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hello welcome coming up on the show we take a look at the evolution of Windows
Server from the new semi-annual channel release cadence starting with version
1709 and advances in nano server for containers to native support for Linux
containers and workloads on Windows Server and a first look at a new HTML5
based admin experience so I'm joined today by Mr. Jeff Woolsey from the
Windows Server engineering team give it up for Jeff hey thanks
Matt good to see everybody so Jeff good to have you with us your team is
responsible for the direction of Windows Server and we're here to talk about its
evolution but before we go there we've made some pretty foundational changes in
Windows Server 2016 that are worth recapping yeah that's right so the work
we did in Windows Server 2016 gave us the foundation to build a consistent
hybrid cloud and there are three areas I want to highlight
first of all security with shielded VM as we make a virtual machine a black box
to protect against rogue admins or VMs accidentally getting into the wild and
of course we made huge event in investments in application innovation
with Windows Server containers which provide application isolation through
both process and namespace isolation and then in software-defined data center we
give you massive scale with Windows Server 2016 we support the largest
physical servers up to 512 logical processors up to 24 terabytes of RAM not
disk ram and a server and up to the largest scalable virtual machines in the
industry with up to 240 virtual processors and up to 12 terabytes of RAM
in a virtual machine so there's pretty awesome things going on there and then
of course we now support flexible hyper-converged deployments those are
now supported in 2016 as well and of course we introduced Azure inspired
networking we took our learnings from Asia and brought them on premises such
as the Azure data plane the software load balance
the distributed firewall and so much more so lots of cool big foundational
changes yes whatever I want to know is how's Window Server evolving oh man we
have so much so going forward Windows Server is evolving to deliver innovation
through two channels first the long term servicing channel in the semi-annual
channel so the long term servicing channel that's what you're used to folks
that's business as usual that's five years of mainstream support five years
of extended support you'll have the option to upgrade every two to three
years just like we've been doing for the last 20 years nothing has changed there
then we've also introduced for those of you who want to innovate faster and take
advantage of new features sooner we're adding the semi-annual channel as well
the semi-annual channel is a Software Assurance benefit and is fully supported
in production the difference is it's supported for 18 months and there'll be
a new version every six months so we can deliver innovation really fast and
finally I want to point out that whichever model you choose you're still
in full control of patching your servers that's all up to you
now I've notice your call in this release the semi-annual channel version
1709 but what does that mean for people yeah so to make the versions easy to
identify we're actually referring it to but the
year and the month so in this case 1709 refers to the year 2017 and ninth month
September so it's very straightforward date right so what are we doing to make
it easier for people watching and people in the audience to get their developers
on board with new app innovation yes so let's start with nano server so in
Windows Server 2016 Nano Server had two roles the first was to run on hardware
for bare metal roles like Hyper-V and for storage the second was to run inside
a container as the container runtime now what's interesting is we've been
watching very carefully and listening very closely and you overwhelmingly gave
us the feedback that the majority of you are using Nano Server within containers
I'm not kidding it was like over 97 98 percent of use of Nano Server was in
containers so we are refocusing nano server to be the best container image
possible now one thing I want to point out is that Nano Server that shipped
part of Windows Server 2016 was just over a gigabyte on disk Nano Server
version 1709 is less than a fifth the size at a 195 MB
and getting smaller resulting in faster deployment faster startup
times making it the ideal OS for new cloud apps which is cool for developers
but the other IT pros helped with application modernization oh well
absolutely so number one we know that organizations have lots of apps deploy
today that we'd like to modernize so for those apps server core within a
container provides the compatibility needed for an exit for existing apps and
IT pros you don't even need to get developers involved IT pros can lift and
shift these into containers so let's take a look at that so here we've got a
sample CRM app running .Net for Framework and SQL server and moved it
into a couple of containers using the convert to Docker file PowerShell
command which is freely available on the PowerShell gallery now one container is
running is and the other containers running sequel server both using server
core I'm using the Docker run command and I'm starting these containers and
you can see I'm launching these right now in the browser and you can see just
like that here's our CRM app you can see literally it just works didn't need to
make any code change and an IT pro can easily do this to modernize their
applications without any recompile very nice now that's awesome for Windows
workloads which we all know and love what about Linux workloads so we are
taking the Hyper-V isolation that we introduced in Windows Server 2016
containers to the next level and we're doing that by bringing Linux containers
to Windows Server can we take a look yeah let's do that
so here we have the official Docker repository with Apache Tomcat from here
we've actually downloaded this Docker container to run now I want to point out
that I'm running this Linux container here without any code change this is
literally as is from the Docker repo you can see it's fired up here port 88 using
a gigabyte of memory and I'm running this using the standard Docker run
command I also want to highlight that this that I'm running this Linux
container on the same host as the Windows CRM app
that I just showed you this one just using a different port 40 8888 and using
Hyper-V isolation and you can see here is the Tomcat application server running
side-by-side with the Windows CRM app on the same Windows Server no more spinning
up VMs to run Windows or Linux it's incredibly efficient and it's optimized
and in case you needed something else really cool will fire up one more here's
Nyancat and this is uh running in a Linux container as well so you got two
Linux containers Windows server all running on the same container host nice
still pretty cool thank you there you go everybody likes Nyancat.
