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
Zero-Downtime Technologies Offered by Progent
Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified consultants can assist your company to implement a sensible, non-stop network that addresses key challenges encompassing a broad array of infrastructure technologies and processes such as:
Disaster Recovery Planning
Progent's business continuity engineers can show you how to design a disaster recovery plan that will allow you to restore IT functionality in the event of an information network catastrophe. Progent can assist you to define a complete disaster recovery plan that incorporates scheduled disaster recovery evaluations and drills. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified consultants can also show you how to create an affordable, fault-tolerant system solution that addresses reliability issues involving a wide array of network technologies and procedures. For details, see Disaster Recovery Consulting Services.
CRISC-Certified IT Risk Mitigation
The CRISC program was initiated by ISACA to verify an IT professional's ability to plan, implement, and maintain information system controls to reduce risk. Progent offers the services of a CRISC-certified consultant to help you to create and execute a business continuity plan that follows leading practices promoted by CRISC and crafted to align with your company's risk tolerance, business goals, and budgetary guidelines. For more information, see CRISC-Certified IT risk mitigation experts.
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Fault-tolerant Failover Clustering
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 incorporated significant improvements in scale, throughput, management, cybersecurity, app compatibility, Linux co-existence, container technology, and hybrid integration of on-premises and cloud-hosted assets. Headline new features of Microsoft Windows Server 2019 are Windows Admin Center for unifying the management and monitoring of hybrid on-premises/cloud-hosted deployments, System Insights for taking advantage of modern predictive analytics to control on-premises environments, Windows Defender ATP Exploit Guard for host-intrusion defense, container orchestration with Kubernetes, Cluster Sets for creating and managing large high-availability scale-out clusters, and Storage Migration Service for simplifying the upgrade process from outdated editions of Windows Server. To learn more, go to Microsoft 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 test a consistent runbook for restoring services rapidly after a breakdown. SRM supports centrally managed and automated recovery, application mobility, plus transparent site migration, failback and re-protect. SRM also allows non-intrusive testing for disaster recovery, updates and patches and can produce reports to confirm complete service recovery, validate Service Level Agreements and demonstrate DR compliance. Progent can provide the support of a VCDX certified VMware Site Recovery Manager consultant to help your organization to plan, configure, test and administer a DR solution based on VMware Site Recovery Manager.
NetApp MetroCluster High Availability and Disaster Recovery Software
NetApp MetroCluster is a disaster recovery platform that uses failover storage clustering along with continual replication to deliver fast, zero RPO disaster recovery (DR) between datacenters located up to 300km apart from each other. Progent can provide online or on-premises access to a NetApp MetroCluster consultant who can assist you to plan, configure, manage, upgrade, test and repair a disaster recovery system based on NetApp MetroCluster. Progent can help you to select a topology for your MetroCluster deployment that meets your functional requirements and budget. Progent can make sure you adhere to best practices for installing your MetroCluster environment by providing guidance with procedures like assigning disk pools, determining aggregate layout, setting up volumes, setting up Data ONTAP configuration replication service, installing switches, implementing a tiebreaker, setting up a configuration replication network between your peered clusters, and testing your DR system to show adherence with information assurance standards and regulatory mandates.
Fault Tolerant Load Balancing
Progent provides fault tolerant load balancing consulting that addresses system load balancing, load balanced applications, network infrastructure routing, and content dispatching technology such as Cisco Content Engine. High availability load balancing products for which Progent can provide consulting expertise include Windows Server 2003 and 2008 Network Load Balancing Manager, Citrix Metaframe and Presentation Server, Cisco Content Services Switch, Cisco Content Distribution Manager and ACNS, and F5 Networks 3-DNS. To find out more, go to High Availability Load Balancing.
Fault Tolerant Colocation
Progent's Data Center engineers can help you find high availability data centers that meet the particular needs of your business. High availability off-site data centers are especially attractive to small and mid-size businesses because of their affordability and convenience in comparison to pursuing a do-it-yourself approach. Trying to create an on-site data center that offers even a minimum level of fault tolerance is too costly for the majority of small companies. Progent can show you how to get all the benefits of non-stop Internet data centers by offering a complete array of engineering and maintenance services. For more information, go to High-Availability Internet Data Centers Expertise.
Fault Tolerant Inter-office Connectivity
Progent's interoffice network infrastructure consultants can help businesses achieve fault tolerant interoffice connectivity by means of fully redundant system architectures with automatic failover. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE engineers can design and deploy fault-tolerant Inter-office connections supported by non-stop EIGRP routers or non-stop OSPF deployment of Cisco routers. Progent can show you how redundant connections and automatic fail-over offers affordable non-stop interoffice networking. To learn more, see Fault Tolerant Inter-office Networking.
24x7 Internet Connections
Progent's Cisco-authorized network professionals can help you build an economical, high availability Internet connection architecture that can deliver non-stop Internet access through a wide array of fault tolerant Internet access technologies including high availability BGP, automatic fail-over, and multiple ISPs. Progent can provide CCIE consultants to help you apply the most advanced technology for 24x7 Internet connectivity to create an affordable, completely redundant Internet interface with automatic failover and other capabilities to deliver fault tolerant Internet connections. To learn more, visit Fault Tolerant Internet Access Architecture.
Backup and Restore Solutions Consulting
Progent can provide affordable remote support from IT engineers skilled in a broad array of utilities and technologies that provide solutions for backing up Windows, Apple Mac, and Linux/UNIX servers and workstations plus laptops and smartphones. Progent can provide help for all major backup products such as Acronis Backup and Recovery, Symantec Backup Exec, BackupAssist Software, CrashPlan PRO, Double-Take Software, MozyPro, Retrospect for Macintosh, Apple Time Machine, VMware Data Recovery, and Oracle Solaris FLARs. Progent can assist you to deploy, upgrade, or troubleshoot backup/restore systems for a range of environments including on-premises, edge to datacenter, cloud-based, or hybrid. To learn more, go to Backup and Recovery Technology Consulting.
Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager Backup and Restore Consulting Experts
Progent's certified System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) support professionals can assist you to create a practical disaster recovery plan, implement a cost-effective fault-tolerante IT infrastructure, configure a Microsoft SCDPM-based backup and recovery solution, thoroughly test your DPM system, train your IT personnel or regular service providers how to maintain Microsoft SCDPM, or provide complete IT outsourcing including off-site hosting of SCDPM machines in Progent's data center. For details, see Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager Consulting Services.
Barracuda Backup Local, Offsite and Cloud Data Backup and Disaster Recovery
Barracuda Backup is an affordable, subscription backup and disaster recovery service for small and medium-size organizations. A Barracuda Backup solution can incorporate a purpose-built hardware appliance manufactured by Barracuda or a virtual appliance with similar features but which utilizes your existing storage hardware. Barracuda Backup safeguards vital business data generated locally, at one or more remote locations, or in the cloud. For disaster preparedness, you can replicate data to the Barracuda Cloud, to Amazon AWS, or to any location with a Barracuda appliance. Progent is a certified Barracuda partner and Progent's Barracuda Backup consulting experts offer a wide range of consulting services to help you to plan, integrate, operate and repair a BDR solution built on Barracuda technology. For details, visit Barracuda Backup and disaster recovery consulting and management.
ProSight Data Protection Services Altaro VM Backup Software for Backup and Disaster Recovery
Hornetsecurity's Altaro VM Backup provides small organizations a dependable and budget-friendly platform for backing up and restoring Hyper-V and VMware-based virtual machines. Altaro VM Backup can be deployed in local, remote, distributed, and cloud environments and also supports cost-effective backup to Microsoft Azure storage. Progent is a Hornetsecurity Altaro partner and offers a broad array of remote or onsite services to assist you to design, deploy, optimize and troubleshoot a modern backup and disaster recovery solution powered by Altaro VM Backup. With ProSight Data Protection Services Altaro VM Backup, Progent delivers a fully managed backup/restore service based on Altaro VM Backup software. To read more, go to Altaro VM Backup consulting.
ProSight Data Protection Services 365 Total Backup Services for Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 provides rudimentary archiving but does not have native support for crucial data protection capabilities like Exchange backups or greater than 30-day point-in-time data recovery for OneDrive or SharePoint. Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup (formerly named Altaro O365 Backup) delivers a full-featured BDR solution for programmable backup and rapid restoration of all your organization's M365 mail, Microsoft Teams Chats, SharePoint documents, OneDrive for Business data, and content on Windows endpoints. Progent is an authorized Hornetsecurity/Altaro partner and offers ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) 365 Total Backup to provide end-to-end managed services for Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup product. ProSight Data Protection Services 365 Total Backup delivers an affordable backup-as-a-service solution that protects M365 apps against data loss or corruption caused by user or software error, malevolent sabotage, and cyber assaults such as ransomware. For more information, go to ProSight Data Protection Services 365 Total Backup services for Microsoft 365.
Managed Cloud Backup: ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO
ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO from Progent offer small and medium-sized businesses an affordable and fully managed solution for secure backup/disaster recovery (BDR). Available at a low monthly price, ProSight DPS ECHO automates and monitors your backup processes and enable rapid recovery of critical files, applications and virtual machines that have become unavailable or damaged due to hardware failures, software bugs, natural disasters, human error, or malicious attacks such as ransomware. ProSight DPS ECHO can help you protect, recover and restore files, folders, apps, system images, plus Hyper-V and VMware images. Critical data can be backed up on the cloud, to a local storage device, or mirrored to both. Progent's cloud backup specialists can provide advanced expertise to set up ProSight DPS ECHO to to comply with government and industry regulatory standards like HIPAA, FIRPA, and PCI and, when necessary, can help you to recover your critical data. Find out more about ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO managed cloud backup.
ProSight DPS 360 Backup Services
Progent can assist you to design, deploy and debug a backup solution built around MSP360 technology. MSP360 enables file or image-based backup/restore for VMs and physical computers, supports all leading public clouds, and allows you to build a data protection ecosystem with a low Recovery Time Objective and a defined RPO. With ProSight DPS 360 Backup, Progent can provide comprehensive monitoring and management of your backup system to protect against data loss resulting from user miscues, system glitches, ill-intentioned insiders, and malware attacks such as ransomware. To learn more, see ProSight DPS 360 Backup solutions.
Consulting for Double-Take Software for Data Backup and Recovery
Double-Take Software publishes a selection of products intended to provide small companies a variety of affordable solutions for backing up and restoring business-critical workloads including Exchange, SQL, Blackberry, and Microsoft Office SharePoint. Progent's disaster recovery planning consultants have extensive backgrounds incorporating Double-Take technology into small company information networks to create a high state of availability and business continuity capability at an affordable price. To read more, see Consulting for Double-Take Solutions for Backup.
Why Pick Progent for Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Planning?
Since Progent is a Microsoft Certified Partner and offers specialized application expertise for a broad variety of business software programs, Progent is able to assist clients to arrive at complete IT solutions that optimize the productivity of your IT network. As a Registered Partner with Cisco, Progent can provide the services of certified consultants and specialists with expertise in architecting, installing and troubleshooting networking environments based on Cisco products. The depth of Progent's technical experience and Progent's appreciation for the needs of small and midsize businesses make Progent a great resource for creating and running an affordable, fault-tolerant network.