Howard on HCI: Watching the Windows Server Summit

Wow. Just wow.

Me and the entire DataON team watched Microsoft’s first Windows Server Summit this week and it was an incredible event. Although many of the features in the upcoming Windows Server 2019 are mentioned in articles and blogs on the web, the summit gave us a really good preview of what’s to come with Windows Server 2019 in the Fall and what Microsoft will be talking about at Microsoft Ignite.

It’s great to see Microsoft’s commitment to Windows Server and Storage Spaces Direct. And to see so much momentum for these technologies. Ten thousand clusters in 18 months since general availability of Storage Spaces Direct! The continued evolution and maturation of these products provide feature parity to other vendors, giving customers more reasons to choose Microsoft.

Windows Server 2019 will meet enterprise customer’s needs and requirements to support larger deployments.

Maximum raw capacity per cluster, maximum raw capacity per server, a maximum number of volumes, maximum size per volume. All of these have increased by at least 2x!

Windows Admin Center makes it easier to manage Windows Server. 

Before, it could be a challenge to manage Windows Server. That’s why DataON created MUST, our visibility, management and monitoring utility software for Windows Server 2016. But with WAC, it makes the Windows Server experience so much better and easier for end users. And with DataON MUST available as an extension to WAC, you get both great tools in a single pane of glass.

It’s free, doesn’t require System Center, and doesn’t require an Internet connection. And you can download and install it in under 5 minutes!

Microsoft lowers the barrier to entry to a hyper-converged infrastructure with a true 2-node solution.

Storage Spaces Direct is fully featured, cost-effective solution, even when you go down to a 2-node cluster. Clusters with 2 nodes is one of the most popular ways to deploy Storage Spaces Direct. But it can be a challenge to achieve cluster quorums. Microsoft’s new true 2-node solution that provides quorum for the cluster without another server or virtual machine or an Internet connection, for less than $5!

All you need is a router with a USB port, add any size USB flash drive and create a file share to use as your quorum witness.

Windows Server 2019 is on the leading edge of hardware innovation.

Look at all of the new technologies that are supported by Storage Spaces Direct. They all add up to incredibly fast and high-performing solutions for customers. You’re just not going to find this kind of innovation for your SAN or NAS array. Now’s a great time to move to an HCI solution.

Validated Windows Server Software-Defined (WSSD) solutions provides the fastest route to deploying a hyper-converged infrastructure.

Microsoft has worked with partners like DataON to jointly design, validate and deploy HCI solutions. This means customers get a validated solution that they can trust, with optimized performance settings. All of DataON’s HCI solutions are WSSD certified so you know you’re getting a complete turnkey solution.

I’m really looking forward to Windows Server 2019 and Microsoft Ignite, and I hope you are too! DataON will be there so be sure to come to visit our booth!

Watch the Windows Server Summit

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/windows-server-summit

Register for Microsoft Ignite 2018

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ignite

Download the Window Server 2019 Preview

http://aka.ms/WS2019Preview

Download Windows Admin Center

http://aka.ms/WindowsAdminCenter

Check out DataON’s Windows Server Software-Defined (WSSD) offerings

https://www.dataonstorage.com/wssd/