Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Edition includes significant enhancements to Failover Clustering, a key technology that supports disaster recovery (DR) and high availability by allowing you to combine multiple servers to form a fault-tolerant cluster on physical hardware or in virtual machines. A major enhancement is Storage Replica, Microsoft's first native solution for zero-data-loss disaster recovery, Storage Replica allows organizations to configure separate sites within a metro area to mirror data with crash-consistent volumes in order to ensure full data recovery in the event of a site outage. Windows Server 2016 includes a number of other important new and enhanced features for Failover Clusters, offering significant benefits in areas including availability and fault tolerance, Hyper-V virtualization, storage and infrastructure costs, ease of deployment, manageability, security, scale, performance, hybrid cloud support, health monitoring and audit reporting.
Windows Server 2016 is a cloud-tested platform that takes technology proven in Microsoft's vast Azure public cloud, including Azure's software-defined data plane, and makes it available for on premises deployments. As hybrid networks have become the norm, the migration of cloud technology to private data centers has made enterprise-class disaster recovery solutions practical for organizations of virtually any size.
Progent's team of disaster recovery consultants and certified Windows Server experts have the knowledge and experience to help you plan, deploy, test, maintain and troubleshoot a disaster recovery solution based on Windows Server 2016 that aligns with your business goals and IT budget. Progent's information assurance experts can help you prove compliance with regulatory requirements for disaster recovery, and Progent's business continuity consultants can help you integrate your disaster recovery strategy into a broader plan to keep your business operating at an acceptable level in the event of a predictable widespread catastrophe. By showing you practical and affordable ways to deploy Windows Server 2016 to improve your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO), Progent can help ensure that your investment in current disaster recovery and clustering technology adds maximum business value to your information network.
Windows Server 2016 Storage Replica
The headline disaster recovery feature of Windows Server 2016 is Storage Replica, Microsoft's first foray into zero-data-loss DR. Storage Replica allows you to mirror data between sites located within metro distances by using synchronous replication over a low-latency (5 ms or better round trip) TCP/IP or RDMA network using an SMB3 transport. If a protected site (also called a source or primary site) suffers a complete shutdown, you can switch quickly to the recovery site (also called destination or secondary site) without losing any data written to disk storage. Storage Replica can also be used for disaster avoidance, where users are seamlessly switched over to a recovery site in expectation of an imminent catastrophe such as a flood, wildfire or hurricane. For sites separated by longer distances or otherwise subject to higher latencies, Storage Replica supports an asynchronous replication mode that provides minimal data loss.
Storage Replica uses block-level replication between clusters or servers. This means that protected applications write data to at least two locations before the completion of any write operation. Because Storage Replica operates below the file level, it avoids the restrictions of technologies like DFS Replication, which requires that files be closed before replication and is subject to issues like files locks and open handles. Progent can help you upgrade from low-end disaster recovery solutions like DFS Replication to a zero-data-loss DR solution based on Windows Server 2016 Storage Replica.
For higher latency networks that span longer distances, Storage Replica supports asynchronous replication. Since Storage Replica asynchronous replication is continuous, not checkpoint based, the amount of data at risk of being lost is far lower than DR solutions based on snapshots. In addition, Storage Replica works at the partition layer, so it replicates all Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshots, allowing application-consistent data snapshots for point-in-time recovery.
Topologies supported by Storage Replica include stretch clusters, cluster-to-cluster, and server-to-server. These configurations can run on physical hardware or VMs based on Hyper-V, VMware, Citrix XenServer, or other leading virtualization platforms. Stretch cluster configurations allow you to orchestrate and automate the failover process for workloads like Hyper-V private cloud clusters and SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance (FCI) and can be managed with Failover Cluster Manager. Storage Replica with stretched clusters can use Storage Spaces, SAN, iSCSI, and RAID through persistent reservation and can be run with two or more nodes.
The cluster-to-cluster configuration utilizes uses two distinct clusters and allows administrators to control the failover process manually. This topology is suited for environments where the secondary site set up solely for disaster recovery rather than as an active data center. With a cluster-to-cluster configuration, Storage Replica supports the cost-saving Storage Spaces feature of Windows Server 2016 and can be run with four or more nodes.
