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Join two Microsoft Cloud & Datacenter Management MVPs, Andy Syrewicze and Aidan Finn, as they discuss the features of the next version of Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V.
We discuss the following topics during the session:
- Service availability
- Backup
- New management options
- Storage
- Revolutionary security
- Nested Hyper-V
Meet the speakers!
Andy Syrewicze
Twitter: @asyrewicze
Andy is a Technical Evangelist for Altaro Software, providing technical marketing and pre-sales expertise. Prior to that Andy spent the last 12+ years providing technology solutions across several industry verticals including, education, fortune 500 manufacturing, healthcare and professional services working for MSPs and Internal IT Departments. During that time he became an expert in VMware, Linux, and Network Security, but his main focus over the last 7 years has been in Virtualization, Cloud Services and the Microsoft Server Stack, with an emphasis on Hyper-V.
Aidan Finn
Twitter: @joe_elway
Aidan Finn is a Microsoft Cloud & Datacenter Management MVP. Aidan has been working in IT infrastructure since 1996, and is the Technical Sales Lead for MicroWarehouse Ltd., a Microsoft value added distributor in Ireland. He runs the aidanfinn.com blog, is the Contributing Editor on Microsoft virtualization at Petri.com, and has written or co-written books such as Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide, Microsoft Private Cloud Computing, and Mastering Hyper-V Deployment.
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13 thoughts on "What’s new in Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V"
Do you have any insight into Server 2016 storage considerations for Intel Optane? I had a meeting with Intel recently and was blown away by what they were telling me about Optane (over and above public releases about 3D XPoint) – hearing a company like Intel talking with uncontrolled excitement and enthusiasm about such a technology was surprising but infectious – if Optane lives up to its promises it will revolutionise computing, and we will see it first in servers. Intel were talking about new hardware being released towards the end of the year, with complete architectural redesign – Optane will get storage as close as possible to the CPU, apparently far closer than Micron’s RAM module approach.
Obviously an OS can just sit on this and run, treating it like it does any storage. But just as SSD optimisation was required, I expect there will be substantial optimisations that will dramatically improve OS operation on Optane.
So while it’s an outside chance that Microsoft are talking about this so early, I thought it was worth asking if you’re aware of any Optane implementation with Server 2016, or will we wait for Intel’s hardware in Nov/Dec and expect an update to Server 2016 sometime later?
I’m not aware of anything at this point. But considering how Microsoft has added support very quickly for features, often before server manufacturers are ready, and I’ve heard whispers that Microsoft has even asked for certain hardware innovations, then it wouldn’t surprise me if Microsoft did have support quickly. Microsoft jumped all over off-loaded NVGRE, RDMA, NVMe, SR-IOV, and even all the way back with W2008 R2, they were quick to use SLAT.
Do you have any insight into Server 2016 storage considerations for Intel Optane? I had a meeting with Intel recently and was blown away by what they were telling me about Optane (over and above public releases about 3D XPoint) – hearing a company like Intel talking with uncontrolled excitement and enthusiasm about such a technology was surprising but infectious – if Optane lives up to its promises it will revolutionise computing, and we will see it first in servers. Intel were talking about new hardware being released towards the end of the year, with complete architectural redesign – Optane will get storage as close as possible to the CPU, apparently far closer than Micron’s RAM module approach.
Obviously an OS can just sit on this and run, treating it like it does any storage. But just as SSD optimisation was required, I expect there will be substantial optimisations that will dramatically improve OS operation on Optane.
So while it’s an outside chance that Microsoft are talking about this so early, I thought it was worth asking if you’re aware of any Optane implementation with Server 2016, or will we wait for Intel’s hardware in Nov/Dec and expect an update to Server 2016 sometime later?
What will happen after 2016? Should we expect 2016R2 in 18 to 24 months, and 2020 in four years? Will the OS replacements continue as they have, or will Microsoft Server move over to an upgrade model like Windows 10?
