Last November, our most innovative, secure, and performant release to date was made generally available: Windows Server 2025. Incorporating input and feedback from customers, our Windows Server engineering team delivered a release that can enable customers to safeguard their data and infrastructure, handle their most demanding workloads, and help enhance their operational flexibility and connectivity, all with advanced security, cloud agility, and improved performance. As we continue to build and innovate, our team looks forward to engaging and learning from you at every opportunity to help ensure Windows Server continues to enable customers to accelerate innovation in their businesses.

As we reflect on over 30 years of innovation and our most recent release, we are thrilled to invite you to the Windows Server Summit 2025, held on April 29th and 30th on Microsoft Tech Community. This is a premier event for Windows Server professionals eager to stay involved and ahead of the curve. This year’s summit features a lineup of sessions designed to provide deep insight into the latest innovations and best practices in Microsoft Windows Server and Azure.

How to sign up

This event does not require registration, but you should be a member of Microsoft Tech Community to join us live and ask questions via chat during the sessions. We have tons of great content spanning two days, April 29—30th, each day starting at 7 AM PST. Visit this page for details on how to join and add the event to your calendar

Microsoft Tech Community

Meet the experts

You will have the opportunity to meet Windows Server engineering leaders, including Ian LeGrow, CVP PM. Ian leads the Operating Systems Division product management team, responsible for Windows Server and all Windows-based OS at Microsoft. Throughout the event, product managers will share how they have taken your feedback to deliver improved features and one of our most innovative and secure releases of Windows Server yet. They will also provide an exclusive look behind the scenes at what’s coming next in Windows Server, Azure, and hybrid cloud innovations.

Session highlights

After the keynote, you can listen or watch all the way through or pick and choose from mostly 30-minute sessions according to your interests. Here is a small sample of the sessions we have planned:

• Upgrades made easy with Windows Server 2025: Discover why Windows Server 2025 is the easiest version to upgrade ever. Join Rob Hindman and Jeff Woolsey as they delve into media upgrades and feature updates.
• Securing Active Directory: Join Active Directory Program Manager Cliff Fisher for a deep dive into new security features, policies, and defaults for Windows Server 2025. Learn about the new Windows Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) features, Delegated Managed Service Accounts, and more.
• Windows Server Hyper-V Architecture, features, GPUs, and more! Explore the new GPU partitioning innovation in Windows Server 2025 Hyper-V. This session will cover use cases and hardware considerations.
• Modernize server management and connectivity with Azure Arc: Connect Windows Servers across hybrid, multicloud, and edge environments to Azure. This session will showcase connectivity options and highlight Azure capabilities focused on SCCM modernization.
• What’s next for advanced storage: Discover the major improvements to storage in Windows Server 2025 and get a sneak peek at innovations like Native NVMe (nonvolatile memory express) and rack-aware clustering.
• Fine-tuned host networking for Windows Server 2025: Transform your network setup and management for Windows Server 2025 clusters with Network ATC and Network HUD. Learn how to achieve peak network performance for your workloads with AccelNet.
• SDN magic—Windows Server 2025 innovations: Uncover the power of software-defined networking on Windows Server 2025, including effortless deployments with native SDN (Software-defined networking) and enhanced security posture for your applications.
• Harden security and build resiliency with Windows Server 2025: Stay up-to-date with the latest security features and best practices for securing Windows Server. Learn about Microsoft Defender for Cloud and more.
• Hotpatching and update management for Windows Server with Azure Arc: Learn about the popular new hotpatching feature in Windows Server 2025 and watch demos on managing updates with Azure Arc.
• The Support Case Files—Windows Server troubleshooting tips: Join our Windows Server support engineers as they break down your most requested support cases.
• From on-premises to cloud with Azure File Sync: Learn how to use Azure File Sync to employ hybrid topologies and migrate seamlessly from on-premises to cloud.

Don’t miss out!

Windows Server Summit is a special virtual event with a community-driven, educational focus, and Microsoft engineers as featured speakers. While most of the sessions are advanced and assume good Windows Server experience, you will get something out of this event, whether you are a seasoned IT professional or just starting your journey. We hope you will join us live so you can participate in the Q&A, but if you cannot, sessions will be available on demand a few days after the event. Sign up now and join us for two days of learning together.

Microsoft Windows Server

Protect, adapt, and innovate with Windows Server

Try today

The post Join us at Windows Server Summit 2025 and learn more about our latest innovations! appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Stay ahead of the curve and learn about the latest innovations and best practices in the world of Windows Server. Session recordings from the Windows Server Summit 2024 virtual event sponsored by Intel^® are available on-demand.

Designed for experienced IT professionals and IT leaders, the event will help deepen knowledge and skills of Windows Server and managing Windows Server workloads in hybrid cloud environments. The event includes talks by Microsoft product engineers, Intel® experts, and Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) sharing insights and tips to get the most out of Windows Server. You won’t want to miss the sneak peek of exciting features and enhancements coming in Windows Server 2025, the next major release of Microsoft’s server operating system!

Windows Server Summit

Recorded presentations available on-demand

View sessions today

Windows Server Summit has been an annual virtual event for the past three years. This year we responded to feedback on this popular event by including more demos and deeper technical content. All sessions are presented by Microsoft engineering teams and technical leaders from Intel® as well as our highly skilled Microsoft MVPs. Here are some examples of our expert content:

Windows Server 2025 preview

Did you catch the Microsoft Ignite 2023 session with Jeff Woolsey and Elden Christensen in matching purple shirts? That was still early days—there is more to share! In his Windows Server Summit session, Elden will provide an overview of all the new features and improvements to expect in Windows Server 2025 when released in late 2024.

Did you know that while you are playing Xbox at home, the team supporting the backend services uses Hotpatch? Find out how they do it in our session with Vishal Baja and Viraj Desai from Windows engineering and Tim Dreyling from Xbox networking teams.

Is software defined networking (SDN) your thing? You won’t want to miss Cindy Wan, Anirban Paul, Kyle Bisnett, and Samuel Liu of the SDN team for their demo bash session—including how to use upcoming Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) and network security enhancements.

Are you looking for ways to prepare for AI? Afia Boakye and Nicole Bourain from the core operating system (OS) virtualization team will dive into new features in the Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI covering GPU failover clustering and new GPU partitioning (GPU-P) for GPU virtualization.