If your hardware does not support clustering, you can run Storage Replica in a server-to-server configuration. In this case the failover process must be performed manually. This can be a cost-effective DR solution between branch offices and data centers, and with asynchronous replication can support significantly better RPO than can be achieved with DFS Replication.
Progent can help you determine which Storage Replica topology makes the most sense for you business and can also help you plan, deploy, manage and troubleshoot your Storage Replica solution. For other zero-data-loss disaster recovery platforms supported by Progent, see VMware Site Recovery Manager consulting and NetApp MetroCluster disaster recovery consulting.
Additional Features of Windows Server 2016 for Failover Clustering
Important new and enhanced features of Windows Server 2016 include:
When you create volumes from the storage pool, Storage Spaces Direct automatically generates a virtual disk and takes care of partitioning, formatting, and adding it to your Failover Cluster so it can be accessed by any node as a CSV. These shared volumes can tolerate drive, server, or component failures with uninterrupted availability, and you can replace failed hardware without downtime or complex management intervention. Performance can exceed 150,000 mixed random IOPS per server thanks to an integrated read/write cache and support for NVMe drives mounted directly on the PCIe bus. Storage Spaces Direct automatically utilizes the fastest storage available, such as SSDs, for its always-on cache.
System Center 2016 Virtual Machine Manager supports two models for configuring and managing Storage Spaces Direct clusters. In a converged deployment, also called disaggregated, compute and storage resources run on different clusters. This provides administrators with the flexibility to scale compute resources independently from storage and is suitable for enterprises with larger environments and the skills to manage complex deployments. With a hyper-converged deployment model, Hyper-V compute and storage share the same cluster. This model, which minimizes hardware costs and is easier to configure and manage, is appropriate for smaller organizations or branch offices.
Health Service can automate workflows in the disk retirement/replacement cycle by reporting a failed disk, copying data from the retired disk to the remaining disks to restore full resiliency, indicating a failed disk by blinking its disk or slot indicator light, verifying a replacement disk against a Supported Components Document, and substituting the replacement disk into the storage pool previously occupied by the retired disk.
Cluster Operating System Rolling Upgrade utilizes a new mixed-OS mode that allows nodes with different host operating system versions to run within the same cluster. This allows you to pause, drain, evict, and reformat any node in the cluster, install Windows Server 2016 on the node, and bring the node back online. The Failover Cluster continues operating during this procedure as it would during any node outage. You can then use Failover Cluster Manager or PowerShell to add the upgraded node back into the cluster. All nodes operate at the older Windows Server 2012 R2 functional level until every node in the cluster has been upgraded. When all nodes have been migrated to Windows Server 2016, the entire cluster can be upgraded at once to the new functionality level with a single PowerShell cmdlet.
Progent can guide you through the Cluster Operating System Rolling Upgrade process following best practices, help you load balance the upgraded cluster, and show you how to take advantage of the new features provided by Windows Server 2016.
Progent's information assurance consultants can help you achieve and prove compliance with regulatory and industry data security requirement such as SOX, ISO 27001, PCI DSS 3.2 and FedRAMP by showing you how to configure the powerful new security tools available with Windows Server 2016 including Windows Containers, Shielded Virtual Machines, Credential Guard, Remote Credential Guard and Just In Time (JIT) Privileged Access Management. (For a description of these security enhancements, see Windows Server 2016 integration consulting.)
Progent's information assurance consultants can help you deploy new security feature like Windows and Hyper-V Containers, Shielded Virtual Machines, Credential Guard, Remote Credential Guard and Just In Time (JIT) Privileged Access Management to make it easier for you to comply with regulatory and industry data security requirement such as SOX, ISO 27001, PCI DSS 3.2, and FedRAMP. Progent's roster of Cisco CCIE-certified network infrastructure consultants is one of the largest of any independent IT services firm in the U.S., and Progent can help you design, deploy and manage a hybrid network ecosystem that fully delivers the high-availability and disaster recovery capabilities of Windows Server 2016. To streamline the management of your Windows Server 2016 Failover Clusters, Progent can provide expertise with PowerShell scripting, Failover Cluster Manager, Hyper-V Manager, System Center 2016 migration, System Center 2016 Operations Manager (SCOM 2016) integration and Virtual Machine Manager 2016 (VVM 2016) hybrid cloud management consulting.
