Deven Kampenhout's Tech Blog

Lately there has been a great deal of discussion about WS2008 Core amongst the Web Platform Architect Evangelists and several of the great people in the IIS and Commerce/Hosting product teams. Ever since I first learned of LongHorn Core (now Windows Server 2008 Core), I was very excited about the possibilities that such a concept presented in a web hosting scenario.

For any not familiar with Server Core, it is designed to be minimal environment, or in other words, only running exactly what is needed in order to support a specified server function. One of the most visible manifestations of this concept shows itself in the lack of a Graphical User Interface. If you log into a Server Core box, your session will just look like a command prompt. Beyond the lack of a GUI, the minimalist approach of Server Core limits installed binaries to only the subset of the binaries that are required by the supported server roles. Sound familiar to anyone?

My question is, why do you really need a GUI for a web server? Apart from a manual initial configuration, how often do you really need the GUI elements to manage your web server? And even then, it is so easy to automate a build/install of a server, you shouldn't even need a GUI for that. Most people use some kind of web-based control panel anyway, by which the GUI portions of administrations are accomplished via a web site. In my opinion, that is where the GUI belongs, on the Web. Most administrative tasks that you want to do should be programatic, scripted, and automated. In my years of running and administering Unix and Linux-based web servers, I can honestly tell you that I never once used a console/terminal based GUI to manage anything about that environment. I'm glad that Microsoft has finally created a product that fits this model.

Almost.

You see, the current thinking for Server Core is that it will only support specific, pre-defined, server roles. While there are a variety of roles that can be utilized, there are a number of scenarios that aren't supported in server core. For example, as of today, you can implement Server Core with a Web Server role (IIS). Unfortunately not all of the features of IIS are supported on Server Core. Most prominent among these unsupported features is the .Net CLR. Whoops!

There have been many among the IIS product team and hosting focused folks at Microsoft that have been pushing hard to have this fixed. I can't say for sure that we'll be successful, but I have good hopes here :) As I've had some interesting internal discussions about how something like the .Net CLR could be left out of Server Core, I've certainly made my opinion about the matter known. Now I'm sharing it with you, my readers so that I can garner your comments on this matter. I am one voice, but I hope that I can hear from those of you who feel similarly so that we can really draw attention to the importance of this.

Basically, my opinion is that if Server Core is truly a minimalistic install, it should support ANY role that can be run independently of a GUI. A GUI should depend on the platform, not the other way around. There isn't any reason that something running on a server should require a graphic interface to configure something. As long as there is an API or script-based way to accomplish a task, I should be able to push the administration for such a service to a centralized, off-server approach that wouldn't require any type of GUI-based shell on the server itself.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a pessimist. I believe that we'll get there some day. But we need to broaden the definition of Server Core.

I'm really curious what you think. Here is a list of all of the supported roles for Server Core as of today. Check it here to see updates.

The following optional features are also supported:

So my question to you all is this. What is missing from this list? Are there any other glaring holes that will affect the hosting industry?

Many of you know that I've been talking about IIS7 in road shows, talks, demonstrations, and training labs since I first started working as a Hosting Evangelist in January 2005. This fall, for the first time I'll not be talking about "this cool up-coming technology for you to preview", but delivering labs on how to be prepared for the actual product launch of Windows Server 2008 (with IIS7), which occurs in February 2008. I'm really excited for this opportunity to help you prepare for the most compellig web platform Microsoft has ever created. There are so many benefits of WS2008/IIS7 that directly benefit Hosters, I believe that it will quickly be the de-facto platform for web site hosting.

What does this mean to you? We're going to be launching a 40 city road show to get you ready to launch Windows Server 2008. We've created over 7 technical labs which will train you on the different aspects of Windows Server 2008 and IIS7. If you are a Windows Sysadmin, Engineer, Architect, or just want to be, you won't want to miss us as we're near your city. This is a golden opportunity for Hosting companies to get their tech people ready. Even if you're not hosting Windows today, send your technical people so they can see what Windows Server 2008 is all about. It doesn't matter if your technical background is in Unix, Open Source, or the MS platform, you will find this technology compelling for Hosting.

You can find more information about the Windows Server 2008 Hosting roadshow from our Registration Site. Hope to see you there!