Security and hardening Windows Server

What are your thoughts on NTLM? Join Ned Pyle as he walks you through the evolution of Windows Authentication with Windows Server 2025 updates to NTLM and Kerberos improvement.

Eric Woodruff, Security MVP, is sharing his expertise with sessions on taking steps to secure Windows Server Active Directory with the Security Compliance Toolkit and Center for Internet Security (CIS) Benchmarks as well as a session specific to protecting your server from management plane attacks.

Microsoft understands not every server is running the latest version of Windows Server. Still, keeping your servers secure is vital. Join Principal Product Managers Poornima Priyadarshini and Jason Leznek to learn how Azure Arc extends the Azure control plane to on-premises servers and take advantage of Extended Security Updates (ESUs) on a flexible monthly billing model with keyless activation.

Windows Server hybrid and cloud

Are you running Windows Server on-premises or at the edge? Learn how you can leverage Azure automation, PowerShell, run command, and many other Azure management solutions for your on-premises Windows Servers. Thomas Maurer, Senior Program Manager and Chief Evangelist Azure Hybrid, and Ryan Willis, Product Manager for Azure Arc, will share how to automate your on-premises Windows Server from the cloud using Azure Arc.

Upgrades and migrations

Want to understand the details of Windows Server upgrade and update processes? We have the core team responsible front and center to walk you through the “how” and “when” of updates—including the upgrade path from Windows Server 2018 to Windows Server 2025.

Gregor Reimling is a rare, dual category MVP in Azure and Security. He will share his best practices for a successful Azure migration starting with the Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and look at the Azure Migrate and Modernize program.

Windows Server best practices

Fady Azmy, Program Manager for Windows Server will share practical strategies and best practices for using containers to boost efficiency and simplify deployment while maximizing resource utilization for Windows Server applications.

Interested in host networking on the edge? Join Basel Kablawi, Product Manager for network data plane, and Anirban Paul, Principal Product Manager, as they share what’s new and exciting in networking for Windows Server, highlighting Network ATC, Network HUD, and Accelerated Networking.

Be sure to watch these and other great sessions from our expert speakers!

The post Check out Microsoft Windows Server Summit 2024 appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Our priority is to continue to deliver a great Office experience in on-premises virtualized environments; we have updated our Office 365 support requirements and Windows Server support documentation to reflect Office 365 ProPlus support for Windows Server 2019. We recommend taking the following steps as a best practice:

• Run Office 365 ProPlus on Windows Server 2019
• Leverage flexibility of Windows Server 2019 to implement single and multi-session capabilities
• Deploy FSLogix to ensure smooth user profile roaming and end user experience at log on
• Use OneDrive with the Files On-Demand capabilities for optimized storage and retrieval of user files

For businesses considering the next step in their journey to the cloud, these recommendations ensure the best experience for on-premises deployment while enabling migration to Microsoft’s new Windows Virtual Desktop service on Azure, now generally available worldwide. Windows Virtual Desktop provides customers with the best virtual desktop and simplified management on Azure, including support for Windows Server workloads and Office 365 ProPlus, to unlock a productive virtualized end user experience.

The post Windows Server 2019 adds support for Office 365 ProPlus appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

At the Windows Server Summit in May, Cosmos Darwin and Greg Cusanza from the Windows Server team presented a lightning round all about hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) powered by Windows Server. If you haven’t had a chance to watch the event, check out the recording of the live stream and deep dive sessions by registering online. It’s quick and free.

Here are the 25 things they presented in the lightning round:

1. Azure Stack HCI Catalog

Available for purchase right now, there are over 75 Azure Stack HCI solutions from over 15 partners. Check out the Azure Stack HCI Catalog to find solutions from your preferred hardware vendor and get started today.

2. Networking and SDN coexisting side-by-side

Now all HCI solutions include what is required for software-defined networking (SDN). You no longer need to devote your entire infrastructure to SDN. Instead, you can mix and match per virtual machine (VM), using traditional VLAN-based networking alongside SDN. Try it out yourself in the latest Windows Admin Center release.

3. Deploy with SDN Express

Deploying SDN is easier than ever with SDN Express. Download the scripts and run SDN Express to get a helpful wizard that guides you through all the steps necessary for deployment–all in under 30 minutes. Learn more by reading the documentation for SDN deployment.

4. Windows Admin Center for HCI

Windows Admin Center is the future of Windows Server in-box management, and that extends to HCI as well. Add your HCI cluster to Windows Admin Center to get purpose-built tools for managing and monitoring Storage Spaces Direct and SDN, including capabilities like provisioning volumes, managing Hyper-V virtual machines, troubleshooting configuration or hardware problems, and much more.

5. Deduplication and compression for ReFS

Deduplication and compression are now available for ReFS, Microsoft’s recommended file system for HCI. Deduplication and compress increase usable capacity by identifying duplicate portions of files and only storing them once. Savings vary depending on the type of file but can range up to 90 percent for highly repetitive storage like ISO or VHDX backups. Check out the demo “Deduplication and compression for Storage Spaces Direct“ from Microsoft Ignite 2018, and read the documentation for Data Deduplication and ReFS.

6. Larger maximum scale

Even with deduplication and compression, it’s still possible to run out of capacity, so in Windows Server 2019 the maximum total raw storage capacity per cluster is increased from 1 PB in Windows Server 2016 up to 4 PB now. That’s enough space to store all of Wikipedia, in every language, with complete edit history, uncompressed! Watch the demo “Scale to over 3.5 PB with Windows Server 2019 and QCT QxStor” from Microsoft Ignite 2018 for an example.

7. Cluster sets

Now in Windows Server 2019, we can encapsulate a cluster within a cluster set and we can add additional clusters in a cluster set. The great thing about this is that a virtual machine (VM) can seamlessly live migrate from one cluster to a host in a different cluster and continue to access its storage. To learn more, read the documentation on cluster sets.

8. Span sites with SDN

In Windows Server 2019 we’ve improved the gateway performance for SDN’s by increasing from 4 Gbps to 18 Gbps in a single SDN gateway. We also have generic routing encapsulation (GRE) tunneling that connects two network controllers to allow different workloads to talk to each other as if they’re one network. To learn more about high performance gateways in Windows Server 2019, read the blog post “Top 10 Networking Features in Windows Server 2019: #6 High Performance SDN Gateways” on the Windows Server Networking Blog.

