If you’re like me, you occasionally wish that your virtual desktop didn’t need to be as cluttered as your physical desktop. (The desktop metaphor that the folks over at Xerox developed a couple of decades ago is a little more accurate than I’d like!) In an attempt to ease some of that clutter, Microsoft has given us Server Manager, a new console that combines elements of several Server 2003 administrative tools. The idea is that Server Manager is a one-stop shop for server administration. Although it doesn’t quite succeed in that regard, its improvements are welcome.
For one thing, Server Manager provides simultaneous access to multiple administrative tools, such as roles, features, Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor, Scheduled Tasks, and Event Viewer. In some cases it includes help data on tools and some links to documents dealing with best practices.
Server Manager’s Achilles heel (and an area in which it represents a step backwards from the Computer Management console in Server 2003) is that it is not remoteable. However, you can always run it from within a Remote Desktop session. A command-line version provides opportunities for scripting (and showing off).
Some of the Server Manager lingo may be a little bit new. “Roles” are collections of related functionality, much as you used to find in the Add/Remove Windows Components wizard (now defunct). Active Directory Domain Services is a role; so is DNS, Terminal Services, and Web Server (to mention a few). Through a new architecture called Component-Based Servicing, installing a role automatically installs required services and features. Server Manager also automatically secures roles during the installation, making the old Security Configuration Wizard one step closer to obsolescence. Finally, several wizards have been beefed up to guide administrators through necessary configuration steps.
“Features” in Server Manager are ancillary support functions not tied to specific roles: things like BitLocker, failover clustering, Remote Assistance, and telnet. To round out the vocabulary lesson, “role services” are optional services that augment the capabilities of a role.
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