From a storage and servers perspective, we eagerly await the improvements in the IP stack promised for 2007. IP networking was tacked on to Windows way back in the days of Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, and little had been done to improve the situation until this year's release of the Advanced Networking Pack. For Longhorn, Microsoft has created a completely revamped, next-generation IP stack that will offer dozens of features to improve security and performance. These enhancements certainly offer great promise for generalized network traffic, and the introduction of native TCP "chimney" off-loading will be a huge benefit for companies using IP-based storage or looking to adopt 10 GbE in the future.
Perhaps the most important benefit of Longhorn will be its improved security, and there are dozens of enhancements to protect Longhorn systems from internal and external threats. Intriguing from a storage perspective is the introduction of the disk-based BitLocker technology, which offers USB-key-based data encryption.
Longhorn is also designed to be virtualization-ready, with a new Windows hypervisor that will support multiple VMs on systems using processors with Intel VT or AMD-V chip-assist technology. The base OS will also be able to operate in a "core mode" designed to provide a low-overhead platform with kernel and device support and reserve the maximum amount of system resources to the VMs themselves.
Monday Morning Quarterback
STORAGE & SERVERS
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