Microsoft Servers (previously called Windows Server System) is a discontinued brand that encompasses

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

software products for

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

computers. This includes the

Windows Server Windows Server (formerly Windows NT Server) is a group of operating systems (OS) for servers that Microsoft has been developing since July 27, 1993. The first OS that was released for this platform was Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server. With the r ...

editions of the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

, as well as products targeted at the wider business market. Microsoft has since replaced this brand with

Microsoft Azure Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure ( , ), is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft for application management via around the world-distributed data centers. Microsoft Azure has multiple capabilities such as software as a ...

, Microsoft 365 and Windows 365.

Servers

Operating system

The Windows Server family of operating systems consists of Windows operating systems developed and licensed for use on server computers. This family started with

Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...

, for which Microsoft released a major upgrade every four years and a minor upgrade every two years following a major release. This family has branded members too, such as Windows Home Server, Windows HPC Server and Windows MultiPoint Server.

Windows components

The following products are shipped as Windows component, as opposed to standalone products. *

Internet Information Services Internet Information Services (IIS-pronounced 2S, formerly Internet Information Server) is an extensible web server software created by Microsoft for use with the Windows NT family. IIS supports HTTP, HTTP/2, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP and NN ...

(IIS):

Web server A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initia ...

, FTP server and basic email server * Hyper-V: Bare-metal hypervisor *

Windows Services for UNIX Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) is a discontinued software package produced by Microsoft which provided a Unix environment on Windows NT and some of its immediate successor operating-systems. SFU 1.0 and 2.0 used the MKS Toolkit; starting wi ...

Windows Server Update Services Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), previously known as Software Update Services (SUS), is a computer program and network service developed by Microsoft Corporation that enables administrators to manage the distribution of updates and h ...

Productivity

Some of the products included in the Windows Server System product branding are designed specifically for interaction with

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...

. These include: *

BizTalk Server Microsoft BizTalk Server is an inter-organizational middleware system (IOMS) that automates business processes through the use of ''adapters'' which are tailored to communicate with different software systems used in an enterprise. Created by M ...

: Business process design and integration tools *

Exchange Server Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems. The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0, to position it as the successor to the related ...

E-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

and

collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...

server * Host Integration Server: Data and management connector between Windows environments and mainframe and midrange platforms such as

IBM i IBM i (the ''i'' standing for ''integrated'') is an operating system developed by IBM for IBM Power Systems. It was originally released in 1988 as OS/400, as the sole operating system of the IBM AS/400 line of systems. It was renamed to i5/OS i ...

. Formerly known as Microsoft SNA Server * Project Server: Project management and resource allocation services; works as the server component to

Microsoft Project Microsoft Project is a project management software product, developed and sold by Microsoft. It is designed to assist a project manager in developing a schedule, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and anal ...

SharePoint Server SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable and its usage v ...

: Produces sites intended for collaboration, file sharing, web databases, social networking and web publishing. *

Skype for Business Server Skype for Business Server (formerly Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Lync Server) is real-time communications server software that provides the infrastructure for enterprise instant messaging, presence, VoIP, ad hoc and st ...

Instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and tri ...

and presence server, integration with telephone PBX systems. Integrates with Skype for Business. * SQL Server: Relational Database Management and

business intelligence Business intelligence (BI) comprises the strategies and technologies used by enterprises for the data analysis and management of business information. Common functions of business intelligence technologies include reporting, online analytical ...

server

Security

Exchange Online Protection Exchange Online Protection (EOP, formerly Forefront Online Protection for Exchange or FOPE) is a hosted e-mail security service, owned by Microsoft, that filters spam and removes computer viruses from e-mail messages. The service does not require ...

* Identity Integration Server – Identity management product

Microsoft System Center

Microsoft System Center, a set of server products, aims specifically at helping corporate

system administrator A system administrator, or sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administrator seeks to en ...

s manage a network of Windows Server and client desktop systems. *

System Center Advisor Microsoft System Center Advisor (SCA; formerly Codename Atlanta), is a commercial software as a service offering from Microsoft Corporation that helps change or assess the configuration of Microsoft Servers software over the Internet. It is part o ...

