Datasheet

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CHAPTER 1 WINDOWS SERVER 2008 ARCHITECTURE
Nearly all of the user mode modules were to be replaced in the new operating system. Among
the changes were:
Avalon Avalon was Microsoft’s new presentation layer and next-generation user interface.
Avalon became the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and is the graphical front end to
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (once called WinFX).
Avalon introduces multiple new graphics standards. The API supported Extensible Application
Markup Language (XAML) vector graphics (a form of XML), as well as extending 3D graphics
with Direct3D. With the introduction of Direct3D version 10, Microsoft has a new video standard
for rendering that introduces advanced shading and rendering technologies. Windows Server
2008 dropped support for the competing industry standard OpenGL, which now requires third-
party support. Microsoft Silverlight is an XAML/JavaScript implementation of WPF that enables
Flash-type vector animation based on .NET programming code.
Aero Aero was the user experience module that brought the 3D graphics envisioned in the Win-
dows Palladium project to commercialization. Aero overlies the presentation module. While Aero
is much more important in the Vista Client, you can enable Aero on Windows Server 2008 as well.
Indigo Indigo was the first network communication API. Indigo became the Windows
Communication Foundation (WCF), and is a message service that allows programs to operate
either locally or remotely. With WCF a program written in any language can be targeted to oper-
ate in a .NET virtual machine at runtime, and can run both locally and remotely as needed. WCF
creates a service, a host environment to contain the service, a contract that defines the service
methods, and the endpoints to which clients can communicate. It’s rather similar in concept to
how web services are supposed to operate.
WinFS Windows Future Storage (WinFS) is a new relational database storage subsystem
containing the next version of the Windows file system. WinFS didn’t make the first release of
Windows Server 2008, although some of the technologies were to be integrated into the next
generation of Microsoft SQL Server (Katmai) and ADO.NET Entity Framework. According to
Steve Balmer, CEO at Microsoft, this project is still alive and will be released at some unspecified
later date.
CLR Common Language Runtime (CLR) is the virtual machine module of Microsoft .NET. CLR
is the Microsoft implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) standard, which
allows code written in high-level languages such as C# or Visual Basic .NET to be compiled
using the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) as needed for runtime. MSIL is Microsoft’s
implementation of the Common Intermediate Language.
Network Class Libraries Network Class Libraries are a set of objects that provide simple
access to network services. You can set object properties, events, and methods, and use these
objects in code to access the features of network protocols. The work in new network services in
Windows Server 2008 has resulted in an entirely new TCP/IP stack (among other changes) for
both Vista and Windows Server 2008.
WinFS and the Road beyond Cairo
WinFS is the latest incarnation of the Object File System that Microsoft has been talking about for
nearly eight years now. So its failure to be included in Windows Server 2008 is certainly a major
disappointment to many of us who follow the Windows platform professionally. WinFS, as you
can clearly see in Figure 1.3, was at the center of Microsoft’s plans for their new operating system.
You can take WinFS’s deletion as a measure of how extraordinarily difficult it is to switch the hier-
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