Developer Microsoft General
availability October 22, 2009 | Released to
manufacturing July 22, 2009 | |
Source model Closed source / Shared source Latest release 6.1 (Build 7601: Service Pack 1) / February 22, 2011; 6 years ago (2011-02-22) Update method Windows Update, Windows Server Update Services, SCCM | ||
Windows Server 2008 R2 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing (RTM) on July 22, 2009 and launched on October 22, 2009. According to the Windows Server Blog, the retail availability was September 14, 2009. It is built on the same kernel used with the client-oriented Windows 7. It is the first 64-bit–only operating system released from Microsoft. Enhancements include new functionality for Active Directory, new virtualization and management features, version 7.5 of the Internet Information Services (IIS) web server and support for up to 256 logical processors.
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There are seven editions: Foundation, Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web, HPC Server and Itanium, as well as Windows Storage Server 2008 R2.
History
Microsoft introduced Windows Server 2008 R2 at the 2008 Professional Developers Conference as the server variant of Windows 7.
On January 7, 2009, a beta release of Windows Server 2008 R2 was made available to subscribers of Microsoft's TechNet and MSDN programs, as well as those participating in the Microsoft Connect program for Windows 7. Two days later, the beta was released to the public via the Microsoft Download Center.
On April 30, 2009, the release candidate was made available to subscribers of TechNet and MSDN. On May 5, 2009, the release candidate was made available to the general public via the Microsoft download center.
According to Windows Server Blog, the following are the dates of the year 2009 when Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 has been made available to various distribution channels:
Additionally, qualifying students have been able to download Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard edition in 15 languages from the Microsoft Imagine program (known as DreamSpark at the time).
Microsoft has announced that Server 2008 R2 will be the last version of Windows supporting the Itanium architecture.
New features
A reviewer guide published by the company describes several areas of improvement in R2. These include new virtualization capabilities (Live Migration, Cluster Shared Volumes using Failover Clustering and Hyper-V), reduced power consumption, a new set of management tools and new Active Directory capabilities such as a "recycle bin" for deleted objects. IIS 7.5 has been added to this release which also includes updated FTP server services. Security enhancements include encrypted clientless authenticated VPN services through DirectAccess for clients using Windows 7, and the addition of DNSSEC support for DNS Server Service. Even though DNSSEC as such is supported, only one signature algorithm is available: #5 / RSA/SHA-1. Since many zones use a different algorithm – including the root zone – this means that in reality Windows still can't serve as a recursive resolver.
The DHCP server supports a large number of enhancements such as MAC address-based control filtering, converting active leases into reservations or Link Layer based filters, DHCP Name protection for non-Windows machines to prevent name squatting, better performance through aggressive lease database caching, DHCP activity logging, auto-population of certain network interface fields, a wizard for split-scope configuration, DHCP Server role migration using WSMT, support for DHCPv6 Option 15 (User Class) and Option 32 (Information Refresh Time). The DHCP server runs in the context of the Network Service account which has fewer privileges to reduce potential damage if compromised.
Windows Server 2008 R2 supports up to 64 physical processors or up to 256 logical processors per system. (Only the Datacenter and Itanium editions can take advantage of the capability of 64 physical processors. Enterprise, the next-highest edition after those two, can only use 8.) When deployed in a file server role, new File Classification Infrastructure services allow files to be stored on designated servers in the enterprise based on business naming conventions, relevance to business processes and overall corporate policies.
Server Core includes a subset of the .NET Framework, so that some applications (including ASP.NET web sites and Windows PowerShell 2.0) can be used.
Performance improvement was a major area of focus for this release; Microsoft has stated that work was done to decrease boot time, improve the efficiency of I/O operations while using less processing power, and generally improve the speed of storage devices, especially iSCSI.
Active Directory has several new features when raising the forest and domain functional levels to Windows Server 2008 R2: Two added features are Authentication Mechanism Assurance and Automatic SPN Management. When raising the forest functional level, the Active Directory recycle bin feature is available and can be enabled using the Active Directory Module for Powershell.
Service Pack
On February 9, 2011, Microsoft officially released Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to OEM partners. Apart from bug fixes, it introduces two new major functions, RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory. RemoteFX enables the use of graphics hardware in order to include support for 3D graphics in a Hyper-V based VM. Dynamic Memory makes it possible for a VM to only allocate as much physical RAM as is needed temporarily for its execution. On February 16, SP1 became available for MSDN and TechNet subscribers as well as volume licensing customers. As of February 22, SP1 is generally available for download via the Microsoft Download Center and available on Windows Update.
System requirements
System requirements for Windows Server 2008 R2 are as follows: