Azure Hybrid Benefit expansion

As customers are increasing cloud adoption to run virtual machine (VM)–based and containerized applications, they also need to keep some workloads on-premises. At Microsoft, we are committed to meeting customers where they are. Azure Hybrid Benefit is a program that enables customers to reduce the costs of running workloads in the cloud. At Microsoft Ignite, we’re introducing new additions to Azure Hybrid Benefit to bring the value of Azure to where customers are.

As part of our updates, customers with Windows Server Software Assurance or a Cloud Solution Provider subscription will be able to use Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) on Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI in their own datacenters or edge infrastructure at no additional cost. This will enable customers to containerize their applications and deploy them on Azure or on-premises consistently by maximizing business value with a managed Kubernetes service in their own environments.

For customers looking to modernize their environment, we are also introducing a new benefit for Windows Server Datacenter Software Assurance customers to use Azure Stack HCI at no additional cost.¹ With this, customers can modernize their existing datacenter and edge infrastructure to run their VM and container-based workloads on modern infrastructure with industry-leading price performance and built-in connectivity to Azure. Learn more about Azure Hybrid Benefit for AKS and Azure Stack HCI.

More flexibility to run Windows Server

On October 1, 2022, we implemented several updates to outsourcing and hosting terms for customers and partners globally. Among these is the Flexible Virtualization Benefit, which allows customers with Software Assurance or subscription licenses to run their own licensed software, including Windows Server, on other cloud providers’ infrastructure—dedicated or multitenant.² Additionally, customers can also license Windows Server on a VM basis.

Windows Server customers have been increasingly leveraging Windows containers to modernize their applications. However, we heard from a few of our customers and application vendors that needed the ability to distribute a complete containerized application directly to their end users. Starting today, customers will be able to redistribute Windows Container base images beyond their organization in accordance with the updated End-User Agreement License. Now, customers and application vendors across segments like medical, financial, manufacturing, or other air-gapped environments can more easily use Windows containers to modernize their applications. Learn more about the upcoming changes in our tech community blog.

Modernize for end of support

With all the added benefits and flexibility mentioned above, there is no better time to modernize than now. This is especially true if you are running Windows Server 2012/R2, which is reaching end of support next year on October 10, 2023. We have several options to keep your Windows Server 2012/R2 workloads protected:

• Migrate to Azure and run securely with up to three years of free Extended Security Updates. This includes all Azure destinations such as Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Dedicated Host, Azure VMware Solution, and the Azure Stack portfolio.
• Upgrade to Windows Server 2022 to get the latest innovation in security and application modernization.
• Deploy extended security updates on-premises. Customers that cannot meet the end of support deadline and have Software Assurance or subscription licenses under an enterprise agreement enrollment, and cannot migrate their Windows Server to Azure, will have the option to buy Extended Security Updates.

Start migrating and modernizing your Windows Server workloads

No matter where you are in your migration and modernization journey, we are committed to supporting you at every step. Here are some resources to get started today:  

• Learn more about the unique capabilities and cost-savings available when running Windows Server on Azure.
• Learn more about your options for Windows Server and SQL Server 2012/R2 end of support.
• Migrate and modernize with confidence through the Azure Migration and Modernization Program.

¹_{Currently only available for Windows Server Datacenter licenses with Software Assurance purchased through Enterprise Agreements. Customers can only use Windows Server or Azure Stack HCI. Customers will have 180 days of concurrent use rights to move to Azure Stack HCI.}

²_{Note that these changes exclude what we term Listed Providers: Alibaba, Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft. Customers that want to use a Listed Provider for outsourcing can acquire licenses directly from the Listed Provider.}

³_{Note: In alignment with the servicing model for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 (link to blog), the Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 ESU program will only include Monthly Rollup packages; Security Only update packages will not be provided.}

The post Maximize your Windows Server investments with new benefits and more flexibility appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Ever since its release in 2018, Windows Admin Center has become the solution for managing Windows Server infrastructure running on-premises. It has grown to provide dozens of experiences that make remote investigation and remediation of your servers as easy as possible. Today, we are extending the same tooling to your cloud infrastructure with the general availability of Windows Admin Center for Azure Virtual Machines. Let’s dive into the new features.

Why use Windows Admin Center in Azure

Simplicity and convenience

Windows Admin Center in Azure unlocks incredible capabilities for the Azure portal by providing you with an interface to manage your Windows Server Virtual Machines. By default, the Azure portal provides a singular view for virtual machine management and the essential elements to manage your infrastructure. With the addition of Windows Admin Center, we have supplemented this great experience with additional capabilities such as an enhanced view of virtual machine usage, performance monitoring, viewing of events, and much more. We expect this to reduce the need for you to remote desktop into your virtual machine for administration, simplifying your experience as you deploy and maintain virtual machines with or without a graphical user interface (GUI).

