Windows Server 2008 R2, or simply “R2” for short, is the second release of Windows

Server 2008. It isn’t a completely new release, but rather adds additional features and

refinements to the existing release.

Release Cadence

Beginning with Windows Server 2003, Microsoft moved to a server release cycle that

was designed to have a major release every three to five years (Windows Server 2003,

Windows Server 2008), with a minor release at the approximate midpoint of the major

release cycle (Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2). This change allowed

Microsoft to move away from including new functionality in service packs (SPs), while

providing customers with a more stable and predictable server environment.

An R2 release is more than an SP, but less than a full major release. Windows Server

2008 R2 includes Windows Server 2008 SP2, but it also adds many new features and

functionality that were not part of Windows Server 2008

Virtualization

Direct support for server virtualization, in the form of the Hyper-V hypervisor, was one of the

most important and highly anticipated improvements in Windows Server 2008. With the release

of Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft extends Hyper-V virtualization to include support

for client desktop virtualization, and adds important new capabilities for dynamic disk allocation,

live migration, and improved scalability and redundancy. We cover the improvements in

Hyper-V server virtualization capabilities in Chapter 3, “Hyper-V: Scaling and Migrating Virtual

Machines.”

Virtualization, however, isn’t limited to machine virtualization, but also includes presentation

virtualization (RDS), application virtualization (App-V), and client desktop virtualization

(VDI).

Windows Server 2008 R2 adds improvements in RDS that provide a more seamless integration

with Windows 7 clients, including full support for Windows Aero and multiple monitors.

Application virtualization support in R2 is improved, and the addition of the Remote Desktop

Virtualization Host (RD Virtualization Host) role service enables full desktop virtualization. We

cover VDI and RDS in greater detail in Chapter 4.

Management

There are substantial improvements in the way Windows Server 2008 R2 can be managed,

both graphically and from the command line. A new version of Windows PowerShell

provides enhanced remote capabilities and is now available as an installation option for

Windows Server

Core. Graphical management is also improved, with Server Manager now

fully supported remotely, and many of the management consoles are better integrated into

Server Manager, enabling remote management. The improvements in Windows PowerShell

are covered

throughout the book, and we cover the specifics of setting up remote Server

Manager,

installing Windows PowerShell in Server Core, and many of the changes to rolebased

administration in Chapter 2, “Installation and Configuration: Adding R2 to Your World.”

Windows Server 2008 R2 includes a new Active Directory (AD) schema that enables an AD

Recycle Bin, a new set of Active Directory Windows PowerShell cmdlets, and improvements in

daily AD administration.

Improvements in storage management and file server management are part of Windows

Scalability

Further, Windows Server 2008 R2 now supports up to 256 logical processor cores for

a single operating system instance. Hyper-V virtual machines are able to address up to 64

logical cores in a single host. With the improvements in storage performance and efficiency,

and reduced graphical user interface (GUI) overhead, this gives Windows Server 2008 R2

the ability to scale up to larger workloads. Additionally, the R2 version of Hyper-V also adds

performance enhancements that increase virtual machine performance and reduce power

consumption. Hyper-V now supports Second Level Address Translation (SLAT), which uses

new features on today’s CPUs to improve virtual machine (VM) performance while reducing

processing load on the Windows Hypervisor. These improvements increase your ability to

consolidate workloads and servers onto fewer physical servers, reducing administration overhead,

power consumption, and rack costs. Chapters 2 and 3 cover these improvements.

Network Load Balancing (NLB) allows Windows Server 2008 R2 to scale out across multiple

servers. Windows Server 2008 R2 includes improvements in support for applications and

services that require persistent connections and also improves the health monitoring of NLB

clusters and the applications and services running on them.

Web

Windows Server 2008 R2 includes Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5, an improved and

updated version of the IIS 7 that was included in Windows Server 2008. Windows Server 2008

R2 also includes a new Windows PowerShell provider for IIS to facilitate the automation of

management tasks. This Windows PowerShell provider is available on Server Core installations

of Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as full installations. IIS 7.5 also includes a new File Transfer

Protocol (FTP) server that supports Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), Secure Sockets Layer

(SSL), and Unicode characters.

