First of all, While Windows 7 has been hyped as being a major, understand that the server version will be a minor release. Microsoft recently made a public statement that Windows 7 will in actuality be what was originally planned to be Windows Server 2008 R2 (http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/BusinessReport/News.asp?id=50060&PageMem=3).
Second, pay close attention to the ship dates. No need to worry for you Vista users with Software Assurance maintenance contracts, as long as Windows 7 ships within the length of the contract, it is already paid for as far as your concerned. However, those of you who are still buying XP via downgrade rights through Vista Business and Ultimate (have mainstream XP support until April 14, 2009.) might not be so lucky. You might be the victim of a convenient upgrade fee. Lord knows Bill Gates apparently isn’t rich enough to give loyal customers a break in a down economy… what a surprise!
However, no need to worry, according to Sinofsky and his senior engineering management colleague Jon DeVaan, a major team goal is to “promise and deliver.” I wish I could say Microsoft “promised and delivered” for me, but instead up stuck with a defective X Box 360 that is apparently out of warranty. Thanks again Bill. If that’s not enough for you, Microsoft customers might want to exercise the idea of migrating off Windows Server 2000, which will not run on newer hardware especially multi-core systems.
On the flip side, there are some pretty exciting features that Windows 7 will bring to the table. For example, the Live Migration feature pulled from the first release of Microsoft’s Hyper-V server virtualization technology, which will provide management features such as reduced power consumption, scalability that includes support for 256 processors, and an improved Web platform around Internet Information Server (IIS) 7.0.
On the same token, the Live Migration feature pulled from the first release of Microsoft’s Hyper-V server virtualization technology, management features such as reduced power consumption, scalability that included support for 256 processors, and an improved Web platform around Internet Information Server (IIS) 7.0.
Don’t get too excited, there is another issue that arises at this point: users will have to support IPv6 and IPSec on their network in order to access intranet resources. To give you an idea of how rare this is, let’s just say the US Department of Defense hasn’t quite gotten to it yet. I can’t overemphasize how expensive and time-consuming this forklift upgrade is for a carrier or enterprise… with little measurable return of any kind.
Hopefully, the recommendation by the American Registry for Internet Numbers announced earlier this month will sway the Internet community to start migrating to IPv6. In fact, some industry experts predict that there are only around 1,200 days left until the Internet runs out of IPv4 addresses altogether. The U.S. Federal government is doing their best to speed up this process as well. Only time will tell if Microsoft will “promise and deliver” or be full of empty promises.