Microsoft is hosting free Microsoft Web Experience events at the Los Angeles Microsoft office
on June 8th and the Denver Microsoft office on June 15th.  They will be presenting information
on building the next generation user experience on the web.

They are providing breakfast and lunch, hosting a reception with beer and wine, and attendees are
automatically registered in a drawing for an XBox 360 and a Zune that will be given away at
each event.  For more information, visit
http://kaevans.sts.winisp.net/Shared%20Documents/webexperience.aspx

I'm really excited that Microsoft announced yesterday that IIS7 will now be a server role option as part of Windows Server 2008 (formerly known as longhorn) "server core". This means that you'll be able to install a minimalistic footprint for your server (i.e. without a gui shell) and run IIS7. In the past, it was deemed that IIS7 was too large to be put into server core due to its dependence on the .NET CLR, mainly because of the integrated pipeline with ASP.Net.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what this means now that IIS7 will be part of server core, but I can tell you that I'm really excited that we've taken this step. Stay tuned for more info about this.

Come hear how we architect and run Microsoft.com and get a real world, in the trenches view of the architectural strategies behind running http://www.microsoft.com/, including how we leverage early adoption of Microsoft Technologies (Longhorn, IIS7, SQL 2005, ASP.Net) into th production environment for the largest corporate web site in the world.

Microsoft wants you to experience the next generation of the Web:

New York: May 31st      Click Here to Register
Los Angeles: June 8^th   Click Here to Register
Denver: June 15^th            Click Here to Register

After a great deal of work with several hosters involved in the IIS7 RDP pilots, we're releasing the fist publicly available draft of the IIS7 Shared Hosting Guidance whitepaper. If you're looking for information about how to deploy IIS7 in a shared hosting scenario, this is a great resource to help you get up to speed and learn from many of the experiences we've had with this to date.

 You can find it at http://weblogs.asp.net/hosterposter/archive/2007/05/28/iis7-shared-hosting-guidance.aspx 

I had the honor of presenting at this years Mix 07 conference at the Venitian Hotel & Resort in Las Vegas. It was billed as the premier event for Web Developers and Designers for the Microsoft platform. I was able to deliver a session that covered how Microsoft works with partners to deliver world-class hosting solutions built on the Microsoft Web platform. If you weren't able to attend my session at Mix 07, you can view a recording of it online at:

http://int1.fp.sandpiper.net/soma/applications/silverlight/v1/Default.html?title=XBD03 - Web Hosting for Web Designers and Developers&speakers=David Kidd, Derek Curtis, Deven Kampenhout&source=videos/XBD03.wmv

 Abstract:

Learn about Windows hosting services and how Service providers meet the needs of the growing designer and developer community by using key products from Microsoft Windows Server. We demonstrate how Windows hosting accounts can scale, be secured, and provide easy access to a broad range of Microsoft tools and technologies. The bottom line is that Windows hosting services allow Developers and Designers to more easily code, deploy, and scale ASP.NET applications.

 You can also find other ways of playing the presentation and play all of the other sessions at http://www.visitmix.com/

This week I'm at the Global Hosting Summit in Redmond, WA, USA. It is an invitation-only event where hosting and SaaS ISV partners come to network and exchange ideas, as well as participate in keynote and breakout sessions about the hosting industry and updates from some of the heads of Microsoft in this space. There are also some great talks by industry influentials and analysts.

The best thing about the event in my opinion is the ability to network and have conversations with the C-level execs from some of the most important and successful companies in the industry. There are so many influentials in one place, and it's great to rub shoulders with everyone once a year. This is my third year attending the hosting summit, and it has grown every year!

I really liked listening to Scott Guthrie, who is the GM for the .Net Developer division inside Microsoft. Basically, most of the key people related to hosting on the product side report up through him in some form or another. He brought up Bill Staples who gave a very succinct demo of IIS7. He specifically called out the new UI, the delegated/remote administration capabilities, and impressed everyone with a demo of remotely stored configuration file to easily enable a web-farm scenario. I love Bill's demos. Bill and Scott also talked about the upcoming Longhorn Beta 3, which also has a go-live license program available. Hosters, this is a great way to get your staff and your customers ready for the best server product Microsoft has ever produced!

