With Windows Server 2008 R2 reaching the end of extended support in January 2020, it’s time to start planning your upgrades. Windows Server 2019 will be available in the second half of this year, along with System Center 2019, and Microsoft is just starting to talk about the new features it will bring.
Some of these features are already in the faster “Semi Annual Channel” version of Windows Server 2016. These include Windows Subsystem for Linux which allows you to run the same Linux scripts and utilities from a server Windows, much smaller images for Server Core, improved Kubernetes container orchestration support, and Hyper-V isolation for Linux containers. Others are logical progressions from key Server 2016 features, such as support for shielded VMs with limited admin access for Linux VMs.
But Windows Server 2019 also adds new options for hyperconverged infrastructure and cluster management that fit well with current data center trends.
“HCI will have continued improvements to scale (a feature called Cluster Sets that allows you to create a cluster of clusters, resulting in large hyperconverged clusters), increased resilience to hardware failures, diagnostic capability, monitoring of health, performance (within and across converged hyper-nodes), management, persistent memory support, etc,” a Microsoft spokesperson told us.
Cluster sets group together multiple failover clusters, whether they are compute, storage, or hyperconverged clusters. With cluster sets, resources such as virtual machines are not part of their individual cluster but belong to a cluster of clusters. This means you can scale to a much larger number of nodes and still get the benefits of a single cluster (like live VM migration and a single storage namespace) without the fragility of a single cluster. single giant cluster. This makes the fabric more reliable and scalable.
The ability to encrypt network segments to protect the network layer between servers will also be of interest to larger data center operators, a Microsoft spokesperson suggested. “SDN encryption allows you to encrypt subnet traffic, which is very useful in multi-tenant environments with multiple virtual networks,” they explained, noting that it doesn’t require special networking hardware.
While cluster sets will appeal to larger enterprise data centers, Windows Server 2019’s new remote server management application, codenamed Project Honolulu, will bring the benefits of HCI to much larger setups. small. As Siddhartha Roy of the Windows Server team explained to Data Center Knowledge last year when announcing the new management tool, software-defined data centers have already required significant investments in hardware and software.
“We are very aware that for these smaller footprints, for the two to four node segment, we need a software-defined, lightweight, do-it-yourself data center user experience,” Roy said. “We see the need for a more self-managed solution aimed at someone who is more of an IT generalist.”
hybrid cloud
The Honolulu project has a web interface, but doesn’t require a connection to Azure like the web management tools for Server Core and Nano Server did without a GUI if you wanted to use something other than PowerShell. It’s designed to manage a single cluster, manages Windows and Windows Server instances running on physical or virtual machines on any hypervisor or cloud, and covers everything from certificates to Windows Update. But it’s especially useful for provisioning and managing hyperconverged clusters, down to real-time CPU, memory, new utilization, and storage IOPS on the cluster and on individual VMs and volumes.
The ability to authenticate directly to Azure Active Directory from Windows Server 2019 (like Windows 10 already can) unlocks hybrid cloud scenarios, like using Azure Site Recovery, Backup, and File Sync directly with individual servers using Project Honolulu. (So far this seems to be Azure services only rather than supporting multiple clouds, but Microsoft tells us you’ll be able to integrate Update Management for Operations Management Suite, which can also monitor systems running on different clouds.)
Windows Server 2019 also includes the client for the Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection cloud service, so you can monitor servers for the type of behavior that indicates an attacker has broken in, as well as Exploit Guard checks to lock down devices against lateral movement, ransomware, data exfiltration and vulnerability exploits.
Combine this Azure integration with HCI support, and it’s clear that Azure Stack isn’t the only option Microsoft offers for hybrid cloud and edge computing.
Windows Server and its Storage Spaces Direct software-defined storage (especially on pre-certified Windows Server software-defined hardware configurations that save you months of integration testing) and their potential for hybrid cloud go a long way part why Gartner now includes software options in its hyperconverged infrastructure Magic Quadrant.
Infrastructure planning
WSL and Shielded Linux VMs can allow some organizations to consolidate infrastructure, as you will no longer need duplicate systems to manage Windows Server and Linux workloads (“Hardware Requirements for Shielded VMs in Windows Server 2019 remains unchanged” from support for Windows Shielded Virtual Machines in Windows Server 2016, the Microsoft spokesperson told us). There has been speculation about possible changes to Remote Desktop Services; Remote Desktop Session Host is not in the first preview build and appears to be moving to Windows client. This might simplify the VDI infrastructure, assuming the session host doesn’t reappear in later releases.
If you’ve been waiting for an R2 build of Windows Server 2016, remember that server builds don’t work that way anymore. Instead, there’s a new Long-Term Servicing Channel release every two to three years (which gets five years of General Support, five years of Extended Support, and – if you pay for it – six years of Premium insurance). During these two to three years, Microsoft will test and debug key new features in the Semi-Annual Channel releases that come out every six months. These get 18 months of production support, require Software Assurance, are intended for faster workloads like software-defined networking and containers, and don’t have a GUI of any kind. office.
If you want advanced experience with new Windows Server features in your data center and you have suitable workloads, SAC is a good option. If you have more traditional workloads and are upgrading Windows Server over longer timescales, Windows Server 2019 is the next release to start evaluating.
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