Microsoft on Tuesday said it's set to release near-final versions of its key database server and other business-oriented software.
The company announced a "release candidate" of SQL Server 2008, along with test versions of security and identity management software, at its TechEd conference in Orlando, Fla.
Also on tap for later this month is a release candidate of Microsoft Application Virtualization, version 4.5, the company said. Microsoft also announced a server-virtualization validation program, which lets software developers test and validate their code running against Windows Server 2008 and previous versions of the operating system.
Microsoft Senior Vice President Bob Muglia said Identity Lifecycle Manager 2, beta 3, a tool for configuring and managing identification on corporate networks, is now available.
Also released in beta testing is Forefront Security for Office Communications Server, beta 1, a tool that helps prevent instant messaging-based malicious software, the company said. In the first half of next year, Microsoft plans to incorporate within Forefront support for virtualization.
Muglia said the announcements are part of Microsoft's overarching Dynamic IT initiative for automating enterprise technology to make it more flexible.
Microsoft said Wednesday that the first release candidate of its Hyper-V hypervisor will be available for download.
This release will be the near-final code of the virtualization utility that Microsoft is building into Windows Server 2008. The final version will be available in August, according to Microsoft.
(Credit:
Microsoft)
Microsoft released the beta of Hyper-V late last year, and it was also included with Windows Server 2008 when that software was launched last month.
The company has had to strip out some of the virtualization features it had originally planned in order to get a product to market this year and take on market leader VMWare.
People can download the release candidate starting at 10:00 a.m. PDT at Microsoft's Hyper-V page.
Update 7:00 a.m. Pacific: Microsoft said in December last year that it would ship Hyper-V within 180 days of the Windows Server 2008 product launch in late February.
Microsoft on Monday said it has released a beta version of the first service pack of Windows Vista to about 12,000 testers.
Microsoft had said back in August that it expected to start private testing of the service pack within a few weeks. The update is largely a collection of bug fixes and performance and compatibility improvements, but includes some minor new features such as support for the ability to encrypt multiple hard drive partitions using Vista's BitLocker feature.
In another expected move, Microsoft said that it has completed its first near-final "release candidate" version of Windows Server 2008. The "RC0" version is slated to be available for download from Microsoft's Web site within the next 24 hours.
Originally slated to be released this year, Microsoft has delayed the release of Windows Server 2008 until next year.
SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft next week plans to issue its first Windows Server 2008 release candidate, a near-final version of its operating system, a senior executive at the software company said Thursday.
"We expect the release candidate next week," said Mike Neil, Microsoft's general manager of virtualization, in an appearance during a speech at the Intel Developer Forum here.
The release candidate will include a test version of software code-named Viridian and formally called Windows Server virtualization. This "hypervisor" allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously, a useful technology in improving server efficiency and eventually leading toward more flexible data center operations.
Neil showed a server running virtual machines on Viridian, one the bare-bones "reduced-footprint" version of Windows Server 2008 and another Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server. The software can take advantage of the horsepower of a four-processor Xeon system, Neil said.
Microsoft hasn't had a smooth time delivering either software to the market. In May, Microsoft stripped out several significant Viridian components from the first version of the technology, and in August, it delayed Windows Server 2008's release to manufacturers from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008.
Viridian is scheduled to ship in final form within 180 days of the final version of Windows Server 2008.
DENVER--Confirming what many had expected, Microsoft announced on Tuesday that the next version of its server operating system, Windows Server 2008, won't formally launch until next year.
Microsoft said it will launch the product, which it has said will be finalized before the end of the year, at an event in Los Angeles on February 27. The company will also launch Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 at the same event. The company made the announcement at its Worldwide Partner Conference here.
The new operating system, formerly code-named Longhorn Server, includes the PowerShell scripting language, role-based deployment options as well as network access protection features.
Update: A Microsoft representative said Tuesday that the code for Windows Server 2008 is still set to be finished by the end of the year.
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