At a recent media briefing in Singapore, David Lowe, senior product manager, Windows Server, Microsoft, cited interoperability with Unix as one of the key features of Windows Server 2003 R2.

R2 is built on the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and is geared towards specific workloads such as storage management, branch office server management, as well as identity and access management. It also provides a subsystem which supports Posix applications.

Posix is a set of open system standards based on Unix. According to Lowe, the subsystem will run separately from the Windows kernel, allowing applications to run natively on the hardware. This means no changes will have to be made to the code, and users can leverage on their existing IT investments and Unix development skills.

To manage the applications, R2 will provide shells ' a command language interpreter ' to run Unix scripts and Telnet clients. On the tools front, Visual Studio will provide a debugger for Posix applications. These developments will make it easier for users to migrate Unix applications to Windows, said Lowe.

In the area of storage management, R2 will provide support for the Network File System (NFS) that is native to Unix. NFS provides remote access to shared file systems across networks, and the latest development in R2 enables it to connect to Windows using native protocols, allowing Windows users to access file shares on Unix.