9. Native support for persistent memory

Windows Server has become more scalable over time with regards to both capacity and performance. It is on the leading edge of x86 hardware innovation and is consistently one of the first hardware systems and hypervisors to support new hardware technology, such as the Intel Xeon processors and Intel Optane. Watch the demo at Microsoft Ignite 2018, and read the documentation “Understand and deploy persistent memory.”

10. Faster networking with fewer cycles/byte

In addition to hardware improvements, we’ve also been investing in our networking stack. Some of the feature improvements include nearly double the throughput for send and receive paths, lower CPU utilization, more equipped for high bandwidth, high latency links, and a Data Plane Developer Kit (DPDK) for Windows that bypasses the host networking stack to speed up packet processing capabilities. You can read more about all of these features on our Windows Server Networking Blog.

11. Mirror-accelerated parity is 2X faster

The storage team has also been focused on optimizations with mirror accelerated parity, a technology that allows you to create a volume that partly uses mirror resiliency and parity, or erasure coding resiliency. This provides the benefit of faster writes and opens up capacity.

12. Built-in performance history

HCI now has built-in performance history. It easily gets historical data and displays over 50 performance counters in aggregate. There’s nothing that you have to install, set up, or configure. Explore more in the documentation for performance history.

13. Shielded virtual machines

Shielded virtual machines are part of the core hypervisor and have been improved so that even if you don’t have network access you can still connect to it through the console in PowerShell Direct. We’ve also added the ability to add Linux inside your shielded VMs. Watch the five minute overview video of shielded VMs and check out the documentation for VM connect and PowerShell Direct to shielded VMs, as well as deploying Linux inside a shielded VM.

14. Core scheduler

It’s also important to protect your hypervisor host. In Windows Server 2016 we had the Classic Scheduler that offered fair share, preemptive round-robin scheduling for guest virtual processors. In Windows Server 2019, we have a new hypervisor scheduler called Core Scheduler, which constrains the virtual processors to physical core boundaries, further isolating virtual machines. Understand further details by reading the documentation “Managing Hyper-V hypervisor scheduler types.”

15. HTTP/2

In Windows Server 2019 we’ve made HTTP/2 better with connection coalescing, which allows two websites with a common domain name to share a certificate and a single TCP connection. It also has an improved cipher suite selection, which reduces connection failures and continues to enforce blacklisted ciphers.

16. More secure clustering

The core failover clustering has gotten more secure by completely removing dependency on NTLM, exclusively using Kerberos or certificate-based authentication between nodes, and now no change is required by the user or deployment tools. Check out the documentation “What’s new in Failover Clustering” to learn more.

17. Cluster-aware updating for HCI

Cluster-aware updating for HCI now allows you to easily keep your Windows Server fully patched with the latest updates. It is a technology that orchestrates the roll-out of updates across your server nodes. More information is included in the documentation “What’s new in Failover Clustering,” as well as during the demo “Be an IT hero with Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2019” during Microsoft Ignite 2018.

18. USB witness

Now in Windows Serve 2019, in addition to file share witness requiring an on-premises connection, and cloud witness requiring a connection to the cloud, we are also offering a third option called “USB witness,” which allows you to insert into a compatible router or switch. More information can be found in the documentation “What’s new in Failover Clustering,” as well as in the example steps to configure USB witness with the NetGear Nighthawk X4S.

19. Nested resiliency

Nested resiliency keeps you up and running even in the event of having both a drive failure and server failure at the same time. It uses RAID 5 + 1 to do parity resiliency and mirror that across to the other server. This allows you to survive multiple failovers even with a two-node cluster. To learn more, refer to the documentation “Nested resiliency for Storage Spaces Direct.”

20. Protection with Azure Site Recovery

For smaller sites and branch offices, Azure Site Recovery allows you backup your virtual machines to Azure and is integrated into Windows Admin Center. To learn more, refer to the documentation “Protect your Hyper-V Virtual Machines with Azure Site Recovery and Windows Admin Center.”

21. Azure Monitor and Health Service

Health Service on Windows Admin Center is now integrated with Azure Monitor and provides email and SMS notifications when something goes wrong. Learn how to configure Azure Monitor for HCI.

22. Integration with Azure Network Adapter

Azure Network Adapter is an integration into Windows Admin Center that allows you to connect a single server to an Azure virtual gateway so that you can get access from that server to your Azure files and VMs running in Azure. Watch the Microsoft Mechanics video “Windows Server 2019 + Microsoft Azure = hybrid management updates” for a demo.

23. LEDBaT or PacketMon

LEDBaT will back off lower priority workloads in order to let high priority traffic to take over and when the higher priority traffic slows down, the lower priority traffic will pick back up again in a second or two. Read more about LEDBaT on the Networking Blog.

24. High accuracy time

By implementing features such as Precision Time Protocol, Traceability, and Leap Seconds support, we’ve ensured improved time accuracy, especially for those of you in regulated industries. Learn more about high accuracy time features in the Windows Server Summit session and in the Windows Time Service documentation.

25. Over 25,000 clusters worldwide!

Last year, we had 10,000 clusters running around the world and this year we have over 25,000 clusters running storage spaces direct!

That’s a wrap!

We just gave you 25 reasons why you should consider HCI with Windows Server. And again, register online to watch the session from Windows Server Summit if you’ve missed it. From security to scalability and enhanced management, we are continuously improving our products to meet your data center needs. And if you stay tuned, I have no doubt you’ll be seeing 25 more reasons soon!

The post 25 reasons to choose Azure Stack HCI appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Greetings!

With the launch of Windows Server 2019 a few months ago, we kicked off a whole new wave of innovation focused on four pillars: Hybrid Cloud, Security, Application Platform, and Hyper-Converged Infrastructure, and it was just the beginning. Today, we’re excited to share with you a few feature areas of the next Windows Server, Semi-Annual Channel release – version 1903.

What’s new in Windows Server, version 1903

For version 1903, we’re focusing on App Platform, edge computing, Windows Admin Center, and App Compatibility.

In this release period, we’ll bring innovation in fundamentals and platform capabilities, closely working with the broader ecosystem to ensure compatibility. Some of the new capabilities will be available with this release, while others will be available through other channels including Azure and our ecosystem partners.

App Platform

Windows Server, version 1903 will continue to serve as an application platform for customers who are modernizing their applications on-premises or in the cloud with Windows containers.

