We are deploying two server-based applications, one WCF, and one a Winform that processes a lot of network traffic (like a custom-made WCF).
Generally speaking, would upgrading from Server 2008 to Server 2008 R2 / IIS 7.5 offer these apps potential significant performance benefits?
I'm particularly interested, as I've heard great things about Windows 7 as compared to Vista, and wondering if we can expect similar benefits with Server 2008 R2 vs Server 2008. I.e. perhaps better memory handling, etc.
As an added note, I've heard the RTM for Server 2008 R2 will be available on MSDN within about a week, and that Windows 7 RTM will be available on MSDN today.
Windows Server 2008 R2 has numerous improvements including most of those that were made to Win7.
However, whether or not you'll see any perf improvement is highly dependent on your app and how it works. The only way to tell if you'll get better perf is to measure the perf on your existing setup and then measure your perf on the new setup.
Any other speculation is just that - speculation - and may not have any bearing on reality!
If you are looking for a performance boost on your WCF services, one of the things that you should look at is which wcf binding you are using and how it is configured.
Have a look at this link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb310550.aspx
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I am deploying a critical care client-server application on Windows server 2008. We have a requirement saying the server must be running without restart for atleast 6 months. Although we ensure this reliability on the software which we are developing, I am not sure if windows server 2008 promises this uptime. Can anybody here help me on the following questions:
1) Can windows server 2008 R2 run without restart for 6 months?
2) If it can run for 6 months, is there any know resources penalty?
3) Is there any stranded mitigation provided by Win server 2008 to ensure this (some kind of OS handle leaks cleanup, memory cleanup etc?
4) What is the best way to enusre high availability on win server 2008.
Well please note some of the constrains:
1) I cant move to any other OS as Win server 2008 is part of our requirement.
2) Techniques like a additional standby/backup server is not feasible
I know of at least on Win2008 machine which has been running since
2008 (not production!)
There are no resource penalties in Win2008 itself
Buggy apps will do buggy things. Its arguable that the OS should not
do anything about leaks.
Don't put buggy apps on them.
Note if you want 100% uptime, you can also never apply Windows Updates. Set a reasonable limit which allows some hours downtime a year: 9 hours downtime/year is 99.99% uptime. Not bad.
I am working on an application in my free time and I want to use a SQL Server database. I have the .iso for SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer but I don't have an extra computer to dedicate as a server. I assumed I could use VMware Player for a virtual server but from what I've read it seems that I would need VMware vCenter or another paid version.
Is there a free option for creating a SQL Server database virtually? This will be extremely small scale (3 tables and just for my personal use) so I am not worried about performance at all.
You can install that locally on your computer. There is no need for a virtual engine. Even if some of the MS documents say you need a server operating system, that is not the case. The setup has a check for valid operating system, and it just installs fine on Windows XP, Vista, 7 in my experience.
But if you want, VMWare Player would also work. In contrast to its name, you can also create virtual engines with it - but with some limitations.
And for a really small solution, even SQL Server Express, which is also free, would do. If I remeber correctly, the main restriction is that the data may not exceed 1 TB.
SQL Server can run locally without any problems, even in your dev/gaming/browsing computer without creating too much interference. There is no problem in installing it for testing and even for production of small systems (the express edition is free and valid for those uses).
Another, even slimmer, alternative, if you dare to upgrade to SQL 2012, would be to use a new feature called LocalDB. It's basically the very same db engine with a very important difference: it does NOT run as a service, but instead it's a regular program that is automatically started when a connection is attempted. Advantages would be that it does not consume resources until it's needed and yet you've got almost the full feature set of the real server. Here is an introduction on it. While I've never used it (always with the full express version), it seems good for the kind of programs you want to develop.
I'm in the process of looking for a dedicated server to host my soon to be released web apps. THey are build with ASP.NEt and uses Sql Server 2005. I've got a great deal with a company for a Intel Core2Quad Q9300 with 8Gb or ram and 750Gb sata.
They offer me Windows 2003 64 Standard or Windows 2008 64 Web for free, which one should I choose?
My main concern is about the database, in the first moment I'm going to have only one box to host both the web and database layer. Will I be able to install SQL Server (initially the express edition, then eventually the standard) on the Web version of Windows 2008?
If you can get Server 2008, i'd go with it because IIS7 is an excellent Upgrade to IIS6.
SQL Server Standard 2008 64-Bit is officially supported on Windows 2008 Web Server. SQL Server Enterprise 2008 64-Bit is NOT (not sure if it does work and is only not listed. 32-Bit Enterprise is listed, but running 32-Bit on a modern server does not sound appealing). See System Requirements here for a full list of SQL Server 2008 Editions and supported Servers.
Not sure about SQL Server 2005, there seems to be a patch needed.
You can run SQL Server on Server 2008 Web Edition (this is a change from Server 2003 Web Edition). The main limitations I am aware of between Web and Standard for 2008 is Web cannot do any kind of virtualization, Active Directory or DNS management, etc. It is intended to be essentially an application server.
I would recommend the newer OS, since it comes with IIS7 and the enhanced TCP/IP (among other things).
If its free, go for the standard version. Here is a comparison of the features:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/compare-features.aspx
I've never noticed any performance differences in the versions, so might as well get features you might use someday. Expensive to upgrade later.
You can run the SQL on either one.
I am considering switching to a co-located solution running a DNN (DotNetNuke) installation and an email server that mostly just does alias forwarding. I think I can get DNS services outside of this colocation box - but that could be an issue.
I am running this website for a non-profit group and trying to stay inexpensive. Will Windows Server 2008 Web Edition be acceptable for running all of this? My research so far says it will but I am looking for anyone with any experience running web edition and what sort of pitfalls does it have?
I was going to install SQL express as the backend for the DNN site. Indications are that you can't connect to SQL from outside the Web Edition box. Does this include SQL Management studio?
Any assistance or advice on this would be appreciated.
Update:
Still looking for any specifics with Windows Server 2008 Web Edition
We tried running DNN on Windows 2008 64-bit and 32-bit a while back. Not a great experience with intermittant failures and application hangs. We had to revert back to Windows 2003.
This was on a moderately loaded site. If you want to give them any sort of guaranteed uptime/availability I would recommend Windows 2003.
Currently running Server 2003 but am looking at reinstalling in the near future due to a change of direction with the domains. Should I take this opportunity to install Windows Server 2008 instead?
I would love to play with new technology and the server is only for a small home business so downtime/performance issues aren't really a concern.
I am no expert on Windows server revisions, but the only new feature of Server 2008 I can think of is Hyper-V. But I would try Server 2008 just for Hyper-V, as this VM hypervisor is supposedly much faster than VMware and Virtual PC, and is compatible with Virtual PC virtual disks.
One rule that has served me very well over the years is: Do not upgrade infrastructure components just for the sake of upgrading. If it works well, leave it be. You mentioned that some downtime isn't a big deal, but if the server is actually used then there is a chance it can become a big deal unexpectedly. Why not simply get (or build) a new machine and play with the new operating system there? That way you get the best of both worlds.
There is no Exchange Server 2008. Exchange has always been tightly integrated with IIS which tends to bind it to a specific version of Windows. However, Exchange Server 2007 SP1 can be installed on Windows Server 2008.
Exchange Server 2003, however, cannot run on Windows Server 2008 and I do not believe there are any plans to do so in a future service pack.
Note that Exchange Server 2007 requires x64 architecture, running the 64-bit OS, on a production system. The days of booting /3GB are past - it simply does not provide enough virtual address space for current large databases. Exchange's long-running virtual memory fragmentation problem has not been fixed, it has just been given more virtual address space to work in.