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<title>Three reasons to watch my free webinar on what’s new in Hyper-V</title>
<link>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/27/three-reasons-to-watch-my-free-webinar-on-whats-new-in-hyper-v/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/27/three-reasons-to-watch-my-free-webinar-on-whats-new-in-hyper-v/#respond</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 27 Apr 2017 16:00:18 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Microsoft Windows Server Team]]></dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/?p=15465</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This post was authored by Jeff Woolsey, Principal PM Manager, Windows Server. In case you missed my recent webinar, Software-define your infrastructure with Hyper-V using Windows Server 2016, dont worry, you can still watch it for free! Solutions, not features. Covering all of the exciting new features in Windows Server 2016 would take a couple <p><a class="read-more" href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/27/three-reasons-to-watch-my-free-webinar-on-whats-new-in-hyper-v/">Continue reading</a></p>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>This post was authored by Jeff Woolsey, Principal PM Manager, Windows Server. </em></p> <p>In case you missed my recent webinar, Software-define your infrastructure with Hyper-V using Windows Server 2016, dont worry, you can still <a href="http://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/console/EventConsoleNG.jsp?uimode=nextgeneration&eventid=1365305&sessionid=1&username=&partnerref=&format=fhaudio&mobile=false&flashsupportedmobiledevice=false&helpcenter=false&key=2F399B6E1F21BD32DB4942A800B55982&text_language_id=en&playerwidth=1000&playerheight=650&overwritelobby=y&eventuserid=166253376&contenttype=A&mediametricsessionid=132737040&mediametricid=1968535&usercd=166253376&mode=launch">watch it</a> for free!</p> <ul> <li><strong>Solutions, not features.</strong> Covering all of the exciting new features in Windows Server 2016 would take a couple of days. Since I only had one hour, I decided to focus on three areas that I know are concerns for many of our customers. Youll learn how deploying Windows Server 2016 can help you boost performance, increase reliability, and gain flexibility. Youll also learn how your on-premises environment can benefit from the Azure technologies weve baked into the OS.</li> <li><strong>Weve got demos!</strong> Like the saying goes, show, dont tell. In this webinar youll see how to balance VM loads like a boss and upgrade VM clusters with zero downtime. I literally pull the plug on 500 guest VMs so you can see how easy it is to protect your data with synchronous storage replication.</li> <li><strong>Its useful.</strong> You dont have to take my word for it. We asked attendees how useful this webinar was to them, and 88.9% of the respondents said it was useful or very useful. (By the way, did I mention that its free?)</li> </ul> <p><a href="http://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/console/EventConsoleNG.jsp?uimode=nextgeneration&eventid=1365305&sessionid=1&username=&partnerref=&format=fhaudio&mobile=false&flashsupportedmobiledevice=false&helpcenter=false&key=2F399B6E1F21BD32DB4942A800B55982&text_language_id=en&playerwidth=1000&playerheight=650&overwritelobby=y&eventuserid=166253376&contenttype=A&mediametricsessionid=132737040&mediametricid=1968535&usercd=166253376&mode=launch">Check out the free webinar</a>. I hope youll find the hour a good use of your time let me know either way using the comments section below, or hit me up on Twitter, <a href="https://twitter.com/WSV_GUY">@WSV_GUY</a>. Also, let me know what other webinars would help you understand how to software-define your infrastructure with Windows Server 2016 and Hyper-V.</p> ]]></content:encoded>
<wfw:commentRss>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/27/three-reasons-to-watch-my-free-webinar-on-whats-new-in-hyper-v/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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<title>Integrated management and security across your hybrid cloud</title>
<link>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/19/integrated-management-and-security-across-your-hybrid-cloud/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/19/integrated-management-and-security-across-your-hybrid-cloud/#respond</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Apr 2017 17:00:28 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Microsoft Server and Cloud Platform Team]]></dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/?p=15445</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Do you have a truly end-to-end view of your hybrid cloud environment? Most environments today are complex, with multi-tier applications that may span multiple datacenters and cloud hosting environments.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Do you have a truly end-to-end view of your hybrid cloud environment? Most environments today are complex, with multi-tier applications that may span multiple datacenters and cloud hosting environments. In fact, the reality is that for most companies, complexity is the number one challenge in a hybrid cloud environment, according to the <a href="https://aka.ms/stateofhybridcloud">2017 State of Hybrid Cloud research study</a>. Not coincidentally, respondents identified unified management across multiple operating systems and public clouds as a top priority.</p> <p>To make sure your critical applications and systems perform at peak efficiency, you need a big picture view that spans the different application components and infrastructure services, and includes the ability to act on insights and resolve issues quickly. The advantage of doing this deep level of analytics in the cloud is that you can have unlimited scale and flexibility with your log data, without the heavy weight of infrastructure to put in place. With management-as-a-service in Azure, you let us do the hard part of correlating, analyzing, and crowd-sourcing information. You can then use the insights you gain to start anticipating and resolving issues before problems result in business impact.</p> <p>At Microsoft, our core management approach is to bring data from your applications, workloads, and infrastructure together in one place, then provide you the ability to drill down deep and do rich analytics. With Azure management and security services, you can pull data from multiple sources to find out if there is an infrastructure issue, if the network is slow, or if the latest deployment of your application is causing problems. Since we include built-in collection of log and performance data from servers all the way to application code, we can help you bring IT and Developers together to troubleshoot issues quickly.</p> <p>One of the key technologies that can help you turn data into actionable insights about your hybrid environment is Service Map, part of Azure Insight & Analytics. <a href="https://aka.ms/iyhs2q">Today we released Service Map general availability</a>, a tool that automatically discovers and builds a map of server and process dependencies for you. It pulls in data from other solutions in the service, such as Log Analytics, Change Tracking, Update Management, and Security, all in context. Rather than looking at individual types of data, you can now see all data related to the systems you care about most, as well as graphically visualize their dependencies.</p> <p>Learn more about how you can use integrated management and security services to reduce complexity in your hybrid cloud environment.</p> <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2dwa4TTWMnI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <p>Try today with a free <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/operations-management-suite-trial">Operations Management Suite account</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded>
