The Windows Server team also sees which
combinations of roles are getting installed on
the same server and which architecture (x86 or
x64) people are installing. “We know that x64 is
what all customers are buying now and in the
future,” Hinrichs said. “The deployments are all
x64. There is some testing on 32-bit [x86], but
we also know that many of these are in virtual
machines [which tend to be 32-bit only]. So we
put our testing and development wood on x64.
The CEIP really helps us know that we have the
right focus and priorities.”
Customer feedback also helped Microsoft
determine the feature set for Server 2008.
“That was actually the origin of Server Core,”
Hinrichs told me. “Customers were saying that
there are all these services running they don’t
need, all these extra components. They were
installing QFEs [hot fixes] that had nothing
to do with server roles they’re running. That
was the genesis of componentization: Cut the
dependencies and arrive at a smaller, more
pared-down version of the OS. It runs lean
and mean and doesn’t need a GUI, Internet
Explorer, or the .NET Framework.” That said,
Microsoft is also evaluating changing the supported
component mix in Server Core for the
future based on customer feedback.
Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC) is
another example of a Server 2008 feature that
arose out of customer feedback, this time from
enterprise customers. “They said they loved
Active Directory but had branch offices all over
the world,” Hinrichs said. “Replicating across
the WAN was painful. Maybe they had a head
office in New York and an oilrig in Kazakhstan.
They don’t want all of their passwords
replicated to that remote location. Read-Only
Domain Controller caches passwords only
for the people who log on in that location.
They’re not giving up the goods if they get
compromised.”
Calm Before the Storm
As a long-time Microsoft observer, I noted to
Hinrichs that the Server 2008 development
process, although lengthy, seemed to lack the
drama and disappointments that marred Vista.
He wasn’t particularly interested in making
direct comparisons with the Windows client
team, but he did tell me that the calmness
exuded by the server team is a direct result of
the quality and maturity of the team they have
in place.
“It may seem calm on the outside,” he said,
“but that’s because we have a lot of senior
people on Windows Server, including some
folks who shipped many versions of Server
over time. They are very effective at planning
and managing their businesses, and they
deliver what they promise. The seniority factor
really helps.”
“The other thing is that Server people are
Server people,” he added. “We just love working
on Server. We haven’t had a hard time
retaining people at all.”
Hinrichs also credits the team’s clear focus
on server roles as a factor in the clarity of the product’s development. “This isn’t BS,” he said.
“We get a lot of steadiness from Bob [Muglia],
Bill [Lang], and Iain [McDonald]. They’re
steady, and their world is steady. We go to
ship room, we set milestones, and we figure
out how to work with the teams. We tried hard
to be consistent, and maintain a consistent
rhythm.”
Part of this rhythm involves some of the
little things that other organizations simply
don’t get. For example, employees aren’t asked
to work most weekends. “We tried things that
way, once,” he said. “It didn’t work.”
The result is indeed a smoother running
organization. When Microsoft shipped Server
2008 to almost 1 million people, with 1,000
external real-world deployments and 600 internal
deployments, the Windows Server team sat
back and wondered whether the complaints
would come pouring in. It never happened.
“The builds are just so solid,” Hinrichs told me.
“There’s just nothing major wrong. We haven’t
had a million customer problems.”
Hinrichs told me that the executive in
charge of the Technology Adoption Program
(TAP) is on call with all of the Fortune 500 companies
that are deploying pre-release Server
2008 versions in production. They have his
cell phone number and can call him 24 x 7,” he
said. “Remotely or via a plane trip to visit them
on-site, he will fix whatever problems they’re
having. He’s only been woken up once in the
last six months. That’s it. That was not the case
with previous Server releases.”
One area where Server 2008 has, perhaps,
veered a bit off course, however, is with
Windows Server Virtualization technologies,
code-named Viridian. This feature is now due
in public beta form when Server 2008 ships
in first quarter 2008 and will appear in final
form within 180 days of that date. Hinrichs,
curiously, wasn’t interested in taking the easy
out on this one, even though Viridian was actually
being developed outside of the Windows
Server team for much of its existence and was
only recently pulled into the core OS team.
“It was a parallel project, but we’re just
glad we have a CTP [Community Technology
Preview, which appeared in Release Candidate
0] so that folks can have an early look,” he said.
“Some parts of Windows Server 2008 have
been stable for a very long time, like IIS, which
began a Go Live program before Beta 3. Active
Directory is the same thing.”
Final Thoughts
Although many have noted that the gestation
time for Server 2008 was lengthy even
by Microsoft standards, the resulting product
appears to address customer needs and
achieve a level of stability and reliability that
has thus far largely escaped the Windows client
product. It seems that the extra time has been
well spent—though Server 2008 will arrive in
the market five years after the previous major
Windows Server release, it’s coming with an
array of customer-driven functionality such as
Server Core, RODC, a more modular IIS 7.0,
and integrated virtualization support. Microsoft
often talks up its interactions with customers,
but in this case, this partnership appears to
have worked wonders with the development of
Server 2008.
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