Server Core can now include the Microsoft .NET Framework, giving administrators the

ability to manage IIS from Windows PowerShell or IIS Manager. As with many other areas of

R2, IIS 7.5 includes a Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) to simplify troubleshooting and configuration

of IIS. For full details on the new version of IIS, see Chapter 7, “IIS 7.5: Improving the Web

Application Platform

Networking and Access

One of the most exciting new features in Windows Server 2008 R2 is DirectAccess, a new way

to securely connect remote clients to the corporate network. The most common method has

been virtual private networks (VPNs), which often require third-party client software running

on the client, and can be time-consuming to configure and troubleshoot. With Windows

Server 2008 R2 and DirectAccess, if the client is running Windows 7, the remote user has

seamless, always-on remote access to corporate resources that does not compromise the

secure aspects of remote connectivity.

DirectAccess works with the Network Access Protection (NAP) of Windows Server 2008 R2

to ensure that client computers meet your system health requirements, such as having security

updates and antimalware definitions installed, before allowing a DirectAccess connection.

Clients that are connected via DirectAccess can be remotely managed by internal IT staff,

allowing you to ensure that they are kept current with critical updates. DirectAccess is covered

in Chapter 8, “DirectAccess and Network Policy Server.”

Better Together with Windows 7

Many of the enhancements of Windows Server 2008 R2 are independent of the client operating

system being used, but others, such as DirectAccess, only work with Windows 7 clients.

Others, as is the case with the new RDS features, work better with a Windows 7 client, but are

still important improvements even if you’re running Windows Vista or Windows XP.

Some of the things that make Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 work better together

(and the technologies that enable them) are the following:

Gateway and RD Session Host)

File System Replication [DFS-R])

up to 256 logical processors. R2 also supports SLAT, which enables R2 to take advantage

of the Enhanced Page Tables feature found in the latest AMD CPUs as well as the

similar Nested Page Tables feature found in Intel’s latest processors. The combination

enables R2 servers to run with much improved memory management.

logical CPUs on host computers—twice Hyper-V’s initial number of supported CPUs.

Live migration enables a highly fault-tolerant virtualization infrastructure, and dynamic

addition and removal of disks simplifies backup scenarios and overall management of

virtualized resources.

which dynamically turns off unused processor cores when they aren’t needed, reducing

power consumption.

extends the functionality of RDS to provide full desktop virtualization or application

virtualization of key applications.

of Windows PowerShell, which is now available on Server Core as well. Server Manager

can now also be used remotely.

includes BranchCache and read-only DFS-R, which extends the branch office scenarios

introduced in Windows Server 2008.

FTP server. IIS 7.5 includes a new Windows PowerShell provider for IIS management.

more powerful version of Windows PowerShell that has cmdlet support for remote

management. Windows PowerShell is now available on Server Core in Windows Server

2008 R2.

and more seamless user experience, especially when the client is running Windows 7.

and continuous access to corporate resources through DirectAccess. And RD

Web

Access, shown in Figure 1-1, provides users running at least Windows XP SP3 with full

access to published applications or desktops

The system requirements for Windows Server 2008 R2 are essentially the same as for Windows

Server 2008, with one very important exception: There is no 32-bit version of Windows

Server 2008 R2. There are only 64-bit versions. The minimum system requirements are shown

in Table 2-1.

Processor

Minimum: 1.4 GHz x64 processor

Note: An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required for Windows Server 2008 for

Itanium-Based Systems

Memory

Minimum: 512 MB RAM (384 MB for Server Core installation)

Maximum: 8 GB (Foundation) or 32 GB (Standard) or 2 TB (Enterprise,

Datacenter, and Itanium-Based Systems)

Disk Space

Requirements

Minimum: 32 GB or greater (3.5 GB for Server Core installation)

Foundation: 10 GB or greater

Note: Computers with more than 16 GB of RAM will require more disk

Display Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher resolution monitor

Other Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device