Windows Server 2012: Up and Running

Chapter 8. Networking

Windows Server 2012 introduces new features in network management that are designed to meet the shift many organizations are undergoing—from traditional LANs/WANs (local and wide area networks) to cloud infrastructures.

Before delving deeper into these new features, it’s important to make the distinction between traditional networking and “the cloud.” A LAN is, essentially, computers behind a firewall that share a physical or wireless link for communicating with one another. In a LAN, servers and applications are deployed onsite and managed by IT. Upgrading a LAN for scalability, more storage, additional systems, or other resources requires action by IT.

With cloud computing, components of an IT infrastructure—such as servers, storage, memory, and network and computing resources—are virtualized within an organization’s private intranet or in a hosted service provider’s network. Cloud computing allows for quicker deployment of infrastructure components as well as unprecedented scalability, and because there is little to no extra hardware investment, it is more cost-effective than managing and upgrading a traditional LAN. In cloud computing, resources are always “on demand.”

There’s a lot of eyebrow raising and snickering about cloud computing being an overhyped marketing catchphrase. While the technology industry has no shortage of hype and annoying marketing terms, cloud computing is not one of them. Cloud computing isn’t composed of new technology. Think about ...