Microsoft has announced a new server SKU today called Nano server, a purpose-built operating system designed to run born-in-the-cloud applications and containers.
Nano sever is a refactored version of Windows server and features a smaller footprint, remote management of installation, and is optimized for the cloud. The server will receive fewer patches and events that require updates, which means less downtime for users; the company says it has tighter security and better use of resources when compared to the full version of Windows server.
Nano server will focus on two scenarios:
- Born-in-the-cloud applications – support for multiple programming languages and runtimes. (e.g. C#, Java, Node.js, Python, etc.) running in containers, virtual machines, or on physical servers.
- Microsoft Cloud Platform infrastructure – support for compute clusters running Hyper-V and storage clusters running Scale-out File Server.
To help make Nano server nano in size, the GUI stack, 32 bit support (WOW64), MSI and a number of default Server Core components were all stripped from the platform. There is no logon or remote desktop support, which means all management is done via WMI and PowerShell.
If you want to learn more about Nano server, you can check out the company"s blog post here, or if you are headed to BUILD, there will be a session about the new platform there as well.