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October 28, 2009

Don't upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2 until you read this

The desire to have all the latest features may not require a complete server overhaul -- here's how to tell what you really need

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740 Recommendations

I love the latest and greatest: Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7, Exchange 2010, SharePoint 2010, and the list goes on. My recommendation is to upgrade everything you have.

At least, it used to be. Now I'm not so sure. This week, I had the strangest real-world question posed my way by Jim Basa, senior network administrator for Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota. He has roughly 50 servers in multiple locations and is considering moving everything to Windows Server 2008 R2 to take advantage of the many benefits. He wanted to know if he should upgrade the Active Directory first and worry about domain controllers, or implement Windows Server 2008 R2 member servers first to take advantage of the new R2 features -- a reasonable question.

[ Read J. Peter Bruzzese's insight into Windows Server 2008 R2 in "Windows Server 2008 R2 polishes up an already sleek server OS," "Criticisms and kudos for the Active Directory Recycle Bin," and "Thumbs-up, thumbs-down: Windows Server 2008 R2 Active Directory." ]

My response caught me completely off-guard. LSS is the largest social service organization in Minnesota, with more than 2,200 employees. Considering its nonprofit status and the fact that this has been a tough economy, I couldn't help but wonder if upgrading every server was necessary or even worthwhile. So I asked Jim what features he was especially interested in using. Here are some of the features he liked, along with some of the ones I personally see as valuable:

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lawryll 28-Oct-09 5:59am
1 reply
Peter, Since you've left out their current licensing, the answer to your client's problem becomes an impossible one to recommend at this time. For example, maybe they are on a licensing program that includes the latest OS's. In that case, then there really is no reason whatsoever not to upgrade the DC's as it would cost them *zero* dollars to do this. I'm assuming this company has SOME kind of blanket licensing agreement...otherwise you've jsut identified an even bigger problem for them. Not collecting enough data from your customers to give informed decisions is just poor research and poor consulting practices. This is the kind of article/research that gives IT a black eye for all of us.
J. Peter Bruzzese 28-Oct-09 9:13am
1 reply
I hope you return to read my reply. It pains me to read a comment like the one you have left. I never said they were my client, but for the record they aren't... Jim is a friend and we were kicking this around as a feature discussion. A review of what you need to get some of these features working. To accomplish putting it all together in a single article (something I couldn't find anywhere else) took a ton of research. My efforts to report the connection between the feature and AD DCs may save companies money and may save admins time in researching it themselves. A 'black eye'... really?
lawryll 28-Oct-09 9:45am
1 reply
Peter,

You are writing an article to your readers about helping decide upgrade paths. What you've given us is not adequete to even venture a guess at what this client needs. I hope your readers understand this and do not try to use just the information you've provided above to decide critical upgrade options. For example, what is their current hardware (32/64?), are they virtualizing, what is their current licensing, how are they monitoring AD currently and logging tickets. Those are just a few things that need to be considered.

All you've done here is tell us essentially that you met with a friend and he asked you what they should upgrade. You then asked him the features he wanted and proceed to list out a few of the new W8r2 features sets he might be interested in. That's it. No reason why, no ROI value. Will he find that powershell is useful? We have no idea. Is Direct Access a good replacement for their current VPN solution? Again...no idea. There is no data or input from any of his staff. Is your friend a theocracy?

So, a list of new features from a marketing pamphlet is all the information you've collected and with that, it's still impossible to give your friend any kind of adequete response to whether he should upgrade.

How's this...if he needs the features of the W8r2 application servers...then go ahead and implement them. Whether he's running 2k3 or 2k8 really doesn't matter since he's not switching his users to W7. Tell him to go ahead and implemement whatever member-service application servers using W8 if there is significant ROI for the company to do so. He can do this at any time, without worrying about AD. Same thing if he has an app that only runs on Windows2k3. If it's going to make his company money, then deploy it on W2k3. Does it matter?

Upgrading his DC's...well, there's no way to tell unless more information is presented. We need more than a feature list for W8r2 to determine anything. Of course, being a senior network administrator, I'm assuming your friend has already received his TechNet copy of W8r2 and has been playing with it in the lab and testing it...like all the rest of us have been doing for months now...so I'm assuming he's already answered his own questions.
J. Peter Bruzzese 28-Oct-09 10:17am
You are missing the focus of the article. You seem attached to what Jim is going to do in this scenario. Jim will make the decision about his own environment. It isn't for us to involve ourselves too much in that part of the story. He already knows what features he likes and needs to improve his organization and has already decided to move forward with Server 2008 R2. The only question he had was: To what extent is AD part of the feature improvements in R2? Many might assume you NEED R2 DCs to take advantage of BranchCache, etc.. but my article helps them to see that they don't. It also helps them to see where they might implement one or more DCs depending on the features they DO need. That is the full extent of the article. Upgrading DCs to R2: None, One, All? What is the ROI in terms of features. Is it really a necessity? Try this. Consider what I've just said and look through the article again. Keep in mind that I'm not trying to market or push any one direction. That isn't my job as a journalist. I'm simply saying what features exist and showing if you need the R2 DC or not. It is a technical piece more than anything else, geared toward real admins... not some fluff opinionated piece. Give it a second chance.
Accounting IT Guy 28-Oct-09 3:25pm
Let the internet troll nitpick you to death. At the end of the day he wasted his time and you didnt. :) _____________________ Good article, I was wondering about this myself.... not seriously considering an upgrade yet, but it is nice to know the DC's dont need to be upgraded for all the R2 features. Branch Cache and Direct Access sound really useful. Our SSL VPN is great, but if we could remove a visible layer of complexity from the remote users day-to-day tasks and automate it at the OS-level then thats awesome.
dlove 29-Oct-09 2:27pm
1 reply

Last I saw, you did need an w2k8 R2 DC (and maybe even an R2 domain level) to get branch cache. Either way, if your article is accurate (and I have no reason to believe that it isn't) then kudos (I hate that term) to you for weeding through all the MS mumbo jumbo and discovering actual requirements for the various services and roles. I spent most of yesterday trying to figure out "Remote Desktop Services" and all of the new terminology, requirements, acronyms, and what they mean by "virtual" in the RDS role world. It was truly mind boggling. In fact, I challenge you to write your next two articles first on RDS and then "Why Microsoft makes their licensing, documentation, and marketing so confounding". Ms can't give a straight answer to save their collective lives... I'm starting to get in the camp of "anything BUT MS"... and I'm a true blue MS network admin.

dlove 29-Oct-09 2:29pm
I actuallly meant to say "to get DirectAccess"... oops.

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