Monday, May 4, 2015

Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 2. MS Ignite News.

Microsoft announced release of Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview at Ignite conference in Chicago on May 4.

The second preview includes Nano Server, support for rolling upgrades for Hyper-V and Storage Clusters, Storage Replica and other improvements.

Windows Server / Hyper-V Container and Azure Stack functionalities are not included in TP 2 and expected to be available in the next TP coming this summer.

Windows Server 2016 TP download link

Hyper-V Server TP download link

What's new in Windows Server 2016 TP :

   Compute and Virtualization: Simplified upgrades, new installment options, and increased resilience, helping you ensure the stability of the infrastructure without limiting agility.
  1. Rolling upgrades for Hyper-V and scale-out file server clusters for faster adoption of new operating systems
  2. Functionality for hot add and remove memory and NIC, reducing downtime
  3. Virtual machine compute resiliency, so that virtual machines continue running even if the compute cluster fabric service fails
  4. Nano Server, a deeply refactored version of Windows Server with a small footprint and remotely managed installation, optimized for the cloud and a DevOps workflow
Networking: Continued investment to make networking as flexible and cost-effective as possible while ensuring high performance.
  1. Converged NIC across tenant and RDMA traffic to optimize costs, enabling high performance and network fault tolerance with only 2 NICs instead of 4
  2. PacketDirect on 40G to optimize performance
Storage: Expanding capabilities in software-defined storage with an emphasis on resilience, reduced cost, and increased control.
  1. Virtual Machine Storage Path resiliency, enabling virtual machines to pause and restart gracefully in response to either transient or permanent storage path failures
  2. Storage Spaces Direct to enable aggregation of Storage Spaces across multiple servers, pushing the cost of storage down while allowing for increased scale out
  3. Storage quality of service (QoS) for more control and predictable performance
  4. Storage Replica, giving you synchronous storage replication for affordable business continuity and disaster recovery strategies
Security and Assurance: Protecting against today’s threats with a “zero-trust” approach to security that is rooted in the hardware.
  1. New Host Guardian Service, part of a trust and isolation boundary between the cloud infrastructure and guest OS layers
  2. Just Enough Administration to reduce the risk of security breaches by allowing users to perform only specific tasks
Management: Ongoing advances to simplify server management and increase consistency in approach.
  1. PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) for easier, consistent and faster deployment and updates.
  2. PowerShell Package Manager  for unified package management and deployment
  3. Windows Management Framework 5.0 April Preview and DSC Resource Kit  (available online simultaneously with TP2)
And much more, including new features for IIS, RDS, and AD such as:
  1. Conditional access control in AD FS, allows requiring a device compliant with policies to access resources
  2. Support for application authentication with OpenID Connect and OAuth, making it easier to build mobile enterprise applications
  3. Full OpenGL support with RDS for VDI scenarios
  4. Server-side support for HTTP/2 including header compression, connection multiplexing and server push.
So what’s the next step? Check out the Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 2 here, and start learning more about what’s new and notable.

Additional Information


Release Notes: Important Issues in Windows Server Technical Preview 2

Microsoft Brings Azure to the Datacenter for the Next Generation of Hybrid Cloud  Server & Tools

Microsoft tees up second test builds of Windows Server 2016, System Center 2016  ZDnet

Microsoft will now let you run Azure in your datacenter  tnw

Microsoft readies new Azure Stack bundle for private cloud customers  ZDnet

Microsoft Announces Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016  msftnews

Microsoft releases Server Technical Preview 2 to TechNet subscribers  neowin

Try to contain your joy: Microsoft emits Windows Server 2016 with nano-services theregister

Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016 TP  technet

Gallery: Windows Server TP 2  neowin

How to Setup Hyper-V in Windows 10 insider Preview  TroubleShoot Windows



Image via Microsoft

Microsoft Ignite News


MSIgnite 2015 highlights

Microsoft launches Office 2016 consumer preview, pushes universal apps live to Windows phones

Microsoft Office 2016 Public Preview is now available

Microsoft wants to automatically install more software on business computers

Gallery: Microsoft shows off Windows 10 build 10105 and 10107 at Ignite

RIP Windows Media Center: Microsoft's HTPC software won't come to Windows 10

SQL Server 2016 public preview coming this summer

Ignite: Microsoft's next chapter in Enterprise Mobility

Skype for Business gains momentum