Secure, passwordless authentication

Unlike Windows Admin Center on-premises, Windows Admin Center in Azure features single sign-on using Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) authentication to bring you an end-to-end identity experience in the Azure portal. Regardless of whether your virtual machine is on-premises Active Directory joined, Azure AD joined, or not joined to any domain, Windows Admin Center and Azure AD provide a single sign-on experience. Just add your Azure AD identity to the Windows Admin Center Administrator Login Azure role-based access control (RBAC) role and get access to the full suite of management capabilities that we provide in the Azure Portal. Read more about how this exciting capability reduces the reliance on local administrator accounts when managing Windows Server machines in Azure.

Performant

Users expect a fast, reliable, and personalized experience when managing their infrastructure. Windows Admin Center in Azure leverages cloud-native services such as Azure Front Door, a content delivery network (CDN) that rapidly delivers content and brings you an unmatched server management performance in the Azure Portal. Compared to Windows Admin Center on-premises, the Azure experience is about two and a half times faster, by delivering its static content from the cloud, while keeping your server’s data secure within your network.

Get started with Windows Admin Center

Windows Admin Center in Azure is available to all Windows Server customers on Azure running Windows Server 2016 or higher in the public cloud. Create a new virtual machine today or deploy Windows Admin Center on your existing infrastructure. You can begin managing your virtual machines in Azure using Windows Admin Center by navigating to the Windows Admin Center blade under Settings in the Virtual Machine Azure portal UI.

Windows Admin Center in Azure is also available in preview for managing Windows Server Azure Arc–enabled servers and Azure Stack HCI clusters.

Follow us at Microsoft Ignite and stay tuned for more exciting capabilities coming soon to Windows Admin Center in Azure.

The post Windows Admin Center for Azure Virtual Machines is now generally available appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

We are excited to announce that Windows Admin Center can now manage your Microsoft Azure Arc-enabled infrastructure from the Azure portal. This new capability enables seamless and granular management of your Arc-enabled Windows servers and virtual machines as well as Azure Stack HCI systems from within the Azure portal. You can securely manage your servers and clusters from the cloud—without needing a VPN, public IP address, or other inbound connectivity to your machine.

Here is a short video highlighting some of the capabilities included with Windows Admin Center: How to use Windows Admin Center in the Azure portal.

Simplicity and convenience

Windows Admin Center in Azure unlocks new capabilities for the Azure portal by providing you with an interface to manage your on-premises Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI systems alongside your Azure Virtual Machines and other Azure resources. You can save time because you won’t need to remote desktop into your servers and clusters for administration, making it easier to deploy and maintain your Arc-enabled infrastructure.

By default, Azure Arc provides you with the essential elements to manage your infrastructure, such as centralized security, governance, monitoring, and policy. With a one-click experience, Windows Admin Center in Azure now provides end-to-end server management.

Secure

Windows Admin Center in Azure enhances security for your servers and clusters. It allows you to manage your infrastructure without requiring any public IP addresses, VPNs, or inbound connectivity to your systems. Traffic is sent over the existing connection between the Azure Arc agent and Azure—no extra configuration is required. Communication between you and your systems is end-to-end encrypted, with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) termination occurring directly on your infrastructure.

Familiar UI

You can now configure, troubleshoot, and perform maintenance tasks with the familiar Windows Admin Center interface that you know and love. Beyond a consistent interface, you can manage files, view expired certificates, monitor performance, view critical events, use PowerShell, use an in-browser RDP session, and much more without leaving the Azure portal.

Designed for the cloud

While Windows Admin Center you see in the Azure portal is familiar and has most of the same functionality, it is tailored to provide a cloud-first experience. We are continuously innovating to deliver new capabilities and experiences. In the Azure portal, Windows Admin Center is more performant and always kept up to date, seamlessly giving you the latest and greatest features. In addition, Windows Admin Center is backed by the support infrastructure that provides reliability for all your other Azure services. You now have a great way to manage your on-premises servers and clusters from Azure.

Getting started

Windows Admin Center in the Azure portal is available to all Azure Stack HCI customers and Azure Arc-enabled Windows Server customers running Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, or Windows Server 2016 in the Azure public cloud.

You can begin managing your infrastructure in Azure using Windows Admin Center by navigating to the “Windows Admin Center (preview)” blade under “Settings” in the Arc for Servers or Azure Stack HCI Azure portal UI.

Learn more

New to Azure Arc-enabled servers? Learn more about Azure Arc-enabled servers.

New to Windows Admin Center? Check out this Introduction to Windows Admin Center video.

Interested in on-premises Windows Admin Center? Read our Windows Admin Center documentation.

