Why do some technologies become widely adopted and others are seemingly abandoned – often without any real testing. What do I mean by abandoned technologies?
Things like Server Core for instance. And I suspect that nano server and even containers on windows will follow and become abandoned technologies.
Server Core first appeared in Windows Server 2008! In nearly 10 years of existence how many organisations are utilising Server core to its full potential. Very few in my experience. I suspect many, if not most organisations, don’t use it at all.
Nano server was introduced with Server 2016. Its totally headless and very small footprint. You can pack 100s of them onto a 64GB host. Nano server supports a limited number of roles but if you need a small footprint server to host a web site, host VMs or containers or act as a file server for instance its ideal.
The last thing I suspect may join my list of abandoned technologies is Windows Containers. Again, introduced with Server 2016 containers offer a lightweight route to running your applications. With the ability to easily move containers between machines deployments from development to testing and production become much simpler.
So, why do I think these are abandoned technologies or will become abandoned technologies.
The reason is that the majority of windows administrators don’t want to adopt these technologies. They either actively block them or passively ignore them.
Why does this happen? Look at the three technologies again – none of them have a GUI interface! Until Windows administrators fully embrace remote, automated administration techniques they will remain abandoned technologies.
The day of administrators who can’t, or won’t, automate is ending – slowly but surely the pressures to move to a more automated environment are growing. Maybe it’’ happen soon enough that server core, nano server and windows containers will stop being abandoned technologies.