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
Other Fault Tolerant Technologies Provided by Progent's Experts
Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified support professionals can help your company to design an affordable, high-availability environment that resolves major challenges encompassing a wide range of infrastructure solutions and processes including:
Business Continuity Planning
Progent's disaster recovery consultants can help you create a workplace recovery plan that will allow you to restore network functionality in the event of an IT network catastrophe. Progent can assist you to define a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy that includes periodic disaster recovery evaluations and testing. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified consultants can also show you how to build an affordable, high-availability system architecture that addresses reliability issues covering a wide range of infrastructure technologies and procedures. For more information, visit Workplace Recovery Consulting and Support Services.
Managed Cloud Backup: ProSight Data Protection Services
ProSight Data Protection Services offer small and mid-sized businesses an affordable end-to-end solution for reliable backup/disaster recovery. Available at a fixed monthly cost, ProSight DPS automates your backup processes and allows fast recovery of vital data, applications and virtual machines that have become unavailable or corrupted as a result of hardware breakdowns, software glitches, natural disasters, human error, or malware attacks such as ransomware. ProSight Data Protection Services can help you back up, retrieve and restore files, folders, applications, system images, as well as Hyper-V and VMware images/. Critical data can be protected on the cloud, to an on-promises storage device, or to both. Progent's BDR specialists can deliver world-class support to set up ProSight DPS to to comply with regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, FIRPA, PCI and Safe Harbor and, whenever needed, can help you to recover your critical information. Find out more about ProSight Data Protection Services Managed Cloud Backup.
Microsoft Server 2012 Failover Clusters
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 introduced enterprise-class availability and recoverability to Microsoft's clustering solution. Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 builds on this technology and delivers important enhancements that offer more scalability, non-stop disk storage availability for server applications, streamlined administration, faster automatic failover, and more flexibility for architecting failover clusters. To learn more, go to Windows Server 2012 Clustering Migration and Support.
VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) Disaster Recovery Solutions
VMware's Site Recovery Manager is an extension to VMware vCenter that lets you define, automate and verify a repeatable runbook for recovering applications and services quickly after an outage. Site Recovery Manager provides centrally managed and automated disaster recovery, application mobility, and non-intrusive site migration, failback and site re-protect. SRM also allows non-disruptive testing for disaster recovery, upgrades and patches and can produce reports to confirm complete service recovery, validate SLAs and prove compliance. Progent can provide the skills of a VCDX certified VMware SRM consulting expert to help your organization to plan, configure, test and maintain a DR solution powered by VMware SRM.
NetApp MetroCluster Disaster Recovery Technology
NetApp MetroCluster is a disaster recovery software suite that uses array-based storage clustering along with replication to provide rapid, zero data loss disaster recovery (DR) between datacenters that are up to 185 miles apart. Progent can provide the skills of a NetApp MetroCluster consultant who can assist you to design, configure, administer, update, test and troubleshoot a disaster recovery solution based on NetApp MetroCluster. Progent can help you to select an architecture for your MetroCluster environment that aligns with your technical needs and IT budget. Progent can ensure you follow best practices for configuring your MetroCluster environment by delivering guidance with procedures like assigning shelf IDs, determining aggregate layout, provisioning FlexVol volumes, setting up NetApp Snapshot, provisioning Cisco and Brocade switches, designing a tiebreaker mechanism, setting up a configuration replication network, and verifying your MetroCluster disaster recovery system to show compliance with information assurance standards and government mandates.
High Availability Load Balancing
Progent provides fault tolerant load balancing support covering system load balancing, load balanced programs, network infrastructure routing, and content delivery products such as Cisco Content Engine. High availability load balancing technologies for which Progent can provide consulting services include Windows 2003 and 2008 Server Network Load Balancing Manager, Citrix Metaframe and Access Gateway, Cisco CSS, Cisco Content Engine and Cisco CDN Software, and F5 Networks 3-DNS. For details, go to Non-stop Load Balancing.
Non-stop Colocation
Progent's Data Center consultants can help you identify high availability data centers that match the specific needs of your company. Fault tolerant Internet Data Centers are especially attractive to small and mid-size organizations because of their affordability and simplified logistics in comparison to taking a do-it-yourself strategy. Attempting to create an on-site data center that offers even a minimum degree of fault tolerance is too expensive for most small companies. Progent is ready to help you reap all the benefits of non-stop Internet data centers by providing a complete array of consulting and maintenance services. For details, visit Non-stop Data Centers Solutions.
24x7 Branch Office Connectivity
Progent’s branch office connection consultants can help organizations create non-stop interoffice connections via redundant networks with automatic failover. Progent’s Cisco-certified CCIE engineers can plan and implement high-availability Inter-office networks based on zero-downtime EIGRP routers or non-stop OSPF deployment of Cisco routers. Progent can show you how multi-path connectivity and transparent fail-over can provide economical 24x7 interoffice networking. To learn more, go to 24x7 Inter-office Networking.
