Windows Server 2008 Standard

Internet Information Services 7.0

Windows Server 2008 Standard is a powerful Web application and services platform. The Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 in Windows Server 2008 Standard delivers a completely modular, extensible Web server with expanded application hosting, while retaining excellent compatibility and solving key customer challenges.

Windows Server Hyper-V

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is the hypervisor-based virtualization feature included as a role of Windows Server 2008. It contains everything needed to support machine virtualization. Hyper-V enables IT organizations to reduce costs, to improve server utilization, and to create a more dynamic IT infrastructure. Hyper-V provides the greater flexibility because of dynamic, reliable, and scalable platform capabilities combined with a single set of integrated management tools to manage both physical and virtual resources, which enables you to create an agile and dynamic datacenter and progress toward achieving self-managing dynamic systems.

Terminal Services

Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 Standard provides a security-enhanced, easy-to-manage platform for delivering access to centrally managed applications and resources from the Internet by using HTTPS; you do not need to provide access through a virtual private network (VPN) or by opening unwanted ports on firewalls.

Presentation Virtualization

Presentation virtualization isolates processing from the graphics and I/O, making it possible for users to run an application in one location but have it controlled in another. It creates virtual sessions in which the applications that are executing project their user interfaces remotely. Each session can run only a single application or present the user with a complete desktop offering multiple applications. In either case, several virtual sessions can use the same installed copy of an application.

Application Virtualization

Application virtualization separates the application configuration layer from the operating system. It enables applications to run on clients—including desktops, servers, and laptops—without being installed, and allows applications to be administered from a central location. This enables you to run applications that otherwise may not be able to coexist on the same server.

Network Access Protection

Network Access Protection (NAP) provides a new framework that enables you to define health requirements for the network and to restrict computers that do not meet these requirements from communicating with the network. (For example, health requirements may be defined to include having antivirus or antispyware software installed and updated.) In this way, you can define the baseline level of protection all computers must carry when connecting to the network.

BitLocker

Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption provides additional security for your data through full volume encryption on multiple drives, even when the system is in unauthorized hands or running a different operating system time, data, and control.

Read-Only Domain Controller

A new type of domain controller configuration in Windows Server 2008 Standard makes it possible to easily deploy a domain controller in locations where its physical security cannot be guaranteed. This is especially useful in a branch office, where users may otherwise have to authenticate over a wide area network (WAN). With a read-only replica of the Active Directory database located closer to the branch office, these users can benefit from faster logon times and more efficient access to authentication resources on the network.

Windows Service Hardening

Windows Service hardening in Windows Server 2008 Standard helps keep systems safe by preventing critical server services from being compromised by abnormal activity in the file system, registry, or network.

Windows Server 2008 Standard includes additional security features:

Server Manager

Server Manager is a unified Microsoft Management Console (MMC) that offers an integrated experience for adding, removing, and configuring server roles, role services, and features.

Windows Deployment Services

Windows Deployment Services (WDS) is a suite of components that work together on Windows Server 2008 Standard to provide a simplified, secure means of rapidly deploying Windows operating systems to all of your computers by using network-based installation, without the need for you to work directly on each computer or to install Windows components from CD or DVD media.

Windows PowerShell

The Windows PowerShell command-line shell and scripting language helps automate common tasks and more easily control system administration and accelerate automation, even in remote locations such as branch offices.

Next Generation TCP/IP

Windows Server 2008 Standard includes a new implementation of the TCP/IP protocol stack known as Next Generation TCP/IP stack for improved scalability and performance.

Server Core

To help increase the availability of your business, Windows Server 2008 Standard supports a Server Core installation option, a minimal environment for running specific server roles. With Server Core, you can remove the functions and drivers that are nonessential to your workloads, leaving only the necessary subsystems required for the supported server roles. This capability provides you with a more reliable, secure server that is optimized for running the most demanding applications and services, but requires less patching and servicing.