Microsoft has announced that their next version of Windows Server and System Center will also be made broadly available today, on October 1st. This would be a first, as the blog page points out that in the past Windows Server previews have only ever been made available to select partners, and in limited numbers.
The page also outlined what we can expect from the next version of Windows Server and System Center, which is already being described by Microsoft as the "core of the cloud platform vision." Some of the cloud innovation features being included (in Microsoft's words) are:
Infrastructure upgrades: Rolling upgrades for Hyper-V clusters to the next version of Windows Server without downtime for your applications and workloads. This includes support for mixed versions as you transition your infrastructure.
Networking: New components for our software-defined networking stack that enable greater flexibility and control, including a network controller role to manage virtual and physical networks.
Storage: New synchronous storage replication that enhances availability for key applications and workloads plus storage Quality of Service to deliver minimum and maximum IOPS in environments with workloads with diverse storage requirements.
Remote Desktop: Enhanced application compatibility with OpenGL and OpenCL support.
Identity and Access Management: New scenarios to reduce the risk profile of administrators with elevated rights, including time-based access with fine-grained privileges, and new application publishing capabilities.
It's not clear when the links will go live but you can keep an eye on this page, which is where the bits will be made available. We'll update this post when we know it can be downloaded.
Microsoft also warns that the software is in its very early stages and that "many of the features and scenarios are still in development. As such this build is not intended for production environments, labs, nor full evaluations."
For consumers, the Windows 10 Technical Preview will be made available for download today as well, so keep an eye out for that. We'll be bringing you up to date on availability when that happens.
Source: Microsoft Server & Cloud Blog
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