Microsoft Corporation today unveiled the first publicly available test version of the next edition of Windows Server, codename “Longhorn.” The release will allow prospective users to evaluate the increased control, protection and flexibility offered by the forthcoming product. Windows Server “Longhorn” beta 3 is available for download today at http://www.microsoft.com/getbeta3. The final version of Windows Server “Longhorn” is on track for release to manufacturing in the second half of 2007.

“As they take it for a test drive, our customers and partners will find that we’ve made some vast improvements in Windows Server “Longhorn”, which will help them reduce costs and adapt to changing business needs,” said Ms. Pallavi Kathuria, Director – Server Business Group, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. “Between early adopter customers and Microsoft IT, we already have hundreds of servers running in production environments today, and benefiting from the increased security and control offered by Windows Server ‘Longhorn’. If there’s one message we want to send today, it’s get ready; download and evaluate.” 

IT professionals face increasing pressure from rapidly changing technology, security concerns, increasing costs and expanding business needs. Windows Server “Longhorn” builds on the improved reliability and security of Windows Server 2003 R2 to help alleviate these pressures by addressing the automation of daily management tasks, tightening security improving efficiency and increasing availability.

According to an internal study, approximately 70 percent of an IT budget is devoted to daily management of tasks, indicating a high demand for services such as help desk, infrastructure health monitoring and systems and update management. Windows Server “Longhorn” helps simplify administration tasks via improved event logging, task scheduling, enhanced remote management and the powerful scripting capabilities of Windows PowerShell™.

In addition, innovative security technologies help prevent future attacks by helping reduce the server footprint and potential attack surface with the new Server Core installation option, and by providing ongoing health monitoring and compliance through new features such as Microsoft Network Access Protection (NAP), Read-Only Domain Controllers and the Windows^® Firewall with Advanced Security. The newest version of Microsoft’s web server, Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0, also provides a more secure, extensible platform for efficiently managing and reliably hosting Web applications and services. Microsoft is today also announcing the availability of the IIS7 Go Live license, which will allow customers to host Web applications and .NET 3.0 Web services on Windows Server “Longhorn” Beta 3 in live production environments.

Efficient and ready access to business data from virtually anywhere is necessary to keep businesses productive and connected. New remote access features such as Terminal Services Gateway, Terminal Services Easy Print, Terminal Services RemoteApp provide end users with dramatically improved experiences and more scalable remote access to centralized applications and server resources.

To help IT professionals improve the availability, reliability and performance of their infrastructure, Windows Server “Longhorn” includes simplified failover clustering, dynamic partitioning and auto-tuning networking features to automatically manage system resources and help ensure that customers have uninterrupted and optimized access to their company network.

Microsoft and its partner ecosystem provide broad support that will enable customers to deploy applications on Windows Server “Longhorn” with confidence, in addition to leveraging existing individual and collective Windows Server knowledge and skill-sets of the IT professional community. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) and Intel Corporation are among the worldwide partners welcoming the Windows Server “Longhorn” Beta 3 release.

“AMD applauds the beta 3 release of Windows Server ‘Longhorn’ and encourages customers to download and begin their evaluations today,” said Joe Menard, Corporate Vice President of Software Strategy at AMD. “As a next-generation operating system, Windows Server ‘Longhorn’ is designed to take advantage of the innovative features of the AMD Opteron processor, including 64-bit, multicore, virtualization and power management. The combination of AMD dual- and ‘Barcelona’ native quad-core processors and Windows Server ‘Longhorn’ will provide a world-class performance-per-watt computing environment and enable IT managers to maximize budgets without compromising performance or efficiency.”

“Windows Server ‘Longhorn’ Beta 3 is an important next step toward the future of IT infrastructure management in data centers,” said Diane Bryant, Vice President of the Digital Enterprise Group and General Manager of the Server Platforms Group at Intel. “The combination of multicore Intel Xeon processor technology and Intel Itanium2 processor technology and Windows Server ‘Longhorn’ will maximize control for customers over their infrastructure while providing unprecedented availability, energy efficiency, flexibility and IT productivity.”

The Beta 3 release of Windows Server “Longhorn” marks the beginning of the second wave of innovation to be delivered by Microsoft over the next year. Following on the heels of the successful launch of Windows Vista™ and the 2007 Office system are Windows Server “Longhorn” and the next versions of Visual Studio^®, code-named “Orcas,” and Microsoft SQL Server™, code-named “Katmai.” These products will provide organizations with an advanced development and Web platform as well as streamlined data management and analysis, enabling infrastructure optimization.

Sourced From: Text 100 Public Relations Consultancy