The post Preview of Windows Admin Center for Azure Arc-enabled infrastructure appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

We want to continue to invest in your organizations’ success and enable you to get the most out of Windows Server by keeping you informed of the latest product announcements, news, and overall best practices. Here are the top five to-do’s for you to make the most out of Windows Server:

1. Patch and install security updates without rebooting with Hotpatch

Hotpatch is now generally available. As part of Azure Automanage for Windows Server, this capability allows you to keep your Windows Server virtual machines on Azure up-to-date without rebooting, enabling higher availability with faster and more secure delivery of updates. Other capabilities that are part of Azure Automanage for Windows Server include SMB over QUIC, as well as extended network for Azure, which lets you keep your on-premises IP addresses when you migrate to Azure. Learn more about why Azure is the best destination for Windows Server.

2. Take the recently available Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Certification

Invest in your career and skills with this brand-new Windows Server certification. With this certification, you can keep the Windows Server knowledge you have built your career on and learn how to apply it in the current state of hybrid cloud computing. Earn this certification for managing, monitoring, and securing applications on-premises, in Azure, and at the edge. Learn more about Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate certification today.

3. Upgrade to Windows Server 2022

With Windows Server 2022, get the latest innovation for you to continue running your workloads securely, enable new hybrid cloud scenarios, and modernize applications to meet your ever-evolving business requirements. Learn more about investing in your success with Windows Server.

4. Protect your workloads by taking advantage of free extended security updates (ESUs) in Azure

While many customers have adopted Windows Server 2022, we also understand that some need more time to modernize as support for older versions of Windows Server will eventually end.

• For Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 customers, the end of support date is October 10, 2023. 
• For Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 customers, the third year of extended security updates are coming to an end on January 10, 2023. Customers can get an additional fourth year of free extended security updates (ESUs-only) on Azure (including Azure Stack HCI, Azure Stack Hub, and other Azure products). With this, customers will have until January 9, 2024 for Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 to upgrade to a supported release.

We are committed to supporting you as you start planning for end of support if you are running workloads on older versions of Windows Server. Learn more about end of support deadlines for Windows Server 2008/R2 and 2012/R2 and your options.

5. Combine extended security updates with Azure Hybrid Benefit to save even more

In addition to all the innovative Windows Server capabilities available only on Azure, it also has offers for you to start migrating your workloads with Azure Hybrid Benefit. It is a licensing benefit that allows you to save even more by using existing Windows Server licenses on Azure. Learn more about how much you can save with Azure Hybrid Benefit.

Ask questions and engage in our community

Get started implementing these Windows Server best practices today! Join the conversation by sharing stories or questions you have here:  

• Windows Server Tech Community.
• @windowsserver on Twitter.

¹_{Note: In alignment with the servicing model for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 (link to blog), the Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 ESU program will only include Monthly Rollup packages; Security Only update packages will not be provided.}

The post Get the most out of Windows Server with these 5 best practices appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Come watch and learn from technical Windows Server content covered by industry-leading experts. Some of the heavy hitters you’ll hear from include leaders from the product team like Jeff Woolsey, Ned Pyle, Cosmos Darwin, and Dean Wells, who will all be present to answer your questions throughout the summit. Keep track of your knowledge throughout and get a chance to win one of our more than 50 sweepstake prizes at the end! You really don’t want to miss this!

Register now for the limited slots at Windows Server Summit 2020.

Here’s a sneak peek of the topics we will cover:

• Windows Server Best Practices
• New Windows Server innovation that run best on Azure including Azure Automanage, Windows Admin Center on Azure, AKS on Azure Stack HCI
• What’s new and next for Windows Server

In the meantime, check out our latest and greatest products:

Azure Automanage

Simplify IT management with optimized, automated operations across the entire lifecycle of dev/test and production virtual machines (VMs) with Azure Automanage, now available in public preview. Learn more about Azure Automanage and join the public preview.

Windows Admin Center in Azure portal

Your favorite server management tool is now available in public preview in Azure! This built-in functionality will allow you to manage your Windows Server OS anywhere, right from the Azure portal. Learn more about Windows Admin Center in Azure.

AKS on Azure Stack HCI

Containerize your apps and manage your on-premises Kubernetes clusters with Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI, now available in public preview. You can now securely use Azure Management Services to manage your clusters and deploy your apps anywhere—on the cloud, on-premises, or the edge. Learn more about Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI and register to join the preview.

Register now!

As you can see, we have lots of great new content to share with you. Stay tuned as we continue to provide more about Windows Server Summit 2020. We can’t wait to see you at the event!

The post Announcing Windows Server Summit 2020 appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Operations Manager

System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) is one of the most widely used monitoring platforms by enterprise customers and we continue to improve it to better suit customer’s needs.

Change Tracking for Management Pack

In System Center Operations Manager, user roles are defined to change monitoring settings for applications and services through management packs. There can be multiple users associated with a single user role. Previously, there was no tracking to identify the user making changes and when. System Center Operations Manager 2019 UR2 includes Change Tracking, a feature that admins use to track and report changes on management packs and management pack objects. All these changes are logged in Operations Manager Datawarehouse database. There are three new reports that are available to display changes: Management Pack History, Management Pack Objects, and Overrides Tracking. For more details, please refer to the documentation.

