Karen Michelle Mares, Microsoft Windows Server OEM Product Manager
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Microsoft Windows Server 2025 Launch
For the last thirty years, Microsoft's operating system has been powering businesses’ most important workloads. With the release of the Windows Server 2025, the latest version of Microsoft's OS, we continue to build upon the business-proven security of this universally recognized and trusted offering.
How is Windows Server 2025 positioned in the market?
The new Windows Server 2025 combines industry-leading hybrid, multi-cloud, and edge capabilities with higher levels of performance that help organizations prepare for the compute-intensive workloads of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.
As mentioned in an IDC article, when compared to others, Windows Server is the pre-eminent server OS on the market, consisting of an on-premises, physical OS installed base and a high propensity (31%) to be favored as a “primary” operating system. Windows Server also continues to hold a large market share of 68.3%.
How can customers benefit?
Windows Server 2025 delivers exceptional value to HPE customers in the following ways:
- Provides a secure, reliable, and efficient IT foundation that can meet their evolving business needs
- Fulfills customer needs for critical applications and workloads
- Offers the ease of a one-stop shop with hardware, software, and support
- Caters effectively to SMB, mid-market and enterprise segments
How are enterprises benefiting from the server?
Windows Server 2025 drives seamless operations with:
- Business continuity and resiliency
- Enhanced data workflow and transactional security
- Continuous customer support to help executives make timely decisions
When paired with HPE servers, Windows Server 2025 truly comes into its own, delivering exceptional performance and reliability. Here’s why this combination is a powerhouse for your IT infrastructure:
- Optimized Hardware Integration: HPE servers are engineered to maximize the capabilities of Windows Server 2025, ensuring that hardware and software work together seamlessly.
- Enhanced Performance and Efficiency: With features like GPU partitioning and support for large VMs, HPE servers provide the hardware foundation necessary to fully exploit Windows Server 2025’s advanced capabilities.
- Robust Security and Reliability: HPE’s hardware solutions are designed with built-in security features that complement Windows Server 2025’s security enhancements, providing a secure and reliable environment for your critical workloads.
These are the top features of the revolutionary Windows Server 2025 OS enabled by HPE’s edge-to-cloud ecosystem, which together promise to boost your business's efficiency and productivity:
Better together: HPE and Microsoft
In a dynamic cloud ecosystem, HPE and Windows Server are two pillars steadfastly supporting each other in a global partnership. Over the last 3 years, HPE has helped more than 15,000 customers to use Windows Server OS on top of HPE Platforms. HPE ensures Windows Server certification in the majority of HPE platforms. Windows Server 2025 is certified and supported in the majority of HPE Platforms, with more to come when newer HPE Platforms generations are introduced in the market.
Furthermore, Windows Server OEM licenses can be worked into a GreenLake consumption deal, pointing towards the intelligently engineered compatibility of these two offerings. The Azure Virtual
Desktop Advanced is a special designation that brings expertise to your VDI deployments with up to a 30% reduction in IT costs when delivered by HPE GreenLake.
What are the key features offered by Windows Server 2025?
Advanced, multilayered security
- Windows Server 2025 offers secure operations by providing enhanced identity and cryptography protection, guards against cyber-attacks, helps you stay compliant, and heightens your vigilance to combat future threats.
- Rebootless updates (Hotpatching) ensures easier patching and fewer restarts to implement crucial security patches quickly, with less downtime. (Included in Azure & Azure Stack HCI; available as an add-on if Arc-enabled). Hotpatching allows the deployment of planned security patches without reboots for the host server.
- Leverage the power of enhanced identity management with the benefits of:
- Modern identity with next-generation Active Directory
- New domain controller increased from 8k DB to 32k DB page sizes
- Performance and scale improvements
- Kerberos for more scenarios
- Virtualization-based security (VBS) enclaves which enable isolation of sensitive workloads from both the host application and the rest of the system – reducing the threat of malicious attackers.
- Software-defined networking (SDN) and micro-segmentation are implemented through network security groups, which prevent the lateral spread of attacks originating externally or internally.
- In-transit data security with TLS 1.3 and SMB signing is required by default for outbound and inbound connections in Windows Server 2025.
- SMB over QUIC is now available in all editions of Windows Server 2025.
Cloud agility anywhere
- Bring the power of Azure to your hybrid cloud environment with Azure Arc. It’s now easier to bridge on-premises and cloud-based servers with Azure Arc, which helps you adapt quickly and innovate anywhere.
- Enjoy the user-friendly Azure Arc setup wizard, which makes connecting to Azure Arc easier and more intuitive, so you can start taking advantage of its hybrid cloud and multi-cloud management features.
- Experience better, faster networking, and a unified network policy across locations with SDN Multisite, and native L2 and L3 connectivity. Gain up to 30-50% performance improvements with lower CPU utilization.
- Deploy hybrid AKS workloads on the secure, scalable, & adaptive Software-defined Networking (SDN) infrastructure for Windows Server.
High-performance, future-ready infrastructure
- Windows Server 2025 offers GPU partitioning across VMs with live migration and failover clustering. It is built to support AI and ML workloads, larger virtual machines, storage enhancements, and inferencing at the edges.
- Increased scalability with larger virtual machines, which now support 240 TB of RAM and 2048 logical processors.
- Winget is installed by default, which is a command line Windows Package Manager tool that provides comprehensive package manager solutions for installing applications on Windows devices.
- Storage improvements and software-defined storage enhancements with ReFS (Resilient File System) to optimize deduplication and compression (for active workloads like VMs). Storage replica compression is now available in all editions of Windows Server.
Learn more about Microsoft Windows Server OEM licensing from HPE:
https://www.hpe.com/us/en/alliance/microsoft.html
https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/4AA4-3787ENW
