Windows Server Overview

Microsoft’s current major release of Windows Server is Windows Server 2008, which was released in Feb. 2008. Windows Server 2008 includes updates to management and configuration programs, and new features such as Network Access Protection, to validate clients connecting to an organization’s computing infrastructure. (Microsoft calls the initial Windows Server 2008 release “SP1” because its code is synchronized with that of Windows Vista SP1; therefore, customers who waited for a first service pack to adopt the server OS can now begin, as Microsoft released SP2 in Apr. 2009.)

The next version of Windows Server, Windows Server 2008 R2, is currently in release candidate testing and is expected to be broadly available in Oct. 2009.

After Windows Server 2008, future releases of Windows Server and derivative products, such as Windows Storage Server, will be 64-bit only.

Microsoft’s Windows hypervisor virtualization technology, Hyper-V, did not ship with Windows Server 2008, but was released for download in June 2008. It is an included feature of Windows Server 2008 SP2 and an updated version will ship with Windows Server 2008 R2. A stand-alone version, named Hyper-V Server 2008, was released in Oct. 2008. It is likely that an update to Hyper-V Server 2008 (labeled R2 here) will occur between three to six months after the release of Windows Server 2008 R2.