Installing Project Server has never been a pleasant task with numerous prerequisite steps and downloads as well as server tweaks and configurations. With the introduction of 2010, Microsoft removed dozens of small tedious tasks from the process providing a much more streamlined and automated installation experience. A Project Server implementer's life gets markedly better in 2010.
One very major difference between installing Project Server 2007 and Project Server 2010, is that the automated installation routine now performs most of the server prerequisite configuration and component gathering and implementation for you. You heard that right, provided that you have an available Internet connection the new Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2010 Preparation Tool not only configures the application server for you, it reaches out to Microsoft download sites to gather all of the additional software bits you previously needed to hunt down yourself, and then it installs them for you. Included are such things as the appropriate version of the .NET Framework, PowerShell, the new Geneva Framework, OCS and SQL components from the feature pack to name only a few of the chores removed from the implementer's plate.
The second big change to the Project Server 2010 installation is that Project Server now slips into the SharePoint envelope as a service. To me, this marks the completion of the major SharePoint integration journey that began with the introduction of Project Server 2002. During the 2002/2003 years, Project Server and SharePoint started dating, by the time 2007 rolled out dating turned into living together and with the 2010 release, Project Server and SharePoint server are officially married. Once you run the SharePoint configuration wizard for your Project Server/SharePoint Server installation, you now manage Project Server and Project Server 2010 sites just like you'd manage any other SharePoint application. You no longer need a shoehorn for the process and gone are Shared Service Providers as a more streamlined management experience emerges as well!
One of the most significant impacts of this arrangement is that all Project Server reporting is now handled by Excel Services in SharePoint Server. In fact, it seems likely that the desire to leverage this powerful facility, offered only with the SharePoint Enterprise SKU, is the driving factor behind the inter-SKU dependency. While the Project Server installation is now a relative cinch, Project Server implementers and administrators now need to be much more conversant with managing SharePoint than ever before, and must now become very competent with the new version of Excel Services, which underlies all Project Server reporting capabilities.
Finally, one last major change for Project Server implementers and administrators is the new integration with Exchange Server to synchronize Project Server tasks with tasks in Outlook. By eliminating the Outlook add-in, Microsoft is removing one of the banes of an administrator's existence trying to keep it working out in desktop world. From the continuously annoying active-X installation failures to other strange behaviors in deployment, I doubt many will be sad to see this one go. Configuring the new integration with Exchange could best be described as similar to the chore of configuring Active Directory sync for the first time, and similar in its requirements for administrative attention as well.
Expect to be pleasantly surprised when you tackle your first installation of SharePoint Server 2010 and Project Server 2010.