As I mentioned in my Ignite blog, I wanted to cover Windows Server 2019 in a bit more detail as I believe it has got the potential to be the game changer in the coming months.
It will be loosely based on Planning and implementing hybrid network connectivity HYB10 by Thomas Maurer and Windows Server 2019 deep dive BRK3653 by Jeff Woolsey – thought at first they seem unrelated but there was some really relevant overlap and I want to draw your attention to it 🙂
To set expectations, the main reason I want to cover it, is its relevancy to my beloved Azure Stack. Though I never thought about it like that at first, it feels like MSFT re-designed/improved Windows Server to strengthen the capabilities of Azure Stack! I know what you think – crazy right, but keep reading and maybe we will together arrive at similar conclusions. Having said that – I will try to mention other really cool features that are totally unrelated but because I am a geek, I will talk about them too 😀 If that sounds mildly interesting, keep reading 🙂
Since I already mentioned Azure Stack a few times, maybe let me start by saying that I was completely shocked when Jeff pulled up a slide on Hybrid cloud and on the right hand side we could clearly see MSFT’s very own Azure Stack being prominently displayed. I know I covered that before but I cannot stress enough how important that is. If people like Jeff are flying around the world talking about the latest Windows release – trust me that attracts an audience, as the session I have been to was in a double room and it was packed – and we have Azure Stack mentioned… It brings tears of joy as thus far Azure Stack has been treated a bit like an orphaned and forgotten by humanity child. Really pleased to see it finally shifting – at least slightly… Nowhere near as much as it deserves or I would have liked though… more on that later.
However, let me go back a step – why is it important that we talk about Hybrid cloud? Also, why is it important that when we do, we talk about Azure Stack?
Jeff did an amazing thing during his presentation, a quick show of hands who is using solely cloud native apps and have got nothing on-prem – literally everything is in the cloud? A moment of silence and weird looks and I believe one person raised his hand… Then we moved on to, who is only using on-prem based technologies? It did not fare much better as I counted 3 or 4 people raising their hands sheepishly. At this point I think you know where this is going, literally everyone else is using Hybrid cloud! The combination of having something “local” with lower latency and potentially improved security; enhanced by the “magical” and “unlimited” cloud based resources and technologies, is not only the future but it is very much the present. This model is what people around the world are using and Microsoft are fully aware of that, which is why they came up with this truly extraordinary product – the extension of public Azure – Azure Stack! It genuinely is the perfect hybrid solution, giving you the best of both worlds. They understood the need and came up with a solution – theme that is very much reoccurring lately as MSFT are really on the ball when it comes to listening to what we need. I will be the first to tell you that Azure Stack is not fully featured and has got many problems that we are all working very hard to resolve; is it at this point that unicorn we all wanted and were promised when it was announced? Definitely not! However, it gets better daily and with some of the shiny new tech from Windows Server 2019 it will soon evolve and “shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine” 🙂 Ingenuity of its design will allow MSFT to easily retrofit W2019 into Azure Stack via its normal Update mechanism, something that a lot of other platforms can only dream about. The future is bright I tell you 🙂
This I think it is a good time to circle back to Thomas’s presentation. He showed us how easy it is to connect W2019 Server to Azure using Azure Network Adapter for Windows Server 2019 he even has got his own separate blog about it – check it out here.
He utilised yet another new phenomenal W2019 feature called Windows Admin Center – it is a tool that Jeff mentioned is the best way to manage Windows servers – I somewhat disagree as the best tool for this particular job – by far is PowerShell. Having said that, WAC (download here) is PowerShell driven and it has got a feature to show you exactly what PowerShell commands it is running which I would say is pretty sweet 🙂 Thank you MSFT! 🙂 WAC is shaping up to be a very powerful tool! Probably worthy of a blog in and of itself 😉 so I will only mention that it has been embraced by a lot of big companies, many of which either developed – or will do so very soon – custom extensions to manage their own solutions. Example we were shown I believe was Lenovo with their hardware monitoring extension. More information on these can be found here.
In basically a few clicks you can have your W2019 on-prem connected to an Azure VNet! It is very sleek, very fast, and would be great for testing some cool hybrid features. Write-up of the demo from 2018 Ignite can be found on GitHub here.
Here is also where my first gripe with the presentation(s) appeared. The phrase “missed opportunity” definitely comes to mind as both Thomas and Jeff being MSFT employees could show this amazing new feature whilst running the source server on Azure Stack! What a way to shamelessly plug a product that is struggling to get any sort of spotlight and is being marginalised from the get go – as somebody who is tirelessly trying to persuade Microsoft to promote their own product more – it broke my heart when it was not even considered… and I wish it was the first time, or the last… sadly not the case. To make matters worse, despite W2019 clearly being developed to enhance Azure Stack (or so I choose to believe ;-D) we do not even have W2019 image available! Yes I know you can create your own custom image but that is beside the point. If anyone from MSFT is reading – please… give Azure Stack the love and attention it deserves. Missing out SQL 2008 image, not mentioning Extended Support works for Azure Stack by Jeff, are but a few examples of how MSFT still can be internally disjointed and does not speak as a single cohesive unit we would all love them to be. Alternatively, you could have reached out to the community or me personally to get Azure Stack image stood up so you can run your presentation off of it 🙂 All I am saying is… speak to each other! Read what you write… apply common sense to things… and we will all have much smoother ride 🙂 In other words, help me (us) make Azure Stack the best it can be 🙂
If time permits I will record a demo that will show W2019 running the Stack connecting to public Azure – will let you know 😉
If we couple Azure Network Adapter with enhanced Software Defined Networking (SDN) features that will hopefully enable VNet peering on Azure Stack – which is by far the most requested feature according to the feature request forum – we are looking at a lot more compelling proposition. Perhaps even the dreadful 200 Mbps VPN Gateway issue will be addressed if this article is any indication.
Something that was not mentioned – at least in London – was Features on Demand (FODs). This will make Windows behave a lot more akin to Linux whereby we install what we need and by that virtue – Azure Stack infrastructure VMs; if they were re-deployed with that in mind using W2019, we could have them reduce in size by a significant margin. Everything we save here can be passed back to tenants making the initial investment more appealing. If we look at the latest 1902 release where ERCS RAM was increased from 8 to 12 GB, you can clearly see why I want it to be moved from 2016 Core to 2019 Core 😉 Not to mention the implications it has got for the containerised Windows images which currently are way too bloated. I think it is very exciting that Microsoft are investing their time and efforts to try to make Windows “slimmer” and more efficient. All of which will help Azure Stack in the long run 🙂
Next super interesting for me feature was the partnership with Intel in delivering world record IOPS utilising Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory.
Jeff took us down the “memory lane” excuse the pun 😉 explaining how flash storage evolved and it is constantly becoming the bottleneck because it is so fast that we do not have fast enough interface to utilise its power. He talked about how we used to use USB 2.0, then USB 3.0, SATA III, M.2, and now finally we have moved from PCIe based interfaces as those were too slow, we moved the storage even closer to the CPU by putting it into RAM slots!!! That is in a very broad strokes what persistent memory is.
After that brief introduction, we were told about how the “old” world record for IOPS from the 26th of September 2016. Merely 6,5 million IOPS or thereabouts 😉
Then they laid out what sort of technologies are being demonstrated here – it is when it hit me, check it out yourselves.
Does that look familiar? 🙂 Hyper-V + Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) + Software Defined Networking (SDN) – basically the core foundation on what Azure Stack is being built but slightly updated and without the Service Fabric and Azure overlay. That makes me giddy with excitement as I think is shows the absolute power that Azure Stack could potentially have, as well as validates that Microsoft are definitely at the forefront of the hyper-converged infrastructure technology. Do we need all of that in Azure Stack at the moment? No, but the possibilities of having dedicated Scale Units with that sort of raw power makes me a very happy man 🙂
I will cut to the chase and just tell you that they smashed their own record… the results are impressive to say the least.
Unrelated but still a very interesting fact for those worried about how much storage S2D can give you, this slide will hopefully put your mind at ease 🙂
The actual London presentation is not recorded but I found a very similar one from Ignite 2018 🙂 check it out below. Plus you can read more about it here too. Definitely worth a read 🙂
Last piece of cool tech that I want to talk about is Storage Migration Service. The presentation was all tied to the End of Support for Windows and SQL 2018. Side note, funny how Microsoft seems to be able to create a problem and provide a solution for it, but I digress 😉 Important to note that despite it has not been mentioned in London, Azure Stack benefits from Extended Security Updates:
Full FAQ for it can be found here. Make sure you will remember that when you talk to your customers and colleagues as Azure Stack can play a big role with 2008 “exodus” – at least I sure hope so 🙂
It is very impressive piece of technology designed by Microsoft to help users move from old legacy system and migrate either to just newer OS or to the cloud without any downtime. Fun history titbits were mentioned when it was discussed how the requirements based on customer feedback were rapidly increasing so MSFT had to step up their game but I think that what is currently available will be suitable for a lot of people.
Same as with the last demo, the one from London was not recorded but it was very similar to the one from Ignite 2018 so please check it out.
I know I said last one before but I wanted to throw something close to my heart at the very end… not discussed in any detail but just mentioned… Exchange 2019 run on Windows Core! If you asked me about it 4-5 years ago you would see literally burst out into tears… what I would give for that a few years back… still I think it is extraordinary that it exists 😀 More power to Microsoft! Read a bit more about it here if it peaked your interest 😉
To sum up, if by now you do not think that Microsoft means business and the future of Hybrid cloud belongs to them… one picture can probably say a thousand words – straight from London Ignite 2019!
They are not messing around! Microsoft – all work no play 😉
Happy Azure Stacking!