1. We have been building platform capabilities to support Azure container services and third-party container services.
   • We integrated CRI-Containerd with Host Compute Service to support Pods of Windows Containers and Linux Containers on Windows on Azure.
   • We worked with the Kubernetes community to enable Windows container support. On March 25, 2019, with the release of Kubernetes v1.14, Windows Server node support officially graduated from beta to stable. To learn more, refer to the blog post, “Windows containers now supported in Kubernetes.”

2. We delivered scalability improvements enhancing overlay networking support for Windows containers, including integration with Kubernetes through the latest release of Flannel and Kubernetes v1.14. Try out Windows support in Kubernetes.
3. Based on customer interest in GPU acceleration, we’re taking the first step by enabling support for hardware acceleration of DirectX APIs in Windows containers. We believe this will enable new and interesting scenarios such as edge-local machine learning inferencing. Find out more in the blog post, “Bringing GPU acceleration to Windows containers.”
4. We updated documentation related to container identity/Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSA) with more examples and compatibility information. We’ve also made the Credential Spec module available in the PowerShell Gallery. For more information, refer to the blog post, “What’s new for container identity.”

Note: If you are using the Windows Server, version 1903 Insider Build on Azure, please note the build number is 18342. To ensure that you can run a Windows Server container on that build, use a Windows Server container build the same or lower than 18342. For example, you can run:

“docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore/insider:10.0.18342.1”

OR

“docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore/insider:10.0.18323.1000”

This practice of ensuring version compatibility applies to any Windows Server containers you may run, not just the case here. Please check the docs on Windows container version compatibility for more details.

Edge computing

As more applications, workloads, and services move to the cloud, certain edge computing scenarios are emerging where the logic is best suited to run locally rather than in the cloud. Applications that use Internet of Things (IoT) provide one example, and additional scenarios include data normalization, data analysis, and device control.

System Insights is a local predictive analytics feature introduced in Windows Server 2019. The System Insights predictive capabilities, each backed by a machine learning or analytics model, analyze Windows Server system data, such as performance counters and events. These capabilities provide insight into server operations, helping reduce the operational expenses associated with reactively managing deployment issues.

With the upcoming April Windows Admin Center (WAC) release, you can use the System Insights WAC extension to find, install, and update new System Insights capabilities. Coming shortly after the April WAC release, we will publish a new capability that allows you to detect anomalies in physical disk metrics. You can download this new capability entirely through WAC without updating your OS. This capability will work on both Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server, version 1903. With this capability, you can avoid setting static thresholds that require prior knowledge of expected behavior, and instead depend on this capability to automatically detect abnormal behavior in your physical disk metrics. In the future, we plan to extend these capabilities, improving the information you can leverage to best administrate your servers and infrastructure.

Windows Admin Center

Hybrid cloud makes it easier to run IT operations locally while still maximizing the benefits of the cloud. This includes easier distribution of data, monitoring infrastructure, and ease of deploying new apps. To improve the experience across cloud and on-premises, version 1903 brings the following innovations:

• Synergize migration with Azure File Sync: The Storage Migration Service leads to the Azure File Sync (AFS) WAC experience, where a customer who migrates from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2019 then deploys Azure File Sync and manages that data.
• Allow direct-to-Azure storage migrations with Storage Migration Service (SMS): Customers can migrate from Windows Server 2003, 2008/R2, 2012/R2, or Linux Samba directly to a running IaaS virtual machine.
• Make Azure cluster witness an opt-out: We now default quorum management into an Azure blob instead of a local store.
• Expand and iterate on the growing set of WAC’s Azure integration scenarios, including Azure Site Recovery, Azure Backup, Azure Active Directory authentication, Azure Update Management, and Azure Monitor alerts.

Server Core App Compatibility – Feature on Demand

The App Compatibility Feature on Demand for Server Core, introduced with Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server, version 1809, continues to be popular with customers using it in a variety of scenarios. Feedback since launch has led to two significant additions:

1. Task Scheduler (Taskschd.msc): More easily schedule your apps, actions, and scripts!
2. Hyper-V Manager (Virtmgmt.msc): Create and connect to virtual machines hosted on Server Core + the App Compatibility feature on demand (FOD)!

A reminder that Server Core is the recommended server OS installation type for production (managed by Windows Admin Center and/or Powershell). The App Compatibility FOD is intended for those specific workloads or enterprise apps that require more than what Server Core alone provides. This helps IT environments to standardize on Server Core.

Reminder: Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel is designed for faster innovation.

Get started today with version 1903

Windows Server, version 1903 Insider Builds

• Get the latest Windows Server Insider Build.
• Insider Build 18342 is now available through the Azure portal and the Azure Marketplace.

Windows Server, Version 1903 Container Insider Builds

• Server Core container Insider Builds
• Nano Server container Insider Builds
• Windows container Insider Builds

Windows Admin Center 1904 is now generally available. Easily manage your server instances and optionally enable various Azure services to light up hybrid scenarios.

All Insider previews are available for registered Insiders only. Need to register? See the Getting Started with Windows Server Insider Preview page for more information.

Learn more!

Attend our Windows Server Summit virtual event on May 22, 2019 to hear more on what’s to come from our Windows Server Team.

• Windows Server Summit 2019 event page
• Register for the Windows Server Summit

The post First sneak peek of Windows Server, version 1903 Semi-Annual Channel appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

It’s that time of the year again! Spring is in the air and Windows Server Summit is right around the corner. On May 22nd at Windows Server Summit 2019 you can discover how Windows Server can help you deliver your hybrid cloud strategy as well as gain tips on how to modernize your evolving infrastructure. The great thing about Windows Server Summit is that you can attend from anywhere in the world since it is all virtual – just kick up your feet and hit the link to join.

This year expect to deep dive in to technical Windows Server content covered by leading industry experts. Some of the heavy hitters you’ll hear from include leaders from the product team like Jeff Woolsey, Ned Pyle, Cosmos Darwin, and Haley Rowland. We’ll even have a fireside chat with experts from our Windows Sever community and live Q&A. You don’t want to miss this!

Sign up now for Windows Server Summit 2019.

What’s included in the event?