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<title>DockerCon 2017: Simplifying Containerization for Enterprises</title>
<link>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/19/dockercon-2017-simplifying-containerization-for-enterprises/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/19/dockercon-2017-simplifying-containerization-for-enterprises/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Apr 2017 14:00:27 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Schutz, Windows Server and Management]]></dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/?p=15455</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Since the launch of Windows Server 2016 six months ago, adoption has been nothing short of amazing. Customers like Tyco started adopting Windows containers even before general availability and in day two of DockerCon 2017, Northern Trust highlighted their own success with containers on Microsoft Azure with Docker Enterprise Edition (EE). The list of customers <p><a class="read-more" href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/19/dockercon-2017-simplifying-containerization-for-enterprises/">Continue reading</a></p>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em></em>Since the launch of Windows Server 2016 six months ago, adoption has been nothing short of amazing. Customers like <a href="http://advocacypublic.clouddam.microsoft.com/en-US/story/tyco">Tyco</a> started adopting Windows containers even before general availability and in day two of DockerCon 2017, Northern Trust highlighted their own success with containers on Microsoft Azure with Docker Enterprise Edition (EE). The list of customers succeeding with Windows and Docker Inc. is growing each day. In Azure, we continue to see explosive growth in our container offerings with customers looking toward cloud and hybrid deployments of both Linux and Windows container workloads. Developers have also benefited with new container support in the recent launch of Visual Studio 2017 and continued innovation on the cross-platform Visual Studio Code.</p> <p>Docker has been an important part of how weve brought container advancements to our customers. In the first <a href="https://news.microsoft.com/2014/10/15/dockerpr">announcement</a> of our relationship with Docker, we asserted our vision – <em>Developers and organizations that want to create container applications using Docker will be able to use either Windows Server or Linux with the same growing Docker ecosystem of users, applications and tools.</em> We are excited to further this commitment, and our engagement with Docker, with new programs and innovations designed to deliver even more choice to containers users.</p> <p>Yesterday we showed for the first time, a Linux container running natively on Windows Server using the Hyper-V isolation technology currently available only to Windows Server Containers. Today were again joining forces with <a href="http://www.docker.com/">Docker</a> and <a href="https://www.avanade.com/en">Avanade</a> to share a new program – Modernize Traditional Applications – to help enterprises embrace containerization and application modernization. Were also making container networking improvements to now support Docker swarm mode and Docker Enterprise Edition (Docker Datacenter).</p> <h2>Helping enterprises modernize applications & move to Azure</h2> <p>The benefits of containers are extensive, but weve heard from many enterprise customers that need support and guidance to get on the right path to modernize their current applications. Today, Microsoft, Docker and Avanade are launching a new comprehensive program to help these enterprise customers launch their own journey to containers. This program is based on successful application modernization projects, like those Northern Trust shared, to increase portability and speed of deployment while also being able to decommission old hardware.</p> <p>It provides a low-cost engagement focused on containerizing an existing application with Docker EE in Azure in less than five days and with an overall engagement of four weeks. In the process, dramatically improving the agility of managing and redeploying this application in the future.<br /> This gives customers firsthand experience in the process, methodology and benefits of containerization with minimal overhead or risk. Customers can then choose to continue deploying additional containerized applications to Azure in a public, hybrid or hosted environment. For more information on how to take advantage of this program, check out: <a href="http://www.docker.com/MTA">www.docker.com/MTA</a>.</p> <h2>Networking support for Docker Swarm Mode</h2> <p>Docker Swarm mode streamlines container development and orchestration for developers and IT admins building and deploying containerized applications. At the heart of Docker Datacenter (Docker Enterprise Edition Standard), one of the key features in swarm mode is overlay networking which enables services to be scaled-out across multiple, heterogeneous independent of the physical network configuration. Partnering with Docker and the Docker community we are happy to announce that Windows Server 2016 now supports overlay networking enabling IT admins to create a Docker swarm cluster spanning multiple Windows Server 2016 and Linux Docker hosts without worrying about separately configuring the underlying network fabric. You can read more about how to enable this feature <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/virtualization/2017/04/18/ws2016-overlay-network-driver">here</a>.</p> <h2>Linux Container options for Windows Server</h2> <p>Just in case you missed it, during the DockerCon 2017 opening keynote we demonstrated a Linux container running natively on Windows Server through our Hyper-V isolation technology. We are looking forward to working on this new project with the community over the coming weeks and months to build a first-class experience for developers and IT Professionals to run their Linux and Windows containers side by side driving more choice than ever before. The support from top Linux distributions including Canonical, Intel, RedHat and SuSE is a strong validation of how valuable this is to the ecosystem and the forthcoming work with the LinuxKit project will only further the communitys options and experiences.</p> <p>As we start to wrap up another DockerCon, we want to thank our customers and our partners for their continued support in our container journey. Stay tuned for more on these announcements in the near future. And, as always, we want your feedback. Let us know what you think in the comments.</p> ]]></content:encoded>
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<title>DockerCon 2017: Powering new Linux innovations with Hyper-V isolation and Windows Server</title>
<link>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/18/dockercon-2017-powering-new-linux-innovations-with-hyper-v-isolation-and-windows-server/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/18/dockercon-2017-powering-new-linux-innovations-with-hyper-v-isolation-and-windows-server/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Apr 2017 15:00:35 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Microsoft Windows Server Team]]></dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/?p=15447</guid>
