What’s New and What’s Next in Windows Server 2019, Powered by Intel

With the release of Windows Server 2019 in October 2018 many customers are looking to take advantage of new features in hybrid cloud, security, storage, failover clustering, and the application platform. Upgrading and migrating to Windows Server 2019 can be a relatively easy process but there are things you need to do to ensure that you don’t run into any problems or lose any data.

Intel developed Intel® Select Solutions to simplify and accelerate the process of evaluating, selecting, and deploying hardware with today’s workloads. They are vigorously benchmark-tested to ensure smooth deployments and optimal performance. Intel® Select Solutions for Azure Stack HCI are designed to help customers quickly realize on-premises Microsoft HCI and utilize cloud services powered by Microsoft Azure.

Florida Polytechnic University is a public university that deployed a Microsoft & DataON HCI for its disaster recovery site, then expanded its cluster and upgraded from Windows Server 2016 to 2019.


The webcast will explore the following topics:

• How to successfully plan for an upgrade and migration to Windows Server 2019

• What are Intel Select Solutions and how it simplifies deploying solutions for Azure Stack HCI

• How Florida Poly successfully added a third node to its cluster and upgraded from Windows Server 2016 to 2019.


Presented by:

DataON – Howard Lo, Vice President of Sales & Marketing

Microsoft – Rob Hindman, Senior Program Director of Windows Server

Intel Corporation – Balaji Iyer, Solutions Strategist

Florida Polytechnic University – Bill Webster, Assistant Director of Administrative Computing

To help customers expand from on-premises to the cloud for a hybrid cloud approach, Microsoft has introduced Azure Stack HCI. Built upon the foundation of the Windows Server Software-Defined (WSSD) program, it helps customers replace aging servers and storage infrastructure, consolidate virtualized workloads, and gain cloud efficiencies on-prem, without length design and build times.

In addition, DataON has partnered with Intel to create Intel Select Solutions for Azure Stack HCI V2 and SQL Server V2. These validated solutions provide faster time-to-value with reduced operational costs. There solutions are vigorously benchmark tested to verify performance and ensure predictability, eliminating guesswork and reducing the time needed to evaluate, select, and purchase hardware.

The second generation of Intel Select Solutions feature the 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors and Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory. By having Intel Select Solutions verified with the latest Intel technologies, IT administrators can take advantage of these new technologies faster and respond more quickly to dynamic business demands.

The webcast will explore the following topics:

• What is Azure Stack HCI?
• What is the difference between Azure Stack HCI, Azure, and Azure Stack?
• How Intel Select Solutions simplify and accelerate the process of selecting and deploying hardware and software
• What’s new in 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors?
• What is Intel® Optane DC™ persistent memory and how does it help workload performance?

Presented by:

• DataON – Howard Lo, Vice President, Sales and Marketing
• Microsoft – Jeff Woolsey, Principal Program Manager, Windows Server & Hybrid Cloud
• Intel Corporation – Jake Smith, Director, Data Center Technologies
• APC Integrated Services Group Inc. – Matt Lehmann, IT Manager

Hybrid at its core. Secure by design. With cloud application innovation and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) built into the platform and backed by Azure, Microsoft presents Windows Server 2019.

Cosmos Darwin (Senior Program Manager, Core OS Engineering, Microsoft) will show how Microsoft is making HCI accessible for everyone with Windows Server 2016/2019 and Windows Admin Center. HCI is the next big wave of data center consolidation: simplify your infrastructure, accelerate I/O performance, and save money, from the data center to the edge!

• Why hyper-converged infrastructure, why Windows Server

• What’s new in Windows Server 2019 for Storage Spaces Direct and HCI

• Setting an industry record with Storage Spaces Direct and Intel® Optane™ DC PMEM

Alessandro Goncalves (SSD Solution Architect, Intel) will show how Intel is reimagining memory and storage with Intel® Optane™ technology to break through some of the constricting methods for using data.

• Intel® Optane™ benefits

• Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory

• Intel® Optane™ SSDs

Bring your questions about Windows Server 2019 and Intel® Optane™ technology and get answers from our experts!

PRESENTERS:
Howard Lo, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, DataON

Cosmos Darwin, Senior Program Manager, Core OS Engineering, Microsoft

Alessandro Goncalves, SSD Solution Architect, Intel

Microsoft has simplified and modernized the Windows Server Management experience with the release of Windows Admin Center (formerly Project Honolulu). It consolidates consoles such as Event, Viewer, Device Manager, Disk Management, Task Manager, and Server Managers, into a simplified, integrated and secure remote management experience.

Windows Admin Center is designed to support third party extensions such as DataON MUST, which provides visibility, monitoring and management for Windows Server environments. The integration of these tools provides a seamless experience for customers through a single pane of glass. MUST enhances the Windows Admin Center experience with additional capabilities, such as historic data reporting, disk mapping, system alerts, and call home services.

Mellanox offers complete 10/25/40/50GbE Ethernet Storage Fabric solutions for Windows Server 2016 data centers with end-to-end RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) support. These end-to-end solutions, including Spectrum™ switches and ConnectX-4® adapters, deliver consistently high bandwidth and low latency to I/O intensive applications and fast flash storage, enabling data centers to operate with high performance and efficiency.

