Microsoft released the third edition of Windows Server 2016 preview. Developers should focus on Nano Server and 2016 nano

Microsoft released the third edition of Windows Server 2016 preview. Developers should focus on Nano Server and 2016 nano

Microsoft has released the third technical preview version for Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016, which has been provided for download. The third edition of Windows Server 2016 technology preview is also the first version that includes container technology support. It also provides enhanced features of Nano Server and data center.

Windows Server containers are jointly developed by Microsoft and Docker. developers can run applications by isolating the operating system environment. Windows Server containers are part of the Docker open source program. containers can be deployed and managed through PowerShell or Docker clients.

Microsoft's Hyper-V container will support Windows Server 2016 in the future and provide the second container option.

Windows Server 2016 also has some other features: enhanced Nano Server features, simplified software network features, extended security, and enhanced management.

Engineers and technicians from Microsoft's Windows Server development team shared a large amount of detailed information related to the Nano Server at this Build Developer Conference this year, as a system solution inspired by CoreOS, the Red Hat Atomic Host, and "Snappy" Ubuntu Core, nano Server provides a streamlined platform that is compatible with Windows Server but only contains the minimum components.

Jeffrey Snover, an outstanding Microsoft engineer, claims that "for now, Nano Server has become the most important and significant change solution we have achieved in the Server family since Windows NT, ". An important note given by Snover is that Nano Server is never a parallel project or experimental product of the Windows Server development team. On the contrary, Nano Server is the first visual and visible result of its large-scale code reconstruction project, and it will eventually change the construction mode and delivery path of each version of Windows Server.

As the first version of the product, the engineering and technical team will focus on the two main scenarios: cloud infrastructure and applications developed within the cloud environment. But looking forward to the future, Nano Server will eventually become a new benchmark for Windows Server, and all more complex components will be built from this point.

The current disk space occupied by the Nano Server is about 400 MB. Snover pointed out that the disk may not expand further in the future. You can still choose to use Server Core and comprehensive but bloated Windows Server, however, if you only want to use the minimum number of components required to start a Server system and run the Spring Festival in the cloud environment, Nano Server is undoubtedly the most ideal choice. In addition, if you want to expand a little beyond the default Nano Server level, microsoft also allows you to install other operating system functions, just as you are currently installing applications in the system.

Microsoft's first step in streamlining its server operating system is to thoroughly clean up the GUI layer. In fact, Nano Server does not support any type of local access mechanism. All Management work must be done remotely-by combining Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) with PowerShell-or, more accurately, Core PowerShell, microsoft's new command line implementation solution mainly runs on Core CLR rather than complete.. Net runtime.

However, the main purpose of this change is not just to save storage space. It also serves to direct the Windows Administrator community to the modern data center field-if necessary, even if it causes complaints or even resistance. For Snover, the Concept System of Windows administrators managing their infrastructure through a GUI tool running locally on servers is completely outdated and does not meet the specific requirements of the new era.

From now on, Snover said that developers who write Server software for Windows systems should use Nano Server as their default writing object. If they really need a part of the functionality that exceeds the Nano Server's supply range, there will also be Server Core and full-featured Server as an alternative. All in all, programmers really don't need to create code around API dependencies, and they have no reason to do so.

However, Snover also stressed that the Nano Server is not a brand new operating system. It still belongs to Windows Server, but this version can only provide a subset of the complete Win32 API. As the starting point of the series, the current Nano Server only provides the 64-bit version, which means that the 32-bit binary code cannot run on it.

According to Snover, Microsoft has successfully run software packages on the Nano Server, including Chef, Go, Java (OpenJDK), MySQL, Nginx, and Node. js, OpenSSL, PHP, Python 3.5, Redis, Ruby 2.1.5, and SQLite.

However, although the Nano Server Installation Method sounds smart and simple, it is still difficult to install software on this micro-operating system, and Microsoft is always dealing with related problems. In fact, over time, the only way to install an application on the Nano Server is simply to copy necessary files to the system image-that's all.

Because the traditional Windows MSI installation process contains a large number of GUI-oriented dependencies, Snover indicates that it cannot run normally on the Nano Server.

Snover also pointed out that Microsoft is currently stepping up its efforts to adjust the Nano Installer to handle various tasks undertaken by traditional MSI installation programs, including uninstalling, registering and deregistering COM objects, creating and deleting registry keys, and so on.

But he also added that with the launch of the Nano Server, Microsoft is trying to make a clear distinction between the installation and configuration of these two types of tasks. The reason why Nano Installer works is that the software obtains the task that is copied to the Nano Server system. Snover points out that, the Configuration exists as a separate step and is intended to process transactions such as the Desired State Configuration (ideal State Configuration) of PowerShell.

Nano Server will run in any environment, he pointed out, including bare metal machines, guest operating systems running in virtual machines, or host operating systems for container-oriented mechanisms. In addition, although the first version of this new Windows Server iteration solution will focus on cloud infrastructure and cloud application scenarios, however, Microsoft has planned to assign more roles to the Nano Server over time.

Announcing Windows Server 2016 Containers Preview

Containers: Docker, Windows and Trends