<description><![CDATA[With over 900,000 containerized applications in the Docker Hub there has never been a better time to be a developer. However, a barrier remained Linux images run on a Linux host and Windows images on a Windows host requiring multiple infrastructures and more complex development tooling. ]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>This post was authored by John Gossman, Azure Lead Architect and Linux Foundation Board Member.</em></p> <p>With over 900,000 containerized applications in the Docker Hub there has never been a better time to be a developer.However, a barrier remained Linux images run on a Linux host and Windows images on a Windows host requiring multiple infrastructures and more complex development tooling. Today at DockerCon 2017, Microsoft showcased how we will remove this barrier with Linux containers running natively on Windows Server through our Hyper-V isolation technology.This will enable developers to build with Windows and IT administrators hosting Windows Server to run any container image regardless of their platform.</p> <p>When we <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2015/04/08/microsoft-announces-new-container-technologies-for-the-next-generation-cloud/">announced</a> and <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2015/11/19/announcing-the-release-of-hyper-v-containers-in-windows-server-2016-technical-preview-4/">launched</a> Hyper-V Containers it was because some customers desired additional, hardware-based isolation for multi-tenant workloads, and to support cases where customers may want a different kernel than what the container host is using for example different versions.We are now extending this same Hyper-V isolation technology to deliver Linux containers on Windows Server. This will give the same isolation and management experience for Windows Server Containers and Linux containers on the same host, side by side.</p> <p>Tens of thousands of developers depend on Docker Community Edition (CE) on their Windows 10 laptops each day as they build, ship and run Linux and Windows containers.Microsoft has a long history of working in the Docker community, collaborating to bring container technologies to Windows and Microsoft Azure.This project is being launched today, at DockerCon, so that we can continue that legacy of working with the community to deliver innovative solutions in open source.</p> <p>More than three years ago, we helped contribute Hyper-V support to the <a href="https://github.com/docker/machine/commit/3810dacadfa1143aac51be241ddb7d572f335c5e"><em>Docker Machine</em></a> and <a href="https://github.com/boot2docker/boot2docker/commit/3684e659b030827d77d2e913e712c7983711ce25">boot2docker</a> projects which served as the early foundation of Moby and LinuxKit. Over the last year, weve continued working hand-in-hand to bring Windows container support into Docker CE, first with Microsoft adding support for Windows Server Containers on Windows 10 using Hyper-V isolation and then Docker adding support to switch between Linux and Windows.We are now looking forward to continuing that collaboration in the open source LinuxKit and Docker projects to provide even better Windows and Linux container support. We are also committed to building support for this feature as part of the ongoing <a href="https://containerd.io/">containerd</a> project in line with the goals of an industry-standard cross platform container runtime.</p> <blockquote><p><em>Beginning with the very first DockerCon in June 2014, Microsofts ongoing strong commitment to Docker and open source has been singular, said Scott Johnston, COO, Docker, Inc. Microsofts new Hyper-V Linux containers, announced today at DockerCon, and its collaboration with Dockers LinuxKit and containerd together represent a unique, innovative solution for developers building heterogeneous, hybrid cloud applications.</em></p></blockquote> <p>In the spirit of providing customers with a choice, we will also enable customers to choose the Linux distributions they want to use to host their Linux containers. Microsoft will be open sourcing the required integration code and we have been working with leading Linux vendors who will be providing container OS images. We are happy to share that Canonical, Intel, Red Hat and SUSE will also support this project.</p> <blockquote><p><em>“Canonical is proud of a longstanding relationship with Microsoft to bring Ubuntu and the best of the open source world to the Windows ecosystem. We have teamed together to deliver Ubuntu images to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and Azure Container Service, and Ubuntu as the Bash experience in the Windows Subsystem for Linux on the Windows Desktop, and now in the form of a minimal, secure, Ubuntu container OS image.”</em></p> <p style="text-align: right"><em>– Dustin Kirkland, Head of Product, Canonical</em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote><p><em>We are excited to collaborate closely with Microsoft to optimize and include the Clear Linux OS for Intel Architecture as an option for customers to use within their new Linux containers running natively on Windows Server through Hyper-V isolation technology,</em></p> <p style="text-align: right"><em>– Arjan van de Ven, Sr. Principal Engineer, Intel Corporation</em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote><p><em>“Through both our upstream open source contributions and through Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host and Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat is committed to bringing production-ready container solutions to enterprise customers. The cloud is hybrid and customers want to be able to adopt heterogeneous technologies. Through this aligned vision with Microsoft, we look forward to bringing Red Hat Enterprise Linux containers to Hyper-V users.</em></p> <p style="text-align: right"><em>– Jim Totton, Vice President and General Manager, Platforms Business Unit, Red Hat</em></p> </blockquote> <blockquote><p><em>Microsoft is investing in Linux containers on Windows Server — and if security and containers are important to you — <a href="https://www.suse.com/communities/blog/suse-linux-containers-native-windows-server">keep on reading</a>. This collaboration is a natural step for SUSE, as we are investing in secure, rootless containers for our CaaS Platform solution. SUSE is excited to be a part of this announcement and will actively collaborate with Microsoft to enable our joint customers with SUSE-based Hyper-V isolated containers that run natively on Windows Server.”</em></p> <p style="text-align: right"><em>– Dr. Gerald Pfeifer, VP of Products and Technology Programs, SUSE</em></p> </blockquote> <p>We look forward to working with all of you on this project over the coming months.</p> ]]></content:encoded>
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<title>Free Training: How to use built-in security features in Windows Server 2016</title>
<link>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/17/free-training-how-to-use-built-in-security-features-in-windows-server-2016/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/17/free-training-how-to-use-built-in-security-features-in-windows-server-2016/#respond</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2017 16:00:52 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Microsoft Windows Server Team]]></dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/?p=15315</guid>