Improvements in Scheduled maintenance mode

Schedule maintenance mode (MM) was a feature introduced in System Center Operations Manager 2019. This capability enables administrators to choose a time in the future to set a computer’s maintenance mode. Currently, if there is a conflict in the maintenance mode window for an object, the newly updated end time overwrites the existing scheduled time. This results in false alerts during the maintenance window. The noise generated by these alerts can result in missing real issues, which can be costly for the business. With 2019 UR2, if there is a conflict in maintenance mode end time then an object will exit maintenance mode at the furthest end time defined for the object. For more details, please refer to the maintenance mode documentation.

Enhancement on web console

Favorite Reports

The functionality of Favorite Reports has been part of System Center Operations Manager web console (2012/2016) but was missing in System Center Operations Manager 2019. Without Favorite Reports, running ad-hoc System Center Operations Manager reports on a regular basis was not possible resulting in overhead of launching the Operations Console and loss of productivity. With UR2, a user can now run and view Favorite Reports under Web Console and My Workspace. For more details, please refer to the documentation.

Folders in Monitoring Tab

Dashboards in the web console of System Center Operations Manager 2019 is a popular feature – with many customers using dashboards extensively. But not having the ability to group them in folders is leading to a long list of dashboards, which is cumbersome to manage. In UR2, we are introducing the Folder feature in the System Center Operations Manager 2019 web console. Users can now create folders to group dashboards based on management packs. For more details, please refer to the documentation.

Supportability addition in Linux OS support

In the System Center Operations Manager 2019 UR2, we have added support for CentOS 8 under Universal Linux (RPM package).

In addition, for details of other improvements and bug fixes that are part of this release, please refer to this Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article.

Virtual Machine Manager

Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) makes it easier for enterprises to manage their Windows Server deployments at scale. Here are some of the additional capabilities added to System Center Virtual Machine Manager as part of 2019 UR2.

Support for managing Windows Server 2012R2 hosts

Enterprises using hardware that is not capable of being upgraded to the latest Windows Server operating system (OS) are often faced with the challenge of managing host servers on various Windows Server OS versions. To make IT administration easy in these environments, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2019 UR2 will now support the management of Windows Server 2012R2 servers as hosts, SOFS, and remote library shares in addition to the already supported versions of Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019 OS servers. For details of all the hardware OS versions supported, please refer to the System Center Virtual Machine Manager documentation.

Set affinity between vNICs and pNICs

The affinity between virtual network adapters and physical adapters brings in flexibility to route network traffic across teamed pNICs.

With this feature, customers can increase throughput by mapping RDMA capable physical adapter with an RDMA settings enabled vNIC. Customers can also route specific types of traffic (e.g. live migration) to a higher-bandwidth physical adapter. In hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) deployment scenarios, by specifying affinity, customers can leverage SMB multichannel to meet high throughput for SMB traffic.  For details on the feature refer to the documentation.

Support management of VMware hosts: ESXi 6.7 host support

Enterprises looking to migrate their VMware environments to Hyper-V need the fabric management tool to support both VMware and Hyper-V hosts during the process of migration. System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2019 UR2 extends management support to ESXI 6.7 hosts and vCenter 6.7. For details on ESXI server support refer to the VMM fabric documentation.

Using the next generation of address standard Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) has been a regulatory requirement for some enterprises. IPv6 also provides an expanded number of address spaces available, which can be supported in the sprawling enterprise datacenters that are spinning up more machines every day. To provide users the flexibility to use IPv6, VMM 2019 UR2 introduces support to IPv6 address for tenant VM networks. You will be able to set an IPv6 address for tenant VM networks when deploying NC, Gateway, and SLB through VMM console and PowerShell.

IPv6 support for SDN

Using the next generation of Internet Protocol address standard Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) has been a regulatory requirement for some enterprises. IPv6 also provides an expanded number of address spaces available, which can be supported in the sprawling enterprise datacenters that are spinning up more machines every day. To provide users the flexibility to use IPv6, VMM 2019 UR2 introduces support to IPv6 address for tenant VM networks. You will be able to set an IPv6 address for tenant VM networks when deploying NC, Gateway, and SLB through VMM console and PowerShell.

Simplifying networking in Virtual Machine Manager: Configuring logical switches

The journey towards more simple, intuitive, and user-friendly networking management through VMM started in VMM 2019 UR1 where efforts were focused on making logical network creation simpler through the use of smart defaults, text explanation of different options, and visual representations. We are now taking this journey further by simplifying the logical switch creation. For details on changes in the console UX please refer to the documentation here.

Linux OS support for guests

In System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2019 UR2, we have added support for the following versions of Linux OS in guests – Red Hat 8.0, Centos 8, Debian 10, and ubuntu 20.04 Linux Operating system.

For other improvements and bug fixes that are part of this release, please refer to the Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article.