What a lovely cat! It is thank you so what are we doing around infrastructure
and management oh man so there are a number of things that we're doing in
this area so to go hand-in-hand with Linux containers we're introducing the
what windows subsystem for Linux WSL also known as Bash on Windows and is
totally makes sense because if you're gonna be running Linux containers you
want to use the same scripts and tools that you've been using for Linux
containers on your Windows Server we're also making it easy to use your existing
Windows File server for containers by adding support for mapping SMB volumes
to containers so it makes it real easy to map that storage in there and
actually honestly a whole bunch more I got a bunch of sessions I really take a
look we'll be going into Windows Server massive depth this week but but Matt we
need to get to management okay if you think about how you manage a server
today you're probably used to seeing a variety of tools if you're like me you
log in a server what do you see well you see task manager you see a resource
monitor you probably go to performance monitor where you set up some eventing
you want to look at things further there you probably go in the system
information you probably look at device manager to update drivers check device
out you bring up a command prompt you bring up a Windows PowerShell
you bring up server manager oh yeah I want to check my IP settings so I'm
gonna configure my network settings here I'm probably going to bring up disk
management to configure volumes part it fork format partitions bring up Event
Viewer to actually look through events you're probably used to the registry
editor of course you're going to go to Windows Update and then of course you're
going to go to explore because you're gonna want to add
folders change directories things like that
and of course you probably then have your MMC's to do Hyper-V management
anybody's do this look familiar to anybody have any of you guys seen any of
these before okay this is a great example of the
organic growth of Windows Server and I say that you know it's got pros and cons
to both of these one of my favorite examples if you look at disk manager for
example it looks very similar to what we released and say Windows NT 3.1 ok it
has been that organic growth well we want to reimagine the server experience
so today I'd like to show you how we're making easier to manage servers with a
new Windows Server management solution codenamed Project Honolulu so project
Honolulu I want to point out first of all I didn't I didn't actually take the
time to want to run through the installer but literally it's
double-click on an MSI in less than 30 seconds this is all running there's
nothing I need to install this is actually running on my surface pro 3
here here I've got a bunch of servers let's actually click on one to take a
look what you're seeing here is well let's take a look at the overview of
this server so here you can see for example I've got the name my domain the
operating system running how many processors how much memory the
manufacturer this is an HP if I want to actually take a look at some settings
for this server for example normally I'd have to go into system properties look
for a couple of tabs to find the environmental variables or configure a
remote desktop nope I'm doing all of this on Honolulu and by the way this is
all HTML5 this is all touch friendly this all works with edge this all works
with Chrome it even works with Safari on your Mac ok so let's head on back here
to my overview by the way I'm used to looking at things like task manager to
actually see things about CPU usage and memory usage and all of that that's here
well if I want to go to take a look at my devices normally I'd switch to
another tool I'd go out a task manager I go into device manager not with Honolulu
here are all of my devices right here I'd like to take a look at my disk
drives my display adapters if I actually want to drill in further take a look at
this disk drill in here further here are the properties general driver
and details here for this disc and more if I want to take it look at my event
log again normally I would switch to yet another tool I'd switch to event viewer
not here I'm going to switch to the events tool here and let's take a look
at save the security logs so here for example I can see whoa I've got a bunch
of things in my event log well I'm not gonna freak out I'm gonna click on the
filter button and I don't need to see the informational or verbose things
let's go ahead and click on apply and in fact Oh guess what it's actually gonna
filter and in fact oh there's actually nothing I need to