<description><![CDATA[We designed Windows Server 2016 from an assume breach posture. Yes, we want to build the most secure servers, and we have taken some giant steps forward when it comes to breach resistance, but we have also built in some new capabilities to mitigate the risk of breaches when they do happen. Two new Microsoft <p><a class="read-more" href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/17/free-training-how-to-use-built-in-security-features-in-windows-server-2016/">Continue reading</a></p>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We designed Windows Server 2016 from an assume breach posture. Yes, we want to build the most secure servers, and we have taken some giant steps forward when it comes to breach resistance, but we have also built in some new capabilities to mitigate the risk of breaches when they do happen.</p> <p>Two new Microsoft Virtual Academy courses will teach you how to use new capabilities in Windows Server 2016 to protect virtual machines, and to mitigate the risk of breaches when they do happen:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/windows-server-2016-breach-resistance-for-your-operating-system-and-applications-17265?l=IEKYswpbD_6104300474">Windows Server 2016 Breach Resistance for Your Operating System and Applications</a>: Look at common attack timelines and scenarios, along with attacker access. Explore the concept of extending the time between an attackers initial breach and when they take control of an organization, giving data security professionals time to detect, respond, and root out the intruder. See how to protect against pass-the-hash attacks using Credential Guard, how to lock down your server using Device Guard, and how you can better detect and investigate threats using new audit events that are triggered by malicious activity.</li> <li><a href="https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/deploying-shielded-vms-and-a-guarded-fabric-with-windows-server-2016-17131?l=WFLef7vUD_4604300474">Deploying Shielded VMs in a Windows Server 2016 Guarded Fabric</a>: Start with a look at the Host Guardian Service (HGS), and then learn to configure Trusted Platform Modulebased (TPM-based) attestation on the Hyper-V host. Create baseline security policies and Hypervisor-enforced Code Integrity policies, and configure HGS to attest to them. Plus, get the details on signing trustworthy template disks, creating shielding data, and deploying Shielded VMs.</li> </ul> <p>Attackers can get inside your organization in multiple ways, burrow deeper before detection, and eventually take control. Windows Server 2016 helps protect administrative credentials, protect the applications running on devices, and detect when something bad is happening so you stop it faster.</p> <p>To learn more, check out these two Microsoft Virtual Academy courses today. They are both free and each one runs about one hour in length.</p> ]]></content:encoded>
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<title>Five reasons to run SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016, part 4</title>
<link>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/13/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-part-4/</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 13 Apr 2017 16:00:32 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Microsoft Windows Server Team]]></dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/?p=15406</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This is the fourth post in a five-part blog series. Keep an eye out for upcoming posts and catch up on the first, second, and third in the series. Reach insights faster by running analytics at the point of creation Data! Data! Data! I cant make bricks without clay! Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur <p><a class="read-more" href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/13/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-part-4/">Continue reading</a></p>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>This is the fourth post in a five-part blog series. Keep an eye out for upcoming posts and catch up on the <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/03/23/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-1-security/">first</a>, <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/03/30/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-part-2/">second</a>, and <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/06/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-part-3/">third</a> in the series.</em></p> <h2>Reach insights faster by running analytics at the point of creation</h2> <p><em>Data! Data! Data! I cant make bricks without clay!</em> Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)</p> <p>If he lived today, Sherlock Holmes might be a data scientist, working to solve cases faster by using advanced analytics to augment his legendary deductive powers. Sherlock would insist on the fastest means possible of reaching insights. So whats the best way to process massive amounts of data quickly to get faster time to insight?</p> <p>Its elementary: Sherlock would deduce that SQL Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016 are an exceptional platform in delivering built-in fast analytics by running queries at the point of creation.</p> <p>At the OS level, Windows Server 2016 delivers new levels of performance with capabilities such as Persistent Memory (or Storage Class Memory), which improves latency by 3x, and Storage Spaces Direct, which gives you highly available, scalable storage area network (SAN) functionality on inexpensive industry-standard servers and produces read speeds that can exceed 25GB/second.</p> <p>These features are built-in to the OS, so no additional licenses are required. For full details on Windows Server 2016 price/performance benefits, read the <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/03/30/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-part-2/">blog post</a>.</p> <p>Additionally, at the data platform level, SQL Server 2016 delivers innovative analytics tools such as SQL Server R Services, real-time operational analytics, and new R-models.</p> <p>Combined, SQL Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016 provide multi-threading and massively parallel processing for high-performance data analysis.</p> <h2>SQL Server R Services built into T-SQL</h2> <p>R is a respected data mining tool for uncovering insights and making predictions. SQL Server R Services is built into T-SQL and brings advanced predictive analytics to the data.</p> <p>As a SQL Server 2016 data professional, you probably use T-SQL daily. Now, you can take advantage of R through the T-SQL interface. With R Services support for in-database analytics, you can work with data in SQL Server 2016, and applications can use T-SQL system stored procedures to call R scripts. If youre an application developer, you dont need to deep dive into R. You can rely on the T-SQL API for such tasks as creating SQL Server Reporting Services reports or Power BI dashboards with scores, predictions, and visuals from R.</p> <p>You also get SQL Server built-in functions and mechanisms to accelerate performance and integration. For example, you can use ColumnStore indexes with R for faster queries. Built-in resource governance can control the resources allocated to the R runtime. The stored procedure interface gives you smooth integration with SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) for integration with common extract, transform, and load (ETL) and job scheduling. Learn more about <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/03/29/in-database-advanced-analytics-with-r-in-sql-server-2016/">SQL Server 2016 R Services</a> and read about a <a href="https://gallery.cortanaintelligence.com/Solution/e992f8c1b29f4df897301d11796f9e7c">real-world implementation</a>.</p> <h2>Real-time operational analytics</h2> <p>With SQL Server 2016, you can do real-time operational analytics in two ways: on disk-based and memory-optimized tables. This means you dont have to make changes to your applications when you perform real-time analytics.