Microsoft has announced Nano Server, a new slimmed down mode for Windows Server, designed for containerized applications and virtualized environments. 

The new “refactored” Nano version is designed for cloud applications and cloud infrastructure in a DevOps environment. Nano servers will require minimal patching and maintenance, and support containerized software. The rebuild goes beyond the previous reduced Windows Server option, Windows Core, offering an operating system with no GUI, no 32 bit support and no remote desktop support. 

Only for DevOps shops

The refactoring comes with a promise that the new version of the operating system will need far fewer patches, running reliably with only remote management, DatacenterDynamics found in a conversation with Mike Neil, Microsoft’s general manager for Windows Server.

The Nano version is intended for large sites which have shifted to a DevOps model, in which applications are shipped from development to production inside lightweight containers. 

To this end, Microsoft is supporting a fork of Docker which supports Windows, and is offering its own containerization option hosted on its Hyper-V hypervisor. 

The result is an operating system designed for software defined data centers, that is intended to run in a much more automatic mode, intended to head off open source contenders such as CoreOS.