti-spyware software installed and updated. In this way, network administrators can define the baseline level of protection all computers carry when connecting to the network.

Internet Information Services 7.0: Windows Server "Longhorn" delivers a unified platform for Web publishing that integrates Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0, ASP.NET, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. IIS 7.0 is a major enhancement to the existing Windows Web server and plays a central role in integrating Web platform technologies. IIS 7.0 helps developers and administrators alike maximize their control over network/Internet interfaces through key functionality pillars that include delegated administration, enhanced security and a reduced attack surface area, integrated application and health management for Web services, and improved administration tools.

Higher Availability

Server availability begins with rapidly deploying new servers to meet organizational needs and continues with keeping those servers running effectively. Windows Server "Longhorn" helps organizations increase availability for their dedicated file and print servers, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers, domain Name System (DNS) servers, and domain controllers using the new Server Core deployment option.

Server Core: Beginning with the Beta 2 release of Windows Server "Longhorn," administrators can choose to install Windows Server with only the services required to perform the DHCP, DNS, file server, or domain controller roles. This new installation option will not install non-essential services and applications and will provide base server functionality without any extra overhead. While the Server Core installation option is a fully functioning mode of the operating system supporting one of the designate roles, it does not include the server graphic user interface (GUI). Because Server Core installations include only what is required for the designated roles, a Server Core installation will typically require less maintenance and fewer updates as there are fewer components to manage. In other words, since there are fewer programs and components installed and running on the server, there are fewer attack vectors exposed to the network, resulting in a reduced attack surface. If a security flaw or vulnerability is discovered in a component that is not installed, a patch is not required.

Greater Flexibility

As business needs change, so do the demands that organizations place on their servers. At the same time, advances in the capabilities of server technology change the ways in which organizations and end users utilize them. Windows Server "Longhorn" is designed so that you can modify your infrastructure to adapt to the changing needs of the business and still remain agile. For organizations that need domain controllers in physically less secure locations or strictly for use with line-of-business applications, Windows Server "Longhorn" offers a new configuration option: the Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC). For organizations that have remote users, Windows Server "Longhorn" adds exciting improvements and innovations to Terminal Services that facilitate seamless integration of remote and local applications on client computers, access to these same remote programs via Web browser, and a means to access remote terminals and applications across firewalls. For organizations that need to roll out several servers and PCs at the same time, Windows Deployment Services helps to quickly and easily deploy new computers to the network using image-based deployments.

Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC): A new type of domain controller configuration in the Windows Server "Longhorn" operating system that makes it possible for organizations to easily deploy a domain controller in locations where the physical security of a domain controller cannot be guaranteed. An RODC hosts a read-only replica of the Active Directory directory services database for a given domain. Prior to this release, users who had to authenticate with a domain controller, but were in a branch office that could not provide adequate physical security for a domain controller, had to authenticate over a wide area network (WAN). In many cases, this was not an efficient solution. By placing a read-only Active Directory database replica closer to branch users, these users can benefit from faster logon times and more efficient access to authentication resources on the network, even in environments with inadequate physical security to deploy a traditional domain controller.

Terminal Services: Windows Server "Longhorn" introduces new functionality in Terminal Services to connect to remote computers and applications. Terminal Services Remote Programs completely integrates applications running on a remote terminal with users? desktops such that they behave as if they were running on an individual user's local computer; users can run programs from a remote location side-by-side with their local programs. Terminal Services Web Access permits this same flexibility of remote application access via Web browser, granting an even wider variety of ways user can access and use programs running on remote terminals. And Terminal Services Gateway allows user to access remote terminals and remote terminal programs in a firewall-friendly manner.

Windows Deployment Services (WDS): An updated and redesigned Windows Server "Longhorn" version of Remote Installation Services (RIS), WDS assists with the rapid adoption and deployment of image-based Windows operating systems. WDS allows network-based installation of Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" to "bare metal" computers (no operating system installed), and even supports mixed environments including Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003. Windows Deployment Services thus provides an end-to-end solution for deployment of Windows operating systems to client and server computers and reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) and complexity of Windows Server "Longhorn" and Windows Vista deployments.

Windows "Longhorn" Server and Windows Vista Better Together

Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" originally began as part of a single development project, and as such they share a number of new technologies across networking, storage, security and management. Although the development of Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" have branched into separate releases with different release cycles, many of these enhancements apply to both Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn." When organizations deploy both operating systems, they will see how the combined client-server infrastructure provides even greater advantages.

Features

IT professionals who are administering a Windows Vista / Windows Server "Longhorn" infrastructure will notice many improvements in how they control and manage their environment.

• Maintenance is greatly simplified by the use of a single model for updates and service packs across client and server.
   

• Client computers can monitor for specific events and forward to Windows Server "Longhorn" for centralized monitoring and reporting.
   

• Windows Deployment Services provides much faster and more reliable operating system deployment.
   

• Network Access Protection features on Windows Server "Longhorn" ensure that Windows Vista clients connecting to the network are compliant with security policies and restricted from accessing network resources if not.
   

The reliability, scalability, and overall responsiveness of the infrastructure are greatly increased by improvements made to both Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn."

• Clients can render print jobs locally before sending them to print servers to reduce the load on the server and increase its availability.
   

• Server resources are cached locally so that they are available even if the server is not, with copies automatically updating when the client and server are reconnected.
   

• Applications or scripts that need to run on both client and server can take advantage of the Transactional File System to reduce the risk of error during file and registry operations and roll back to a known good state in the event of failure or cancellation.
   

• Policies can be created to ensure greater Quality of Service for certain applications or services that require prioritization of network bandwidth between client and server.
   

Windows Vista clients connecting to networks where Windows Server "Longhorn" has been deployed can experience greatly improved communication speeds and reliability.

• Searching Windows Server "Longhorn" servers from a Windows Vista client avails of enhanced indexing and caching technologies on both to provide huge performance gains across the enterprise.
   

• Native IPv6 support across all client and server services creates a more scalable and reliable network, while the rewritten TCP/IP stack makes network communication much faster and more efficient.
   

• The new Server Message Block 2.0 protocol provides a number of communication enhancements, including greater performance when connecting to file shares over high-latency links and better security through the use of mutual authentication and message signing.
   

• Terminal Services on Windows Server "Longhorn" have many improvements, including providing Windows Vista clients with remote access to internal resources through an HTTP gateway and seamless remote applications that run as if on the local desktop.