</p> <p>SQL Server 2016 Real-Time Operational Analytics lets you use columnstore indexes to run analytics queries directly on your operational workload. Figure 1 shows a possible configuration, which uses Analysis Server in Direct Query mode, but if you have other analytics tools or a custom solution, you can use those, too. When you use both memory-optimized and columnstore, you get the best of<span>online transaction processing (OLTP)</span>performance and analytics query performance. Learn more about <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2015/12/09/real-time-operational-analytics-using-in-memory-technology/">real-time operational analytics using in-memory technology</a>.</p> <p><strong>Figure 1: A Real-Time Operational Analytics Example</strong></p> <p><a href="https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/04/OLTP.png"><img width="240" height="234" title="OLTP" class="aligncenter" style="padding-top: 0px;padding-left: 0px;padding-right: 0px;border: 0px" alt="OLTP" src="https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/04/OLTP_thumb.png" border="0" /></a></p> <h2>Multi-threading and Massive Parallel Processing</h2> <p>The cloud is built into SQL Server 2016, making it possible for you to take advantage of multi-threading and massive parallel processing (MPP) to achieve high-performance data analysis. <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/sql-data-warehouse/?b=17.07">Azure SQL Data Warehouse</a> uses an elastic MPP architecture built on the SQL Server 2016 database engine. This means you can continue using the SQL Server-based tools and BI applications that you use today when you want to interactively query and analyze data. It has built-in performance analytics and storage compression, the aggregation capabilities of SQL Server, and cutting-edge query optimization capabilities. In addition, with Polybase built in, you can query Hadoop systems directly, so that you have a single SQL-based query surface for all your data.</p> <h2>New R-models</h2> <p>SQL Server and Windows Server come with built-in functionality to make your job easier. In addition, Azure data services provides access to the work data scientists have already done by creating R-models that you can use. You can just find a model you need in the Azure marketplace.</p> <p>The <a href="https://aka.ms/campaignoptimization">Cortana Intelligence Solutions Gallery</a> is the Microsoft Data Science VM (DSVM) that comes loaded with all the tools a data scientist needs. You can also find the code on GitHub, so you can run it locally on your own machine.</p> <p>To learn more, see “<a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/machinelearning/2016/12/07/using-sql-server-2016-with-r-services-for-campaign-optimization/">Cortana Intelligence and Machine Learning Blog: Using SQL Server 2016 with R Services for Campaign Optimization</a>” and the <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/r-server">Microsoft R Server video</a>.</p> <h2>SQL Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016: Its all built in</h2> <p>The role of data in business decision-making is taking on ever greater importance, and the difference between success and failure can hinge on how fast youre able to analyze data. As a result, business intelligence and advanced analytics are changing the very nature of business. By examining all the built-in capabilities, surely Sherlock Holmes would deduce that with the combination of SQL Server 2016, Windows Server 2016, and Azure, you can make sure your business is equipped for success.</p> <p>For an overview of SQL Server 2016 advanced analytics and business intelligence, see “<a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/03/22/decisions-the-speed-of-thought-with-sql-server-2016/">Decisions @ the speed of thought with SQL Server 2016</a>.” For details on price/performance, see <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/03/30/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-part-2/">Five reasons to run SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016, part 2</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded>
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<title>Consistency is the cure for Hybrid Cloud complexity</title>
<link>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/12/consistency-is-the-cure-for-hybrid-cloud-complexity/</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 12 Apr 2017 16:00:38 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Microsoft Server and Cloud Platform Team]]></dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/?p=15336</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This post was authored by Julia White, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Cloud Platform. Odds are youve got a hybrid cloud strategy and have already started implementing this approach. Thats just one of the findings in our brand-new 2017 State of Hybrid Cloud research study that digs deeper into the numbers behind hybrid cloud adoption. It <p><a class="read-more" href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/12/consistency-is-the-cure-for-hybrid-cloud-complexity/">Continue reading</a></p>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>This post was authored by Julia White, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Cloud Platform.</em></p> <p>Odds are youve got a hybrid cloud strategy and have already started implementing this approach. Thats just one of the findings in our brand-new <a href="https://aka.ms/stateofhybridcloud">2017 State of Hybrid Cloud</a> research study that digs deeper into the numbers behind hybrid cloud adoption. It also shows us that a hybrid cloud strategy is linked to the business strategy, with business growth and digital transformation being top drivers behind a hybrid approach.</p> <p><iframe width="560" height="315" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EmEPMJw00Mo?ecver=1"></iframe></p> <p>Hybrid cloud is a durable approach, not a short-term transition state. We know this because 9 in 10 of IT workers <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2016/09/26/millennial-it-challenge-employers-to-accelerate-cloud-adoption-hybrid-remains-important/">report</a> that hybrid cloud will be the approach for their organizations five years from now. But, its not just about what people believe, its also about technology truth. A hybrid cloud approach lets you uniquely optimize your overall IT environment for maximum performance, agility, cost, and compliance. This enables an environment that has a combination of pure cloud systems, apps that span cloud and local systems, modern front ends in cloud with legacy on-premises back-end systems, smart IoT and edge devices combined with cloud analytics, and fully on-premises systems. And, for companies with significant on-premises technology today, with a hybrid cloud strategy, your existing investments become an asset in your organizations digital transformation and helps you differentiate, versus just being treated as legacy investments.</p> <p>We have also heard that hybrid cloud can be complex in fact more than half of survey respondents point to complexity as the top challenge. It doesnt help that most vendors only recognize half of your IT environment. Public cloud-only vendors push the idea that everything is going to the cloud fast and there is no use for on-prem tech, so just run a hybrid cloud like two disparate systems for this short-term situation. On-premises-only vendors repackage legacy technology and call it cloud, then provide loose integration with public clouds that still requires different systems to manage it. Neither of these approaches are helpful to customers. Hybrid cloud should seamlessly bring together and maximize the combination of cloud and on-premises environments, not proliferate different systems in multiple places. A hybrid cloud run with multiple different systems is what makes hybrid cloud expensive, complex, and risky. It doesnt need to be this way.