Security impact

IT security is no longer just about protecting your computers and minimizing potential downtime and lost productivity. It's about protecting your valuable business data, your customers' personal details, and your company's reputation. We saw the headlines in the last couple of years about online attacks and credit card numbers being stolen. There was a 40% increase in the number of large companies targeted by cyber-attacks in 2014, as criminals hijack infrastructures and attack from within, according to the largest cybersecurity companies research; a cyberattack has even caused confirmed physical damage for the second time ever. As an example, a hacker was able to remotely control a vehicle and shut it down. Security has become a number one priority in every firm today.

We can no longer afford the security risks of the install everything, everywhere approach.

Basically, having a large server installation that has a lot of things installed, that you don't necessarily really need, opens you up to more of these attacks. The less you have installed on your server, the less ports you have to open. This in turn reduces the ways a hacker can try to attack your systems. So that's really sort of the area that Microsoft took the lead on and created the genesis of Nano Server.