Data Protection Manager

System Center Data Protection Manager offers enterprise-grade backup and recovery of critical workloads. System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) offers enterprise-grade backup and recovery of critical workloads. System Center Data Protection Manager 2019 UR2 brings key advancements in improving backup performance and introduces capabilities to enable new backup scenarios.

Support for SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance (FCI) using Cluster Shared Volume (CSV)

A lot of SQL server users are looking to deploy SQL Server on a Failover Cluster instead of using traditional cluster storage. This is advantageous for a couple of reasons:

• Users don’t need to carve out separate LUNs for each SQL instance.
• CSV makes SQL nodes highly available, resilient, and fault tolerant by automatically routing traffic in case of node failure.

Why backup is needed for SQL Server on CSV?

SQL Server on CSVs provides users with fault tolerance, high availability, and resiliency, but it doesn’t guarantee that their data is safe in the event of accidental deletion of data, data corruption, or ransomware attacks. In these scenarios, users would want a solution that they can use to restore their “clean” data from a previous point in time.

System Center Data Protection Manager 2019 UR2 version introduces the support for protecting and recovering SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances on Cluster Shared Volumes. If you were already using SQL Server on CSVs, you can go ahead and start protecting your SQL DBs with DPM 2019 UR2.

Optimized Volume to Volume Migration

System Center Data Protection Manager 2019 supports a key customer requirement– volume migration for backup volumes. There are several reasons why volume migration is needed:

• Filesystem data in the old backup volume can have fragmentation.
• The old backup volume could have reached the limit of the maximum allowed storage size.
• There could be hardware issues with the current storage box.

What’s new with System Center Data Protection Manager 2019 UR2 volume migration?

System Center Data Protection Manager 2019 UR2 introduces optimized volume migration, which allows users to move protected workloads from an old volume to a new volume in a much faster way. The enhanced migration process migrates only active backup copy (Active Replica) to the new volume. All the new recovery points are created on the new volume while existing recovery points are maintained on the existing volume. This less data transfer compared to the full volume migration approach makes the optimized volume migration process finishes quickly.

SQL Server 2019 support as System Center Data Protection Manager database

SQL Server 2019 is the latest version of SQL Server. Since a lot of SQL users have migrated to SQL 2019, System Center Data Protection Manager has also introduced support for SQL 2019 as its database starting System Center Data Protection Manager 2019 UR2 release.

Now you can install SQL Server 2019 on a remote server, or on the System Center Data Protection Manager server. The database must be installed and running before you install System Center Data Protection Manager.

Offline Backup using Azure Data Box

With System Center Data Protection Manager 2019 UR1 we announced the integration and now with UR2, this feature is open for any System Center Data Protection Manager customer to try out.

With this integration, System Center Data Protection Manager customers can overcome the challenge of moving terabytes of backup data from on-premises to Azure storage. This also reduces the time a customer takes to onboard to Azure backup for long term retention of on-premises workload backups. This also reduces the time a customer takes to onboard to Azure backup for long-term retention of on-premises workload backups.

In addition, here is the list of issues that have been fixed as part of the UR2 release for System Center Data Protection Manager.

Service Manager

Service Manager provides an integrated platform for automating and adapting your organization’s IT service management best practices. With UR2, we have released a new version of Exchange Connector (4.0) which adds support to OAuth 2.0 based authentication to connect to Exchange Online. In addition, for details of other improvements and bug fixes that are part of this release, please refer to the Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article.

Orchestrator

We hope the investments in new features and bug fixes as part of this Update Rollup benefit and enhance your System Center deployments. We will continue to keep up these improvements and are eager to hear your feedback. Please reach out to us via email at scpmft@microsoft.com. For new feature requests, please post on our User Voice forums for System Center Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, and System Center Data Protection Manager.

The post Second update rollup for System Center 2019 released appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

On March 14, 2019, Microsoft announced the availability of System Center 2019 for Windows Server 2019 to support management of Windows Server 2019 and a host of other new management capabilities. Today we are announcing that the first update rollup release (UR1) to the System Center 2019 suite is now available! Customers can download UR1 for System Center 2019 from Microsoft Update as well as other channels. This update covers System Center Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, Data Protection Manager, Orchestrator, and Service Manager. In this update, we are releasing new features in several of the products within the System Center suite. If you’d like to learn more about what those new features are, keep reading!

Operations Manager

Operations Manager is one of the most widely used monitoring platforms by enterprise customers and we have continued to improve it to better suit customer’s needs.

Group Managed Service Account (gMSA)

Operations Manager 2019 UR1 adds support for gMSA accounts, adding extra security and reducing management overhead for administrators. Operations Manager has several components including management servers, gateways, agents, an operations database, a data warehouse, and it uses several accounts for its services. Managing account credentials, password expiry, and account rollover presents a formidable overhead for the administrator. Any mistake made, to reset a password to an account before expiration, for example, can lead to a catastrophic failure in monitoring. A group Managed Service Account is a managed domain account in Windows that takes the burden off the administrator and provides automatic password management.