Morris Miller, from Rackspace and Sequel Ventures, LLC. gave a rather interesting presentation discussing brand positioning. He called out the branding success and lessons learned from Rackspace, compared to the lack of positioning from former hosting giant Interland. He also dispelled some of the myths surrounding some of the "big" players like Google and Microsoft (i.e. Office Live) who are in the hosting game. Basically, the idea is that neither Google nor Microsoft has the agility nor service levels that lend to truly competitive hosting offerings, especially in regards to offering services to fortune 500 companies.

Over lunch, I had a very interesting conversation with a group of people from Data Return and Internap. John Keller, from Internap, rose some very valid concerns regarding the competetive threat presented by Google, with products such as Google's office and hosted email offerings. In this regard, I have several different points of view. First, I percieve Google as a very tangible and real threat to current business models. Nonetheless, I also feel that when it comes to technologies such as Exchange and Office, Microsoft has such a strong stranglehold on marketshare, that it would be difficult for a company like Google to displace it in the short term. The reality is that their "online" offerings offer only a subset of the full functionality of the Office products. Furthermore, for a company to switch to a different office platform requires training and monetary resources that transend the cost of the actual software. While I don't see Google as an immediate threat, the paradigm shift of software from the PC to the network as a service is VERY real. The fact that Google is launching apps in this model proves that they "get" this long term vision. Whether we like it or not, Software as a Service is very real, and will be the future of computing. All of the big players, including Microsoft and Google see this, and the Hosting industry is in a great position to capitalize off of this momentum if they are smart. The hosting companies that survive this next wave are the ones that will be able to transition from simple web and email hosting models to the more complex wave of SaaS.

The SQL Server group at Microsoft has just launched the SQL Server Hosting Toolkit with the release of the Database Publishing Wizard Community Technology Preview 1.

The objective of the SQL Server Hosting Toolkit is to enable a great experience around hosted SQL Server.  The Database Publishing Wizard works toward this mission by making it easy to upload a database from a development box up to a shared hoster.  In its first incarnation, the Database Publishing Wizard is a command line tool that generates a T-SQL script designed to be executed in the script execution windows provided by most hosters in their database management consoles.  In the coming months we'll be adding a GUI, integrating into Visual Studio, and enabling seamless deployment from the tool to an upload service hosters will be able to deploy.

Details on the Database Publishing Wizard as well as the download can be found at http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=sqlhost&title=Database%20Publishing%20Wizard.

Future plans for the Hosting Toolkit can be found at http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=sqlhost&title=Project%20Roadmap

If you look at the hosting industry, there are thousands of hosting companies. I've seen most new hosting companies start small, and typically start with a linux or freeBSD based hosting offering. The question as to why more small hosting companies don't launch initial offerings on a Windows platform has been a hot topic of discussion among the hosting team here at Microsoft for a long time. So the hosting team has gone and taken feedback from the field and from some small hosters as to why this is, and one of the key pieces of feedback has been that the barrier to entry has been too high. We've got a great solution which provides architectural guidance, best practices, sample scripts, and implementation guidelines. The full implementation of this solution creates a high capacity, high scale, highly available hosting platform, but also requires a large number of servers to fulfill all of these requirements. However, many people have wanted to implement windows based hosting without having to invest so much into the infrastructure, as they want to start small, yet have the ability to grow the platform as the customer base grows.

With that feedback in mind, I'm excited to announce that as part of the Solution for Windows Based Hosting version 4.0, the solutions team has introduced two new scenarios for basic web hosting.  One is a single server option that is locally managed and the other is centrally managed option using 3-5 servers.  Both are designed to help a web hoster get a Windows offer up quickly, allowing to scale up as the need arises. You can download this guidance at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F06A9826-F4CE-47CC-BF77-2869BBC4F679&displaylang=en.

I'm interested to see some feedback if this new guidance will help those of you looking to start a smaller scale windows-based hosting platform.

Yesterday I finally made the plunge and installed both Windows Vista RC1 and Microsoft Office Beta on my primary work laptop. I've been dabbling with Windows Vista for over a year now, and have even played with the Microsoft Office Beta on my home system, but this is the first time I have used both on my primary corporate network machine.

