Microsoft launches user-friendly trio

Microsoft launched three products in South Africa last week, and promised to streamline business processes and integrate “virtualisation”.

Windows Server 2008, Sequel Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 are designed to be user-friendly and cut down on the amount of time business owners, website designers and IT technicians spend on maintenance, so they can spend more time on innovation.

The launch, called “Heroes Happen Here”, focused on the work business owners and IT professionals do around the world, specifically in developing countries.

The goal of the products is to flip the current ratio of spending 80 percent of time on maintenance and 20 percent on innovation, so that IT becomes more dynamic, said Joseph Landes, the worldwide launch manager.

Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 have already been released to manufacturers and Sequel Server 2008 will be released soon.

“These three products are the beginning of a wave of innovation over the next year” that Windows Server 2008 forms the foundation of, Landes said.

Virtualisation, a popular trend in the industry, replaces physical servers with virtual ones, so that multiple servers can run on the same physical server.

It also consolidates data, so fewer servers are needed.

Building virtualisation into the new system makes the learning curve less steep and the technology more affordable, Landes said.

“Over time it gets easier and easier to use, and it can be used even if you’re not the most geeky developer,” he said.

Most dedicated servers use only five percent to 15 percent of the hardware capabilities. This is because of the lack of flexibility in using resources and difficulty in estimating how much capacity is required by workloads.

Some of the additional capacity is used for peak workloads, but sits idle rather than being used to process a normal workload on a smaller number of servers.

Windows Server 2008 uses “Hyper-V” as part of its virtualisation strategy.

The consolidation of servers and the use of virtual rather than physical servers cuts down on clustering to keep the network running smoothly, while also keeping the system secure.

Hyper-V uses hardware-level security features, while also presenting a smaller surface for viruses and malicious attacks because of the reduced number of servers.

Microsoft could add all the functionality in the world, but having consumers trust the system to keep them safe from attacks was key, Landes said.

Another new feature is that consumers can pick and choose the parts of the products they want to download, Landes said.

This results in 60 percent less patches and updates, and a slimmer system that runs with fewer hitches.

The system also used 10 percent less energy than previous models, addressing energy concerns in South Africa and worldwide.

Sequel Server 2008, while very similar to Sequel Server 2005, has improved performance and reliability. Organizations can run their most complex applications on the secure platform, while the management of data infrastructure was made less complex, said Shivani Inderjee, a business intelligence specialist.

Visual Studio 2008 has also improved its general performance, said developer adviser Eben de Wit, and has simplified and reduced the code needed to maintain and update websites.

Businesses must take advantage of the systems to make them worthwhile, Landes stressed.

“Really nothing can happen with our products until you take them and make them real through your business value.”

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