As the name implies, this session presented an overview of all the new features of Windows Server 2008 R2 without going too much in the details.
Server Core
When compared to the full version of Windows Server 2008, Server Core has a 40% reduction in patches. Although the initial release of Server Core works well, the lack of .NET support was kind of an issue. In R2, a subset of .NET is supported. In addition, a subset of ASP.NET is supported as well. PowerShell 2.0 is also supported and a demo showed how to use the new PowerShell graphical editor to issue a remote PowerShell command to a Server Core box.
Virtualization
Again, Live Migration with Hyper-V 2.0 was discussed with the recommendation to trigger Live Migration with SCVMM 2008. They briefly mentioned CSVs (Clustered Shared Volumes) but I will follow another session to get a clearer picture of that technology. Hyper-V will support 32 logical CPUs and SLAT (Second Level Address Translation) that takes advantage of the support in newer CPUs for hardware memory management (Intel EPT, AMD RVI).
They then switched to Terminal Services that is now renamed to Remote Desktop Services although not much more was said. Note that R2 will have support for VDI where the TS Session Broker (now called RDS Session Broker) will be able to direct a user to a session on a desktop instead of a terminal server. You can find some more detailed information here.
Management
At last there will be a remotable Server Manager, although that really should have been a part of the first release. PowerShell 2.0 seems interesting because there will be cmdlets to explicitly manage Windows Server 2008 R2. This is the case for Failover Clustering for example, where the cluster.exe tool will be replaced by PowerShell cmdlets. In R2, cluster.exe will still be available though.
Active Directory
The new Active Directory Admin Center looks promising as does the new recycle bin feature. There is a new domain mode for R2 that will activate this recycle bin feature.
Better together with Windows 7
The two main features here are DirectAccess and BranchCache. DirectAccess provides a way for Windows 7 clients to seamlessly access the corporate network using either SSTP or IPSec.
I already discussed BranchCache here and you can find other information on Kurt Roggen’s blog as well.
Some extra features worth mentioning are enhanced GPOs (more settings) and BitLocker on removable drives.
IIS 7
IIS 7 will have support for ASP.NET on Server Core. From the management point of view, there will be PowerShell cmdlets that run on Server Core as well. As expected, FTP 7 will be included in R2. Now, this is a separate download.
Conclusion
The session provided a basic overview of many of the new features the most notable ones being Hyper-V 2.0 with clustered shared volumes (CSV) and Live Migration!
