On Friday Windows Server 2012 R2 for Embedded Systems became generally available.
“We think this is going to become the product for purpose-built,
next-generation, enterprise class server appliances,” said Partha
Srinivasan, product manager, Windows Embedded Server and SQL Products in
a post on the Windows Embedded Blog.
“With this edition, enterprises and OEMs [original equipment
manufacturers] now have a lot more capabilities and a host of
improvements they can leverage to enhance performance, save space and
ensure nearly constant uptime.”
For one thing, he noted, the Windows Embedded team has substantially
improved the product’s virtualization capabilities. This is good news
for OEMs in particular, which have been utilizing virtualization to
consolidate the physical architecture of their solutions and improve the
return on investment of their products.
“R2 also features a host of upgrades designed to improve performance
in a day-to-day, real-world way,” Srinivasan said. “The time it takes to
complete a live migration has been cut in half. We’ve increased data
transfer rates to 10 gigabits per second, greatly enhancing speed. We’ve
also added support for USB access in guest VMs, making it easier to
perform software deployment and file management. These improvements will
enable OEMs to offer better products to support real world scenarios
where optimized load balancing and live migration are critical.”
The combination of those two areas means that not only can you run a
smaller number of server appliances, but you can do so at a higher
capacity. This should result in some very interesting scenarios for
operating high-performance solutions in reduced-space environments. Lufthansa Systems has already developed a small-footprint server appliance for use in airplanes, to facilitate in-flight entertainment.
Head on over to Srinivasan’s post
for more on the R2 release, including its improved Storage Tiers
feature, security and SMD Failover Cluster feature, which has been
optimized to where total recovery time is less than 20 seconds between
the system going down to being completely back online. You’ll find out
how critical that is for OEM partners like Motorola Solutions, whose PremierOne
computer-aided dispatch system — based on Windows Server 2008 R2 for
Embedded Systems — is transforming the way 911 operators communicate
with officers and first responders in the field.
To read more about Windows Server 2012 R2 for Embedded Systems, visit the product page and Srinivasan's previous blogs.
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