Microsoft’s hybrid investments in Windows Server 2019

[Willa]

We recently covered Microsoft's exciting announcement that Windows Server 2019 would be released later this year.

If you missed the announcement and want to learn more, check out our blog:
Microsoft announces Windows Server 2019

When designing Windows Server 2019, Microsoft focused on 4 main topic areas: Hybrid, Security, Application Platform, and Hyper-Converged Infrastructure. Today, we're going to take a closer look at the first area of focus, hybrid.

Windows Server 2019 is Microsoft's first server operating system to fully embrace the hybrid datacenter and cloud goal through a combination of new in-box features, nimble add-on components, and Azure services designed to leverage all of the best advantages of edge computing with Azure capacity.

Hybrid investments for Windows Server 2019 include:
- The Windows Admin Center combined with hybrid Azure extensions
- Storage Migration Service
_ Azure File Sync
- Storage Replica

Let's take a more detailed look at each of these:

First, the Windows Admin Center empowers customers to leverage Azure services from their on-premises environments: discover, deploy, and utilize Azure services without leaving a central user interface, streamline setup and automatically provision required Azure resources, install necessary agents, and initialize the service behind-the-scenes.  

The new Storage Migration Service, included in Windows Server 2019, migrates servers and their data without reconfiguring applications or users. It's fast, consistent, and scalable—while taking care of the enormous complexities that can be inherent to server migrations—and  provides an intuitive graphical workflow using Windows Admin Center.

The new Azure File Sync service is generally available for deployment on Windows Server 2019 (as well as Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2012 R2), and centralizes organizations’ file shares in Azure Files, while keeping the flexibility, performance, and compatibility of on an-premises file server.

The Storage Replica disaster protection service, first added in Windows Server 2016, now adds additional capabilities for hybrid scenarios. It includes a limited version for Standard edition Windows Server, allowing small and medium businesses to protect themselves with an Azure Iaas VM as their second site when they do not have multiple locations.

Learn more about these hybrid investments found in Windows Server 2019.

HPE ProLiant servers can be used to evaluate, test, and validate Windows Server 2019 preview builds in non-production environments. It is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's goal to support customer testing and validation of Microsoft Windows Server 2019 preview builds, with the addition of HPE drivers and value-add software. HPE has a team dedicated to Windows Server engineering and have customer contacts for support and feedback during the preview time frame. To obtain support or get answers to questions about HPE ProLiant servers/options and support for Microsoft Windows Server 2019, send questions via email to ws2019preview@hpe.com. Support during the pre-release time frame is provided on a best-effort basis. Production grade firmware and driver support from HPE will be available shortly after Windows Server 2019’s general availability release date.

Read HPE’s technical white paper, “Evaluating Microsoft Windows Server 2019 preview builds with HPE ProLiant Servers” for more information.

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