Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft : Server Center, Server Core

How open source has influenced Windows Server 2008

Sam Ramji — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:00:00 GMT

When I think about what works really well in open source development and technology, the following things stand out:

Modular architectures
You can find these wherever you see participation at scale – and often a rearchitecture to a more modular system precedes expanded participation. Great examples of this are Firefox, OpenOffice, and X11 – from both the historical rearchitecture and the increased participation that resulted. The Apache HTTP server and APR are good examples that have been modular for as long as I can recall.
Programming language agnostic
A given project uses a consistent language, but there are no rules on what languages are in scope or out of scope. Being open to more languages means opportunity to attract more developers – the diversity of PHP/Perl/Python/Java has been a core driver in the success of a number of projects including Linux.
Feedback-driven development
The “power user” as product manager is a powerful shift in how to build and tune software – and this class of users includes developers who are not committing code back, but instead submitting CRs and defects – resulting in a product that better fits its end users.
Built-for-purpose systems
Most frequently seen in applications of Linux, the ability to build a system that has just what is needed to fulfill its role and nothing else (think of highly customizable distributions like Gentoo or BusyBox, as well as fully custom deployments).
Sysadmins who write code
The ability of a skilled system administrator to write the “last mile” code means that they can make a technology work in their particular environment efficiently and often provide good feedback to developers. This is so fundamental to Unix and Linux environments that most sysadmins are competent programmers.
Standards-based communication
Whether the standard is something from the IETF or W3C, or simply the implementation code itself, where these are used projects are more successful (think of Asterisk and IAX2) and attract a larger ecosystem of software around them.

So where did we apply these ideas to the development of Windows Server 2008?

Modular architectures was applied in multiple areas, but the one that stands out most to me is Internet Information Server 7 (IIS7). IIS7 has been rearchitected for flexibility as 40 individual modules, enable more to be written by community developers or delivered as out-of-band releases. This has already enabled performance improvements and independent evolution, and I expect to see further enhancements.
Programming language agnostic is something we’ve delivered on with support for PHP on IIS7 and the enhancements to FastCGI (which can be used by any of the P* languages). We set a goal of having PHP certified on Windows Server 2008, and we’ve achieved that. We’ll continue to improve runtime, security, and manageability support for non-.NET languages and the applications that are built on them, as well as testing the full stacks of PHP-based applications running on Windows Server, IIS, and SQL Server.
Feedback-driven development based on developer and customer trials (RDPs, TAPs, and Betas in our process) led to a range of “feature completion” developments that connected different components – like connecting Windows Firewall with Active Directory central policy, and the end-to-end improvements in SMB 2.0. Features like the RODC (Read-Only Domain Controller) have become more and more solid through experience with early alpha and beta customer deployments, and requests to enforce things like BitLocker encryption of user disks from a central authority have achieved full support.
Built-for-purpose systems such as DNS, DHCP, file and web serving can be created through wizard-driven configuration thanks to Windows Server Core. The goal of having a minimum attack surface and a small hardware footprint, inspired by the capabilities mentioned above, yet achievable by a broad base of admins has been achieved. Additionally, this has created an opportunity for Windows admins to become much more knowledgeable about the low-level structure of the operating system.
Sysadmins who write code are first-class citizens in the PowerShell-driven infrastructure. We’ve increased Windows administrators’ opportunity to master the full surface area of WMI and demonstrate that mastery in reusable, low-level scripts. As we evolve this to support multiple language bindings and bash aliasing, this should become a comfortable home for highly skilled sysadmins.
Standards-based communication such as in CardSpace (with support for X.509, SAML, Kerberos tokens, and more) and the Web Services stack (not only are all 38 Web Services standard under the Open Specification promise, but our implementations have achieved a high level of interop with Apache’s Axis web services stack), and beta support for emerging standards like Xen virtualization represent a small subset of the standards built into Windows Server 2008.

Overall, we’ve learned and continue to learn from open source development principles. These are making their way into the mindset, development practices, and ultimately into the products we bring to market.

I’ve focused here on “what Microsoft has learned from Open Source” – and ironically, I’ve agreed to do a panel at OSBC on 3/25 with Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation on “what Open Source can learn from Microsoft”. As all of the different organizations in IT continue to evolve, we’ll learn from each others’ best practices and make increasingly better software. As in science, this incremental improvement will move all of us forward.

Core

billhilf — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:24:00 GMT

We recently announced the addition of IIS7 to the Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008 (formerly known as Longhorn Server). Server Core is an important evolution of our server product and will include a variety of roles, such as print server, media services, Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, and now IIS7 for Web serving. All of these will be able to run in a lightweight, low footprint modes – a server core installation requires about 1GB of physical disk space to install and approximately 2 GB for operations post-install. This means it’s Windows Server but with just the bits you need to run a specific type of server role – which means less disk, less memory, lower attack surface, less stuff to manage, patch, etc. There are also a variety of optional features you can add to server core, such as the subsystem for Unix applications, Bitlocker drive encryption, failover cluster, and others. Of course, Windows Server 2008 can still run as a full featured general purpose server operating system as well. Sam and Hank did an interview with Iain McDonald about Server Core last September, you can see that interview here.

I’ve built and run many Web server farms over that past years and having the ability to roll out small footprint, role-based server configurations is something I found to be an important architectural advantage. In the past, I used Apache on Linux/BSDs to build customized servers. Certainly you can still do this today. What I think is exciting about this announcement of IIS7 on Windows Server 2008 Server Core is that it shows the full spectrum of the Windows Server 2008 capabilities, from very modular, low footprint Web serving to the all-singing all-dancing full featured server.

Additionally, as you may have read here before, we’ve been working hard with the Zend on making PHP run great on Windows Server. With the new FastCGI support (which is now integrated with IIS7 in beta 3), PHP runs extremely well on Server Core. So if you need a tier of streamlined front-end PHP Web servers that require minimal system resources and just the needed bits for doing the job? Now you will be able do this with Windows Server 2008. And those systems can be managed, secured, updated, authenticated, etc. just like any other Windows server machine.

I think this all brings more choice to developers and system administrators. And you can expect this will be something we continue to evolve, adding more customization scenarios and support of other technologies, including .NET. Check out Bill Staple’s blog on this as well – his team is doing all the IIS work. You test drive Windows Server 2008 here or download the latest beta here. The FastCGI Technology Preview can be found here.

Unrelated and Personal (non-work related) tidbit:

Talking about server core and IIS7 reminded me of this quote: “The future you have tomorrow won’t be the same future you had yesterday” from Chuck Palahniuk’s latest book Rant. I think it’s his best so far -I just finished this on my last trip. If you like Chuck, watch this lecture – the ‘little software story’ advice at the end is priceless and motivational for aspiring writers.

ServerCore: Where's the GUI?

MichaelF — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:01:00 GMT

Sam and Hank spend some time with Iain McDonald and Andrew Mason. In this interview they discuss Windows Server Core a command line controlled installation of Windows Server intended to simplify management and minimize the server installation for the four key server roles: AD, DHCP, DNS and File Server as well as others.. They discuss the architecture, why it was developed, comparisons with Linux and even show us the interface. They also spend some time drawing on windows while hanging out in a stairwell...

Video: ServerCore: Where's the GUI?

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