</p> <p>The answer to complexity is consistency. Consistency across cloud and on-premises environments means you can leverage common skills for both. Consistency enables the portability of applications and workloads and the flexibility to decide the best place for each to reside. You dont have to worry about siloed data, disparate management systems, or multiple user identities.</p> <p>While other vendors have only recently recognized the importance of hybrid cloud, we have been at it for more than seven years, using our enterprise experience to integrate hybrid capabilities everywhere in our Azure cloud. We build consistency into every area: application development, management and security, identity management, and the data platform. We believe these capabilities outlined in <a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/8/C/28C3B613-F062-4589-9782-51C0F7BCD3AB/Truly_Consistent_Hybrid_Cloud_with_Microsoft_Azure_EN_US.pdf">this white paper</a> are fundamental requirements for success with hybrid cloud. <a href="https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/04/Hybrid-Consistency1.png"><img width="500" height="281" title="Hybrid Consistency" class="aligncenter" style="float: none;padding-top: 0px;padding-left: 0px;margin-left: auto;padding-right: 0px;margin-right: auto;border-width: 0px" alt="Hybrid Consistency" src="https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/04/Hybrid-Consistency_thumb1.png" border="0" /></a></p> <p>Our focus on enabling hybrid cloud goes beyond product innovation and extends to ways we can save you money as you move to cloud. For example, you can save up to 40 percent on Windows Server virtual machines running in Azure by using your existing Windows Server licenses with Software Assurance (check out the <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/hybrid-use-benefit/">Azure Hybrid Use Benefit</a>). And weve just turned on the capability for any customer to apply that benefit to any Windows Server virtual machine running in Azure right within the Azure Management Portal. We also have a new <a href="https://aka.ms/cloudmigrationassessment">free cloud migration assessment</a> to help you discover and evaluate which workloads to <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/solutions/cloud-migration/">migrate now to Azure</a>.</p> <p>Microsoft uniquely understands the benefit of an IT environment that maximizes cloud and on-premises systems. And, Azure stands alone as the only truly consistent hybrid cloud that takes the complexity out. Visit our <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/hybrid">hybrid cloud website</a> to read more about how were working with companies to accelerate their digital transformation. A hybrid strategy isnt enough its time for hybrid action.</p> ]]></content:encoded>
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<title>Rest easy with regulatory compliance in Windows Server 2016</title>
<link>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/11/rest-easy-with-regulatory-compliance-in-windows-server-2016/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/11/rest-easy-with-regulatory-compliance-in-windows-server-2016/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 11 Apr 2017 16:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Microsoft Windows Server Team]]></dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/?p=15305</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Last month we learned that Windows Server 2016 has achieved Common Criteria certification for the General Purpose OS protection profile.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Last month we learned that Windows Server 2016 has achieved Common Criteria certification for the General Purpose OS protection profile.</p> <p>This international standard is especially important for our customers in the public sector, where Common Criteria certification is highly recommended or even required. Thats why Microsoft has been participating in Common Criteria for nearly two decades, dating back to Windows 2000 Server.</p> <p>Deploying Windows Server 2016 can also help you meet a host of other compliance requirements and security objectives, such as <strong>ISO 27001</strong>, <strong>PCI</strong>, and <strong>FedRamp</strong>.</p> <p>What does this mean? If compliance with any of these regulatory requirements is important to your organization or industry, you can rest easy. Weve done the work for you, mapping the security features in Windows Server 2016 to these certifications.</p> <p>All you have to do is click on the appropriate link(s) below to see how Windows Server 2016 helps you get the certifications you need.</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org/products/">Common Criteria certification</a></li> <li><a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/1/2/812009C9-E4B8-4D4B-AADD-FDC373D0A076/Coalfire_Branded_Credential_Guard_Whitepaper_EN_US.pdf">Credential Guard and ISO 27001, PCI and FedRamp</a></li> <li><a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/9/D/69D9E610-D23C-4F7E-A8CC-D65B87CEB4F8/Coalfire_Branded_Device_Guard_Whitepaper_EN_US.pdf">Device Guard and ISO 27001, PCI and FedRamp</a></li> <li><a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/D/0/6D06E149-B4C1-4EED-ACD5-DF6066E93CC0/Coalfire_Branded_Hyper_V_Shielded_VMs_Whitepaper_EN_US.pdf">Shielded Virtual Machines and ISO 27001, PCI and FedRamp</a></li> <li><a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/7/7/C778B7BB-0783-42D7-93A9-B86DFB5A7BAD/Coalfire_Branded_Windows_Defender_Whitepaper_EN_US.pdf">Windows Defender and ISO 27001, PCI and FedRamp</a></li> <li><a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/7/A/27A2B5BB-6B52-4482-87C1-DA9D6B6D8C8D/Coalfire_Branded_Privileged_Identity_Manager_Whitepaper_EN_US.pdf">Privileged Identity Management and ISO 27001, PCI and FedRamp</a></li> </ul> <p>For more security guidance for the Windows Server operating system in general, check out the <a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/datacentersecurity/">Datacenter and Private Cloud Security blog</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded>
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<title>Why Bing.com couldn’t wait for Windows Server 2016</title>
<link>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/06/why-bing-com-couldnt-wait-for-windows-server-2016/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/06/why-bing-com-couldnt-wait-for-windows-server-2016/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 06 Apr 2017 20:00:42 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Microsoft Windows Server Team]]></dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/?p=15265</guid>
