Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012?

[Art_X]

My brothers company is expanding and they are thinking of getting a server to handle the users in the office so far there are only 15 or so, but more may be added at a later date, other than the price what are the advantages of 2012 over 2008 for a small business?

They are also considering sending me on a course to admin the thing, I have a limited knowledge of a server, the last thing I worked on was Windows Server 2000, and again the courses for each version are different, it all comes down to cost.

I have done some research and most of the things in 2012 are not going to be used or applicable.

Although it is not my money I do not wish to have him spend more than he needs to in order to get what he wants, mainly the network at the moment has just been one large workgroup.

[Harrison H.]

While 2012 may not offer any immediate advantages, the benefit for it over 2008 is that it will be supported longer. Support for 2008 will run out quicker, meaning you are spending more in the long term because you will need to upgrade sooner.

[fgsdfwerwer]

While 2012 may not offer any immediate advantages, the benefit for it over 2008 is that it will be supported longer. Support for 2008 will run out quicker, meaning you are spending more in the long term because you will need to upgrade sooner.

no more needs to be said

[Art_X]

Guess I need to go tell him the bad news then :p - he hates spending money :)

[CPressland]

But that said, for Production Servers, 2008 R2 has proven reliability, where as 2012 has only just been released. For my Servers, I only use Server 2008 R2, it's always a good idea to stay one step behind in the Enterprise.

Just an idea, if the office only has 15 or so users, surely something like Office 365 for Business would be an easier to support and manage. Hosted Sharepoint + Exchange is probably better than a DC and Fileshares.

[Art_X]

i Know he will not be upgrading the PC's to Windows 8 ;) I will search about some more and see what costs what, then tell him, typical boss, he is at golf at the moment so cant reach him anyway :p

[majortom1981]

If you ever want to use hyper-v then go right away with 2012. 2012 is a must for anybody using hyper-v.

Have him get you TechNet. You can then download 2012 to a machine and play around with it.

[fgsdfwerwer]

PC Wise, Windows 7 would be ideal, but server back-end I would definitly go latest. 2012 is built from 2008 so should be quite similar in reliability, but obviously not as proven.

[Raa]

I'd go with 2008 R2.

At least you can upgrade/migrate if you need to... You've already said you won't use the features in 2012, so why pay more for something you won't use?

Stick with what works. (Y)

[majortom1981]

I'd go with 2008 R2.

At least you can upgrade/migrate if you need to... You've already said you won't use the features in 2012, so why pay more for something you won't use?

Stick with what works. (Y)

The problem is simply upgrading is not as easy as it sounds. especially if your using something like hyper-v.

[Art_X]

Well I can only give him the figures and let him and his business partner decide, make's no difference what I tell him I know he will ask the people he knows in the IT business what they think and show them what information I have given him, but from all the work I have been doing with him, even the new servers for the big companies are still on 2008R2.

Thanks to all for the advice and information, much appreciated :)

[majortom1981]

Hyper-v in 2012 now allows live migration to and from NON clustered machines. in 2008 r2 they have to be clustered. This is a HUGE thing which is worth going right to 2012 for. For a small business anything hyper-v is good since it allows them to create a virtual server without having to pay for it.

It has other big features like changing dynamic memory while the machine is running when in 2008 r2 you have to stop the virtual machine .

IIf hyper-v will be used in the future I think starting with 2012 now is a good idea.

[episode]

Just rolled out Server 2012 on two upgrades from 2003. One was SBS 03 to 2012 Essentials, the other was 2003 Standard to 2012 Standard. Pretty straightforward if you use the migration tools. 2012 runs like a champ.

Only problem with 2012 is that Exchange 2010 (and before) is not currently supported. And on Essentials Exchange is not officially supported at all. (Even 2013). You can get them to install, but you have to follow some workarounds.

What would they be using the server for? File storage? Email? There might be better, cheaper solutions.

[Guest]

2008 R2 is rock solid. Personally though I would go 2012. There are many new features and its the latest release. A lot of people will say wait for the first service pack, personally I think that's over the top. You'll purly be throwing money away by not using the latest release now.

I work in a wintel server team btw.

[REM2000]

2012 was in beta for a while, so a lot of any of the big problems have been found, in the enterprise it is best to stick one version behind. However 2012 is even easier to admin than 2012 and like the other poster said it will be supported longer.

One other thing i would say re:2012 is de-duplication. You don't need to worry about it now, but in the future you can switch this on and reclaim space. Basically if person A copies a word document onto the server, then Person B copies the same document slightly altered or exactly the same to the server in another location, de-duplication will only save one copy of the file thus saving space.

Ive been testing this out since RTM and it's very fast, very stable and i have had some pretty big successes. On a server with a lot of ISO's (from Technet and Linux sites) on 1TB drive ive saved 400GB due to de-dupe.

