Let\u2019s talk features now \u2026<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure what\u2019s NDA and what is not, so I\u2019m going to stick with what Microsoft has publicly discussed. Sorry!<\/p>\n
Project Honolulu<\/h2>\n
For those of you who don\u2019t keep up with the tech news (that\u2019s most IT people), then Project Honolulu is a huge effort by MS to replace the Remote Server Administration Toolkit (RSAT) that you might know as \u201cAdministrative Tools\u201d on Windows Server or on an admin PC. These ancient tools were built on MMC.EXE, which was deprecated with the release of W2008!<\/p>\n
Honolulu is a whole new toolset built on HTML5 for today and the future. It\u2019s not finished \u2013 being built with cloud practices, it never will be \u2013 but but\u2019s getting there!<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cloudblogs.microsoft.com\/uploads\/prod\/2018\/03\/Figure1-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Hybrid Scenarios<\/h2>\n
Don\u2019t share this secret with anyone \u2026 Microsoft wants more people to use Azure. Shh!<\/p>\n
Some of the features we (at work) see people adopt first in the cloud are the hybrid services, such as Azure Backup (cloud or hybrid cloud backup), Azure Site Recovery (disaster recovery), and soon I think Azure File Sync (seamless tiered storage for file servers) will be a hot item. Microsoft wants it to be easier for customers to use these services, so they will be baked into Project Honolulu. I think that\u2019s a good idea, but I hope it\u2019s not a repeat of what was done with WS2016 Essentials.<\/p>\n
ASR needs more than just \u201creplicate me to the cloud\u201d enabled on the server; that\u2019s the easy part of the deployment that I teach in the first couple of hours in a 2-day ASR class. The real magic is building a DR site, knowing what can be replicated and what cannot (see domain controllers & USN rollback, clustered\/replicating databases & getting fired), orchestration, automation, and how to access things after a failover.<\/p>\n
Backup is pretty easy, especially if it\u2019s just MARS. I\u2019d like MARS to add backup-to-local storage so it could completely replace Windows Server Backup. For companies with Hyper-V, there\u2019s more to be done with Azure Backup Server (MABS) than just download an installer.<\/p>\n
Azure File Sync also requires some thought and planning, but if they can come up with some magic, I\u2019m all for it!<\/p>\n
Security<\/h2>\n
In Hyper-V:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Linux will be supported with Shielded VMs.<\/li>\n
- VMConnect supported is being added to Shielded VMs for support reasons \u2013 it\u2019s hard to fix a VM if you cannot log into it via \u201cconsole\u201d access.<\/li>\n
- Encrypted Network Segments can be turned on with a \u201cflip of a switch\u201d for secure comms \u2013 that could be interesting in Azure!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Windows Defender ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) is a Windows 10 Enterprise feature that\u2019s coming to WS2019 to help stop zero-day threats.<\/p>\n
DevOps<\/h2>\n
The big bet on Containers continues:<\/p>\n
- \n
- The Server Core base image will be reduced from 5GB by (they hope) 72% to speed up deployment time of new instances\/apps.<\/li>\n
- Kubernetes orchestration will be natively supported \u2013 the container orchestrator that orginated in Google appears to be the industry winner versus Docker and Mesos.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
In the heterogeneous world, Linux admins will be getting Windows Subsystem on Linux (WSL) for a unified scripting\/admin experience.<\/p>\n
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI)<\/h2>\n
Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) has been improved and more changes will be coming to mature the platform in WS2019. In case you don\u2019t know, S2D is a way to use local (internal) disks in 2+ (preferably 4+) Hyper-V hosts across a high speed network (virtual SAS bus) to create a single cluster with fault tolerance at the storage and server levels. By using internal disks, they can use cheaper SATA disks, as well as new flash formats don\u2019t natively don\u2019t support sharing, such as NVME.<\/p>\n
The platform is maturing in WS2019, and Project Honolulu will add a new day-to-day management UI for S2D that is natively lacking in WS2016.<\/p>\n
The Pricing<\/h2>\n
As usual, I will not be answering any licensing\/pricing questions. Talk to the people you pay to answer those questions, i.e. the reseller or distributor that you buy from.<\/p>\n
OK; let\u2019s get to the messy stuff. Nothing has been announced other than<\/a>:<\/p>\n
It is highly likely we will increase pricing for Windows Server Client Access Licensing (CAL). We will provide more details when available.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So it appears that User CALs will increase in pricing. That is probably good news for anyone licensing Windows Server via processor (don\u2019t confuse this with Core licensing).<\/p>\n
When you acquire Windows Server through volume licensing, you pay for every pair of cores in a server (with a minimum of 16, which matched the pricing of WS2012 R2), PLUS you buy User CALs for every user authenticating against the server(s).<\/p>\n
When you acquire Windows Server via Azure or through a hosting\/leasing (SPLA) program, you pay for Windows Server based only on how many cores that the machine has. For example, when I run an Azure virtual machine with Windows Server, the per-minute cost of the VM includes the cost of Windows Server, and I do not need any Windows Server CALs to use it (RDS is a different matter).<\/p>\n
If CALs are going up in price, then it\u2019s probably good news for SPLA (hosting\/leasing) resellers (hosting companies) and Azure where Server CALs are not a factor.<\/p>\n
The Bits<\/h2>\n
So you want to play with WS2019? The first preview build (17623) is available as of last night through the Windows Server Insider Preview program<\/a>. Anyone can sign up.<\/p>\n
![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/image_thumb.png\" "\\"image\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nWould You Like To Learn About Azure Infrastructure?<\/h2>\n
If you found this information useful, then imagine what 2 days of training might mean to you. I’m delivering a 2-day course in Amsterdam on April 19-20, teaching newbies and experienced Azure admins about Azure Infrastructure. There’ll be lots of in-depth information, covering the foundations, best practices, troubleshooting, and advanced configurations. You can learn more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AMS-Apr-2018-Cloud-Mechanix.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last night, Microsoft announced that Windows Server 2019 would be released, generally available, in the second half of 2018. I suspect that the big bash will be Ignite in Orlando at the end of September, possibly with a release that week, but maybe in October \u2013 that\u2019s been the pattern lately. LTSC Microsoft is referring … Continue reading “Windows Server 2019 Announced for H2 2018”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[148,206,156,55,143,61,261,262,181,258,209,260,255,259,257],"class_list":["post-21047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-windows-server","tag-azure-backup","tag-azure-file-sync","tag-azure-site-recovery","tag-backup","tag-containers","tag-dr","tag-hci","tag-hyper-converged-infrastructure","tag-hyper-v","tag-kubernetes","tag-project-honolulu","tag-s2d","tag-storage-spaces-direct","tag-windows-defender","tag-windows-server-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/windows-server-blue-a517bed8722d2e781.jpg","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21047"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21051,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21047\/revisions\/21051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}