Windows Server 2012

Microsoft recently released Windows Server 2012 RC, and are betting big on it. We managed to set it up in our test lab, and our initial impressions about this product are positive. While there are several new features in it, the one big thing that's being highlighted about Windows Server 2012 is its cloud capabilities. You can use the new server to build your own private cloud. Quite a few enhancements have been done to Microsoft's virtualization platform, Hyper-V, to enable clould building capabilities. Considering that the next step to virtualization is private cloud, having a product that's positioned as cloud ready, with features to support it, gives it a real advantage. Whether organizations ultimately lap it up or not remains to be seen, but here's what we found.

Windows Server 2012 could be a worthy uprade for its security and multi-tenant isolation capabilities, flexible infrastructure, and scalability. The security and isolation feature helps in isolating virtual machines, even if they are stored on the same physical network or server. The server boasts of flexible infrastructure where user can scale beyond VLAN implementations and can place a virtual machine on any node even if its on-site, hosted, or in the cloud, thereby rendering the network infrastructure invisible in actuality. On the scalability front, the product can scale up to 64 virtual processors and 4,000 virtual machines on a 64-node cluster. Plus, it can do resource metering and provide 24x7 availability. The server also provides live migration of virtual machines outside a clustered environment, between two clusters, and between two servers.

Windows Server 2012 has also added new features in virtualization, like easy deployment of Direct Access and VPN integration that allows transparent access to corporate network resources to employees working remotely. Lastly, it features tools that can automate and consolidate networking processes and resources, besides connecting private clouds with public cloud services, users with IT resources, and services with private and public cloud environments.

Fresh installation

You can grab the latest copy of Windows Server 2012 RC from www.microsoft.com/windowsserver. We installed it on a virtual machine with 2 GB RAM, and it took about 45 minutes to do the complete installation. During the installation, user interaction is needed at 6 places. If you compare this installation with that of Windows Server 2008, there is a clear visual difference. In fact, if you have installed Windows 8 RTM (yes it is out) then you would find the Server 2012's installation to be more similar to Windows 8.

Once installed you are presented with a login page, and the interesting part here is the 'eye sign' in the text box. Click it to check the entered data. Now this additional feature can be great help as you can know what you are typing but those finicky about security of their server might argue otherwise.

Post login, things change dramatically. It seems that the long marriage between the 'Start' button and Windows OS has finally ended with Microsoft doing away with the Start button here too (you won't find Start button in Windows 8 either). What you would find in Windows Server 2012 is the Metro UI (this name has also been changed by Microsoft, but we'll still call it Metro UI to avoid confusion). This means that Microsoft somehow wants this interface to be their flagship across every OS and would not confine this feature to the home segment alone. Using this latest version of Server would need some practice; key here is to concentrate on corners and sides. For example, you can switch to Metro UI by simply dragging your mouse to the bottom left corner. Though using the new interface is a bit different, it cannot be said to be difficult as navigation is made as logical as possible.

Upgrade from Windows Server 2008

As there would be a lot of cases of upgradation from Windows Server 2008 apart from the fresh installations, we decided to try doing the upgrade outselves. We took a 64-bit Windows Server 2008 Enterprise edition on a VM. Then, to make it more relevant, we created a test domain (sandeep.com as new forest) and then created a test user (pcquest) and test computer (pcq) in it. Once we were done with these configurations, we tried to upgrade from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2012

RC and in process check what would happen to the applied configuration.

Upgrading to Windows Server 2012 from 2008 involves two critical aspects. First, you need to have adequate resources and second, you need to prepare your existing forest and domain for upgrade. If any of these two aspects are found as not addressed, your upgrade would stop and throw an error. One convenient feature added here is that the error message is saved on your desktop for later reference.

On the hardware resource front, you need at least 32 GB of hard disk drive space. To upgrade forest and domain, you have to run a couple of commands from the command prompt.

Burn ISO of 2012 and load it on your optical drive if you are using physical installation or load ISO image of 2012 on virtual optical drive if you are going to do a VM installation (we used this method). Now from Windows Server 2008 go to command prompt and run these to commands:

D:\ support\adprep\adprep /forestprep

Here D is your disk drive which is loaded with 2012 installation media (ISO),you would be asked to press 'c' and hit enter to successfully complete this step. Once this step is over you need to run following command before you can proceed to installation:

D:\support\adprep\adprep /domainprep

Finally you also need to check compatibility of programs (third party) that are already installed on Windows Server 2008. One can get information about recommendation from following url: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=243105. You have to run the installation within Windows Server 2008. The upgrade process would ask you update your server before you can proceed to upgrade. In our sample setup, it took about 1 hour to upgrade on a VM with 2 GB RAM. Once upgraded, use your 2008 administrator password to login.

We found that the domain, user, and machine were all intact post the upgradation.

There's a lot more to talk about in the new Windows Server 2012, so we'll be back again to tell you about how good are some of its new features. If you would like us to check out something about the server that's specific to your needs, then do let us know. We'd be happy to run a test case in our test lab and share our findings with our readers. So do let us know.