Integrated patching for Operations Manager management server

Operations Manager patching, simplified! When Microsoft releases an update to Operations Manager, it can be quite onerous to perform patching on a deployment as there are several steps. They include the following:

• Update the software bits of the management server.
• Update the Operations Database schema.
• Update to the latest management packs.

These steps are not very scalable across a large Operations Manager estate. The all-new management server patch installer in Operations Manager 2019 UR1 simplifies these steps and the patching of an Operations Manager environment.

Linux monitoring

Operations Manager has supported heterogenous environments for a long time. Many customers have Windows Server and Linux environments, and use Operations Manager to monitor both. One piece of feedback we received from Linux customers was that the agent was losing connection with the Operations Manager management server, which was due to an overload of monitoring workflows running. We addressed this reliability issue in Operations Manager 2019 UR1. You can also now tune the performance of the Linux agent by selecting the specific resources that help you monitor them best. You can also use Operations Manager to monitor Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, and instead of having a different management pack for each Linux distro, and each version, you can now work with just one Linux management pack. This alleviates the need for maintaining multiple Linux management packs and simplifies administration.

Management packs

Besides investing in the core Operations Manager platform, we have added new functionality to the management packs.

Storage Spaces Direct management pack

The Storage Spaces Direct management pack has been enhanced to support monitoring at all layers of the stack, including physical disks, servers, the storage pool, the network, and volumes, which show health and performance metrics across the stack.

Azure management pack

The Azure management pack enables monitoring of Azure resources from Operations Manager and enables a single pane of glass across on-premises and Azure. With the new feature, “Resource groups support”, customers can select specific resource group(s) under a subscription and choose the specific service types they want to monitor. With HTML5 dashboard support in Azure management pack, customers can view Azure resources and alerts for any subscription, resource group, or service type in the Operations Manager web console.

Here is where you can download the Azure management pack and Storage Spaces Direct management pack.

You can find more updates we’ve made in Operations Manager UR1 in this article.

Virtual Machine Manager

Support for replicated library server content

Large enterprises usually have multi-site datacenter deployments to cater to various offices across the globe, and a local library server for easier access to files to facilitate virtual machine (VM) deployment. This is done to avoid any network latencies leading to a poor deployment experience. Enterprises use replication technologies to ensure that library files are in sync and consistent across datacenters, which ensures uniform VM deployment. Virtual Machine Manager 2019 UR1 now supports the management of library servers which are replicated. You can use any replication technologies such as distributed file system replication (DFSR) to replicate and manage the shares through Virtual Machine Manager. This ensures that the fabric has consistent virtual hard disk (VHD) images, templates, and other artifacts.

Simplifying networking

We understand that managing networks in Virtual Machine Manager has become a complex process for customers, which is why we’ve begun simplifying it and providing in-product descriptions, visual aids through graphical representations, and integrated wizards for the setup. In Virtual Machine Manager 2019 UR1, there is a new logical network creation experience. You can also view the dependencies across all the networking elements in Virtual Machine Manager. We will continue down the path for simplifying networking in future releases.

Networking for Storage Spaces Direct deployment

Customers are increasingly adopting Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI) thanks to the lower cost of ownership that HCI provides. Storage Spaces Direct, a key technology for HCI, can be deployed and managed using Virtual Machine Manager. To provide the high performance network which is needed for the Storage Spaces Direct storage traffic, customers will now be able to configure data center bridging (DCB) settings for the Storage Spaces Direct cluster.

For details of other improvements and bug fixes that are part of this release, please refer to this Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article.

Data Protection Manager

Windows Server supports Resilient File System (ReFS) for greater resiliency, availability, and scalability of various workloads. With Data Protection Manager 2019 UR1, you can backup workloads running on ReFS. You can also backup the workloads which are deployed on a ReFS volume with deduplication enabled.

Server Core installation option, which is without the GUI/desktop experience, provides for a smaller OS footprint and better security.Most customers now deploy server roles and applications on Server Core. With Data Protection Manager 2019, you now run the Data Protection Manager server on Server Core.

For easier onboarding to Azure Backup and to use Azure Storage for long term retention needs, Data Protection Manager now supports Azure Data Box for creating the initial backup. This eliminates the need for using the network for transferring the initial replica, which can take a long time. This feature is currently in preview. If you would like to use it, please send an email to systemcenterfeedback@microsoft.com.

Data Protection Manager has also seen significant investment in improving the performance of backup jobs. Please refer to this KB article for more details on the release of Data Protection Manager 2019 UR1.

Orchestrator and Service Manager

We’re happy to let you know that significant updates have been made to Orchestrator and Service Manager 2019. You can read more about the improvements made to Orchestrator, and learn more about how we’ve enhanced Service Manager 2019 in update rollup one.

