
Windows Server 2016: End of One Era, Start of Another - okket
http://www.nextplatform.com/2016/09/28/windows-server-2016-end-one-era-start-another/
======
jasode
This article mentions a lot of hardware specifications and trends (128GB RAM,
Xeon, NUMA, etc) but I think those abundant details make it hard to see the
forest for the trees.

Here's how I would compress the article's core point...

Windows Server has 3 major time periods:

1) early 1990s: the era of servers as "dumb" file & print servers. This was
the time of Windows NT 3.0 and NT 3.5 competing with Novell Netware. At the
time, many were debating who would win the server wars based on superficial
things like NT having a GUI whereas Netware had a text console, etc. Arguing
about those details was missing the point of what would dominate the next
era...

2) mid 1990s to mid 2010s: the server as an "app server". Instead of being
just a dumb file & print server, the programming API the server exposes
enables complex applications to be built on the platform. This is where
Windows Win32 API beat out Netware's NLM (Netware Loadable Modules) as a
programming interface for things like mail servers (MS Exchange wins), http
servers (MS IIS Intenet Information Server wins), databases (Sybase and MS SQL
Server), etc. (The "wins" in this context was the defeat of Novell and IBM
OS/2 -- not Linux.)

3) 2016 and beyond: the "abstraction level" of IT thinking has moved beyond
"file & print server" and also beyond "app server" to the _" cloud as the
operating system"_. In this new era, the server o/s itself is no longer a
centerpiece of conversation but merely a small component of a larger private
cloud stack (e.g. upcoming Azure Private Cloud). This is why Windows 2016 has
features such as containers, micro footprint configuration, etc.

Once one has the broad brush strokes above, I think it's easier to overlay the
progression of hardware technologies on top of it to see how they enabled each
era. If instead, you interweave the hardware stories throughout the article,
the macro trends are too easily buried in the details.

~~~
mountaineer22
Not to nitpick, but do you think points #1 and #2 had to do with the adoption
of TCP/IP vs IPX/SPX?

~~~
jasode
I don't think so because I remember in 1994 that many companies were running
Microsoft NETBIOS. Microsoft was already winning the server war before TCPIP
became the default choice in the late 1990s. At one time, I remember having to
install _extra software_ (Hummingbird?) to get a usable TCPIP stack on MS
Windows. However, I don't remember exactly which version of Microsoft Windows
I had to do that.

~~~
okket
AFAIK Hummingbird is/was an Windows implementation for the X11 display
protocol (called 'server'). The TCP/IP protocol was added in Win98 by default
IIRC, until then you had to use Trumpet Winsock (Win3.x) or something like
that.

~~~
mhurron
TCP was included by default with Windows 95 and NT 3.1.

~~~
IntelMiner
NT 3.1 yes, Windows 3.1 however no

------
youdontknowtho
Nano Server gets it right finally for Windows Server. It's tiny and
headless...no graphical stack at all. Just watch, most internal Microsoft
teams will transition to it over time. First they will start releasing
software as a container that runs on Nano, probably in the form of Server
Core. Then built native for Nano Server.

I've said this before...If you still think that Microsoft has been sitting
still for the last 10 years because they lost out on the mobile shift, you are
mistaken. Server and tools have done a fantastic job and the rest of the
company is starting to unf*ck themselves too. Azure isn't as popular with the
HN crowd as Amazon, but if you work in large enterprises...they have a much
better story to tell. It's really hard to compare.

Hate on, haters.

~~~
dethswatch
>is starting to unf*ck themselves too.

Too late. Developers have left the building.

.NET only exists any more because of legacy interests, there's little
compelling developer story otherwise.

~~~
nikanj
This developer is going to leave the building when someone else can provide
documentation on the MSDN level

~~~
dev360
I cringe every time I have to read the MSDN documentation. When you really
need it, it barely goes into detail to explain what a class/method/parameter
does, how to use it, or give any useful code examples.

Its just a false sense of security, in my opinion. Python and Django has great
documentation that most of all is relevant with good examples. For the things
that you cant figure out, you can always read the source and you will find the
answer.

------
alistproducer2
Can someone tell why one would use Windows Server? I can't imagine using it as
an application server because of the OS's heft. Maybe as an admin server over
a cluster of lighter-weight app servers?

Edit: Thanks for the answers. The article actually had a pretty good overview.
Basically the OS is built to host tons of VM's so every box (hundreds of
logical cores, terabytes of memory per VM) can be a cluster in and of itself.

~~~
garganzol
They regularly update Windows with a built-in auto updater mechanism (which is
called Windows Update). For me, this is a killer feature #1.

~~~
jhasse
??? Nearly every Linux distro has this.

~~~
garganzol
Yeah, until sshd breaks due to incompatible dependency and I cannot login.
There are exceptions though. For example, RedHat does a good job (in contrast
to some other distros) and I always had auto update on for RedHat systems.
Windows works like a Swiss clock in this regards, and it is the biggest
selling point for me. Slap, update and forget. It just works then without any
manual intervention, and most importantly, does not break things after
updates.

~~~
dspillett
_> Yeah, until sshd breaks due to incompatible dependency and I cannot login._

I can't say I've every had that happen to me or anyone else I've dealt with.
Do you have any references to relevant bugs/issues? A properly running package
manager should not allow this unless there is a serious bug in the packages
themselves.

The closest I can think of otherwise is someone getting locked out of a remote
machine where root was the only active account and was authenticated buy
user/pass not by key, and he accepted the "start blocking password logins for
root" change in a distribution upgrade (so he was warned so his own fault!).

------
ethbro
I hate to say it, but every new Microsoft announcement makes me think "Never
again" more than "I can't wait to use that."

Nadella seems to be making great moves that are good for the ecosystem. Yet a
decade and a half of Ballmer is hard to forget as proof of how Microsoft
trends when it doesn't have competition. (And I'm not faulting most of the
people involved; I'm sure any other company would have done the same thing in
Microsoft's position)

~~~
sofaofthedamned
Exactly.

If Microsoft had let me install from the autounattend.xml (or whatever it's
called) without an Enterprise agreement, i'd have explored it further. But no,
for Windows 10 they made it not work at all.

If WSUS was as easy as using createrepo to mirror a Ubuntu or RHEL repo
without breaking after an update to support Windows 10, i'd be all ears.

But no, Microsoft continue to break the developer/ops experience. Having my
first job in 15 years trying to wrangle Windows infrastructure into place as
part of a wider Linux install, i've doubled my resolve to never touch the
stuff again.

Interestingly I finished at my last contract on Friday - 2 of the 3 contracts
i've been called about since are related to moving away from the Microsoft
stack.

