Microsoft Windows Server 2008 to Challenge Adopters

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Microsoft's Windows Server 2008 will present a number of challenges, including application compatibility concerns, to users looking to migrate given its palette of new components, APIs, and feature upgrades, experts say. Some issues will be familiar to those who rolled out Vista, including user-account control, which restricts user privileges, and the Windows Firewall, which is turned on by default.

 

Vista also has an ongoing issue with application compatibility that is not cleared up in the pending release of Vista Service Pack 1. Other issues unique to Windows Server 2008, such as new, clustering APIs, will require application testing and some recoding of applications, according to Microsoft.

 

 

The server also will present issues for in-place upgrades and upgrades to servers running Exchange 2007.

 

Experts say Windows Server 2008, which has been under development for five years, provides many improvements over the current platform but getting there from currently installed software will require some perseverance and result in methodical rollouts. "The comparison should not be to Windows 2003, it should be to Windows 2000," says Al Gillen, an IDC analyst. "2003 was an improved version of 2000, but [Windows Server 2008] is not an improved version of Windows Server 2003 R2.

 

[Windows Server 2008] has enough new stuff in it that it will cause people to go through a whole evaluation and scenario planning activity. It is disruptive in a lot of respects and will impact application compatibility." Gillen says he anticipates a substantial impact on older applications, although he said he does not yet have a sense how extensive or invasive the impact might be.

 

One area that Microsoft has already highlighted is clustering, where it has rewritten the MSClus APIs that shipped with Windows Server 2003. Microsoft says the new APIs provide better features, scalability and management, but it acknowledges that applications using the old APIs will break or provide incorrect results if they are run on Windows Server 2008.

 

Read the rest at PC World.