Microsoft Servers

Logo of Microsoft Servers.

Microsoft Servers (previously called Windows Server System) is a brand that encompasses Microsoft's server products. This includes the Windows Server editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system itself, as well as products targeted at the wider business market. Unlike Microsoft Dynamics or Microsoft Office product lines, most of the products sold under this brand are not intended to be line-of-business services in and of themselves.

Servers

The Microsoft Servers line of software and technology includes:

Operating systems

Initially, Microsoft server operating systems were editions of Windows NT family. Starting in 2003, a Windows Server subfamily was formed that encompasses server operating system versions independent of the client versions of Windows.

Server operating systems of Microsoft include:

• Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server edition
• Windows NT 3.5 Server edition
• Windows NT 3.51 Server edition
• Windows NT 4.0 (Server, Server Enterprise, and Terminal Server editions)
• Windows 2000 (Server, Advanced Server, and Datacenter Server editions)
• Windows Server 2003, including:
  • Windows Home Server
  • Windows Storage Server
  • Windows Compute Cluster Server
• Windows Server 2003 R2
• Windows Server 2008, including:
  • Windows Essential Business Server 2008
  • Windows HPC Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008 R2, including:
  • Windows Home Server 2011
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2016

Operating system offerings

The following are special offerings consisting of one of the operating systems above:

• Windows Server Essentials (initially Windows Small Business Server)
• Windows MultiPoint Server

Productivity

Some of the products included in the Windows Server System product branding are designed specifically for interaction with Microsoft Office. These include:

• BizTalk Server – Business process design and integration tools
• Commerce Server – E-Commerce portal
• Internet Information Services (IIS) – Web server, FTP server and basic email server
• Exchange Server – E-mail and collaboration server
• Forms Server – Server-based electronic forms
• Host Integration Server – Data and management connector between Windows environments and mainframe systems such as AS/400, formerly known as Microsoft SNA Server^[1][2]
• Groove Server – Collaboration server; works in conjunction with Microsoft SharePoint Workspace
• PerformancePoint Server – Business performance management server
• Project Server – Project management and resource allocation services; works as the server component to Microsoft Project
  • Project Portfolio Server
• Search Server
• SharePoint Server – Produces sites intended for collaboration, file sharing, web databases, social networking and web publishing.
• Skype for Business Server – Instant messaging and presence server, integration with telephone PBX systems. Integrates with Skype for Business.
• Speech Server – Speech applications for automated telephone systems, including voice recognition
• SQL Server – Relational Database Management and business intelligence server
• Microsoft Hyper-V Server
• Virtual Server – Platform virtualization of operating systems^[3]

Security

• Forefront – Comprehensive line of business security products
  • Threat Management Gateway – Firewall, routing, VPN and web caching server, formerly known as Microsoft ISA Server or Microsoft Proxy Server in its earlier iterations
  • Protection for Exchange Server
  • Protection for SharePoint Server
  • Exchange Online Protection
  • Unified Access Gateway
  • Identity Manager
• Identity Integration Server – Identity management product

Microsoft System Center

Microsoft System Center, a set of server products, aims specifically at helping corporate system administrators manage a network of Windows Server and client desktop systems.^[4]

• System Center Advisor – Software-as-a-service offering that helps change or assess the configuration of Microsoft Servers software over the Internet
• System Center App Controller - Unified management for public and private clouds, including cloud-based virtual machines and services
• System Center Configuration Manager – Configuration management, hardware/software asset management, patch deployment tools for Windows desktops (previously Systems Management Server); includes Software Center.^[5]
• System Center Data Protection Manager – Continuous data protection and data recovery
• System Center Endpoint Protection - Anti-malware and security tools for Microsoft products
• System Center Essentials – Combined features of Operations Manager and Windows Software Update Service (WSUS), aimed at small- and medium-sized businesses
• System Center Orchestrator (formerly Opalis) - An automation platform for orchestrating and integrating administrative tools to decrease the cost of datacenter operations while improving the reliability of IT processes. It enables organizations to automate best practices, such as those found in Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). Orchestrator operates through workflow processes that coordinate System Center and other management tools to automate incident response, change and compliance, and service-lifecycle management processes.^[6]
• System Center Operations Manager – Services and application monitoring
• System Center Service Manager – Ties in with SCOM, SCCM for asset tracking as well as incident, problem, change and configuration management (code name: Service Desk)
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager – Virtual-machine management and datacenter virtualization

Discontinued server products

• Services for UNIX – SFU for Windows XP Pro and Windows Server 2003 only
• Microsoft Application Center – Deployment of web applications across multiple servers. Some of its capabilities are now in System Center.
• Microsoft BackOffice Server
• Content Management Server – Web site content management and publishing. Merged into Microsoft SharePoint Server.
• Microsoft SNA Server – replaced by Microsoft Host Integration Server
• Microsoft Site Server – replaced by Microsoft Commerce Server
• Microsoft Merchant Server - replaced by Microsoft Site Server
• Microsoft Proxy Server – replaced by Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (also known as ISA Server)
• System Center Capacity Planner – Provides purchasing and best-practice capacity planning guidance

References

1. "Overview of Microsoft SNA Server". Microsoft TechNet. Microsoft Corporation. Retrieved 13 September 2011.
2. "What Is SNA Server?". MSDN. Microsoft Corporation. Retrieved 13 September 2011.
3. "Familiarization with uses of a Windows VPS". Winity.io. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
4. Compare: Morimoto, Rand (2012). Yardeni, Guy, ed. Microsoft System Center 2012 Unleashed. Unleashed Series. Sams Publishing. p. 5. ISBN 9780672336126. Retrieved 2015-02-11. System Center [...] is a series of tools that help administrators manage their servers, client systems, and applications (whether on-premises or in the cloud) [...].
5. Rachui, Steve; Agerlund, Kent; Martinez, Santos; Daalmans, Peter (2012). Mastering System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. ITPro collection. John Wiley & Sons. p. 356. ISBN 9781118238400. Retrieved 2015-02-11. New in Configuration Manager 2012 is the Software Center, which is part of the Configuration Manager 2012 client. With the Software Center users can install or request software [...]
6. "System Center Opalis website".

External links

• Official Microsoft Servers web site
• Official Microsoft System Center web site
• Official System Center Technical Documentation Library
• Official Windows Small Business Server web site
• Extending the Power of Microsoft System Center to Heterogeneous Environments web site