Microsoft Gold-Certified Experts

Windows Server 2019 is the perpetual-license release of Microsoft's flagship server OS. Windows Server 2019 includes all the enhancements to Windows Server 2016 previously offered exclusively via Microsoft's Semi-Annual Channel. Windows Server 2019 offers important improvements in scale, performance, management, security and compliance, application compatibility, Linux support, Kubernetes technology, and hybrid integration of on-premises and cloud-hosted resources.

Headline new features of Microsoft Windows Server 2019 include Windows Admin Center for centralizing the management of hybrid local/cloud-hosted resources, System Insights for utilizing modern predictive intelligence to control on-premises environments, Windows Defender ATP Exploit Guard for host-intrusion prevention, container orchestration with Kubernetes, Cluster Sets for building and administering massive non-stop scale-out clusters, and Microsoft's Storage Migration Service for simplifying the upgrade process from legacy releases of Windows Server.

Progent can assist your organization to integrate Microsoft Windows Server 2019 with the latest versions of Microsoft's popular applications by providing expert services such as Microsoft Exchange Server expertise, SQL Server 2019 integration expertise, SQL Server 2017 upgrade support, Microsoft SharePoint 2019 planning and integration, and Office 365 hybrid integration consulting. Progent's consulting, debugging and training services for Microsoft Windows Server 2019 are offered online and Progent also offers onsite support in major metropolitan areas across the U.S. and Canada.

Hybrid Cloud Integration with Microsoft Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2019 makes the Azure stack available to organizations of all sizes for building onsite data centers, private clouds, or hybrid systems that combine local resources with resources hosted on private and public clouds.

The majority of today's businesses deploy a mix of on-premises and cloud-hosted resources to get the right trade-off of flexibility, affordability, performance, reliability, and security they require. For some fields, regulatory compliance require that specific types of resources and data be retained internally. In other cases, company policies or compatibility issues necessitate line-of-business software to be hosted from a local data center. Microsoft Windows Server 2019 provides a cloud-aware solution that allows you to implement and administer powerful hybrid ecosystems that transparently access resources spread across on-premises data centers and the cloud.

Designing, creating and administering efficient hybrid solutions with Windows Server 2019 demands a wide range of skills. This can be beyond the expertise of most in-house IT staffs in smaller organization. Progent's team of experts gives you as-needed access to the knowledge you need for any facet of hybrid network deployment and maintenance. Progent's Microsoft Gold-certified and Cisco-certified consultants, project managers, and information security specialists can help you to assess the advantages of Microsoft Windows Server 2019 for your organization and create a hybrid ecosystem based on Windows Server 2019 that delivers top business value.

The Right Moment to Upgrade
The introduction of Microsoft Windows Server 2019 was accompanied by the notification of End-of-Support status for Microsoft's popular Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 platforms. This means there will be no additional security updates onsite, no other updates, no free support options, and no online technical content updates. Consequently, security and compliance will become more difficult, support costs may go up, and network reliability may go down.

If your organization needs assistance migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2019 from WS 2008 or another older release of Microsoft Windows Server, Progent offers the knowledge and experience to make your upgrade process smooth, affordable, and fast. Progent's Windows experts can help you:

• Inventory your applications and server roles running on your existing servers
• Move your VMs to the Progent Cloud or move to the latest version of on-premises Windows Server or to Microsoft Azure
• Optimize your resources to minimize costs, manage assets, and enhance security and compliance across hybrid workloads

Microsoft Windows Server 2019 has two deployment options: Server Core and Server with Desktop Experience. Server Core has a minimal attack surface and has no traditional desktop interface but handles all server roles. This so-called "headless" mode must be managed remotely, e.g. via Power Shell or Windows Admin Center. The Server with Desktop Experience option is a complete installation and includes a comprehensive graphical user interface for local management. Progent's consultants can assist your company to determine the editions and deployment alternatives most appropriate for your environment, understand Microsoft's licensing requirements, and choose an efficient onsite, cloud, or hybrid deployment model.

Top New Features of Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2019 offers enhancements in scale, performance, manageability, virtualization, cybersecurity, hybrid networking, disaster recovery, orchestration, Linux support, and other important enhancements. Versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2019 licensed under the SAC release model are updated twice annually, and so make enhancements available more quickly than with Microsoft's LTSC model.

Microsoft Windows Server 2019 offers significant improvements in scale compared to Microsoft Windows Server 2016:

Other notable improvements in Microsoft Windows Server 2019 include:

• Cluster Sets is a technology that supports orders of magnitude expansion in cluster nodes in a virtual data center by combining numerous smaller Failover Clusters into a single massive, uniformly managed interconnected topology. Network managers can seamlessly move VMs across the Cluster Set fabric and control all facets of a Failover Cluster from onboarding to decommissioning. Clusters included within a Cluster Set can take advantage of extra disk storage and memory in another cluster without requiring that you buy more hardware. Compute and storage resources do not have to be the same, and robustness matches or exceeds ordinary Failover Clusters.
  