To help you protect critical Microsoft workloads with Windows Server 2016's disaster recovery solutions, Progent offers services that include Exchange 2016 integration consulting, SQL Server 2016 consulting, and SharePoint development and integration. For hybrid environments that use public cloud services, Progent offers Office 365 Exchange Online consulting, Amazon AWS integration, and Google Cloud integration consulting.
Progent's Online Consulting and Troubleshooting Expertise
Progent is a pioneer in delivering online consulting and troubleshooting expertise and has provided remote solutions to organizations in every state in the U.S. (See Progent's Customer Testimonials.) Progent also offers onsite consulting services in major metropolitan areas across the United States and parts of Canada. Progent can provide as-needed guidance to help you resolve occasional technical issues or full project management outsourcing or co-sourcing services to make sure your Windows Server 2016 initiative is successfully completed on time and within budget.
If you need immediate online help from a Progent consultant, visit Progent's Online Technical Response Center.
Contact Progent for Windows Server 2016 Expertise
For more information about Progent's consulting and troubleshooting support for Windows Server 2016, call
Non-stop Solutions Offered by Progent's Experts
Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified engineers can help you to build an affordable, high-availability IT architecture that addresses key issues covering a broad array of networking technologies and operations such as:
Business Continuity Planning
Progent's business continuity planning consultants can show you how to design a disaster recovery strategy that will allow you to resume IT functionality in the event of an information system disaster. Progent can assist you to define a complete disaster recovery plan that incorporates scheduled disaster recovery evaluations and drills. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-authorized consultants can also show you how to create an affordable, non-stop system architecture that takes into account reliability issues involving a broad range of network technologies and processes. For details, visit Business Continuity Consulting and Support Services.
CRISC-Certified Network Risk Mitigation
The CRISC program was established by ISACA in 2010 to validate a consultant's ability to plan, deploy, and maintain IS control mechanisms to mitigate network risk. Progent offers the services of a CRISC-certified engineer to help you to create and carry out a workplace continuity strategy that follows leading practices promoted by CRISC and crafted to align with your company's risk tolerance, business goals, and budgetary guidelines. To read more, see CRISC-Premier network risk mitigation specialists.
Windows Server 2019 High Availability Failover Clustering
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 introduced significant improvements in capacity, performance, management, security and compliance, application compatibility, Linux support, Kubernetes networking, and hybrid integration of on-premises and cloud-hosted assets. Top new features of Windows Server 2019 are Windows Admin Center for unifying the management of hybrid on-premises/cloud-hosted resources, System Insights for utilizing advance predictive intelligence to manage on-premises networks, Windows Defender ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) Exploit Guard for host-intrusion prevention, container networking using Kubernetes, Cluster Sets for deploying and administering large high-availability scale-out clusters, and Microsoft's Storage Migration Service for streamlining the migration from legacy editions of Windows Server. To learn more, go to Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Fault-tolerant Failover Clustering Expertise.
VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) Disaster Recovery Solutions
VMware's Site Recovery Manager (SRM) is an extension to VMware vCenter that lets you define, automate and verify a consistent workflow for recovering applications and services rapidly following a breakdown. Site Recovery Manager provides centrally managed and automated recovery, application mobility, plus non-intrusive site relocation, failback and site re-protect. Site Recovery Manager also supports non-intrusive testing for disaster recovery, upgrades and patches and can produce audit reports to verify complete service restoration, validate SLAs and demonstrate disaster recovery compliance. Progent offers the skills of a VCDX certified VMware SRM consulting expert to help your organization to plan, configure, test and administer a disaster recovery solution powered by VMware SRM.
NetApp MetroCluster Disaster Recovery Platform
NetApp MetroCluster is a high-availability and disaster recovery software suite that combines array-based storage clustering with continual replication to provide rapid, zero data loss disaster recovery (DR) between datacenters that are as far as 185 miles (300km) apart. Progent can provide the skills of a NetApp MetroCluster consultant who can help you to plan, configure, administer, update, test and repair a disaster recovery system based on NetApp MetroCluster. Progent can assist you to select an architecture for your MetroCluster deployment that aligns with your functional needs and IT budget. Progent can make sure you adhere to leading practices for installing your MetroCluster environment by delivering guidance with tasks like assigning disk pools, determining aggregate and plexes layout, setting up volumes, setting up NetApp Snapshot, installing Cisco and Brocade switches, implementing a tiebreaker mechanism, setting up a TCP/IP configuration replication network between your peered clusters, and testing your disaster recovery system to verify compliance with industry standards and government mandates.