<description><![CDATA[At Microsoft, we have a tradition of eating our own dog food. That means we begin running portions of our business on new products during the final technical preview period to make sure they are truly ready for general availability for all customers. ]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>At Microsoft, we have a tradition of eating our own dog food. That means we begin running portions of our business on new products during the final technical preview period to make sure they are truly ready for general availability for all customers. We were thrilled when the Bing team decided to deploy Windows Server 2016 early. As the second largest search engine in the world, Bing would be an excellent test of product readiness.</p> <p>Prior to its general availability, the Bing team began rolling Windows Server 2016 to thousands of servers that operate the front end and search functions of Bing. By GA, Windows Server 2016 was helping Bing deliver millions of page visits and search requests with improved performance, increased DevOps agility, and new layers of security.</p> <h2>Sixteen percent reduction in latency for Bing Search</h2> <p>Website visitors hate delays, especially when they are searching for the answer to a question in your search engine. The Bing team knows that any performance improvement, of any size, will deliver a real impact on customer satisfaction. That is one reason why they were in a hurry to roll out Windows Server 2016 and its improved .NET framework. The result was a 16 percent reduction in latency for a Bing search query on the upgraded systems.</p> <h2>Increased DevOps agility thanks to containers</h2> <p>With the introduction of Windows Server containers, the Bing team was anxious to try out the new container technology. They are in the process of moving some custom applications into containers to further streamline the agility of their existing microservices architecture, which allows the Bing team to make changes to one part of the application without affecting related parts.</p> <h2>Protect against cybersecurity attacks</h2> <p>Search engines are a popular target for cybercriminals. With Windows Server 2016, the Bing team has added a new defense in its security arsenal. By using Control Flow Guard, they can guard against unknown vulnerabilities by helping prevent memory corruption attacks on their servers.</p> <p>To learn more, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver">visit our website</a> and read more <a target="_blank" href="http://customers.microsoft.com/en-us/search?sq=%22Windows%20Server%202016%20Datacenter%22&ff=story_product_categories%26%3EWindows%20Server&p=0">Windows Server 2016 customer stories</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded>
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<title>Five reasons to run SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016, part 3</title>
<link>https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/04/06/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-part-3/</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 06 Apr 2017 16:00:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Microsoft Windows Server Team]]></dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/?p=15215</guid>
<description><![CDATA[When does 2 + 2 = 5? When two teams work hard to deliver great products individually, but also work together to make the combination more than the sum of the parts. Windows Server 2016 and SQL Server 2016 are prime examples. ]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>This is the third blog in a five-part series. Keep an eye out for upcoming posts and read the first two posts in the series, <a target="_blank" href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/03/23/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-1-security/">part 1</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/03/30/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-part-2/">part 2</a>.</em></p> <p>When does 2 + 2 = 5? When two teams work hard to deliver great products individually, but also work together to make the combination more than the sum of the parts. Windows Server 2016 and SQL Server 2016 are prime examples. The development teams have collaborated closely to ensure that the very best experience for data professionals emerges when you take advantage of the synergies built into the Windows Server OS and the SQL Server data platform. In this blog post, we share how the teams have worked together to deliver advanced functionality to improve database uptime and reliability, including effective disaster recovery across sites and domains.</p> <h2>Always On Availability Groups: Enhanced capabilities supporting new scenarios</h2> <p>Always On Availability Groups have been at the center of SQL Server availability since the 2012 release. Availability Groups establish a relationship between a set or group of databases and replicas of that group of databases on one or more replicas. This means all the databases in the group can move as a unit, eliminating the need for complex scripting solutions to do this task.</p> <p>Up to now, with Windows Server Failover Cluster solutions, all nodes in the Availability Group had to reside in the same Active Directory domain. However, many organizations have multiple domains that cant be merged, and they want to span an Availability Group across such domains. In other situations, organizations may have no Active Directory domains at all, and still want to host disaster recovery (DR) replicas.</p> <p>To give these organizations a solution, the SQL Server and Windows Server teams delivered Windows Server 2016 Failover Clusters (WSFC). Now, all nodes in a cluster no longer need to reside in the same domain, and indeed the nodes are no longer required to be in any domain at all. Instead, you can form a WSFC cluster with machines that are in workgroups.</p> <p>SQL Server 2016 is able to deploy flexible Always On Availability Groups in environments with:</p> <ul> <li>All nodes in a single domain</li> <li>Nodes in multiple domains with full trust</li> <li>Nodes in multiple domains with no trust</li> <li>Nodes in no domain at all</li> </ul> <p>With SQL Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016, Always On Availability Groups can include up to 8 readable secondaries and can span multi-domain clusters. In addition, Active Directory authentication is no longer required. All this innovation opens up new scenarios and removes previous blocks that prevented migration from deprecated Database Mirroring technology to Always On Availability Groups. For details please see <a target="_blank" href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2015/12/15/enhanced-always-on-availability-groups-in-sql-server-2016/">Enhanced Always On Availability Groups in SQL Server 2016</a> and learn more by watching a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ZFpc8hO8I">video demo</a>.</p> <h2>Hybrid Backup and Stretch Database provide online cold data availability in Azure</h2> <p>SQL Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016 are architected to work smoothly with the Microsoft Azure cloud in a hybrid environment. Microsoft hybrid cloud technology provides a consistent set of tools and processes between on-premises and cloud-based environments. This means that SQL Server 2016 is designed to work in a hybrid cloud environment in which data and services reside in various locations. You get faster hybrid backups and disaster recover that lets you back up and restore on-premises databases to Azure and place SQL Server Always On secondaries in Azure. The figures below show how Stretch Database works.