I’ve been asked "What is Longhorn?" by a lot of people in recent weeks. "Longhorn" is the codename of the next generation of Microsoft Windows Server. It used to be the project name for the Server and Vista project. It now refers to what will likely be called Windows Server 2007/2008. It’s currently in beta testing.
There’s loads of new features. Microsoft has set up a site to sportlight some of them. Some highlights are:
- Network Access Protection: NAP is a quarantine service that will query LAN clients to see if they meet configuration requirements before allowing them to talk to servers or other clients on the network. Clients that do not meet requirements will be quarantined, i.e. not recieve a ticket to talk to other domain/forest members. The quarantined machines will have access to talk to Anti Virus, SMS or WSUS servers to resolve outstanding issues automatically or manually. It will also integrate with Configuartion Manager 2007 (SMS v4).
- TCP: This is a rewrite as in Vista. IP6 is integrated into the stack, i.e. a single stack can have both existing IP4 and the new IP6 address. Optimisation has also been introduced to autotune the performance of TCP. TCP Offload Engine is offered on supporting hardware to allow a NIC to process TCP tasks instead of the CPU.
- SMB 2.0 introduces more security via mutual authentication and signing. There are also performance gains for file share browsing over latent links, e.g. WAN or VPN.
- Network Policies: Network polices can be defined for Wired or WiFi network connections via group policy. Windows Firewall policies can be defined for inbound and outbound connections. IPSec has been simplified an introduces new authentication methods.
- Printing: Clients can render a print job locally, thus reducing CPU load on a print server.
- IIS7 will continue the trend of effering new functionality to developers and increased security and stability for administrators.
- Centralised Logging: It’s being claimed that clients will be able to forward specified events to a centralised logging server. This reads like it is not intended to replace MOM 2005/OM 2007 or Audit Collection Services.
- New domain functionality: A read only domain controller can be placed in branch offices where it is too risky to place a full domain controller (i.e. no physical security). There is the ability to build a stripped down DC that only has core server functionality, i.e. the OS can only perform DC tasks and doesn’t even have a GUI! I’ve also heard in seminars that the domain controller role will actually be a service(s) that can be started or stopped without affecting the server. This will also allow delegated administration of the server without giving domainadministrator group membership to branch administrators who manage the local physical machines.
- Terminal Services: Increasing the creep on Citrix-like functionality, "Longhorn" will include an SSL gateway for internet access to Terminal Servers. There will also be seamless application publication allowing TS based applications to appear on a desktop computer side-by-side with desktop based applications.
This is going to be a big and exciting releases by Microsoft. I highly recommend you start doing your research now.