• Innovations in Microsoft Hybrid Strategy: Deep dive into Microsoft’s hyper-converged technologies and how to add hybrid services from Azure.
• Modernize Windows Server apps and workloads: Learn about security, Remote Desktop Services (RDS), containers, and application compatibility.
• New in management and security: See what’s new in Windows Admin Center, System Center 2019, and Windows Server 2019 – making it easier to deploy, manage, and monitor Windows Server anywhere.
• Insights and best practices: Fireside chat with Windows Server community experts.
• Looking ahead: Learn more about Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel and Windows Server on Azure.

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

Windows Server 2019

Leverage the benefits of the cloud in a hybrid cloud environment with Azure services now available in the latest release of Windows Server 2019.

Windows Admin Center

It couldn’t be easier to manage servers, clusters, and hyper-converged infrastructures than on Windows Admin Center. Download the latest release of Windows Admin Center and see it for yourself!

Azure Stack HCI

Run virtual machines on-premises and easily connect to Azure with a Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) solution. Learn more on our new Azure Stack HCI page.

Get a head start

Check out the on-demand videos on our Windows Server Summit page.

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 2019. We can’t wait to see you at the event!

The post It’s that time again: Windows Server Summit 2019! appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Updated on March 14, 2019: On March 7, 2019, we shared that System Center 2019 would be coming soon. As of March 14, 2019, we are pleased to let you know that System Center 2019 is generally available. Customers with a valid license of System Center 2019 can download media from the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC). We will also have the System Center 2019 evaluation available on the Microsoft Evaluation Center.

As customers grow their deployments in the public cloud and on-premises data centers, management tools are evolving to meet customer needs. System Center suite continues to play an important role in managing the on-premises data center and the evolving IT needs with the adoption of the public cloud.

Today, I am excited to announce that Microsoft System Center 2019 will be generally available in March 2019. System Center 2019 enables deployment and management of Windows Server 2019 at a larger scale to meet your data center needs.

System Center 2019 has been in private preview through the Windows Server Technical Adoption Program (TAP) customers since December 2018.  A big thank you to everyone who have given us feedback so far.

I would like to take a moment and give you an overview about the new release. System Center 2019 has the following areas of focus:

• First-class tools to monitor and manage data centers
• Support and manage capabilities in the latest versions of Windows Server
• Enable hybrid management and monitoring capabilities with Azure

System Center 2019 is our LTSC (Long Term Servicing Channel) release and provides the 5 years of standard and 5 years of extended support that customers can rely on. Subsequent to the GA of System Center 2019, the suite will continue to accrue value through the Update Rollup releases every six months over the mainstream support window of 5 years.

System Center 2019 is designed to deliver value in the following areas:

Hybrid

As enterprise environments now span on-premises to the cloud, customers look to leverage the innovation in Azure services using their on-premises tools. To enable this, we have integrated System Center with a set of management services in Azure to augment the on-premises tools.

• With Service Map integration with System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), you can automatically create distributed application diagrams in Operations Manager (OM) that are based on the dynamic dependency maps in Service Map.
• With Azure Management Pack, you can now view perf and alert metrics in SCOM, integrate with web application monitoring in Application Insights, and monitor more PaaS services, such as Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Factory, etc.
• Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2019 enables simplified patching of VMs by integrating with Azure Update Management.

Dashboard for Azure resources in SCOM web console

Security

With the security threats growing in number and sophistication, security continues to be top priority for customers.

• System Center products now support service logon and shun the dependency on interactive logon aligning with security best practice.
• VMM 2019 now includes a new role, VM administrator, which provides just enough permissions for read-only visibility into the fabric of the data center, but prevents escalation of privilege to fabric administration.

VM Administrator Role in VMM

Software defined data center

Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI) is a significant trend in on-premises data centers today. Customers see lowered costs by using their servers with high performant local disks to run compute and storage needs at the same time.

• With VMM 2019, you can manage and monitor HCI deployment more efficiently – from upgrading or patching Storage Spaces Direct clusters without downtime to monitoring the health of disks.
• VMM 2019 storage optimization enables you to optimize placement of VHDs across cluster shared volumes and prevents VM outages caused when the storage runs full.

Storage Health in VMM

Modernizing operations and monitoring

Customers have come to rely on SCOM for its extensibility and the ecosystem of management packs to monitor Microsoft and third-party workloads.

• With HTML5 dashboards and drill down experiences in the SCOM web console, you will now be able to use a simplified layout and extend the monitoring console using custom widget and SCOM REST API.
• Taking modernization a step further, email notifications in SCOM have been modernized as well with support for HTML-email in SCOM 2019.
• SCOM 2019 brings a new alerts experience for monitor-based alerts whereby alerts have to be attended to and cannot be simply closed by operators when the respective underlying monitors are in unhealthy state.
• SCOM has enhanced your Linux monitoring by leveraging Fluentd; and now is resilient to management server failovers in your Linux environments.
• All the SCOM management packs will now support Windows Server 2019 roles and features.

SCOM web console

Faster backups with Data Protection Manager 2019

Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2019 will provide backups optimized in time (faster) and space (consumes less storage).

• DPM improves performance of your backups with a 75 percent increase in speed and enables monitoring experience for key backup parameters via Log Analytics.
• DPM further supports backup of VMware VMs to tape. In addition to Windows Server 2019, DPM now provides backups for new workloads such as SharePoint 2019 and Exchange 2019.

DPM alerts and reports using Log Analytics

Orchestrator 2019 and Service Manager 2019

Orchestrator 2019 supports PowerShell V 4.0 and above, enabling you to run 64-bit cmdlets. Service Manager 2019 will ship with an improved Active Directory (AD) connector that is now capable of synchronizing with a specific domain controller.

Changes to release cadence

Finally, we are making changes to System Center release cadence to optimize the way we are delivering new features. System Center has two release trains today – LTSC and SAC. There is also a release train called Update Rollups (URs).

Most of our customers use Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) like System Center 2016 to run their data center infrastructures. LTSC provides five years of mainstream support and five years of extended support – with Update Rollups (UR) providing the incremental fixes and updates. From talking to customers, we learned that LTSC works better for most System Center deployments as the update cycles are longer and more stable.

Based on the learnings, we will start to focus our resources on innovation plans for System Center in LTSC releases and stop SAC releases. System Center 2019 will support upgrades from two prior SAC releases so customers running System Center 1801 or System Center 1807 will be able to upgrade to System Center 2019; just as System Center 2016 can be upgraded to System Center 2019.

