I’ve just posted the first of my whitepapers on Windows Server 2008 on Server Manager:
Windows Server 2008 brings about many changes for administrators to get used to. One of these is Server Manager. Server Manager is exactly what it says on the tin: it allows administrators to configure, monitor and manage their server. We’re going to look at two aspects of Server Manger. The most important aspect is that of Roles and Features. This allows us to add or remove functionality on our Windows 2008 servers. I’ll describe how we can manage Roles and Feature using the MMC console and by using the command line utility SERVERMANAGERCMD.EXE. We’ll then wrap up the document by briefly looking at the tools that are integrated into Server Manger.
One of the first things you notice when you first install Windows Server 2008 is that it is locked down. In fact, it doesn’t do very much because it has almost no functionality. You configure your password, login and if you’re like me you’ve skipped past all those annoying windows that automatically open to get in under the covers to see how this thing ticks. I wanted to add those components that I’m used to playing with in work and in labs. That’s when I originally noticed that things were different … very different. Change isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Once you start trying things out you soon understand what is going on and why Microsoft has designed it the way they have.
A brief recap on what Microsoft has been doing in previous versions of Windows Server will give us a clue of what is happening. Firstly, Microsoft has been trying to develop a single tool approach to managing our servers. They’ve tried to get us to see servers as having specific functions that would be installed in a modular manner. We were given tools to do this but other than knowing about them for MCP exams we had little use for them. It was just quicker for us to get into Control Panel and install what we wanted plus we had 100% control over the process. The other thing that Microsoft has recently being aiming towards was the locked down initial installation that we had to add functionality to as and when we required it. Windows Server 2003 edged slowly towards this. Windows Server 2008 has firmly achieved this.
The document continues …