Microsoft teases web-based Windows Server management console Microsoft's Ignite gabfest kicks off in a fortnight and Redmond will use it to show off a shiny new Windows Server admin GUI that includes tools previously only available in PowerShell. Project “Honolulu”, as the tool is known for now, appears to address two issues for Microsoft. One is that it says Windows Server users say “ …
There are also single complex tasks which are a pain to administer with command line tools. One tool doesn't exclude the other. There are some relatively simple repetitive tasks that are better handled using command line applications and scripts, and some not repetitive, but complex one that are better handled in a GUI where you can see all the relevant information at once in proper controls instead of a scrolling terminal, and minimize errors giving immediate visible feedback.
Greybeards Linux admins are used to a very simple system (for example, user management in Linux, is much more limited and thereby simpler than in Active Directory) which may often manageable with command line tools, albeit some scripts may soon become very ugly and require very, very long command lines with all the risks involved - especially parsing all the parameters. Mismatch a quote or the like, and big trouble arises - that's an issue with PowerShell too - GUI application would work better if they used the underlying API directly. And the real issue is often that *nix really lacks a system API - you really need the command tools to manage many subsystems because in the old times the concept of a system API - maybe language-neutral, was still to come... let's keep our heads well stuck in the 1970s. Linux bird should be an ostrich, not a penguin.
"And the real issue is often that *nix really lacks a system API - you really need the command tools to manage many subsystems because in the old times the concept of a system API - maybe language-neutral, was still to come... let's keep our heads well stuck in the 1970s"
BOO! [downvote icon, because, THIS]
the 'unix principle', i.e. "do one thing and do it well" and its plethora of utility functions simply means that you can wrap this kind of stuff in a SHELL SCRIPT [you don't need a bloated WEB-BASED ADMIN SCREEN, ok?]
"stuck in the 1970s" <-- computers are still using electricity to run them, must be 'stuck in the 70s'
And it seems to me, you haven't seen [the CLUSTER-FEEL known as] systemd, NOR have you read Arthur C. Clarke's Superiority.
I think an examination of both of these might act like a cluebat...
Greybeards Linux admins are used to a very simple system (for example, user management in Linux, is much more limited and thereby simpler than in Active Directory)
So, let me get this straight, you compare "local user management" on Linux NOT with "local user management" on Windows, much more limited than on Linux (BTW), BUT with Active Directory ?
Listen, smart Arse, guess what LDAP means, where it comes from ... YES, UNIX had DAP BEFORE Windows had TCP/IP. BTW, Linux had LDAP authentication years before Novell ported a variant to Windows.
'nuff said, you n00b!
Next, I hear you already thinking of Kerberos ? ROFL
"Greybeards Linux admins are used to a very simple system (for example, user management in Linux, is much more limited and thereby simpler than in Active Directory)"
You mean we can get the same usability on Linux without the complexity of the Active Directory GUI. Which also explains why there is a small ecosystem in third party admin tools to admin the admin tools in Active Directory
"in the old times the concept of a system API - maybe language-neutral, was still to come... let's keep our heads well stuck in the 1970s. Linux bird should be an ostrich, not a penguin."
Yes, your FUD does indeed come from the 1970s ..
Please enable a particular feature for all users within a particular OU that are not contained in their own group and who don't have a mailbox, or find all things created after a certain date that don't begin with the word "OLD".
By the same token, random selection - like manually picking out "those people who are going to work in that building we just built", which involves moving people/computers into OU that didn't exist before - is MUCH easier done on a GUI than a CLI.
Though possible with both, it very much depends how well the interface was written and whether or not it was created with such specifics in mind.
GUI's are good for lots.
CLI's are good for lots.
Choosing one over the other as a global default is usually a mistake and always results in loss of flexibility even if - technically - one could sit there and press buttons / select boxes manually to achieve the same.
Arriving in 2018, can't wait to see it because no other server product has ever had one of those before during the past couple of decades......
"Linux bird should be an ostrich, not a penguin."
Yeah, yeah, all these Linux hippies are stuck in the 70s as you say, now that Windows server's getting a web basef management console in 2018 - 38 years after the 1970s. Be glad you posted as an Anonymous Coward after your assertion that the real reason that Unix is "difficult to manage" is that it lacks a system API. Still, that provided a good belly laugh to start the week off.....
"See historical and real-time performance charts for cluster-wide CPU/memory/network usage and storage IOPS, throughput, and latency, then drill in to see metrics for individual VMs, volumes, and drives."
Surely there's lots of tools that do that already, though?
I use ServerInternals (www.serverinternals.co.uk) because I can customise what it displays, but there's lots out there.
I'd like a button to export the configuration from one server as a text file (like Puppet etc.), then import it into another server. Far better than our current approach of trying to play spot-the-difference between two servers, where one is behaving and the other is not.
Why do I feel like this is just going to result in having to go 3 places to set things up in Windows server instead of the current 2. First Windows Server required using GUI tools, then they added PowerShell commands for SOME but not all functions. AND some settings are now ONLY accessible through PowerShell. Now they're adding a HTML GUI, that only supports a subset of functions.
I wish they'd at least finish ONE of those interfaces before building another one.
That's the whole problem with the Windows paradigm. With it's endless click-boxes and sub-sub-menu-control-panels. You have to pay someone or else sit there telling the computer what to do. and yet again, you have to buy a load of 'stuff' to get the computer to do anything useful. Anyone remember BizTalk Server and 'snapins' ..
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