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) is not impacted by the 2019 release change and will continue current branch release cadence of three times per year as noted in the documentation, “Support for Configuration Manager current branch versions.”

Call to action

In March, customers will have access to System Center 2019 through all the channels! We will publish a blog post to mark the availability of System Center 2019 soon. As always, we would love to hear what capabilities and enhancements you’d like to see in our future releases. Please share your suggestions, and vote on submitted ideas, through our UserVoice channels.

Frequently asked questions

Q: When will I be able to download the System Center 2019?

A: System Center 2019 is generally available in March 14, 2019. Customers with a valid license of System Center 2019 can download media from the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC).

Q: Is there any change in pricing for System Center 2019?

A: No.

Q: Will there be a new Semi-Annual Channel release along with System Center 2019?

A: No. There will not be Semi-Annual Channel releases, but new features before the next Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release will be delivered through Update Rollups.

The post Now available: Microsoft System Center 2019! appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Enterprises are adopting digital transformation to engage end users, offer competitive products, empower their employees, and improve operations. To drive this transformation, developers need a modern platform that helps them deliver innovation at the rate of changing business demands.

With Windows Server 2016 we started on a journey to deliver a truly modern platform that is developer inspired and focused on delivering cross-platform and open source technologies, while maintaining Windows Server’s high reliability standards. After Windows Server versions 1709 and 1803, Windows Server 2019 marks the next milestone in this journey.

The cloud is real and so too are your own datacenters. With Windows Server 2019 and Azure, you can choose what, when, and how you leverage on-premises, cloud, and hybrid compute to modernize your applications and innovate at a faster rate.

Bring your application to the modern era with Windows Server containers

Containers have become synonymous with digital transformation and modern development, allowing developers to focus on their code instead of worrying about infrastructure, operating systems, and deployments.

Since launching container support in Windows Server 2016 and subsequently as we provided key updates with Windows Server, version 1709 and 1803, the response has been phenomenal. Over 150 million container images based on Windows have been pulled from the Docker Hub and in just the last nine months over 500,000 installations of the Docker Enterprise Engine have been performed. Windows Server containers is available on-premises and in most public clouds. Open source orchestrators including Kubernetes, Swarm, and DC/OS support Windows Server containers. Platforms such as Microsoft Service Fabric and Pivotal Cloud Foundry directly leverage Windows Server container technology to power their services. Finally, many of you who are using the Visual Studio workflow can take advantage of an integrated debug, develop, and deployment experience by leveraging the underlying integrations of Visual Studio Code, Docker for Windows and Windows 10.

Windows Server 2019 is the next milestone on in our journey to deliver developer innovation, bring together the innovations in Windows Server 2016 along with those delivered though the Semi-Annual Channel.

Figure 1: Developer innovation on Windows Server

The above capabilities are already available in Windows Server Insider builds and your feedback will enable us to build a product that meets your needs.

Modernize your application even further with Azure

Cloud has played a big part in influencing change in expectation and experience of users. Users expect 24x7x365.25 access to information in any location and across any number of devices. Applications are also better with scale, availability, and resource optimization capabilities offered by public cloud.

While Windows Server works well in various public clouds, Azure is the best place for Windows Server applications. It offers first-class native support for Windows Server as well as a continuum of modernization options – virtual machines, platform-as-a-service, microservices, serverless, and more.

Windows Server and Linux containers are supported across many Azure services. To operationalize Windows Server container deployment and environments, you can use Azure Service Fabric and Azure Container Instances services.

Azure Service Fabric

Azure Service Fabric’s distributed systems platform makes it easy to develop, deploy, and manage scalable and reliable microservices. It’s the underlying fabric powering many services such as Azure Cosmos DB, PowerBI, Skype and Dynamics. Open sourced Azure Service Fabric can run at massive scale and is designed with .NET and Windows developers experience in mind. It natively runs Windows Server as well as Linux. Customers such as Tencent Games, Alaska Airlines, Abbyss, and many others are taking advantage of this service offering.

Figure 2: Azure portal for Service Fabric

Azure Container Instances

While containers are fundamentally changing application deployment models, Azure Container Instances, which support Windows Server containers, is a first of a kind service in public cloud that extends containers to operate in a Serverless fashion. For more on that checkout the Azure blog on Azure Container Instance.

With Windows Server in Azure in combination with other Azure services like containers, you can augment part of application stack to take advantage of new compute and data options. For example see how Altair Engineering is extending HPC compute as a software-as-a-service to its customers with Azure Windows Server Virtual Machines to handle the front end and containers to run the backend processes.

There are many advantages to using public cloud but there are also many reasons why you might still need to run your applications on-premises. Windows Server 2019 will be available for deployment across on-premises, Azure and Azure Stack.

Visit us at Microsoft Build 2018 – Learn about end-to-end developer innovation with Windows Server and Azure

Here a few recommended sessions:

• BRK2149 – Modernize your Windows Server Applications with containers
• BRK2125 – Why Kubernetes on Azure
• THR2034 – Modernize applications and reduce TCO with Windows containers on Azure Service Fabric
• BRK3810 Modernizing existing .NET applications with Windows containers and Azure cloud

Also, sign up for Windows Insiders to try Windows Server 2019 preview and test run Azure for free. We also love hearing from our community, so don’t forget to provide feedback using the Windows Feedback Hub app, or the Windows Server space in the Tech community.

The post Microsoft Pre-Build update: Developer innovation with Windows Server 2019 and Azure appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Today is a big day for Windows Server! On behalf of the entire Windows Server team, I am delighted to announce Windows Server 2019 will be generally available in the second half of calendar year 2018. Starting now, you can access the preview build through our Insiders program.

What’s new in Windows Server 2019

Windows Server 2019 is built on the strong foundation of Windows Server 2016 – which continues to see great momentum in customer adoption. Windows Server 2016 is the fastest adopted version of Windows Server, ever! We’ve been busy since its launch at Ignite 2016 drawing insights from your feedback and product telemetry to make this release even better.

We also spent a lot of time with customers to understand the future challenges and where the industry is going. Four themes were consistent – Hybrid, Security, Application Platform, and Hyper-converged infrastructure. We bring numerous innovations on these four themes in Windows Server 2019.

