Let’s Build Clouds with Windows Server “8”

imageHello Cloud fans!

It gives me great pleasure to kick off a new series of blogs about Windows Server 8 as a cloud-optimized OS! We've been operating in silent mode till now, with limited public exposure (mainly at \\BUILD) but now it's time to start sharing the great stuff with you. It's going to be fun!

When we think of building a cloud, be it a private cloud or public cloud intended to offer Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), we think first about the underlying platform that enables this cloud to be built . For us, this is Windows Server. It provides the abstracted pool of resources (compute, storage and network) that you then use to place workloads on. It is the combination of Windows Server features coming from all different technology areas such as virtualization, networking, storage, clustering, automation, and much more - that when combined together, create a great cloud platform. Simply put, Windows Server 8 is the first ever operating system that was truly optimized for being the operating system of the cloud.

In the upcoming series of blogs, we will dive deep into the different pieces of the puzzle. We will look at specific technology areas in Windows Server 8 and talk about how each of them contribute to that cloud story, and discuss the impact of these features on how you can now architect a cloud. For today, lets start by pointing you to some reference materials that's already out there and will hopefully help you get starting in understanding how revolutionary Windows Server 8 is going to be for the cloud!

For starters, if you haven't done so already, you should read Bill Laing's blog announcing the Windows Server 8 beta.

To go straight into the complete list of new Windows Server 8 capabilities that makes it such a cloud optimized OS, make sure to read the following white paper and watch this presentation that I co-delivered at BUILD: Using Windows Server 8 for building private and public IaaS clouds. It talks in details about each feature area and how it delivers value for cloud.

Last, if you're like me, then you want to start by playing with the bits, right? Want to get some hands-on experience? The easiest way for you to do that would be to get your hands on a few servers, and then use one of the two configuration guides describing step by step how to set up your own mini-cloud environment. The first one takes a more traditional approach to datacenter design, while the second really shows you the new cool ways you could architect your cloud using converged 10GbE networks and low-cost file server storage.

Hope you'll have as much fun using Windows Server 8 as we had building it!

Stay tuned for more exciting stuff on this blog and the Windows Server Blog from the server leadership team.

Thanks,
Yigal Edery
Principal Program Manager, Windows Server Manageability

On behalf of the Windows Server 8 Cloud Infrastructure team