Programming Analytics

If you’re like me, your network probably still has a mix of Windows XP and 7 desktops, plus some Server 2003 and Server 2008 machines.  Toss in a few Macs and some Linux servers, and you’ve got a nice enterprise flavor.

Bet you didn’t know that SMB2 isn’t just a rebranded version of Doki Doki Panic. Microsoft released a revision of their core networking protocol, Server Message Block, around about the time Vista made its appearance.  The original Server Message Block was an extension to NetBEUI (yeah, you used to manage coaxial networks back in the early ’90s, right?) that gradually got migrated up through the years.  It got renamed NetBIOS, then SMB, then CIFS, then … heck, I can’t keep track of it all.

Anyways, the point is, Microsoft revised SMB and the new version is faster.  It works better with TCP/IP.  However, it’s not cross compatible: you need to have both a server and a client that support SMB2.  As you all know, Windows Server 2008 = Vista for Servers and Windows Server 2008 R2 = Windows 7 for Servers; this means if you have Vista and above on your desktops and Server 2008 and above on your servers, you’re getting the performance boost.

If you don’t yet have Vista/2008 and above, you might want to begin the migration process to move your key machines over to the latest version.

Of course, if you’re clever and run everything on Linux, just update Samba and you’re done ;)