worry about that was just informational and verbose setting so I feel much
better finally if I want to go to the files and
I for example if I wanted to add a directory by the way the server I'm
remoting into anybody have a clue what I'm remoting into you don't do you is it
running full no it's actually running Windows Server Core I am not touching
the box at all this is actually running under my desk on the other side of the
United States in Seattle in my office and Studio D running Server Core and I'm
managing it all remotely using Honolulu if I want to come in here and add a
directory I can go here to my D volume click on new folder give it a name click
create let's just do that real quickly give it a temp name click Submit and
just like that my folder is created on the director on a system running Server
Core across across the US finally if I wanted to look at things like VMs I'm
gonna switch on over to another node going over here to node 4 where I'm
running a bunch of different VMs and by the way click on over here here's my
inventory and I can see here am i running VMs I can create VMs I can
configure VMs if I want to actually connect into a VM I can actually click
on here click on connect and it will bring up an RDP window all remotely so
that is your big tease. If you want to see a lot more I'll be doing even more in my
sessions this week we'll be talking a lot more about Honolulu then
the other thing I want to point out is this is just managing a single server
what if you have an HCI infrastructure running hyper-converged well then I
would actually click on the hyper converged manager and it would actually
manage all of my servers from a single view pretty awesome all right so with
that this is all again managing a server course system imagine I have servers
running in Azure IaaS or literally I roll some servers into your office and I
hand you my surface and say by the way go manage those servers running in your
office by the way they're all running core it doesn't matter because here's
the surface to manage them remotely pretty cool that is Honolulu nice and
you mentioned running managing Hyper-V but you can also enable the Hyper-V role
and feet I could enable roles I can enable features you'll see much more of
these throughout the week during doing a bunch of sessions that we've got on
Honolulu now and last thing I'll mention is it's extensible to every one of those
little icons is a plugin so guess what we're making it pluggable for you guys
as well this is project Honolulu just keep on giving just keep on giving
excellent
so does this management require Windows for Windows Server version 1709 oh and
yeah the key question that's on everybody's lips how much does it cost
I'll get the cost in one second does it require 1709 no in fact our goal is to
be able to manage down level I was actually didn't get a chance to go
through all of them but I was managing 1709 ms6 Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 12 2012 R2 all the way back to Windows Server 2012 and in terms
of cost this is going to be freely available as in free nice
I thought people would like that yes yeah nice so does the new Windows Server
management ship with exclusively with Windows Server version 1709 no so this
new server management is shipping in parallel we're doing this on purpose we
want to listen to your feedback we've made this publicly available you can
download it right now the preview we actually made available last Friday we
already had a bunch of people start downloading it please do we want to
start working with you and we also think this is a great way to start using 1709
because i will give you a spoiler alert honolulu does take advantage of new
features that are built into Windows server 1709 but it will do work down
level as well so it's a rewrite people can try the new capabilities for
themselves using the links yes absolutely so please keep current and
download the seminole channel release right now start playing with 1709 start
using Honolulu download this Windows Server management preview codenamed
Honolulu and understand that the way that we're delivering Windows Server
moving forward offers more opportunity than ever for you guys to influence our
direction we are listening so incredibly closely and we want to know what you
want to see next in Honolulu so sign up for the Windows Insider program today
and the links are right here on-screen well thanks very much Jeff for walking
us through the evolution of Windows Server it's I hope everyone agrees it's
exciting stuff cool cool stuff and keep watching Microsoft Mechanics for the
latest updates see you next time. Thank you
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