Microsoft roadmap covers practical and wishful technology

PowerShell is the go-to scripting language to expedite most administrative tasks, and the command line has made many an admin's life easier.

But PowerShell is not for everyone. The learning curve can intimidate some in IT. In other cases, IT shops don't have the volume of servers for this automation tool to be necessary. For those customers, the Microsoft roadmap has an alternative. Project Honolulu, unveiled in September 2017, is a free, GUI-based Windows Server management console.

Project Honolulu enables remote multiple server management for servers both on premises and in the cloud. The browser-based interface offers a simplified Windows Server management console. Instead of jumping to multiple tools to configure or troubleshoot a server, the admin uses Project Honolulu, which features updated versions of Server Manager, Failover Cluster Manager and Hyper-Converged Cluster Manager.

Project Honolulu works with Windows Server 2012 and up. Admins can configure the application to run on a gateway server, which enables them to manage the Windows Server systems through the browsers on Linux or Android.