WE CAN HELP Introducing Windows Server 2016

Windows Server 2016 New Features

There are a lot of new features in Windows Server 2016, from Azure integration to Nano Server technology to improvements in security – to help you understand what it all means we have put together this handy guide! Let IT3000 come and talk to you about how we can help your business

New Features in Hyper-V on Server 2016 Staged Hyper-V Cluster upgrade This allows you to run both Windows Server 2012R2 and Windows Server 2016 on your cluster – although the new features won’t be available until you upgrade all hosts to Windows Server 2016. Hot add networking adapters Windows Server 2016 will give you the ability to add and remove network adapters whilst the server is still live. (Generation 2 VM). Hot add memory You can adjust the memory of the Virtual Machine (VM) while it is running. This works on generation 1 and 2 VMs, and it doesn’t require dynamic memory to be enabled for a specific VM. Hyper-V manager Down level management which means you can use Hyper-V manager 2016 to manage lower versions of Hyper-V (Server 2012 and up). It also offers alternate credentials support and support for Web Services Management (WSManagement). Linux Secure Boot Ubuntu 14.04 and Suse Linux Enterprise Server 12 will now support Secure Boot on Generation 2 VMs. Nested virtualization Nested virtualization is a feature that allows you to run Hyper-V inside of a Hyper-V virtual machine – for example this would allow you to run a Hyper-V Container in a virtualized container host for application isolation.

Production checkpoints Production checkpoints will either enable VSS technology for Windows OS or flush the file system buffers for Linux OS, to create “point in time” images of a virtual machine. These images can then be restored at a later date, in a way that is completely supported for all production workloads. This is achieved by using backup technology inside the guest to create the checkpoint, instead of using saved state technology. For Windows, this will mean an applicationconsistent snapshot. For Linux, it will mean a fileconsistent checkpoint. At last, we can use Checkpoints on a production cluster. Containers Containers are used for Secure isolated application delivery; we envisage that this will open up the Microsoft store to add business applications in an easy install click to run environment (take a look at https://hub.docker.com for more information). There are two types of containers available; Windows containers and Hyper-V containers. The difference being that Windows containers share a kernel with the host, and all other containers running on the host. Whilst with Hyper-V Containers, the kernel of the container host is not shared with any other containers that are running on the host.

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Containers Continued This means that Windows containers are isolated from one another and they run directly on the Windows Server 2016 host. Hyper-V Containers on the other hand provide enhanced isolation by running the containers from inside a Hyper-V VM.

Shielded VMs Windows Server 2016 offers great improvements in security, especially when it comes to public clouds. Shielded VMs rely on generation 2 VMs and enable BitLocker encryption inside the VM.

New Features in Remote Desktop Services (RDS) on Server 2016 Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Graphics Compression Windows Server 2016 (and Windows 10) RDP graphics compression (codec) now implements fullscreen AVC 444 mode. This enhancement provides: •Reduced bandwidth and better experience at higher resolutions •Hardware offload support. Discrete Device Assignment (DDA) Windows Server 2016 Remote Desktop Session Hosts can now take advantage of DDA, enabling enhanced graphics performance.

• Full graphics API Support (ex. DirectX, OpenGL,

CUDA, OpenCL) (depends on GPU driver). • Native GPU Driver Support (Intel, AMD, NVIDIA). • Maximum Performance (1 or more GPUs to 1 VM). • Multiuser RDSH Support. Multiple sessions can utilize the graphics card assigned to the RDSH VM via DDA. Personal Session Desktops Personal Session Desktops enable VMs running a Windows Server 2016 operating system to be assigned to specific users in a 1:1 configuration, in a similar way to personal desktops with VDI.

Pen remoting support Pen devices - like those available with Surface devices - are now supported for use through Remote Desktop connections. Technically, you always could use the pens, but it was treated like a mouse. MultiPoint Services Role MultiPoint Services is a new server role in Windows Server 2016. It is a server solution that is easy to deploy and easy to manage. It enables low-cost per seat desktop computing. MultiPoint allows multiple users, each with their own independent Windows experience, to simultaneously share one computer. The unique tool-set of this role allows monitoring of all user sessions on the MultiPoint server. Scalability High Availability Connection Broker no longer requires its own SQL server cluster. It can either use an existing non-dedicated SQL Server or an Azure SQL database, making RDS easier to implement. Microsoft also optimized the login process to better handle login storms, also known as 9 A.M. scenarios, which are the slowdowns that users experience when many users login at the same time first thing in the morning.

Microsoft Azure Hybrid Use Benefit With the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit, you can use on-premises Windows Server licenses that include Software Assurance to earn special pricing for new Windows Server virtual machines in Azure—whether you’re moving a few workloads or your entire datacentre. Come a talk to IT3000 about your cloud project or to see how cloud can work for your business

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Windows Server 2016 Licensing Options

The Windows Server 2016 licensing model includes both Cores + Client Access Licenses (CALs). Each user and/or device accessing a licensed Windows Server Standard, Datacenter or Multipoint edition requires a Windows Server CAL or a Windows Server and a Remote Desktop Services (RDS) CAL. A Windows Server CAL gives a user or device the right to access any edition of Windows Server of the same or earlier version. Each Window Server CAL allows access to multiple licenses of Windows Server.

