Nano Server’s main feature is its small size. It lacks the capabilities of a standard server, including those that are required to support a graphical user interface.
We described Nano Server last year in a post before Windows Server 2016 was officially released. It is an “headless” operating platform. It was designed to work in highly-virtualized cloud environments. It is ideal for applications such as file servers, high availability clusters, and application servers. If you find any of these concepts confusing, take our Windows Server training.
Nano Server is a design that Microsoft calls the “born in cloud” computing future. Microsoft, for example, has dropped 32-bit support for Nano Server because they believe 64-bit server architectures will be the standard. Windows Server Core can still be used to run legacy enterprise apps until they are replaced with cloud-ready apps or converted to them.
It all starts with size — or lack thereof!
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You’ll soon see why Nano Server is so popular. Nano Server’s small size makes it affordable, easy to deploy and operate, and has a low security profile. Let’s look at these reasons in greater detail.
1. Each physical box contains more than one.
Nano Server is only one-tenth the size of full-featured Windows Servers. It is even smaller than the GUIless Server Core, which was released with Windows Server 2008.
The super-slim Nano Server means that you will not only need less memory per virtual machine, but also less disk space. You can fit more virtual servers onto each physical server box, and more storage space for your data.
Despite the amazing cost performance of server devices, each physical box you stack in a data centre costs you money for space and power as well as management. You’ll get more bang for your bucks if you reduce your boxes by 30, 40, 50, or more.
2. It is much faster to deploy, and takes less down-time
Nano Server is intended to be used in a cloud network environment. Nano Server is much faster to install and configure on the host server because of its small footprint.
The Nano Server lovefest does not end there. Microsoft has removed 90 percent of the legacy code in the Windows Server. This should result in fewer bugs. This will result in fewer updates that are required, which means fewer reboots, unscheduled downtime, and service disruptions. Anthony Sequeira, SPOTO’s own network expert, explained in a Network World article last January that a full GUI version Windows Server required almost four times as many reboots and more than ten times the amount of patches as Nano Server.
Nano Server promises that you will need fewer reboots. Also, because Nano Server is small, each reboot will take less time and result in better SLAs.
3. Hackers are a smaller, more difficult target
Nano Server’s small size makes it a more difficult target for bad guys to attack. Microsoft informs us that they expect Nano Server will have fewer security bulletins, critical patches, and therefore fewer out-of hours emergency drills for your DevOps staff.
Overall, Nano Server is an important part of Microsoft’s strategy for providing a more secure environment for cloud apps.
Wrapp
