Windows Server 2016, new and improved

Hey Microsoft Fans,

Just had some fun with the new Server 2016 box and wanted to show off some cool screenshots and what new features are we expecting this year.

Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5 is here. Preview the cloud-ready operating system today to apply new levels of security and innovation to the applications and infrastructure that power your business. Support the workloads you run today, and make it easier to move to the cloud when you’re ready.

You can easily download from here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-technical-preview

The all new Start menu...yeah exactly like windows 10 got to love it, much more cleaner and smart very easy to find apps and services.

The all new Powershell, now the everything has become colorful for easy reading love this feature.

Look how easy and clearly I get a HTML list of all of my services on my server, Beautiful.

To do so, you could use the following command:

Get-Service | ConvertTo-HTML -Property Name, Status > C:\Services.htm

Note - You will have to run PowerShell as Administrator to be able to save a file on the System drive.

Nano Server

Nano Server is a pared down headless version of Windows Server 2016. Nano Server will have a very small VHDx size and around 80% fewer required reboots. Nano Server is a Windows Server installation options and it’s completely headless – there’s no GUI and no command prompt.

Understand that the only way you would be able to manage this box will be via remote management tools such as PowerShell and the MMC.

Reminds you of the Server Core option that started off with the 2008 and 2012 versions, Nano Server is designed to run Hyper-V, Hyper-V cluster, and cloud service applications.

A smaller OS results in fewer operating system components to maintain with less security exposures than the current Windows Server operating system. This can also improve scalability and Even more, Nano Server will not have a local login. It is designed entirely to support services

Crazy ahh? can't wait to use It #NanoExcited

Here's a peak of how the console will look like:

Crazy ahh?

Docker Client

Docker is an open platform for developing, shipping, and running applications. Docker is designed to deliver your applications faster. With Docker you can separate your applications from your infrastructure and treat your infrastructure like a managed application. Docker helps you ship code faster, test faster, deploy faster, and shorten the cycle between writing code and running code. Docker containers were originally built for Linux but the next version of Windows Server will provide built-in support for the Docker engine as well. A new open-source Docker engine project has been built for Windows Server with Microsoft participating as an active open source community member. You can use Docker to manage Windows Server and Hyper-V Containers.

For more information the Docker team did a great documentation:

https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/

Hyper-V Improvements

For all my students out there remember when we always needed to add new NIC's to a Hyper-V VM in one of the labs? well we had to shut down the VM and then we where able to add or remove a NIC and that was annoying and i use to make fun of that :-/

Anyway Microsoft finally made it work, in the new 2016 Hyper-V we will be able to Add or Remove the NIC's as much as we want !!!!!

Guess what, another great surprise we will have the same feature for the VM's Memory !!!!

Yeah Baby, now were talking!

Microsoft is giving a fight to VMware...watch out!

Hope you enjoyed my post, see you soon :-)