Microsoft Starts Testing Windows Server Code Name "Longhorn"

[malware]

Microsoft released its next-generation Windows Server "Longhorn" software for public testing on Wednesday and said the product is on track for a debut in the second half of 2007. The company said it expects hundreds of thousands of information technology workers to download the Beta 3 version of the next server operating system code-named Longhorn. Longhorn, which will replace the current Windows Server 2003, is the server operating system equivalent of Microsoft's new Windows Vista PC operating system with an emphasis on many of the same features such as better security. The download is available at http://www.microsoft.com/getbeta3.

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[Zalmann]

Let's hope that they (M$) can release a product that is finally stable.

 

[WarEagleAU]

Longhorn has been a WIP for a very long time. I hope the delay was worth it for those who need server os.

 

[Zalmann]

We have several tier 1 (mission critical) systems running on Windows 2003 server at work, due to the many problems with it, we have to have a weekly scheduled outage window (a reboot) during low usage hours, as if it goes for any longer that a week, the system will grind to a halt due to the memory leakage problems with 2003.

Let's hope Longhorn will be more stable than it's predecessor.

 

[overcast]

We have several tier 1 (mission critical) systems running on Windows 2003 server at work, due to the many problems with it, we have to have a weekly scheduled outage window (a reboot) during low usage hours, as if it goes for any longer that a week, the system will grind to a halt due to the memory leakage problems with 2003.

Let's hope Longhorn will be more stable than it's predecessor.

That is a memory leak in your "mission critical" application. We've had 2003 servers running large Exchange database and DFS file servers for a year more without any type of reboot or memory leakage. The 2003 / XP line is a very stable product for Microsoft standards.

 

[Zalmann]

That is a memory leak in your "mission critical" application. We've had 2003 servers running large Exchange database and DFS file servers for a year more without any type of reboot or memory leakage. The 2003 / XP line is a very stable product for Microsoft standards.

These tier 1 systems were ported over from Solaris (don't ask me which bright spark came up with this idea). The coding from what I have been told is stable, and that the memory leak is associated with the OS. MS have advised our midrange team that the only way around it was to schedule a "weekly reboot", which has solved the problem to an extent, although under heavy load, it will need an emergency reboot.

 

[Easy Rhino]

ugh..why not just use bsd/linux???

 

[Zalmann]

ugh..why not just use bsd/linux???

Certainly using Linux would probably be more stable IMO.

 

[overcast]

These tier 1 systems were ported over from Solaris (don't ask me which bright spark came up with this idea). The coding from what I have been told is stable, and that the memory leak is associated with the OS. MS have advised our midrange team that the only way around it was to schedule a "weekly reboot", which has solved the problem to an extent, although under heavy load, it will need an emergency reboot.

God, why not just run it natively on Solaris then. Solaris 10 is very nice, especially the ZFS filesystem, mmmmm. Sounds like a poor management decision, to "port" something between two completely different systems. You can't possibly blame that on the OS. If 2003 leaked memory, then all servers would require a weekly reboot, without ANYTHING installed or running. It would be pretty common knowledge by now.

 

[Ketxxx]

Sweet. I've been waiting for Longhorn for a while. Should kick the snot out of Vista.

 

[Zalmann]

God, why not just run it natively on Solaris then. Solaris 10 is very nice, especially the ZFS filesystem, mmmmm. Sounds like a poor management decision, to "port" something between two completely different systems. You can't possibly blame that on the OS. If 2003 leaked memory, then all servers would require a weekly reboot, without ANYTHING installed or running. It would be pretty common knowledge by now.

Well, the decision was made before my time by my predecessor, as I certainly wouldn't have decided to change from Sun based system to a WinTel based solution. I think the decision was made as the system could not scale up to the growth demand of the system as easily as a WinTel based solution.

It depends on how large the application that you were running is, and the amount of use it got. Although I can reveal what it is, it was basically a very large sytem that is used across the country (Aust), that load shared across 12 @ WinTel blade servers (4 Xeon processors per WinTel blade), all with 4GB RAM with a 8TB SAN for storage. If you talk about a system that is about that large, you can leave Windows running for 14 days without any application before you should reboot it, as it will have significantly increased the used paging file and would have slowed significantly because of this.

If it were totally up to me, and I could afford to make a decision that would cost several million dollars to port back to the Sun servers, I would, but the cost is unjustifiable, and the amount of downtime required to change back, it is simply unfeasible.

 

[Death Star]

I first explored the networking field with Server 2003 EE several years ago, and it was a really smooth OS. I hope the new OS isn't as bad at server apps as Vista is for just about everything

Either way, I'll be sticking with Solaris or some Linux distro

 

[Solaris17]

i think it really isnt worth it especially if it is build off or includes alot from vista because for a desktop to tweakers...ya maybe but for a server or a server that gets alot of traffic i think the Os is way to unstable..

 

[Poisonsnak]

They've made some nice improvements to terminal services though that allow an application running on the terminal server to appear to be running on the client's machine as opposed to in a terminal window.

I'm just hoping (though I know it will never happen) that they bring back "built-in" TS CALs

(in w2k server you could connect for free so long as the client had w2k or xp pro, with 2k3 server every client needs to pay for a TS CAL)

edit: just answered my own questions they crushed my hopes in this "executive chat"

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/chats/trans/technet/tn0921.mspx

 

[Grings]

has anyone tried it, and if so, does it use dx10?