CAMPBELL, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Mirantis, enabling developers to create their most valuable code, today announced updates to Mirantis Container Runtime that add support for Windows Server 2022, as well as Mirantis Secure Registry with support for Synopsys scanner and improved command line logging.

“By supporting Windows Server 2022 for our runtime container and secure registry, we are ensuring that our customers can continue to include security as an integral part of the application development and lifecycle management process. – not an afterthought,” said Shaun O’Meara, chief technology officer in the field. Officer, Mirantis. “Together, these products provide a highly secure software supply chain platform that allows customers to have confidence in the security status of their container ecosystem.”

Mirantis Container Runtime (MCR), which enables and manages the components required to run containers, adds support for Windows 2022 due to popular demand. The industry-leading, high-level runtime at the heart of Mirantis Kubernetes Engine can efficiently run Swarm and Kubernetes containers on any substrate. It is based on containerd, the core container runtime from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

Mirantis Secure Registry (MSR) provides an upgrade of the built-in Synopsys scanner to version 2022.6.0 and improves command line logging. MSR automates software supply chain security by checking for the latest known vulnerabilities to securely store, share and manage images in private container registries and integrates with CI/CD to help speed up testing and the delivery of secure applications. Users have the choice of scanning manually or automatically on a scheduled basis.

Free trial software for MCR and MSR are available for download.

About Mirantis

Mirantis helps organizations ship code faster across public and private clouds, increasing developer productivity by removing the stress of infrastructure management. The company combines AIOps and cloud native expertise to provide a ZeroOps approach to managing and operating Kubernetes and cloud environments. Mirantis delivers a public cloud experience on any infrastructure, from data center to edge, with a consistent cloud experience for complete application portability and DevOps, single window, and automated full lifecycle management, all based on open source.

Mirantis serves many large global enterprises, including Adobe, DocuSign, Inmarsat, Nationwide Insurance, PayPal, Reliance Jio, Societe Generale, Splunk, and S&P Global. Learn more at www.mirantis.com.

Microsoft announced a major update to its Windows Server licensing program, which was prompted in part by threats of legal action from the European Union.

The most notable change is the addition of Windows Server licensing option based on virtual cores in addition to the current option to pay based on the number of physical CPU cores in host machines.

“Today, Windows Server is licensed per physical core, which means customers must have access to physical server hardware to ensure they have enough Windows Server licenses to cover all of the physical cores in the machine,” wrote Nicole Dezen, director of partners at Microsoft. in a blog post.

“With the virtual core licensing option, customers can choose to license Windows Server based on the number of virtual cores they use in virtual machines, making it easier to license Windows Server when virtualization or outsourcing.”

The changes apply only to customers with a Software Assurance license, a license paid in addition to Microsoft’s software license costs, to spread payments over multiple years and include updates and upgrades.

There are quite a few changes. The main one is licensing Windows Server based on a virtual kernel. In this model, customers can purchase licenses only for the virtual cores they need (with a minimum per VM), without being tied to a physical number of cores on the server.

Software Assurance licensees can move Windows Server workloads to Azure VMs and apply their physical core licenses to virtual cores in a “contractor infrastructure”.

The new licensing schedule adds flexible virtualization, which allows customers to migrate on-premises software to “any cloud provider infrastructure, dedicated or shared.”

Virtual Desktop Application (VDA) add-on licenses for Windows 10 and 11 are being removed, but only for Microsoft 365 F3, Microsoft 365 E3, and Microsoft 365 E5 users who “do not have a primary Windows Pro device.”

One- and three-year subscription options are available for many products, including Windows Server, Remote Desktop Services (RDS), and SQL Server, “through partners in the Cloud Solution Provider program, to provide price stability with long-term subscriptions”.

There’s a big caveat to this: Microsoft will allow users to migrate from on-premises Windows Server to the cloud, with the exception of what Microsoft calls listed vendors. These include Alibaba, Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft (conspicuously absent: IBM and Oracle). Needless to say, the listed parties didn’t take the news very well.

Microsoft says the target is clouds managed by Microsoft’s partner community and the goal is to help virtualize outsourcing. Microsoft says this change will help cloud providers attract customers with legacy Windows Server workloads by allowing them to move those workloads from on-premises servers to the cloud.

“It’s definitely a step in the right direction and will alleviate some of the near-term pressure that Microsoft is facing in Europe,” said Greg Macatee, senior research analyst for infrastructure systems, platforms. and technologies at IDC. “To the extent that smaller CSPs are able to compete better, this should, at the very least, have an indirect effect on supporting Microsoft’s ‘ecosystem’ game by helping to retain and potentially adding more customers in its network of partners.”

