Excerpt from Windows Server 2008 Unleashed.
By Rand Morimoto, Michael Noel, Omar Droubi, Ross Mistry, and Chris Amaris Published by Sams ISBN-10: 0-672-32930-1 ISBN-13: 978-0-672-32930-2

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In This Chapter

• Initial Configuration Tasks

• Managing Windows Server 2008 Roles and Features

• Server Manager

• Server Manager Diagnostics Page

• Server Manager Configuration Page

• Server Manager Storage Page

• Auditing the Environment

• Managing Windows Server 2008 Remotely

• Using Common Practices for Securing and Managing Windows Server 2008

• Keeping Up with Service Packs and Updates

• Maintaining Windows Server 2008

Windows Server systems are the heart of the IT infrastructure that supports businesses. These servers need to be managed and maintained to keep the businesses running optimally. Server management and maintenance help maximize investment in infrastructure and productivity. They also keep the IT infrastructure running effectively and efficiently to boost availability and reliability.

Windows Server 2008 brings many new tools and features to help keep the servers managed and maintained. These tools include the new Server Manager, better auditing, improved configuration of servers through the roles and features, better remote management, and a slew of other capabilities. Many formerly manual tasks are automated in Windows 2008 using the enhanced Task Scheduler. These include tasks such as defragmentation and backup.

Server management entails many different tasks; they include, but are not limited to, administering and supervising servers based on functional roles, proactively monitoring the network environment, keeping track of activity, and implementing solid change-control practices. These management functions for Windows 2008 can be performed both locally and remotely.

As systems' workloads, capacities, and usage change in the environment, the systems need to be maintained so that they operate as efficiently as possible. Without such maintenance, systems become more susceptible to causing slower response times and decreased reliability. Efforts to maintain those systems should be made periodically to avoid any inefficiency. This chapter covers best practices on ways an organization can maintain and manage its Windows 2008 environment.

Initial Configuration Tasks

One of the new features of Windows 2008 is the Initial Configuration Tasks Wizard, shown in Figure 20.1. Windows 2008 streamlines the default installation steps, allowing an administrator to quickly set up a new server without having to answer an endless stream of questions.

Figure 20.1
Initial Configuration Tasks Wizard.

This helps separate the tasks of installing the base operating system and configuring the server, making the best use of the administrator's time. This will be a welcome relief to all the administrators who have sat through a prior Windows version install watching files get copied from CD to the hard drive.

After the server operating system has been installed, it will boot up into a secure state and be ready for the initial configuration tasks. The initial configuration tasks are broken into three general categories:

• Provide Computer Information—This section is where computer-specific information such as the administrator password, time zone, network configuration, and computer name are set.

• Update This Server—This section of tasks is where the automatic update options are set and the updates are manually installed.

• Customize This Server—This section is where the roles and features for the computer are added, as well as configuring the remote desktop and the firewall.

The initial configuration settings are stripped down and basic (as shown in Table 20.1), with little or no security. For example, the latest security updates have not been applied and the system is not configured to download them automatically. Thus, the Windows Firewall is enabled by default to protect the server from network access until the initial configuration is completed and the Remote Desktop feature is turned off.

Table 20.1 Default Configuration Settings

Each of the settings can be configured via wizards that launch from the Initial Configuration Tasks Wizard, making it easy to configure the server.