Like i said don't worry about it now, but could be a life saver in the future,

There is some other compelling reasons to consider 2012, better performance (not much, but noticable), better utilization of hardware (uses less memory and work better on multiple cores).

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

i'd also vote to go for 2012. It's been out longer than people think now. And, in our case recently, we werent even able to purchase 2008 R2. we had to purchase 2012 w/ the downgrade rights.

we dont have 2012 installed in a production environment yet. I've only been able to play around it in a VM, so i'm not sure of all the new features yet. However, i still like it.

[sc302 Veteran]

Go for 2012. It is better to have more than enough than not enough, can always turn off features and turn them back on vs upgrade to a whole new os when you need a feature.

Also if you haven't touched a server since 2000, a lot has changed. It is not the same software as it once was and you will certainly find yourself bumbling with it even with training.

[Art_X]

guess I will have to get a copy and use it in a vm :laugh:

[#Michael]

But that said, for Production Servers, 2008 R2 has proven reliability, where as 2012 has only just been released. For my Servers, I only use Server 2008 R2, it's always a good idea to stay one step behind in the Enterprise.

Just an idea, if the office only has 15 or so users, surely something like Office 365 for Business would be an easier to support and manage. Hosted Sharepoint + Exchange is probably better than a DC and Fileshares.

I agree with the O365 option. What will the new server be used for... DC/file server/Exchange? You already stated that it won't be used for many of its features. If you don't plan on using it for a DC or for exchange then wouldn't O365 be better suited for the business?

[Art_X]

I don't know what he want's as I don't think he does atm, all he asked me was to price things up and he and his business partner will discuss it, and from what I have been told, one of the companies we did the cabling for, for their network were so impressed by what we did, that the sys admin there has said he would handle the admin side FOC, so bang goes my admin course :/

[#Michael]

I don't know what he want's as I don't think he does atm, all he asked me was to price things up and he and his business partner will discuss it, and from what I have been told, one of the companies we did the cabling for, for their network were so impressed by what we did, that the sys admin there has said he would handle the admin side FOC, so bang goes my admin course :/

It sounds as though he wants a server just because. Has anyone done a system/risk analysis to see what the needs actually are? It may turn out the the current software/hardware is sufficient for a few more years. Or by off loading exchange to the cloud (google or o365) you can extend the hardware life, reduce network load, and probably save costs.

FYI....please don't take it to mean that I am just about email in the cloud. Situations like this are very fun to manage and work with. You have the opportunity here to work on a great project and in the long run provide new equipment that can benefit this company for many yeas.

[Roger H. Veteran]

Old stuff but I upgraded a SBS 2003 R2 and 2003 Standard server to 2012 (2003 Standard to 2012 Hyper-V VM) and it's been great. I love firing up VMs even LIVE migrated a few of them from a test server to a live server and it was the sweetest thing ever :D

I thought of doing 2008 R2 also but ended up with 2012 and glad I did. In another job I did recently 2008 R2 is "required" for the software they were gonna use (it would work on 2012 but not "Certified" and therefore they don't want to troubleshoot it, :( ).

[fusi0n]

I don't really care for 2012 at all... It has the Start Screen and I hate that for a server.. I guess I can install start8.. lol but still.

[PGHammer]

Hyper-v in 2012 now allows live migration to and from NON clustered machines. in 2008 r2 they have to be clustered. This is a HUGE thing which is worth going right to 2012 for. For a small business anything hyper-v is good since it allows them to create a virtual server without having to pay for it.

It has other big features like changing dynamic memory while the machine is running when in 2008 r2 you have to stop the virtual machine .

IIf hyper-v will be used in the future I think starting with 2012 now is a good idea.

If you have Hyper-V in the plans at all, 2012's lack of a clustering requirement is monstrous. Also, I don't know if 2008R2 requires AD for Hyper-V (2012 Standard does not) - not needing clustering is a definite advantage for SMBs.

If you deploy Windows Server as a workstation OS, that is, in fact, another reason to strongly consider Server 2012, as you have literally nothing to do! Unlike any previous version of Windows Server (even 2003R2) Server 2012 sans clustering and Active Directory is a shockingly lean operating system for non-gaming use. The boggle factor for me is that Server 2012 Standard (even with AD, Desktop Experience, and Hyper-V installed) uses fewer (not more) system resources than Windows 8 - how the heck did Microsoft do that?

I don't really care for 2012 at all... It has the Start Screen and I hate that for a server.. I guess I can install start8.. lol but still.

The StartScreen only shows up if you add Desktop Experience - which is an option (as it has been in Windows Server since 2003) - it is NOT the default.

[Roger H. Veteran]

I don't really care for 2012 at all... It has the Start Screen and I hate that for a server.. I guess I can install start8.. lol but still.

Real admins use powershell anyways :p

(teasing, I still suck at using it so yeah, i'm with you on that one).