Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Standard and Datacentre review

We put Microsoft's new server OS through its paces

Standard and Datacenter editions

The RTM of Windows Server 2012 took a little longer to become available than the RTM of Windows 8 but it was worth waiting for. This is a polished update of a definitive release of Windows Server that has improvements and new features for companies from small to large.

Some of the best features, take features that have been reserved for large companies with large budgets and large support teams and make them accessible to much smaller businesses; if you need continuous availability or thin-provisioned, de-duplicated storage, you can do it on budget hardware.

And you don't need to worry about which version of Windows Server you're getting; all the features are in both the Standard and Datacenter editions and the only difference is the number of virtual machines you can run.

You can run up to two VMs on two processors with Standard edition, which is about right for a production server and fits in with Server vice president Bill Laing's predictions that "people will buy many small machines not a few large machines" and manage them as if they were a single system.

Microsoft has described Windows Server 2012 as a cloud operating system, but don't be fooled into thinking there's nothing for on-premise servers. There are major improvements in key areas like virtualization and remote access, plus new tools for security; in fact there are many more improvements across the range of Windows Server features than we can cover in this review.

Yes, Windows Server has the Windows 8 Start screen but given that admins will be connecting remotely or spending their time in Server Manager, the new look shouldn't put you off this impressive upgrade.

By Roshan Gour 15 Feb 2013