The webcast will explore the following topics:

• What is Windows Admin Center and how does it improve your management environment?

• What is DataON MUST and what additional features does it bring to Windows Admin Center

• How Mellanox Ethernet storage fabric solutions accelerate Windows Server 2016 performance?

• Why Trident Seafood choose a DataON Kepler 2-Node (K2N) solution with Windows Admin Center and MUST for their branch offices.


Presented by:

DataON – Howard Lo, Vice President, Sales and Marketing

Microsoft – Daniel Lee, Program Manager, Windows Server Management Experience

Mellanox – Jeff Shao, Director, Ethernet Alliances

Trident Seafoods – Shawn Leonard, IT Network Services Manager

Windows Server 2016 launched in late 2016, with new functionality such as Hyper-V, Storage Spaces Direct, Storage Replica and advanced Resilient File System (ReFS). As more and more enterprises are adopting and deploying Windows Server 2016 hyper-converged infrastructure, DataON and our partners would like to share our best practices and know-how so your HCI leverages all the key features and functionalities of a Microsoft software-defined data center (SDDC) with Storage Spaces Direct.

Veeam Cloud Connect provides cloud-based disaster recovery and offsite backup. It allows businesses and organizations to have physical and virtual backups off-site and replicate VMs without the cost and complexity of building and maintaining an offsite infrastructure. It’s also one of the few solutions that provides full, advanced support for Windows Server 2016.

HGST (a division of Western Digital) provides high quality and high capacity SAS HDDs that are the core of DataON’s DNS family of JBODs. It lays down the foundation for a worry-free data center powered by Windows Server 2016.


The webcast will explore the following topics:

•What are the top deployment best practices you need to know about in Windows Server 2016

•What is Veeam and how do they support Windows Server 2016

•How does HGST technology support a Windows Server-based data center


Presented by: DataON, Veeam, HGST, and a Microsoft MVP

In support of Microsoft Server software-defined storage, Intel has created Select Solutions. They are workload-optimized data center solutions that accelerate customer paths from product evaluation to installation. Intel selected DataON’s new Purley-based TracSystem HCI to be part of the first Intel Select Solution with Windows Server Software-Defined Storage.

In October, Microsoft released their semi-annual channel (SAC) update of Windows Server 2016, also known as build 1709. Included in the release are updates to the Server Core and Nano Server container images, introduction of a new Windows Server management tool known as “Project Honolulu”, and many compute, storage, networking and remote-desktop services updates.

Cherokee County School District (CCSD) is a public school system in the metro Atlanta, GA area. It consolidated their three-tiered SAN storage system into a consolidated Windows Server 2016 software-defined system that could support over 50,000 students and staff.

The webcast will explore the following topics:

•How Intel Select Solutions simplify and accelerate the process of selecting and deploying hardware and software needed for Window Server software-defined solutions.

•What’s new in Windows Server 2016 build 1709 and why the new features are important.

•Why Cherokee County School District chose a Windows Server 2016 solution to simplify their on-premise storage needs and provide enough VMs for their students and staff.


Presented by:

DataON Storage – Howard Lo, VP of Sales and Marketing
Microsoft – Jeff Woolsey, Principal Program Manager, Windows Server
Intel Corporation – Jake Smith, Director, Data Center Technologies Marketing
Cherokee County School District – Matt Roper, Facilitator of Technology Support Services

Since the launch of Windows Server 2016, Microsoft has transformed the software-defined data center landscape with Storage Spaces Direct and SMB3 RDMA networking for optimal hyper-converged infrastructure deployments.

Storage Spaces Direct enables building highly available and scalable storage using servers with local storage. It simplifies the management of software-defined storage systems and allows the use of new storage devices such as SATA SSDs and NVMe disk drives. Storage Spaces Direct takes advantage of SMB3 RDMA networking technology for high-speed, low latency, CPU efficient storage.

Strategic Online Systems, Inc. (SOS) is a Managed Service Provider that chose a DataON and Windows software-defined solution to replace an aging SAN for one of their non-profit customers.

The webcast will explore the following topics:

•How Storage Spaces Direct enables service providers and enterprises to use industry-standard servers with local storage to build highly available and scalable software-defined storage.

•How Mellanox 10/40/100GbE solutions for Window Server 2016 provide end-to-end support for RoCE, delivering high bandwidth and low latency networking via SMB3 RDMA.

•Best practices on how to deploy Storage Spaces Direct with a Mellanox SMB RDMA network, with real-world examples from SOS.

•DataON’s latest WSSD-certified platforms for Windows Server 2016.


Presented by:
Howard Lo, VP of Sales and Marketing, DataON
Steven Ekren, Senior Program Manager Windows Server, Microsoft
Motti Beck, Sr. Director, Enterprise Market Development, Mellanox Technologies
Benjamin Clements, President, Strategic Online Systems, Inc.

With the launch of Window Server 2016, new storage enhancements bring revolutionary new features within reach of every organization with its software-defined feature setup.