Edition

Ideal for

Licensing model

CAL requirements

Datacenter

Highly virtualized and software-defined datacenter environments

Core-based

Windows Server CAL

Standard

Low density or non-virtualized environments

Core-based

Windows Server CAL

Essentials

Small businesses with up to 25 users and 50 devices

Processor-based

No CAL required

Feature

Datacenter

Standard





OSEs / Hyper-V containers

Unlimited

2

Windows Server containers Host Guardian Service

Unlimited

Unlimited





Nano Server*





Storage features including Storage Spaces Direct and Storage Replica Shielded Virtual Machines



Networking Stack



Core functionality of Windows Server



*Software Assurance is required to deploy and operate Nano Server in production.

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Licensing and Pricing Options Per-Core Licensing Windows Server 2016 licenses come a 2 core license pack There is a minimum purchase requirement per physical server. You must license at least 2 processors with 8 cores each per server; that’s 16 cores that must be licensed, even if you are only going to use a single quad core processor. For a server with a Xeon 24 core processor you will require 12 windows server license packs or 24 license packs for a dual Xeon 24 core server.

Virtualization As per previous versions of Windows Server you must license a host to cover the maximum number of possible windows server virtual machines that could run on that host – so cluster nodes should be licensed equally to cater for failover and live migration (this is the same for all hypervisors) Guest licensing with Windows Standard you get 2 x VOSE (Virtual Operating system environment) every time you FULLY license a hosts (see per-core licensing).

Pricing Examples Example 1: A single processor Server with 8 cores per processor = 8 cores this will require 8 x 2 core license packs (as the minimum core license for a physical server is 16)

VM 1

This will give licenses to run 2 x Windows server virtual machines

VM 2 Single processor Server with 8 cores per processor

Example 2: For a dual processor Server with 8 cores per processor = 8 cores this will require 8 x 2 core license packs

Requires

8 x 2 cor

e

license packs

Example 1

This will give licenses to run 2 x Windows server virtual machines Example 3: If you want to run 4 Virtual machines on the above dual processor server, you will need to purchase another 8 x 2 core license (16 in total)

VM 1

VM 2 Dual processor Server with 8 cores per processor

Example 4: If you are running a two node cluster with two host each with dual 8 core processors and needed 4 virtual servers, you would require 32 x 2 core license packs Example 5: If you added another virtual server to this cluster, you would require another 8 x 2 core license pack x 2 (one for each node of the cluster) – this would actually allow you to add another 2 virtual server For any help or advice in licensing Microsoft server or Office 365 please get in touch

Requires

8 x 2 cor license packs

e

Example 2

VM 1

VM 2

VM 3

Dual processor Server with 8 cores per processor

VM 4 Requires

16 x 2 co license packs

re

Example 3

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Windows Server 2016 Glossary & Sources

Glossary Cluster – In a computer system, a cluster is a group of servers and other resources that act like a single system and enable high availability and, in some cases, load balancing and parallel processing. Container – Containers are isolated, resource controlled, and portable operating environments.

Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) – The Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) provides remote display and input capabilities over network connections for Windows-based applications running on a server. RDP is designed to support different types of network topologies and multiple LAN protocols.

Essentially a container is an isolated place where an application can run without affecting the rest of the system and without the system affecting the application.

SQL Server – SQL Server is a Microsoft product used to manage and store information. Technically, SQL Server is a “Relational Database Management System” (RDMS).

Discrete Device Assignment (DDA) – Discrete Device Assignment is a performance enhancement that allows a specific physical PCI device to be directly controlled by a guest VM running on the Hyper-V instance. Specifically, this new feature aims to deliver a certain type of PCI device class, such as Graphics Processing Units (GPU) or Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe) devices, to a Windows Server 2016 virtual machine, where the VM will be given full and direct access to the physical PCIe device.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) – is the practice of hosting a desktop operating system within a VM running on a centralized server.

Hyper-V – The Hyper-V server role in Windows Server lets you create a virtualized server computing environment where you can create and manage virtual machines. You can run multiple operating systems on one physical computer and isolate the operating systems from each other. With this technology, you can improve the efficiency of your computing resources and free up your hardware resources.

Virtual Machine (VM) – A virtual machine (VM) is an operating system or application environment that is installed on software, which imitates dedicated hardware. The end user has the same experience on a virtual machine as they would have on dedicated hardware. Volume Snapshot Service (VSS) Technology – The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) is a set of COM APIs that implements a framework to allow volume backups to be performed while applications on a system continue to write to the volumes. VSS provides a consistent interface that allows coordination between user applications that update data on disk (writers) and those that back up applications (requesters).

Operating System (OS) – An operating system (OS) is the program that, after being initially loaded into the computer by a boot program, manages all the other programs in a computer. The other programs are called applications or application programs.

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Sources blogs.technet.microsoft.com/ausoemteam/2016/09/05/whats-new-in-windows-server-2016-standardedition-part-10-remote-desktop-services/ databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3769211/What-is-SQL-Server.htm hyperv.veeam.com/blog/new-features-windows-server-hyper-v-2016/ lenovopress.com/lp0088.pdf msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa383015(v=vs.85).aspx msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa384649(v=vs.85).aspx msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscontainers/about/about_overview msdn.microsoft.com/virtualization/windowscontainers/quick_start/quick_start searchexchange.techtarget.com/definition/cluster searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/definition/virtual-machine searchvirtualdesktop.techtarget.com/definition/virtual-desktop-infrastructure-VDI technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server-docs/compute/hyper-v/manage/choose-between-standardor-production-checkpoints-in-hyper-v technet.microsoft.com/windows-server-docs/compute/hyper-v/hyper-v-on-windows-server ut5ff3npbyx1sqnpx41jwye1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WS-2016-LicensingDatasheet-2016.pdf whatis.techtarget.com/definition/operating-system-OS

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