Hybrid cloud scenarios:

We know that the move to the cloud is a journey and often, a hybrid approach, one that combines on-premises and cloud environments working together, is what makes sense to our customers. Extending Active Directory, synchronizing file servers, and backup in the cloud are just a few examples of what customers are already doing today to extend their datacenters to the public cloud. In addition, a hybrid approach also allows for apps running on-premises to take advantage of innovation in the cloud such as Artificial Intelligence and IoT. Hybrid cloud enables a future-proof, long-term approach – which is exactly why we see it playing a central role in cloud strategies for the foreseeable future.

At Ignite in September 2017, we announced the Technical Preview of Project Honolulu – our reimagined experience for management of Windows and Windows Server. Project Honolulu is a flexible, lightweight browser-based locally-deployed platform and a solution for management scenarios. One of our goals with Project Honolulu is to make it simpler and easier to connect existing deployments of Windows Server to Azure services. With Windows Server 2019 and Project Honolulu, customers will be able to easily integrate Azure services such as Azure Backup, Azure File Sync, disaster recovery, and much more so they will be able to leverage these Azure services without disrupting their applications and infrastructure.

Figure 1: Project Honolulu’s management dashboard for Azure Backup in Windows Server 2019 Preview

Security:

Security continues to be a top priority for our customers. The number of cyber-security incidents continue to grow, and the impact of these incidents is escalating quickly. A Microsoft study shows that attackers take, on average, just 24-48 hours to penetrate an environment after infecting the first machine. In addition, attackers can stay in the penetrated environment – without being noticed – for up to 99 days on average, according to a report by FireEye/Mandiant. We continue on our journey to help our customers improve their security posture by working on features that bring together learnings from running global-scale datacenters for Microsoft Azure, Office 365, and several other online services.

Our approach to security is three-fold – Protect, Detect and Respond. We bring security features in all three areas in Windows Server 2019.
On the Protect front, we introduced Shielded VMs in Windows Server 2016, which was enthusiastically received by our customers. Shielded VMs protect virtual machines (VM) from compromised or malicious administrators in the fabric so only VM admins can access it on known, healthy, and attested guarded fabric. In Windows Server 2019, Shielded VMs will now support Linux VMs. We are also extending VMConnect to improve troubleshooting of Shielded VMs for Windows Server and Linux. We are adding Encrypted Networks that will let admins encrypt network segments, with a flip of a switch to protect the network layer between servers.

On the Detect and Respond front, in Windows Server 2019, we are embedding Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) that provides preventative protection, detects attacks and zero-day exploits among other capabilities, into the operating system. This gives customers access to deep kernel and memory sensors, improving performance and anti-tampering, and enabling response actions on server machines.

Figure 2: Windows Defender ATP securing a machine running Windows Server 2019 Preview

Application Platform:

A key guiding principle for us on the Windows Server team is a relentless focus on the developer experience. Two key aspects to call out for the developer community are improvements to Windows Server containers and Windows Subsystem on Linux (WSL).

Since the introduction of containers in Windows Server 2016, we have seen great momentum in its adoption. Tens of millions of container images have been downloaded from the Docker Hub. The team learned from feedback that a smaller container image size will significantly improve experience of developers and IT Pros who are modernizing their existing applications using containers. In Windows Server 2019, our goal is to reduce the Server Core base container image to a third of its current size of 5 GB. This will reduce download time of the image by 72%, further optimizing the development time and performance.

We are also continuing to improve the choices available when it comes to orchestrating Windows Server container deployments. Kubernetes support is currently in beta, and in Windows Server 2019, we are introducing significant improvements to compute, storage, and networking components of a Kubernetes cluster.

A feedback we constantly hear from developers is the complexity in navigating environments with Linux and Windows deployments. To address that, we previously extended Windows Subsystem on Linux (WSL) into insider builds for Windows Server, so that customers can run Linux containers side-by-side with Windows containers on a Windows Server. In Windows Server 2019, we are continuing on this journey to improve WSL, helping Linux users bring their scripts to Windows while using industry standards like OpenSSH, Curl & Tar.

Figure 3: Kubernetes managing a container host running Windows Server 2019 Preview

Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI): 

Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI): HCI is one of the latest trends in the server industry today. According to IDC, the HCI market grew 64% in 2016 and Gartner says it will be a $5 billion market by 2019. This trend is primarily because customers understand the value of using x86 servers with high performant local disks to run their compute and storage needs at the same time. In addition, HCI gives the flexibility to easily scale such deployments.

Customers looking for HCI solutions can use Windows Server 2016 and the Windows Server Software Defined program today. We partnered with industry leading hardware vendors to provide an affordable and yet extremely robust HCI solution with validated design. In Windows Server 2019 we are building on this platform by adding scale, performance, and reliability. We are also adding the ability to manage HCI deployments in Project Honolulu, to simplify the management and day-to-day activities on HCI environments.

Figure 4: Project Honolulu’s Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) management dashboard in Windows Server 2019 Preview

Finally, Window Server customers using System Center will be excited to know that System Center 2019 is coming and will support Windows Server 2019.

We have much more to share between now and the launch later this year. We will bring more details on the goodness of Windows Server 2019 in a blog series that will cover the areas above.

Sign up for the Insiders program to access Windows Server 2019

We know you probably cannot wait to get your hands on the next release, and the good news is that the preview build is available today to Windows Insiders. Join the program to ensure you have access to the bits. For more details on this preview build, check out the Release Notes.

We love hearing from you, so don’t forget to provide feedback using the Windows Feedback Hub app, or the Windows Server space in the Tech community.

Frequently asked questions

Q: When will Windows Server 2019 be generally available?

A: Windows Server 2019 will be generally available in the second half of calendar year 2018.

Q: Is Windows Server 2019 a Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release?

A: Windows Server 2019 will mark the next release in our Long-Term Servicing Channel. LTSC continues to be the recommended version of Windows Server for most of the infrastructure scenarios, including workloads like Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint, and Windows Server Software-defined solutions.

Q: What are the installation options available for Windows Server 2019?

A: As an LTSC release Windows Server 2019 provides the Server with Desktop Experience and Server Core installation options – in contrast to the Semi-Annual Channel that provides only the Server Core installation option and Nano Server as a container image. This will ensure application compatibility for existing workloads.

Q: Will there be a Semi-Annual Channel release at the same time as Windows Server 2019?

A: Yes. The Semi-Annual Channel release scheduled to go at the same time as Windows Server 2019 will bring container innovations and will follow the regular support lifecycle for Semi-Annual Channel releases – 18 months.

