Server Core May Impact Infrastructure

Michael analyzed and wrote about Microsoft's operating systems, including the Windows client OS, as well as compliance and governance. Michael... more

A new Server Core role for Windows Server 2008 installs a minimal set of components for network infrastructure functions, such as file services. The Server Core mode will reduce server maintenance and improve security for these server roles. However, restrictions on the Web server role and the requirement to manage the server by remote management consoles or a command line and VBScript may negate some advantages.

Server Core is the most noticeable of Windows Server 2008’s improvements for core infrastructure roles, but it has other features useful in these roles, such as an improved file system. (See the sidebar “File System Improvements“.)

Server Core Roles

Servers running a Server Core installation can play one or more of the following server roles:

Distributed Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, which automatically configures networking parameters
Domain Name Service (DNS) server, which translates Internet domain names to Internet addresses
File server
Print server

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