We hope you are as excited as we are about releasing System Center 2019 UR1. We look forward to receiving your feedback!

The post First update rollup for System Center 2019 released appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Now, if you’re reading this today, you probably still have some workloads that won’t upgrade before the deadline. The good news is that we have options to keep you protected and putting you on a path to modernize your infrastructure and apps.

Let’s look at these options.

Extended Security Updates keys are available from Azure portal

For apps and services that need to run on-premises on Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2, Extended Security Updates can be purchased under eligible programs. Please visit our site for the most up to date information including our frequently asked questions.

We recently published this Tech Community blog on the steps to purchase, install, and activate Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 extended security updates keys. If you’re unsure whether your servers are ready to receive extended security updates and like to test, refer to KB4528069 for Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, and KB4528081 for Windows Server 2008 SP2.

Additionally today, we are sharing that you can now join a preview of extended security updates (in the Azure portal), which will allow you to obtain eligible unlock keys from the Azure portal. To get started, go to extended security updates for Windows Server in the Azure portal. Please visit tech docs for detailed documentation. 

Migrate to Azure and upgrade when you are ready

Azure offers one of the most effective ways that gives you more time to modernize. Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Virtual Machines (VMs) on Azure get 3 years of free Extended Security Updates, giving you the opportunity to invest more time towards modernizing your app stack while staying secured.

With the Azure hybrid benefit you can save 40 percent off the total cost of a virtual machine. Combining the Azure Hybrid Benefit with Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances, you can realize up to 80 percent savings on the total cost of a VM. Azure hybrid benefit works for both Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Dedicated Host.

To get started and assess your app dependencies such as on domain controllers use Azure Migrate. It is a free and agentless tool to discover on-premises servers, assess dependencies, and migrate apps to Azure.

It’s critical to choose the right path for the right Server Role. We’ve laid out the options for you here, and for more detailed reading, check out the Windows Server migration guide.

Secondly, evaluate your migration options based on your business requirements. Azure offers several lift and shift options. Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 apps can be migrated to any of the following options and then, upgrade to Windows Server 2019 or Windows Server 2016.

• Migrate to Azure Virtual Machines
• Run Windows Server hosted on VMware natively in Azure using Azure VMWare Solutions
• For those of you who require dedicated compute due to compliance requirements, take advantage of Azure Dedicated Host

Now, most of our customers are running lift-and-shift Windows Server 2008/R2 migrations and app modernization efforts in parallel. Apps and services that lend themselves to quick modernization can take advantage of services such as App Service and Azure Kubernetes Service, which supports Windows Server containers. Please note Windows containers are available in versions Windows Server 2016 onwards. App Service works great for web apps written in .NET Framework and .NET Core as well as other frameworks such as Node.js, Java, PHP, Ruby, and Python. For modernizing with containers, Azure Kubernetes Service can help to easily deploy and manage those apps.

And finally, to help you with this transition to the cloud, we launched the Azure Migration Program, which offers step-by-step guidance for migration. This program was created in collaboration with well-known and trusted partners and service providers, each of whom has a deep understanding of Windows Server.

Now, let’s look at the scenario where you need to run Windows Server apps and services on-premises.

Upgrade on-premises

Over the past year, we launched the most innovative version of Windows Server yet, with Windows Server 2019. For workloads that you know will stay on-premises Windows Server 2019 offers the latest advances in security such as Advanced Thread Protection to detect attacks and zero-day exploits and Defender Exploit Guard to help combat ransomware attacks. Windows Server 2019 with several built-in hybrid features such as Storage Migration Service and Azure Network Adapter. This ensures that your apps, services, and data are all secured and ready for a move to Azure whenever you’re ready.

For modern apps, Windows Server 2019 offers improved app compatibility for containers and support for Kubernetes. Learn more about Windows container in our documentation.

On-premises, you can also take advantage of Windows Admin Center, a modern server management tool to manage Windows Server environments. Windows Admin Center offers connections to Azure services for Backup, and Disaster Recovery. Check out the Windows Admin Center tech docs to get started today.

And finally, for those of you using Azure already, the newly announced Azure Arc can centrally manage servers on Azure and on-premises.

More resources

Here are some learning path presentations to help you get started:

• Migrating to Windows Server 2019
• Top 5 new features in Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server Hybrid – Azure Arc
• Migrating Windows Server to Azure IaaS – Network and Storage
• Using Existing Windows Server licenses on Azure using Azure Hybrid Benefit

Finally, join us in the Windows Server Tech Community to keep up to date with experts around the world, and stay tuned for the next Windows Server Summit to learn more about the latest innovations. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

The post Protect workloads still running on Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Today, we’re announcing the general availability of Windows Admin Center, version 1910. Server admins already trust Windows Admin Center to manage more than 3 million servers, and with today’s release, we’re delivering new functionality to make it easier to remotely manage your server workloads and take advantage of cloud services for your hybrid server environments.