Fault Tolerant Internet Access
Progent's Cisco-certified IT consultants can show you how to design an economical, fault tolerant Internet connection architecture that can achieve 24x7 Internet access via a broad range of fault tolerant Internet network solutions including high availability BGP, transparent fail-over, and multiple Internet Service Providers. Progent offers Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert engineers to show you how to utilize the latest techniques for fault tolerant Internet connections to create an economical, fully redundant Internet network with automatic failover and other features to deliver fault tolerant Internet access. For more information, go to High Availability Internet Access Architecture.
Backup and Restore Technology Consulting Experts
Progent can provide affordable online access to consultants with expertise in a wide range of products and services that deliver solutions for backing up Windows, Apple Mac, and Linux servers and desktops as well as notebooks and smartphones. Progent can provide expertise for all major backup platforms such as Acronis, Backup Exec, BackupAssist Software, CrashPlan PRO, Double-Take Backup, MozyPro, Retrospect for Macintosh, Time Machine, VMware Data Recovery (VDR), and Solaris FLARs. Progent can help your company to implement, enhance, or troubleshoot backup/restore solutions for a variety of architectures such as local, remote, cloud-based, or hybrid. To learn more, see Backup and Restore Solutions Consulting.
Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager Backup and Restore Consulting and Support Services
Progent's expert System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) consultants can help your company to create an effective business continuity strategy, implement an affordable high-availability network infrastructure, configure a Microsoft SCDPM-powered recovery solution, thoroughly validate your system, educate your administrative staff or local consultants how to maintain Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager, or provide extensive IT outsourcing services including off-site housing of virtual or physical SCDPM machines in Progent's secure data center facility. To learn more, see Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager Consulting and Support Services.
Barracuda Backup Cloud and Offsite Data Backup and Disaster Recovery
Barracuda Backup is an affordable, subscription backup/restore service for small and mid-size businesses. A Barracuda Backup deployment can include a custom-designed physical storage device built by Barracuda or a virtual appliance with comparable features but which utilizes your own storage hardware. Barracuda Backup protects vital business data produced locally, at one or more remote locations, or in the cloud. For disaster protection, you can replicate data to the Barracuda Cloud, to Amazon 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 broad range of consulting support services to help your business to plan, integrate, operate and troubleshoot a backup and disaster recovery solution based on Barracuda Backup. For more information, go to Barracuda Backup and disaster recovery consultants.
Altaro VM Backup Software for Data Protection and Disaster Recovery
Altaro VM Backup software provides small businesses a reliable and budget-friendly platform for backing up and recovering Hyper-V and VMware-powered virtual machines (VMs). Altaro VM Backup can be used for local, offsite, distributed, and cloud architectures and also enables cost-effective cloud backup to Microsoft Azure Block Blob storage. Top features include state-of-the-art inline deduplication to reduce backup storage requirements, Continuous Data Protection (CDP) with backup intervals as short as five minutes for minimizing your exposure to data loss, advanced encryption, item-level recovery capability for individual files and emails, extensive support for Windows CSV and vCenter for managing larger deployments, and the ability to leverage Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service to back up live VMs with zero downtime. Progent is an Altaro partner and offers a wide array of services to help you to design, install, manage and troubleshoot a backup/restore system powered by Altaro VM Backup software. For more information, visit Altaro VM Backup Consulting.
Consulting Services Double-Take Software for Backup
Double-Take Software publishes a selection of products intended to deliver small and midsize companies a range of cost-effective solutions for replicating and recovering business-critical workloads including Microsoft Exchange Server, SQL, Blackberry, and Microsoft SharePoint. Progent’s disaster recovery planning experts have in-depth backgrounds integrating Double-Take products into small company IT systems to create an advanced state of availability and disaster recovery capability at an affordable price. For details, visit Consulting Services Double-Take Software for Data Backup.
CRISC-Certified Network Risk Control
The CRISC program was established by ISACA to validate an IT professional's ability to plan, implement, and maintain IS controls to mitigate risk. Progent offers the expertise of a CRISC-certified consultant to help your company to create and execute a business continuity strategy based on leading practices identified by CRISC and geared to match your organization's risk tolerance, business goals, and IT budget. To read more, visit CRISC-Premier network risk management experts.
Why Choose Progent for Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Planning Solutions?
Since Progent is a Microsoft Certified Partner and provides high-level application expertise for a broad range of small business software programs, Progent can assist clients to find complete information technology solutions that optimize the productivity of your information system. As a Registered Partner for Cisco, Progent can provide the services of certified engineers and specialists with experience in designing, configuring and supporting networking solutions built on Cisco products. The depth of Progent's IT know-how and Progent's appreciation for the needs of small and midsize businesses make Progent a great partner for creating and running an affordable, dependable network.
How You Can Contact Progent's Engineers for Fault Tolerant Computing Services
To contact Progent about professional expertise for high availability LAN design, phone