</p> <p><a href="https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/04/Part-3-1.png"><img width="263" height="212" title="Part 3 -1" class="aligncenter" style="padding-top: 0px;padding-left: 0px;padding-right: 0px;border: 0px" alt="Part 3 -1" src="https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/04/Part-3-1_thumb.png" border="0" /></a><a href="https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/04/Part-3-2.png"><img width="482" height="245" title="Part 3 -2" class="aligncenter" style="padding-top: 0px;padding-left: 0px;padding-right: 0px;border: 0px" alt="Part 3 -2" src="https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/04/Part-3-2_thumb.png" border="0" /></a></p> <p>With this flexibility comes new ways to save money and address business needs. For example, storing data is a critical business requirement that can be very expensive. To reduce this cost, SQL Server 2016 introduced Stretch Database. It allows production databases to offload older (cold) data to the Microsoft Azure cloud without losing access to the data. Many enterprises need reasonably quick access to their cold data for compliance reasons, and they can now push that data to the cloud to save money on storage costs while still having ready access for compliance audits. Blog 5 in this series will discuss SQL Server running in a Windows Server Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) virtual machine on Azure.</p> <p>This means you no longer need to rely on extremely expensive dedicated storage vendors solutions. In SQL Server 2016, Stretch Database lets you keep as much data as you need for as long as you need, without risking business service level agreements (SLA) or the high costs of traditional storage. DBAs only need to enable the database for stretch, and the endless storage and compute capacity of Azure ensures that your data is always online.</p> <p>In addition, with SQL Server Backup to URL, you can easily back up directly to Microsoft Azure Blob Storage. You no longer need to manage hardware for backups, and you get the benefit of storing your backups in flexible, reliable, and virtually limitless cloud storage. For details please see <a target="_blank" href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/04/19/sql-server-2016-cloud-backup-and-restore-enhancements/">SQL Server 2016 cloud backup and restore enhancements</a>.</p> <h2>Storage Replica delivers inexpensive high availability and disaster recovery</h2> <p>Storage Replica is a new feature in Windows Server 2016 that offers new disaster recovery and preparedness capabilities. For the first time, Windows Server delivers the ability to synchronously protect data on different racks, floors, buildings, campuses, counties, and cities. If a disaster strikes, all data will be at a safe location. Before a disaster strikes, Storage Replica lets you switch workloads to safe locations if you have a few moments warningagain, with no data loss. Read about how customer <a target="_blank" href="https://customers.microsoft.com/en-US/story/danske-fragtmaend-innovates-with-sql-server-on-storage-replica">Danske Fragtmaend takes advantage of Storage Replica</a> for its zero-data-loss SQL Server failover strategy.</p> <p>Storage Replica enables <a target="_blank" href="https://technet.microsoft.com/windows-server-docs/storage/storage-replica/storage-replica-overview">synchronous and asynchronous replication</a> of volumes between servers or clusters. It helps you take more efficient advantage of multiple datacenters. When you stretch or replicate clusters, you can run workloads in multiple datacenters so that nearby users and applications can get quicker data access. In addition, you can better distribute load and compute resources. Most important, you can implement this built-in functionality on commodity hardware and use it with emerging technologies such as Flash and SSD, like <a target="_blank" href="https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcustomers.microsoft.com%2Fen-US%2Fstory%2Fdanske-fragtmaend-innovates-with-sql-server-on-storage-replica&data=02%7C01%7Cmattbu%40microsoft.com%7Caa488cad1b8d49a9a80508d47c6b1b03%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636270246847263982&sdata=0JDZDhDRNLAaFNZzFk5GguB3oMVUjHx2zrmqSN4ADYI%3D&reserved=0">Danske Fragtmaend</a>, to build cost-effective, high-performance storage solutions that can work with existing SAN/NAS implementations, or even replace dedicated SAN/NAS solutions at a fraction of the cost.</p> <p>Visit the website for more <a target="_blank" href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/software-defined-storage">details and demos on Storage Replica</a>.</p> <h2>Rolling, in-place upgrades and less downtime</h2> <p>Customers often tell us they want to use the latest releases of SQL Server and Windows Server, but they need the upgrade process to be less time consuming and complex. Now they can take advantage of rolling, in-place upgrades from previous versions to SQL Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016, while dramatically minimizing downtime.</p> <p>Windows Server 2016 Cluster OS Rolling Upgrade lets you upgrade the operating system of the cluster nodes from Windows Server 2012 R2 to Windows Server 2016 without stopping the Hyper-V or the Scale-Out File Server workloads. Not only can you upgrade the OS in place, but Cluster OS Rolling Upgrade works for any cluster workload, including SQL Server 2016.</p> <p>For SQL Server customers, this is important because you want to move the base OS without having to reinstall and reconfigure SQL Server. Now, in a rolling approach, you can move a cluster node, perform an in-place upgrade, and do a clean install while other databases are being serviced by other nodes. The in-place upgrade preserves SQL Server backup and restore history, preserves permissions and group settings, and saves about 20-30 minutes of upgrade time per node in the cluster. You can achieve this with minimal or no interruptions to the workload thats running on the cluster, so you can upgrade the cluster in place. With a Hyper-V or Scale-out File Server Workload, theres zero downtime, which means you dont need to buy new hardware. For more details see “<a target="_blank" href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server-docs/failover-clustering/Cluster-Operating-System-Rolling-Upgrade">Cluster operating system rolling upgrade</a>.” To see a video demonstration, watch “<a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjAbmyGZqxk">Introducing Cluster OS Rolling Upgrades in Windows Server 2016</a>.”</p> <h2>Better together adds up to the best database reliability at a great price</h2> <p>For mission-critical workloads, you cant settle for anything less than the best, and most cost effective, data platform running on the OS that has built-in synergy to ensure database uptime and reliability with advanced disaster recover across domains and sites. Without spending vast amounts of your budget on third-party storage solutions, you can get the functionality you need built into SQL Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016.</p> <h2>Ready to give it a try?</h2> <ul> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-downloads">Free evaluation of SQL Server 2016</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.microsoft.com/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2016">Free evaluation of Windows Server 2016</a></li> </ul> <p>For more info, check out this <a target="_blank" href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/2/7/F27DCF07-9558-4C26-80A2-79A4846B16A1/SQL_Server_2016_and_Windows_Server_2016_Better_Together_datasheet_EN_US.pdf">summary of five reasons to run SQL Server 2016 with Windows Server 2016</a>. Did you miss the first two blogs in the series? Here are quick links:</p> <ul> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/03/23/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-1-security/">Five reasons to run SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016, part 1</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2017/03/30/five-reasons-to-run-sql-server-2016-on-windows-server-2016-part-2/">Five reasons to run SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016, part 2</a></li> </ul> ]]></content:encoded>
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