Storage Replica is one of those new features in Windows Server 2016. For the first time, Windows Server offers the peace of mind of zero data loss, with the ability to synchronously protect data on different racks, floors, buildings, campuses, counties, and cities. Before and after a disaster strike, Storage Replica offers you the ability to switch workloads to safe locations prior to catastrophes when granted a few moments warning with no data loss.

Mead & Hunt is a leading engineering firm that chose a DataON and Windows software-defined solution. They replaced their aging SAN with DataON CiB storage, optimized for Microsoft Windows Server 2016 and Hyper-V in a ReFS environment.

The webcast will explore the following topics:

•How Mead & Hunt was able to consolidate and simplify their storage environment, eliminating increasing SAN maintenance costs while increasing performance

•How Storage Replica in Windows Server 2016 allows you to setup storage-agnostic, block-level synchronous replication between clusters or servers for disaster recovery

•Best practices on how to deploy Storage Replica, with real-world examples from Mead & Hunt’s deployment


Presented by:
DataON – Howard Lo, VP of Sales and Marketing
Microsoft – Ned Pyle, Program Manager
Western Digital – Kris Menon, Business Development Manager
Mead & Hunt – Joseph Anich, Systems Administrator

With the launch of Window Server 2016, new storage enhancements bring revolutionary new features within reach of every organization with its software-defined feature setup. With Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) and using Microsoft certified and turnkey platforms, customers now have the ability to deploy highly available and scalable software-defined storage deploy converged or hyper-converged cluster storage architecture. DataON’s new MUST infrastructure visibility and management tool provides SAN-like storage monitoring features for customers deploying Windows Server 2016 SDS. The ability to easily view real-time dashboard level metrics for IOPS, latency, throughput on cluster, nodes and volume levels in a single pane of glass, helping you keep your hyper-converged system up and running.

Join speakers from DataON, Microsoft and Western Digital as they show you how to deploy a Windows Server 2016 S2D hyper-converged solution with DataON MUST.

The webcast will explore the following topics:

• How DataON MUST visibility and monitoring tool helps you manage your Windows Server 2016 software-defined storage

• How Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016 allows you to build software-defined storage using Microsoft-certified industry-standard servers with local storage

• How Western Digital storage solutions support Windows Server 2016

Presented by:
Howard Lo, VP of Sales and Marketing, DataON Storage
Cosmos Darwin, Program Manager II, Microsoft
Peter Plamondon, Director, Strategic Partner Ecosystems (Microsoft), Western Digital

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) is one of the hottest topics in data center architecture today. In the simplest terms, HCI combines computing, storage, and networking components into a single physical instance. These devices, or HCI appliances, are significantly simpler and cheaper to deploy and make scaling of applications easier. This enables IT managers to maximize their data centers efficiency and meet the networking and storage demands of Microsoft’s Software-defined Data Center (SDDC). The greatest challenge with HCI for medium-sized enterprises, however, has often been finding a solution that is not too large (and expensive) for their needs.

Join speakers from DataON, Microsoft, Intel, Mellanox and EVGA to learn how to meet this challenge head-on by rapidly and cost-effectively deploying a Windows Server 2016 hyper-converged cluster platform with Non-Volatile Memory Express® (NVMe™) SSDs.

The webcast will explore the following topics:

• Basic concepts of HCI, including challenges in deploying HCI solutions
• How to choose the right partners to architect and deploy a hyper-converged cluster platform
• Technologies that form the nucleus of DataON’s Hyper-Converged Cluster Appliance (HCCA), including Microsoft Windows Server 2016, Intel E5 CPUs and NVMe 3D NAND SSDs, and Mellanox end-to-end RDMA-capable networking solutions.
• The benefits that EVGA (a leading hardware provider of high-end hardware components for PC gaming and video) realized by deploying the DataON-Intel-Microsoft hyper-converged cluster solution

Presented by:
DataON - Howard Lo, VP of Sales and Marketing
Microsoft - Claus Joergensen, Principal Program Manager, Enterprise Cloud Group
Intel - Vivek Sarathy, Storage Solution Architect, NVM Solutions Group
Mellanox - Motti Beck, Senior Director of Business Development
G2M Inc. - Mike Heumann, Managing Partner

The costs of running VMWare have risen to unmaintainable levels for companies that are looking to expand and scale operations. The ESX Tax over burdens IT budgets, hindering their ability to scale and manage OPEX. In this webcast, we will show IT managers how Microsoft Hyper- V and Storage Spaces can be a game changer for their organization, providing a cost effective, stable and easy to manage virtualization platform. LifeStore Bank will tell you how they transitioned from an infrastructure based on VMWare ESX and EMC VNXe to Microsoft Hyper-V and DataON Storage's Cluster-In-Box (CIB) storage to scale their capabilities, optimize service level agreements and lower the cost of running virtual environments by 1.5X

Speakers

Howard Lo, VP of Sales, Dataon Storage
Aidan Finn – Microsoft MVP
Josh Rountree – IT Manager, LifeStore Bank
Kris Menon - Business Development Manager, HSGT
Shaun Walsh – Managing Partner, G2M Communications