We don’t know anything about what is happening after GA. The core of Windows Server and Windows 10 are shared, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we got significant updates every 6/12 months for Windows Server in line with Windows 10. But when it becomes a new version, with new server licenses or new CALs, I cannot guess.
At least Cluster Rolling Upgrade will make upgrades easier!
I’ve heard that Microsoft are intending for new 2016 licenses to be broadly comparable to 2012R2 in terms of cost for base deployments – that is, the base deployment for 2016 on a dual-processor server is 8 cores per processor, so a minimum license covers 16 physical cores, and this should be fairly close in price to a base Server 2012R2 dual-processor license. However, if you’re currently running 2012R2 on a several-year-old dual-processor server with 12, 14 or 16 cores per CPU, the jump to 2016 might be double your previous license costs. That’s a pretty hard pill to swallow for an SMB that thought they were doing the right thing purchasing forward-looking hardware capable of running plenty of VMs as their environment grows…
Do you know how licensing scales per CPU core? Is it linear? Can we expect a license for dual 16-core CPUs to cost double the 8-core base license? And how receptive is Microsoft to feedback on these (pretty radical) licensing changes? Apparently it hasn’t been particularly simple nor met with enthusiasm by SQL customers, so the fact they’re pushing ahead regardless suggests they aren’t too concerned with criticism on this…
You can find a licensing data sheet here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/2/9/7290EA05-DC56-4BED-9400-138C5701F174/WS2016LicensingDatasheet.pdf.
Microsoft made the announcement last year, and other than that they’ve stayed quiet. Yes; there was a lot of negative reaction and Microsoft have stayed quiet – I don’t believe that they plan to change the structure.
WS2016 and System Center 2016 will be sold in packs of 2 cores, and every core in the physical host must be licensed. Microsoft also states that, for Standard and Datacenter editions, a “… minimum of 8 core licenses is required for each physical processor in the server and a minimum of 16 cores is required to be licensed for servers with one processor”.
The price for the pretty standard machine with 8 core processors won’t change. To be honest, most SMEs did not need more than 16 cores because CPU is very rarely a bottleneck – I’ve never seen a host with more than 33% CPU utilization, and that was years ago with older processors.
I’ve heard that Microsoft are intending for new 2016 licenses to be broadly comparable to 2012R2 in terms of cost for base deployments – that is, the base deployment for 2016 on a dual-processor server is 8 cores per processor, so a minimum license covers 16 physical cores, and this should be fairly close in price to a base Server 2012R2 dual-processor license. However, if you’re currently running 2012R2 on a several-year-old dual-processor server with 12, 14 or 16 cores per CPU, the jump to 2016 might be double your previous license costs. That’s a pretty hard pill to swallow for an SMB that thought they were doing the right thing purchasing forward-looking hardware capable of running plenty of VMs as their environment grows…
Do you know how licensing scales per CPU core? Is it linear? Can we expect a license for dual 16-core CPUs to cost double the 8-core base license? And how receptive is Microsoft to feedback on these (pretty radical) licensing changes? Apparently it hasn’t been particularly simple nor met with enthusiasm by SQL customers, so the fact they’re pushing ahead regardless suggests they aren’t too concerned with criticism on this…
You can find a licensing data sheet here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/2/9/7290EA05-DC56-4BED-9400-138C5701F174/WS2016LicensingDatasheet.pdf.
Microsoft made the announcement last year, and other than that they’ve stayed quiet. Yes; there was a lot of negative reaction and Microsoft have stayed quiet – I don’t believe that they plan to change the structure.
WS2016 and System Center 2016 will be sold in packs of 2 cores, and every core in the physical host must be licensed. Microsoft also states that, for Standard and Datacenter editions, a “… minimum of 8 core licenses is required for each physical processor in the server and a minimum of 16 cores is required to be licensed for servers with one processor”.
The price for the pretty standard machine with 8 core processors won’t change. To be honest, most SMEs did not need more than 16 cores because CPU is very rarely a bottleneck – I’ve never seen a host with more than 33% CPU utilization, and that was years ago with older processors.