After revealing Windows Server 2016 at the Ignite conference in 2016, Microsoft began shipping Windows Server 2016. The product was in development for many years. It first became available in a technical preview in 2014. Although it looked like another iteration in the long-running franchise, Windows Server 2016 was a significant shift in the company’s operating system design.
Windows Server: Where it’s been and where it’s going
Window Server was originally known as NT Server. It was originally released in 1993 as a server-side companion for the client OSes Windows 1 through Windows 3.0x. The platform went through many changes over the next 20 years. Some of the most notable milestones include:
Incorporation and use of major applications and nomenclature, such as “My Computer”, “My Documents,” and others. The introduction of the Workstation and Server labels in NT Server 3.5, in 1994. Support for the PowerPC computing architecture in NT Server 3.51 in 1995. Incorporation of major applications and nomenclature (such as “My Computer,” “My Documents,” etc.) in various Windows Server 2012 releases. It seems that it is now entering a new phase, one that focuses on cloud computing. This is because the cloud is an extension of virtualization technology that was mainstreamed in the mid 2000s. “Microsoft is now the largest vendor in the cloud market.”
Microsoft has been a major cloud vendor. It has typically ranked second only to Amazon Web Services in terms of revenue, market share and subscribers to its Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings. Windows Server 2016 can be best understood as a key component of the rapidly changing Microsoft Cloud machinery.
Take a look at some of the new features available in Windows Server 2016.
How does Windows Server 2016 help Microsoft’s wider cloud strategy, which now impacts its entire portfolio of products/services? A few points are worth noting:
SOFTWARE-DEFINEDNETWORKING
Software-defined networking (SDN), has been a popular concept throughout the 2010s. It is the practice of allowing a CPU to make central decisions about how traffic on an Internet protocol network is managed.
Windows Server 2016 allows you to securely segment applications across a network using SDN. This is possible thanks to new capabilities for routing and mirroring traffic between virtual machines. The ultimate goal is to make Windows Server 2016 networking very similar to Azure.
CHANGES TO HYPERV
Hyper-V was a significant innovation in the history Windows Server. The 2016 edition has a significantly greater capacity than Windows Server 2012 and can support larger-scale, distributed workloads.
It has much higher limits for memory support and processor support than Windows Server 2012. There are subtler changes, too, like the addition of hot add/remove network adapters to VMs (meaning they can be swapped in/out while a VM runs, without triggering downtime). Secure Boot in Windows Server 2016 may also be available to VMs that run certain Linux distributions.
FAILOVER CLUSTERING
Windows Server’s Failover Clustering capabilities are now much better than in previous versions. Azure is being used more frequently. Azure can be used as an arbitration point in failover situations with the Cloud Witness service. Azure can be used in multisite failover alongside two data centers, without the need to set up or manage a third.
How to master Windows Server 2016’s intricacies
Visit our webinars page to learn more about Windows Server 2016. It also contains many useful resources. You can learn the courses and get the certifications that you need to be a successful candidate for Microsoft-centric jobs in today’s market at New Horizons Computer Learning Centers. Find a location near you today.