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Second Technical Preview of Windows Server 2016 Arriving This Spring
jones_supa writes: The second technical preview of Windows Server 2016 will be launching in May as the first one nears its expiration date. The next Windows Server is being developed and targeted for an early 2016 release, however, the latest and greatest preview builds haven't been released to the public by Microsoft since October 2014. At the same time, Windows 10 builds have been released regularly to everybody who wants to try them out. It was revealed earlier that the Windows Server release won't take place along with that of Windows 10, so it makes sense that Microsoft is pushing more builds of the desktop OS out for testing first. There is no mention of an exact date of the upcoming Windows Server Technical Preview, but an announcement can be expected during the upcoming BUILD 2015 conference which starts on 29th April.
I hope Samba can keep up. I am just now migrating from the whole OpenLDAP, Samba 3+Heimdal+OpenLDAP to Samba 4. Boy has it been ride. Samba 4 AD will start out as a Windows Server 2008 R2 AD. I'm hoping that Samba team will pull what they did with the NT Domain Architecture and greatly expand the scope and flexibility of AD before Windows Server 2016 comes along, and does something that breaks compatibility, and puts 2012 ADs into a "Mixed Mode Compatible" status.
As where Samba 3 had issues with them changing how the NTLM hash was handled, introducing service packs that made minor protocol variations that broke Samba, and older Windows Clients, Microsoft's Game plan seems to be all about changing the schema just enough so Replication and inter-domain trusts stop working.
Not to mention, often times, AD replication to Samba 4 servers includes the RFC2037 Schemas to be installed as well, to support Linux OpenLDAP and Heimdal Clients. Windows machines have that off by default.
Depends where it lives with respect to the infrastructure. As a web server with a public IP and nothing in front of it, running IIS? Probably not (though, to be fair, IIS8.5 has come a long way from versions 5 and 6). Running an application for an industry specific vertical product that is built on the IIS/ASP/MSSQL stack? I don't have a problem with that. Doing internal DHCP/DNS/AD/Exchange? I'm fine with that, too.
Microsoft's issue is that they made it very easy to configure in an insecure way. Similarly, they didn't give much help when it came to giving novice server admins enough guidance to fix their issues without disabling the security measures wholesale. Now, the natural Slashdot argument would be the very concept of a "novice server admin", but the alternative is that certain small businesses don't have a server, so they can't run their applications, so things get messy.
Think of a nail salon with two locations in neighboring towns. Not a large enough business to warrant an IT staff, but big enough to need a client/server model scheduling system, and not the kind of place likely to have an employee technical enough to really do the job right. Cloud vendors are starting to crop up to fill this kind of niche, but even five years ago, that was much less common. Back then, we'd get a server and a point to point VPN system up and running, but if the application runs on IIS/ASP/MSSQL, having a Linux server isn't an option, and the people in charge of choosing the product are unlikely to pick it based on platform. Situations of this nature are incredibly common on Main Street.
I love using Linux and BSD where appropriate, but sometimes Windows is the right tool for the job. Other times, it isn't. No sense in turning it into a religious debate.
If you drink enough MS koolaid, putting metro in Windows 8 sort of made sense, in a "everyone will love it and buy our phones!" way. But putting it on a server OS was just mind-numbingly stupid, I just can't see how anyone thought it was a good idea. I cringe every time I have to log in to our 2012 servers.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Actually, if you're a big enough tech company you don't even need to pay to get your stories on the front page here. All you need to do is submit it and have a bunch of market droids and beancounters with sock puppet accounts here vote it up. Add on the techs on your payroll who have real Slashdot accounts, and you've got a lot of astroturfing behind you. And, of course, there's always your satisfied customers (and if you don't have any you're not going to be a big tech company for very long) who are interested in learning more about what you've got, and their votes should be enough to push you over the top, without a penny spent.
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