The increasing speed of the internet has increased the presence of cloud systems in the world. As the cloud becomes more ubiquitous, Microsoft Windows Server 2016 was design to focus more on the cloud. With the launch, Microsoft also introduced better security and Azure integration. Some of the most interesting features include Windows PowerShell 5.1, Windows Server Containers and Nano Server.
Current Version Microsoft Windows Server 2016
Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Features
Active Directory (AD) Federation Services (FS) improvements
Users can configure the AD FS feature to authenticate users stored in non active directories in Microsoft Windows Server 2016.
Windows Defender Integration
Microsoft Windows Server 2016 features integrated Windows Server Antimalware. It is configure and enable by default.
Improved Remote Desktop Services support
Windows Server 2016 features improved remote desktop performance and stability. Additionally, Microsoft added support for OpenCL 1.1 and OpenGL 4.4.
New Storage Services
Microsoft Windows Server 2016 added Storage Replicas and Central Storage QoS Policies.
Web Application Proxy improvements
Windows Server 2016 offers HTTP to HTTPS redirection, Propagation of client IPs address (to backend applications), Pre-authentication for HTTP Basic application publishing, and wildcard domain publishing of applications.
Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Editions
Essentials
Once again, Microsoft Windows Servfer Essentials is best-suited to start-ups and SMEs. It uses a CPU based license that covers a maximum of 25 Users on 50 different devices. Upon release, each license cost $501. Clients did not require CALs.
Standard
The Standard edition offers core based licensing and requires CAL for every client that connects to the licensed Windows server. Because it only supports two OSE or Hyper-V VM containers, it’s only suitable for workloads or environments with very little virtualization. It has a 24TB RAM limit. Additionally, it has a CPU limitation of 512 cores. Microsoft priced licenses at $882 each. Storage management features such as Storage Replica and Space Direct are absent from this edition. Furthermore, it’s missing shielded VMs and a networking stack.
DataCenter
The DataCenter edition is ideal for large virtualize environments. At a price of $6155, it is the most expensive edition of Microsoft Windows Server 2016. It has unlimited OSE and Hyper-V VM containers and has every feature of the Standard Edition and more.