Windows Admin Center quickly became a favorite IT tool by consolidating traditional Windows Server admin tools into a modern, browser-based remote management app for Windows Server running anywhere – physical, virtual, on-premises, in Azure, or in a hosted environment. It’s great for remote management and troubleshooting a virtual machine (VM), a server, or a cluster of servers. Many customers also use it as their go-to graphical user interface when running the Server Core option of Windows Server.

Highlights of what’s new today include:

New hybrid capabilities with Azure

Windows Admin Center includes streamlined integration to help you extend on-premises servers and networks seamlessly to Azure for hybrid capabilities. Here are just a few of the new features:

• Azure Arc enables you to easily connect your servers to Azure and use unified management and governance centrally from Azure. You can use Windows Admin Center to connect your on-premises servers to Azure Arc agents with just a few clicks.
• Integrate with Azure Security Center, for end-to-end threat monitoring across both on-premises and Azure for your server workloads. This Azure service gives you the benefit of 3,500 Microsoft security experts who track more than 6.5 trillion threats every day and build that knowledge into cloud offerings that help you protect your Windows Server workloads wherever they are.
• Azure Monitor is now even more powerful in Windows Admin Center. In just a few clicks, you can turn on a set of default alerts to notify you about server and cluster performance health via email, so you can more proactively manage your servers and address issues before they become problems.
• Azure Extended Networking makes it easier to extend on-premises server networks and IP subnets to Azure without breaking IP dependencies. This feature removes some of the complexities of connecting your on-premises network to the cloud.
• Create new Azure Virtual Machines from within Windows Admin Center and gain additional server capacity in the cloud with just a few clicks.
• Storage Migration Service helps migrate on-premises file servers to Azure, and upgrade to newer versions of Windows Server in the process. Using Windows Admin Center, you can create Azure Virtual Machines on the fly during migration, automatically size them, provision them with formatted storage, and join them to your domain – while allowing you to migrate from legacy operating systems, Samba on Linux, and standalone servers to the latest versions of Windows Server and failover clusters.
• Integration with Azure File Sync now allows you to configure Storage Sync Services and set up Azure File Sync for your on-premises servers without ever leaving Windows Admin Center.
• Windows Admin Center now supports creating Azure Virtual Machines on the fly during setup of new asynchronous replication partnerships so you can use Azure as your secondary site for Storage Replica, helping to protect your business from disasters with minimal data loss.

New and improved tools for Windows Server management

We’ve added more core management capabilities for managing servers, virtual machines, clusters, and hyperconverged infrastructure.

• When apps or servers are running slower than usual, one of the first things that server admins check is Windows performance counters. In version 1910, we are pleased to preview a reimagined Performance Monitor. Early adopters tell us they love the new graphical views and the ability to customize views for their environment. Learn more in this detailed performance monitoring blog.
• Windows Admin Center now fully supports live migration between Hyper-V servers and clusters. Manage your on-premises Hyper-V VMs with ease using the new VM import/export and VM tagging features.
• Simplify management of your web applications with the IIS management tool in Windows Admin Center.
• The new packet monitoring tool in Windows Admin Center delivers insights via network troubleshooting and diagnostics.
• Based on customer feedback, we’ve also made numerous improvements to core tools such as updates, files, and server/cluster settings. Read the full list of what’s new in this release

Streamlined setup and enhanced tools for hyperconverged systems

As customers refresh aging on-premises servers and storage, many are adopting hyperconverged (HCI) systems for improvements in cost and performance. Windows Admin Center now provides a wizard to streamline the initial deployment of HCI clusters, as well as new tools to help with your day-to-day management of Azure Stack HCI or Windows Server 2019 hyperconverged systems.

The smoothest path to HCI is using a pre-validated system from our partners. We encourage you to check out our HCI partner directory to find more than 150 pre-validated partner configurations.

New and updated partner extensions

We are also pleased to announce new Windows Admin Center partner extensions from Dell EMC (released in August 2019) and HPE, as well as updated extensions from DataON, Lenovo, QCT and Thomas-Krenn.AG, to provide detailed hardware management for Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI solutions. Other partner extensions offer server configuration change tracking (BiitOps), and flash array management (Pure Storage).

Get started now

Visit our website to learn more about Windows Admin Center and download version 1910 to start using these and other exciting new features. Read the full list of what’s new in this release, and share your feedback with us on UserVoice.

We release new versions of Windows Admin Center every six months. If you’d like to be one of the first to try out new features and provide feedback to our engineering teams, join the Windows Insider program.

Check us out at Microsoft Ignite!

Whether you attend in person or join us for a live stream of Microsoft Ignite sessions, we have many options for you to learn more about Windows Admin Center and Windows Server.

• Check out our schedule of Microsoft Ignite sessions.
• Keep the conversation going with the Windows Server community on Microsoft Tech Community, Facebook, or Twitter.

The post Announcing the general availability of Windows Admin Center, version 1910 appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.