I suppose the reason it took me so long to begin using Office 2007 is because when it comes to critical business applications, I have little tolerance for failures. I know enough about systems and don't mind tinkering around with a system like Windows Vista (I've been using Vista since the Alpha stages). However, if I'm in the middle of editing an email message or writing a word doc, it annoys me to no avail to have the application crash and loose all my work.

I can't say that I've been using the Office 2007 beta long enough to report if it is stable or how much I like its new features and layout, but I have noticed one HUGE feature that made my life much easier, and that is in the realm of setting up your email account and configuring RPC over HTTP.

If you don't know what RPC over HTTP is, it is a way for one to connect to their exchange server without having to be directly connected or VPN connected to your corporate exchange system. This makes getting your exchange-based information/email much more convenient, which is especially important for hosting companies or providers who offer services such as hosted exchange. A hosted exchange provider would incur much greater cost and inconvenience if exhange clients had to VPN to connect to the exchange servers. Thus, RPC over HTTP is a critical enabler for hosted exchange.

With Exchange 2007 in conjunction with Outlook 2007, you can configure email "auto-discovery" so that account and profile settings can be auto-discovered from the exchange server. There is an article here which details how this is done. In practice, when I ran Outlook 2007 for the first time, it automatically determined my email address from my domain login, and automatically configured my outlook client to connect to the exchange 2007 server via RPC over HTTPS with the proper certificate.

With Office 2003 and Exchange 2003, one had to manually configure RPC over HTTP settings. For a hosted exchange provider or corporate exchange environment, one could programmatically script this configuration, but that would take extra development, and wasn't something provided out of the box. With the new exchange 2007 and Outlook 2007 autodiscovery features however, I can see support costs related to new customer setup with Hosted Exchange dropping.

This is funny. If you do a search for "search" on Google, MSN will show up higher than google:

Wait, now wipe that smirk off your face! Do the same search on MSN and you find that Google shows up well before MSN search:

Go figure!

Google has entered the web hosting space. <gasp!>

Well, it was bound to happen. People have been speculating about this for a long time. They have a site-builder application that you can access via your gmail account at http://pages.google.com/. I tried to log in to test drive it, but they are at their current capacity so I could only request future access. Users will be able to host their sites at http://gmailusername.googlepages.com/.

I wonder how well this will compete with other free consumer-targeted hosting sites such as MSN Spaces (http://spaces.msn.com/) and Myspace.com (http://www.myspace.com/).

Today Microsoft released the latest version of the Solution for Hosted Messenging and Collaboration. HMC 3.5 is a complete solution for offering hosted exchange in conjunction with sharepoint and live communications server. It's pretty slick, and any hosting company looking to create value-added services to increase their hosting business would be well-served to look into this.

Here are some of the new features of HMC 3.5 over the previous version:

• Incorporates Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2, which provides enhancements for mobile messanging, including improved activesync for windows mobile 5.0 devices and better mobile security
  • Direct Push technology enables the exchange server to push messages, tasks, and calendar events to mobile devices via http automatically.
  • Remote Device Wipe: enables administrators to remote sensitive data from a lost or stolen mobile device
  • Policy Provisioning: enables administrators to define and enforce mobile policies such as PIN/password settings, etc.
• Extended deployment automation, which simplifies much of the deployment procedures. The Microsoft Provisioning System (MPS) deployment tool automates over 40 different deployment procedures
• Customer directory integration, accomplished via Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003. MIIS provides directory synchronization between the user accounts that are in the customer’s Active Directory domain and a service provider's shared Active Directory domain
• Customer migration tools, makes new customer acquisition easier. Proscripting guidelines are provided for migration of accounts from an Exchange 5.5 platform into an HMC-based platform.
• Updates to key technology components.
  • Windows Server 2003 SP1
  • Exchange Server 2003 SP2
  • SQL Server 2000 SP4
  • SQL Server Reporting Services SP2
  • Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 SP1
  • Live Communications Server 2005 SP1
• The Hosted Messaging and Collaboration Disaster Recovery Guide is a tool you can use to prioritize data protection in an efficient and cost-effective manner and make disaster recovery a viable and manageable cornerstone of your hosting operation.

A great opportunity to find more information about the new solution, there are a series of worldwide seminars about hosted exchange. You can register for the Hosted Exchange Seminar Series in a city near you. Attendees have a chance to win a portable media player.