There's a laundry list of features and capabilities I haven't even touched on in this piece, simply because they've not been exposed to the light of day yet. Suffice it to say, Windows Server 8 changes everything -- assuming all of the changes remain in the final build of the OS. It takes the operating system an order of magnitude higher than it's been before and makes data centers fully ready for lights-out management, easy scalability and agile provisioning and support.

Time will tell, but this could well be the operating system against which everyone else is judged.

Jonathan Hassell is an author, consultant and speaker on a variety of IT topics. His published works include a variety of books on Windows clients and servers, including . You can reach Jon at jhassell@sunvalleygp.com or follow him on Twitter at .