1.6. New Management Tools

Any good networking operating system should offer ways to simplify the job of keeping one server or one thousand servers up and running with the smallest amount of effort possible on the part of the humans doing the server administration. No one operating system has the answer for server administration, but Windows Server has gotten a bit better in 2008 and R2 with some useful new tools.

1.6.1. Server Manager

Prior to Windows Server 2008, the main "general management tool" was the Computer Management snap-in, compmgmt.msc. In 2008 and R2, however, right-clicking Computer and choosing Manage brings up a new GUI tool named Server Manager. It's the way to add capabilities to a server, such as when you want the server to offer DHCP or DNS services. You can see it displaying your server's installed roles in Figure 1.3.