Microsoft Build: Windows Server 8 Developer Preview released

ANAHEIM: Microsoft has announced the availability of Windows Server 8 Developer Preview, an early build of its next-generation server operating system that adds enhancements drawn from operating the Azure cloud computing platform.

Windows Server 8 will be "the most cloud-optimised server OS available", according to Microsoft Server and Tools president Satya Nadella, who said that the platform has been given a major revamp around how it works in multi-tenanted environments and the way it provisions workloads.

Key new features include high-end storage and networking capabilities that would previously have required costly infrastructure such as dedicated storage arrays.

Storage Spaces provides disk pooling, disk virtualisation and thin provisioning in software, for example, allowing customers to build a storage array just by connecting multiple drives directly to the server.

"You don't need a PhD in storage. You just attach disks to Windows and away you go," said Bryon Surace, Microsoft's senior programme manager for Windows Server.

Surace also demonstrated how Windows Server 8 supports live storage migration, so that a virtual machine image can be moved from one drive to another without interrupting the virtual machine itself.

Windows Server 8 also now supports virtual machines with up to 32 virtual CPUs, and each physical server will be able to support 160 virtual CPUs.

Network virtualisation is another feature enabled in this release, allowing cloud operators to support multiple customers with different IP address ranges in a multi-tenanted architecture.

Meanwhile, an update to Microsoft's Server Message Block protocol now enables multi-channel communication, meaning that it can use multiple network adapters simultaneously to deliver very high aggregate throughput of data.

Also speeding throughput is support for remote direct memory access, which enables data to be moved from the memory of one computer directly to another without the intervention of the operating system.

"Previously, features like this were only available in high-performance computing environments, but we're building them right into Windows Server 8," said Surace.

As with Windows 8 for client systems, Microsoft declined to specify a date for delivering the full release of Windows Server 8, stating that the beta and release to manufacturing versions will be delivered when quality goals have been met.

Windows Server 8 Developer Preview is available to download now for MSDN subscribers.