At Microsoft, we have a tradition of eating our own dog food. That means we begin running portions of our business on new products during the final technical preview period to make sure they are truly ready for general availability for all customers. We were thrilled when the Bing team decided to deploy Windows Server 2016 early. As the second largest search engine in the world, Bing would be an excellent test of product readiness.
Prior to its general availability, the Bing team began rolling Windows Server 2016 to thousands of servers that operate the front end and search functions of Bing. By GA, Windows Server 2016 was helping Bing deliver millions of page visits and search requests with improved performance, increased DevOps agility, and new layers of security.
Sixteen percent reduction in latency for Bing Search
Website visitors hate delays, especially when they are searching for the answer to a question in your search engine. The Bing team knows that any performance improvement, of any size, will deliver a real impact on customer satisfaction. That is one reason why they were in a hurry to roll out Windows Server 2016 and its improved .NET framework. The result was a 16 percent reduction in latency for a Bing search query on the upgraded systems.
Increased DevOps agility thanks to containers
With the introduction of Windows Server containers, the Bing team was anxious to try out the new container technology. They are in the process of moving some custom applications into containers to further streamline the agility of their existing microservices architecture, which allows the Bing team to make changes to one part of the application without affecting related parts.
Protect against cybersecurity attacks
Search engines are a popular target for cybercriminals. With Windows Server 2016, the Bing team has added a new defense in its security arsenal. By using Control Flow Guard, they can guard against unknown vulnerabilities by helping prevent memory corruption attacks on their servers.
To learn more, visit our website and read more Windows Server 2016 customer stories.