: Software-as-a-service offering that helps change or assess the configuration of Microsoft Servers software over the Internet * System Center App Controller: Unified management for public and private clouds, including cloud-based virtual machines and services *System Center Capacity Planner Provides purchasing and best-practice capacity planning guidance * Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager: Configuration management, asset management, patch deployment tools for Windows desktops (previously Systems Management Server); includes Software Center. * System Center Data Protection Manager:

Continuous data protection Continuous data protection (CDP), also called continuous backup or real-time backup, refers to backup of computer data by automatically saving a copy of every change made to that data, essentially capturing every version of the data that the user ...

and

data recovery In computing, data recovery is a process of retrieving deleted, inaccessible, lost, corrupted, damaged, or formatted data from secondary storage, removable media or files, when the data stored in them cannot be accessed in a usual way. The dat ...

* System Center Endpoint Protection: Anti-malware and security tools for Microsoft products * System Center Essentials: Combined features of Operations Manager and Windows Software Update Services (WSUS), aimed at small and medium-sized

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." Having a business name does not separ ...

es * System Center Orchestrator (formerly Opalis): An automation platform for orchestrating and integrating administrative tools to decrease the cost of datacenter operations while improving the reliability of IT processes. It enables organizations to automate best practices, such as those found in Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and

ITIL The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of detailed practices for IT activities such as IT service management (ITSM) and IT asset management (ITAM) that focus on aligning IT services with the needs of business. ITIL de ...

. Orchestrator operates through workflow processes that coordinate System Center and other management tools to automate incident response, change and compliance, and service-lifecycle management processes. *

System Center Operations Manager System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) is a cross-platform data center monitoring system for operating systems and hypervisors. It uses a single interface that shows state, health, and performance information of computer systems. It also prov ...

: Services and application monitoring * System Center Service Manager: Ties in with SCOM, SCCM for asset tracking as well as incident, problem, change and configuration management (code name: Service Desk) * System Center Virtual Machine Manager: Virtual-machine management and datacenter virtualization

Discontinued server products

* Microsoft Application Center: Deployment of web applications across multiple servers. Some of its capabilities are now in System Center. * Commerce Server:

E-Commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manag ...

portal ** Site Server (replaced by Commerce Server) *** Merchant Server (replaced by Microsoft Site Server) * Content Management Server:

Web site A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and W ...

content management Content management (CM) is a set of processes and technologies that supports the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. When stored and accessed via computers, this information may be more specifically referre ...

and publishing. Merged into

Microsoft SharePoint Server SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable and its usage ...

. *

Forefront ForeFront Records is a contemporary Christian music and Christian rock record label founded in 1987 by Dan R. Brock, Eddie DeGarmo, Dana Key, and Ron W. Griffin. It was purchased by EMI in 1996 from Dan R. Brock and Eddie DeGarmo, and is a divis ...

: Comprehensive line of business security products ** Threat Management Gateway:

Firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spre ...

routing Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic in a network or between or across multiple networks. Broadly, routing is performed in many types of networks, including circuit-switched networks, such as the public switched telephone netw ...

, VPN and web caching server, formerly known as Microsoft ISA Server or Microsoft Proxy Server in its earlier iterations ***Microsoft Proxy Server (replaced by Forefront Threat Management Gateway) ** Protection for Exchange Server ** Protection for SharePoint Server ** Unified Access Gateway ** Identity Manager * Forms Server: Server-based electronic forms * Groove Server: Collaboration server; works in conjunction with

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace Microsoft SharePoint Workspace (formerly Microsoft Office Groove) is a discontinued desktop application designed for document collaboration in teams with members who are regularly off-line or who do not share the same network security clearance. ...

* PerformancePoint Server: Business performance management server * Project Portfolio Server *

Search Server Microsoft Search Server (MSS) was an enterprise search platform from Microsoft, based on the search capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. MSS shared its architectural underpinnings with the Windows Search platform for both the queryi ...

* Microsoft SNA Server (replaced by Host Integration Server) * Speech Server: Speech applications for automated telephone systems, including voice recognition * Virtual Server: Platform virtualization of operating systems

References

{{Microsoft Servers Servers