Windows Server 2019 Storage Servers

Windows Server 2019

There are four main areas where Microsoft has put a lot of focus on making this edition of Windows Server the best version yet.

Hybrid

In the modern technology landscape, virtualisation and hybrid clouds have a huge presence. To facilitate better integration into hybrid environments, Microsoft has made a big push to provide better interconnection between their Azure cloud platform and their Windows Server operating systems. Windows Server 2019 has made huge leaps towards advancing that goal with improvements such as hybrid capabilities added to Windows Admin Center.

Security

The consequences of a data breach can be very severe and with our systems often being so interconnected nowadays, security has become absolutely vital for any enterprise-grade operating system. Windows Server 2019 takes a 3-stage approach to security, employing a “Protect, Detect and Respond” strategy. Features and improvements such as Shielded VMs, detection of zero-day exploitations and Defender Exploit Guard help lead the way in terms of security.

Application Platform

Containers are key in application development these days and this fact is not lost on Windows. They are improving support for the likes of Kubernetes and have added support for Linux containers. Developers have long felt the difficulty in environment navigation between Linux and Windows, and this is something they have wanted to correct.

Hyper-converged Infrastructure

HCI is a big concept in 2019 and Windows has taken notice in a big way. They are focusing on aiding users in getting the maximum out of their infrastructure with their software-defined program.

Features

There are a wide variety of new features that can be found in Windows Server 2019.

System Insights

System Insights is a new feature that brings local predictive analytics capability natively to Windows Server. Backed by a machine-learning model, these predictive capabilities analyse Windows Server system data and deliver key insight into the functioning of your servers. They are cost effective as they aid in reducing operating expenses that come with dealing with issues reactively rather than being proactive.

Windows Admin Center

With Windows Admin Center, administrators have a much easier time managing their systems and utilising new Windows Server 2019 features. The formerly named Project Honolulu is a new browser-based tool that is fully supported in Windows Server 2019.

Windows Admin Center provides updated tools to perform a wide number of tasks. These include server configuration and performance monitoring. For admins who work in a hybrid cloud model, they will find that Windows Admin Center is specially tailored to control virtual machines in any location.

Storage Migration Service

The Storage Migration Service delivers improvements to Windows Server storage management, eliminating the hassle common associated with a data migration from a file server to a new Windows Server box either on the premises or in the cloud.

The service features a graphical tool which takes inventory of data, transfers it and maintains the same configurations and security protocols without any manual intervention.

Admins can manage one or more storage migrations with the Windows Admin Center console.

Security

Windows Server 2019 features a large number of special security features that keep your system protected from potential threats.

Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) attacks malicious files and ends malicious processes. These threats are identified through deep platform sensors and response action which reveal memory and kernel level attacks.

A whole new group of host-intrusion prevention abilities are offered by Windows Defender ATP Exploit Guard. It features four components that are built to secure the device against a large number of potential attack and to obstruct actions commonly associated with malware attacks.

Attack Surface Reduction (ASR) is a group of controls which enterprises can implement to stop malware from getting onto the machine. It allows the blocking of suspicious and potentially malicious files, scripts, ransomware behaviour, lateral movement and email-based threats.

Security with SDN (Software Defined Networking) provides many features to boost customer confidence in running workloads either on their premises or on the cloud.

There are number of improvements that the Shielded Virtual Machines feature has enjoyed. Shielded virtual machines can now be run on machines without consistent connectivity to the Host Guardian Service (HGS). This is done through leveraging the new offline mode features and fallback HGS. Fallback HGS enables you to configure a secondary set of URLs for Hyper-V to attempt if it fails to reach your primary HGS server.

Your shielded virtual machines can continue to be start up in offline mode, even if its not possible to reach HGS. All that’s needed is that the VM has already started once successfully and there hasn’t been a change in the host’s security configuration.