Microsoft said the changes are effective “worldwide.” It is not by chance that Denzen announced it, she has just joined Microsoft at the head of the partner program. But the reason for the change is that European FSCs complained to the EU that Microsoft’s software licensing programs were unfair.

If there’s one thing Microsoft doesn’t want, it’s another go-around with the EU antitrust group. Last May, Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a blog post, “We will make Windows Server licensing for virtual and cloud environments easier than ever by relaxing the licensing rules that reflect legacy software licensing practices, where licenses are tied to physical hardware. .”

The change gets the EU off its back, but it also benefits customers, says Macatee. “Generally speaking, it’s beneficial in terms of simplifying the pricing structure of Windows Server products, especially for customers with more complex hybrid computing environments,” he said.

He adds that there are more advantages throughout Europe, where there is greater fragmentation of the CSP market than in North America. “Time will tell to what extent customers directly benefit from this benefit, but we see more benefits than not,” Macatee said.

Microsoft’s networking team has changed the way network interface cards (NICs) are certified for use in Windows Server.

As team member Dan Cuomo explained, since the days of Windows Server 2008, Microsoft has certified network adapters “based on adapter link speed, which means that any 10Gb adapter /s or higher had additional requirements (Microsoft testing) placed on it, regardless of the intended use of the adapter (as designed by the manufacturer).

This approach meant that some network card vendors would test speed, not actual performance. Yet servers are now being asked to do all sorts of I/O-intensive tasks, like driving Microsoft’s Storage Spaces Direct software-defined storage product, which is increasingly used in hyperconverged infrastructures.

Raw speed isn’t an indicator of how well a network card is working on a server that’s essentially being asked to act as a shared storage array, according to Microsoft. Microsoft’s old certifications therefore left customers unaware of the scenarios a network card might struggle to handle.

Microsoft realized that its approach of assuming that a faster network adapter is a better network adapter was inappropriate after the launch of Windows Server 2022.

Cuomo said the arrival of the operating system has seen “an increasing number of support cases which have resulted in the frustrating ‘unsupported’ support request despite the device being certified”.

Microsoft’s answer is a NIC certification scheme that rates performance based on a device’s ability to perform in three roles:

• Calculation traffic: Traffic originating from or destined for a virtual machine (VM).
• Storage traffic: Traffic using Server Message Block (SMB), for example, Storage Spaces Direct or SMB-based live migration.
• Management traffic: Traffic to or from outside the local cluster. For example, Storage Replica traffic or traffic used by the administrator for cluster management such as Remote Desktop, Windows Admin Center, Active Directory, etc.

The new certification scheme does not associate network adapters with Microsoft products or applications.

“This change is intended to end the perilous phrase ‘I’m sorry, but your configuration is not supported,'” Cuomo wrote. “We’ve heard your comments about the frustration of calling support with a certified device only to find out that the adapter can’t be supported the way you’re using it.”

Not all network adapters will be certified to meet any of Microsoft’s roles. In this case, Cuomo said it might still be acceptable to support an app that has a different traffic profile. ®

Microsoft has released a new version of Windows Server Insider Preview. Build 25192 is available for download as an ISO from the Windows Server Insider website along with a VHDX. Even though this uses the same underlying kernel as the development of the Windows 11 dev build, as usual, there’s no changelog to speak of, so it’s unclear what’s going on. is new in this version.

The Server brand has still not been updated and remains Windows Server 2022 in preview. Additionally, Microsoft is asking Insiders to refer to these builds as vNext rather than Windows Server 2022 which is already in the market.

There is only one known issue with this release that applies to the desktop experience:

In this release, the Windows taskbar has a known issue where it can get out of sync with visible windows on the desktop. If you encounter this problem, you can try using Alt-Tab to work around the problem and navigate through open windows. Restarting the system will put the taskbar back in sync, although the issue may reoccur after some time.

Downloads available:

• Overview of Windows Server VNext in ISO format in 18 languages,
  and in VHDX format in English only.
• Windows Server Preview VNext VHDX
• Overview of Microsoft Server languages ​​and optional features
• Windows 2110.2 Admin Center Preview

Keys are only valid for preview builds:

• Server Standard: MFY9F-XBN2F-TYFMP-CCV49-RMYVH
• Data center: 2KNJJ-33Y9H-2GXGX-KMQWH-G6H67

To download, registered Insiders can visit the Windows Server Insider Preview download page here. You can also visit the Getting started with the server page here on the Windows Insider portal for business to register for the Windows Insider program if you are not already registered.

The expiration date for this release has been updated to expire September 15, 2023.

Microsoft also asks server administrators to also review Windows Server vNext Datacenter: Azure Edition on the Microsoft Server Operating Systems Preview offering on Azure. For more information, you can see the following link for Azure Automanage on Microsoft Docs.

You can download the ISO or VHDX here, and the official announcement here.