Q: Does Windows Server 2019 have the same licensing model as Windows Server 2016?

A: Yes. Check more information on how to license Windows Server 2016 today in the Windows Server Pricing page. It is highly likely we will increase pricing for Windows Server Client Access Licensing (CAL). We will provide more details when available.

The post Introducing Windows Server 2019 – now available in preview appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

In the previous blog post I discussed the high-level ideas behind our solution validation program, and the technical merits it accrues for people who buy and use those solutions. Building on those concepts, I’m going to dive into one particularly thorny integration challenge partners face when creating these solutions. I’ve been working with Windows and hardware at Microsoft for over 20 years. I know many of you have similar experience in the industry. You’re probably pretty certain you know how to make these systems sing together. I’m here to tell you it’s not as straightforward as your past experiences might lead you believe.

Standalone vs distributed systems

The way most servers and storage have been designed and validated in the PC ecosystem (until very recently) has been as standalone systems. You buy a server, you get the parts and sizes you need to support your workload, connect it to external networks and storage, and off you go. The integration work is all done by the OEM before they turn around and sell the system to you. Any external dependencies aren’t necessarily guaranteed, and often need to be tuned and configured to work properly in a customer environment for the best experience. Those external systems often undergo their OWN integration testing. SANs, networks, and other dependent infrastructure are tested and sold in their own silos to work under specific conditions.

The world of HCI blurs those lines dramatically. All of those different parts now converge into the same set of systems and need to work quickly and flawlessly with each other. The server is now the storage and the network and the compute, all in one. All of those separate integration steps need to be considered as part of the system design, not just the ones for the server itself. This is where “whole-solution validation” comes in. I’m going to dive into one of the thorniest and most problematic areas, the storage subsystem.

Off-the-shelf vs vendor supplied

One of the simplest areas to overlook is the differences between retail or channel supplied parts, and their vendor-tuned equivalents. One of the lesser-discussed features of the storage world is how specialized different versions of otherwise identical devices can become, as requested by different vendors. This isn’t anything specific to an OS or an OEM, it’s industry-wide.

Let’s say vendor A has a very popular model of disk. They’ll take that one disk and sell it into the retail channel under their enterprise label. The firmware will be tuned for maximum compatibility, since they don’t know what it will be attached to, and what features are needed or supported. It won’t use aggressive timings. It won’t implement special commands. It won’t do anything fancy that might break in a general configuration. Now, they take that same disk, and sell it to one of their major OEM customers. That OEM has LOTS of requirements. They sell their own SANs. They sell servers. They sell hardened systems that get installed on oil rigs. They sell all kind of things that one disk might need to be plugged into. All of those uses might have their own special needs. They have specialized diagnostics. They have aggressive timings, which allows them to have better performance and latencies than their competitors. They only have 1 or 2 types of HBA they support, so their testing matrix is small. The disk vendor will turn around and sell that device to them with a specialized firmware load that meets all their needs. Now repeat that procedure for a totally different OEM with very different requirements. You now have 3 versions of the same disk, all slightly different. Repeat another few times…you see where this is going, right?

Now, for all intents and purposes those disks look and act like any other disk 99% of the time. After all, there are industry standards around these things, and you’re not going to get many sales for a SATA or SAS disk that won’t ACT like a SATA or SAS disk when addressed by the system. HOWEVER, the 1% of the time it’s slightly different is often when it matters most. When the system is under stress, or when certain commands are issued in a certain order, it can result in behaviors that no one ever explicitly tested for before. OEM A tested for feature X in this scenario. OEM B didn’t test for it at all because they don’t use it that way. Put it into System C, and maybe the firmware on the disk just checks out and never comes back. Now you have a “dead” disk that’s simply an interop bug that no one but YOU would have found, because you’re building from a parts list instead of from a solution list.

You can take that above, very-real example, and apply it across the entire storage chain. You’ll quickly discover that a real compatibility matrix for a small set of physically identical devices multiplies into HUNDREDS of unique configurations. That unfortunate reality is why even though there is a healthy list of parts with the required Software-Defined Data Center AQ’s, we want customers invested in solutions which were designed and tested from end-to-end by our partners and OEMs, rather than just a list of certified devices.

Architectural differences matter too

Now, your first thought after reading that might be, “Fine, I’ll simply use SDDC parts from my preferred OEM, knowing that they’ve been designed to work together.” While that could eliminate certain types of interop bugs, it still leaves the chance for architectural changes that were never tested together as part of an integrated solution design. As an example, mixing SAS and SATA devices on the same storage bus could result in unexpected issues during failures or certain types of I/O. While technically supported by most HBAs and vendors, unless you’ve actually tested the solution that way, you have an incomplete picture of how all the pieces will work together. Another example is that not all SSD’s are created equal. NVMe devices offer a tremendous speed and latency benefit over more traditional SAS and SATA SSDs. With that boost can come a much higher performance ceiling for the entire system, which can result in heavy and unusual I/O patterns for the other storage devices on the system. One configuration using SATA SSD’s and HDD’s may behave very differently the second you swap the SATA SSDs for NVMe ones, despite the fact that all of them may be SDDC certified by one vendor.

This isn’t exclusively a storage problem, either. There are often multiple NICs in an OEM’s catalog that can support high-performance RDMA networks. Some of them will use RoCE, some will use iWARP, likely none of them will be supported by the vendor in a mixed environment, and often they require very specific firmware revisions for different whole solution configurations to ensure maximum reliability and performance. If no one ever tested the whole system as a solution with all the pieces well-defined, from end-to-end, the final reliability of the solution can only be speculated on.

Conclusion

These posts aren’t meant to make blanket statements about the supportability of do-it-yourself HCI and S2D configurations. Assuming your systems have all the proper logos and certifications, and your configuration passes cluster validation and other supportability checks, Microsoft will support you. However, it’s very easy to get caught with a slightly different version of the hardware, firmware, tested drivers, and other components. Building and tracking this in-house is not a trivial task! That’s why we wanted to make it clear why we’re running the Windows Server-Software Defined program, and what benefits you can expect by purchasing one of these configurations for your critical workloads. We feel confident that you will have a better HCI experience with Windows Server over the lifetime of the solution via this program than by building it on your own.

The post The technical value of WSSD validated HCI solutions, part 2 appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.