High Availability Load Balancing
Progent provides high availability load balancing support covering network load balancing, load balanced programs, network infrastructure routing, and content dispatching products including Cisco Content Engine. High availability load balancing solutions for which Progent offers consulting expertise include Windows 2003 and 2008 Server Network Load Balancing Manager, Citrix Metaframe and Presentation Server, Cisco CSS, Cisco Content Engine and Cisco CDN Software, and F5 Networks 3-DNS. For details, visit Fault Tolerant Load Balancing.
Fault Tolerant Internet Data Centers
Progent's Data Center engineers can show you how to select high availability data centers that meet the specific needs of your company. Fault tolerant Internet Data Centers are particularly attractive to small and mid-size companies due to of their affordability and simplified logistics in comparison to pursuing a do-it-yourself approach. Attempting to create an on-site data center with even a minimum level of fault tolerance is too costly for most small companies. Progent can help you reap all the benefits of high-availability colocation facilities by offering a complete range of engineering and maintenance services. For more information, see Fault Tolerant Colocation Solutions.
24x7 Branch Office Networking
Progent's multi-site connectivity professionals can help businesses create zero-downtime branch office connectivity solutions via fully redundant system architectures with automatic failover. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE network engineers can design and deploy high-availability Inter-office connections supported by fault tolerant EIGRP network routers or zero-downtime OSPF configurations of Cisco routers. Progent can demonstrate how redundant connections and automatic fail-over can provide economical 24x7 interoffice connectivity. To find out more, go to 24x7 Interoffice Connectivity.
Non-stop Internet Access
Progent's Cisco-authorized IT consultants can help you create an affordable, high availability Internet configuration architecture that can deliver non-stop Internet connectivity through a broad array of fault tolerant Internet access solutions including fault tolerant BGP, automatic fail-over, and redundant ISPs. Progent offers Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert professionals to help you apply the most up-to-date techniques for high availability Internet connections to build a cost-effective, fully redundant Internet interface with automatic failover and other features to deliver zero-downtime Internet access. To learn more, visit Non-stop Internet Access Architecture.
Backup and Restore Solutions Consultants
Progent can provide economical online support from consultants skilled in a broad range of utilities and technologies that deliver solutions for backing up Microsoft Windows, Mac, and Linux servers and workstations as well as notebooks and smartphones. Progent can provide consulting support for all major data protection products including Acronis, Symantec Backup Exec, BackupAssist, CrashPlan PRO, Double-Take Backup, MozyPro, Retrospect, Apple Time Machine, VMware vSphere Data Protection (VDP), and FLARs. Progent's consultants can assist you to install, enhance, or troubleshoot backup/restore solutions for a range of topologies including on-premises, remote, cloud, or hybrid. For more information, see Backup and Restore Technology Consulting.
Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager Backup and Recovery Consulting
Progent's expert System Center Data Protection Manager consultants can assist you to develop an effective business continuity strategy, design a cost-effective fault-tolerante network infrastructure, deploy a Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager-based recovery solution, thoroughly validate your DPM system, educate your IT personnel or local consultants how to manage System Center Data Protection Manager, or provide complete IT outsourcing such as remote housing of virtual or physical SCDPM machines in Progent's secure data center. To learn more, visit Microsoft SCDPM Expertise.
Barracuda Backup Multi-site and Cloud Data Backup and Disaster Recovery
Barracuda Backup is an affordable, subscription backup and disaster recovery platform for small and medium-size organizations. A Barracuda Backup deployment can include a custom-designed physical appliance built by Barracuda or a virtual appliance with similar functionality but which utilizes your existing storage hardware. Barracuda Backup protects critical business data generated on-premises, at one or multiple remote locations, or in the cloud. For disaster recovery, you can replicate data to the Barracuda Cloud, to Amazon Web Services (AWS), or to any location with a physical or virtual Barracuda Backup appliance. Progent is a Barracuda partner and Progent's Barracuda Backup consulting experts can provide a wide array of consulting services to assist your business to plan, integrate, manage and repair a BDR solution based on Barracuda Backup. For more information, see Barracuda Backup and disaster recovery consultants.
ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup Software for Backup and Disaster Recovery
Hornetsecurity's Altaro VM Backup software offers small businesses a reliable and budget-friendly solution for backing up and recovering Hyper-V and VMware-based VMs. Altaro VM Backup can be deployed in on-premises, offsite, distributed, and cloud environments and also enables cost-effective backup to Azure storage. Altaro VM Backup includes advanced features like Immutable Cloud Storage for enhanced protection from ransomware. Progent is a Hornetsecurity Altaro partner and offers a wide range of remote or onsite services to assist you to design, deploy, manage and debug a modern backup/restore system based on Altaro VM Backup. With ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, Progent offers a fully managed backup/restore service based on Altaro VM Backup software. To find out more, see Altaro VM Backup consulting.
ProSight DPS 365 Total Backup Solutions for Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 offers rudimentary archiving but does not have native support for crucial data protection services such as Exchange backups or greater than 30-day point-in-time recovery for OneDrive or SharePoint Online. Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup delivers a full-featured BDR solution for automatic backup and rapid recovery of all your organization's M365 mailboxes, Microsoft Teams Chats, SharePoint sites, OneDrive files, and content on Windows endpoints. Progent is an authorized Hornetsecurity/Altaro partner and offers ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) 365 Total Backup to provide comprehensive managed services for Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup suite. ProSight DPS 365 Total Backup provides a budget-friendly backup-as-a-service (BaaS) solution that protects M365 apps against data loss or corruption caused by user or software mistakes, malevolent sabotage, and cyber assaults such as ransomware. To read more, go to ProSight Data Protection Services 365 Total Backup solutions for Microsoft 365.
Fully Managed Cloud Backup: ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO
ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO from Progent provide small and medium-sized organizations an affordable end-to-end solution for secure backup/disaster recovery. Available at a fixed monthly rate, ProSight DPS ECHO automates and monitors your backup activities and allow rapid restoration of critical files, apps and virtual machines that have become unavailable or corrupted due to hardware breakdowns, software glitches, natural disasters, human error, or malware attacks like ransomware. ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO can help you protect, recover and restore files, folders, apps, system images, plus Hyper-V and VMware images. Critical data can be protected on the cloud, to an on-promises storage device, or mirrored to both. Progent's cloud backup specialists can deliver world-class expertise to configure ProSight DPS ECHO to be compliant with government and industry regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, FIRPA, PCI and Safe Harbor and, when necessary, can assist you to recover your critical information. Learn more about ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO managed backup and recovery.
ProSight Data Protection Services 360 Backup Solutions
Progent's data protection experts can help your company to create, deploy and troubleshoot a backup plan based on MSP360 software. MSP360 enables file/folder or image-based backup/restore for VMs and physical computers, supports all popular public clouds, and allows you to build a data protection solution with a low Recovery Time Objective and a defined Recovery Point Objective (RPO). With ProSight DPS 360 Backup, Progent can provide comprehensive monitoring and remote management of your backup environment to prevent data loss caused by human miscues, system glitches, ill-intentioned insiders, and external attacks such as ransomware. For details, visit ProSight Data Protection Services 360 Backup solutions.
Consulting for Double-Take Software for Data Backup and Recovery
Double-Take offers a selection of products intended to deliver small companies a range of cost-effective alternatives for backing up and recovering vital workloads such as Exchange Server, SQL, Blackberry, and SharePoint. Progent's disaster recovery planning consultants have in-depth backgrounds integrating Double-Take technology into small company IT systems to create a high state of fault tolerance and disaster recovery capability at a budget-friendly price. To learn more, visit Consulting Services Double-Take Solutions for Backup.
Why Pick Progent for Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Planning Solutions?
Since Progent is a Microsoft Partner and provides specialized application consulting for a broad range of small business software programs, Progent is able to assist customers to arrive at complete information technology solutions that substantially enhance the business value of your network. As a Registered Partner for Cisco, Progent offers the expertise of certified consultants and specialists with experience in architecting, deploying and managing networking solutions built on Cisco products. The breadth of Progent's IT know-how and Progent's sensitivity to the needs of small and midsize companies make Progent a great partner for creating and running an affordable, high-availability information system.