Written by Mary Jo Foley,
On the same day that it delivered its Windows 10 May Update/1903 to mainstream users, Microsoft also made its Server add-in generally available. Windows Server 1903, as of May 21, is ready for download through multiple channels, officials announced today.
Windows Server 1903 is available through the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) for Software Assurance holders. And Visual Studio subscribers can get 1903 by downloading it from the Visual Studio subscriber download page, though builds obtained this way are for development and testing only, not for production use.
Server 1903 is considered a “Semi-Annual Channel” feature update for Windows Server. It includes updates around containers; application compatibility improvements in Server Core; and new features for the GUI-based Windows Admin Center application.
As for containers, Microsoft supports adding Windows Server containers to Kubernetes. Prior to April of this year, Windows Server workloads on Kubernetes were still in preview. (Earlier this month, Microsoft announced https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-the-preview-of-windows-server-containers-support-in-azure-kubernetes-service /, or AKS.)
With Windows Server 1903, Microsoft is also adding GPU acceleration support for Windows containers and various scalability improvements.
On the compatibility front, Microsoft has introduced two feature additions on demand (FOD) intended to improve application compatibility with Server Core, which is the recommended server operating system for production. The two are Task Scheduler and Hyper-V Manager.
Windows Server 1903 documentation is here. Just a reminder: the Semi-Annual Channel releases of Server are container and application focused. They do not support long-term release features such as Storage Spaces Direct, software-defined networking, and shielded virtual machines. Users who need these features should upgrade to a Long Term Servicing Channel release like Windows Server 2019.
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