  Before Microsoft Windows Server 2019, large numbers of Hyper-V clusters for VMs were a hassle to manage and modify
  
  Windows Server 2019 introduces Cluster Sets for centralized management of failover clusters

• Storage Replica is now part of the Standard version of Microsoft Windows Server 2019. Storage Replica provides next-generation disaster recovery support and is discussed in Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Storage Replica deployment. New features of Storage Replica are a test failover function that enables managers to put a target volume online momentarily for verification and backup. In addition, you can now manage Storage Replica with the new Microsoft Windows Admin Center, which provides a GUI tool for controlling processes like cluster-to-cluster and stretch cluster replication.
• Storage Spaces Direct enhancements include deduplication and compression for ReFS volumes, integrated support for persistent memory, support for using a consumer flash drive to act as a witness with dual-server clusters, greater scale (as high as 4 PB per cluster), double the performance for mirror-accelerated parity volumes and storage tiers, outlier detection for drive latency, and improved availability by manually changing the limit of volume allocation. Microsoft's Storage Spaces Direct technology is discussed in Microsoft Windows Storage Spaces Direct consulting.
• Storage Migration Service streamlines the process of migrating storage from legacy servers to volumes in current releases of Windows Server. You can use Storage Migration Service to migrate to new physical devices or to VMs. The utility inventories Windows and Linux servers and their data; copies files, shares, and policy configurations to their new servers; and permits destination hosts to assume the identity of the source servers so that users and applications can access their data without changing anything. Windows Admin Center's user interface can manage many concurrent migration processes.
• Broader Linux support allows you to host Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Enterprise Server on shielded virtual machines. Microsoft's Shielded VMs technology is discussed in Windows Server 2016 Shielded VMs consulting.
• Windows Admin Center is a browser-based application deployed on-premises for managing servers, clusters, HCI infrastructure with Storage Spaces Direct, Windows 10 computers, and Azure-based VMs. Windows Admin Center can be used to manage Windows Server 2012 and newer. Windows Admin Center is an "in-box" tool and therefore can be utilized to manage servers on private networks disconnected from the public Internet. By posting the Windows Admin Center gateway server to the public Internet, you can administer your servers securely from anywhere.
  
  
  Microsoft Windows Admin Center allows you to manage local and Azure cloud virtual machines from a single pane of glass

• Container orchestration with Kubernetes, the popular open-source management tool for Docker containers, includes enhanced features such as being able to use integrated network security to guard Windows and Linux services. For a discussion of containers on Microsoft Windows Server, refer to Microsoft Windows Server containers consulting.
• Deduplication and Compression for Resilient File System Volumes supports an order of magnitude more data on a specified ReFS volume. Microsoft's ReFS file system, introduced in Windows Server 2012, integrates RAM-level high-performance tiers for hot data along with HDD/SDD high-capacity tiers for volume and fault tolerance.
• Windows Defender ATP comes with Microsoft Windows Server 2019 as a built-in feature requiring no special license and no agent installation.
• Encrypted Networks is a function that encrypts data traveling between virtual machines communicating within subnets you have designated as Encryption Enabled. Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) on the virtual subnet prevents anyone with access to the physical network from looking at, altering, or spoofing network data. Traffic between encrypted subnets is not encrypted.
• A USB Flash Drive connected to your router can be assigned as a witness in dual-server clusters under Storage Spaces Direct. With this economical, easy-to-configure technique, if a server fails and then recovers, the USB drive cluster can say which of the servers in the cluster holds the more recent data.
  
  
  Microsoft Windows Server 2019 permits a USB Flash drive to server as a witness in dual-server clusters

• LEDBAT automatically avoids network congestion by taking up bandwidth only during periods when the network is being only moderately used. This enables you to publish massive, critical updates across a corporate network without degrading the performance of mission-critical applications.
• System Insights uses predictive analytics to inform capacity planning. System Insights runs locally on every Microsoft Windows Server 2019 instance and analyses performance stats and events to forecast capacity requirements in key areas including usage for volumes, storage capacity, CPU, and networking.
• Windows Time Service supports the modern time synchronization method known as Precision Time Protocol and provides accurate time during a leap second. Windows Server 2019 also offers software time-stamping and clock source stability. These features deliver improved accuracy and precision, allow compliance with UTC and other standards like as Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and support special time-critical workloads. Because network configuration is challenging to implement PTP, NTP remains the default synchronization method for Microsoft Windows Server 2019.

Progent's cybersecurity experts can help your company to adhere to best practices to create an up-to-date information security environment that is seamless across local and cloud resources as well as mobile devices. Progent can assist you to configure 24x7 remote data security monitoring using an effective mix of cybersecurity solutions from Microsoft as well as other leading providers. Progent also can run cybersecurity audits to verify that your IT environment complies with regulatory and industry information security requirements like SOX, ISO 27001, PCI DSS 3.2, and FedRAMP.

Progent's roster of Cisco-certified CCIE network experts is one of the largest of any independent IT support company in the U.S. Progent can help your company to design, implement and maintain a modern and affordable hybrid network infrastructure that incorporates the advanced high-availability and recovery technologies built into Windows Server 2019. Progent's disaster recovery preparedness experts can help your company create and validate an end-to-end process for recovering rapidly from any foreseen disaster.

To assist you to support your Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server Hyper-V environment, Progent offers a variety of expertise like Windows Admin Center consulting, PowerShell programming, SC Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) hybrid on-prem/cloud management expertise, and SCOM consultants. Progent also offers the ProSight family of remote monitoring and management outsourcing packages that give small and middle-size businesses (SMBs) an affordable and efficient solution for server and endpoint management.

Progent's Online Consulting and Debugging Services
Progent has 20 years of background providing fast, top-tier online technical guidance and debugging support and has provided remote support to clients in every state in the United States and across Canada. (View Progent's Client Testimonials.) Progent also provides onsite assistance in most U.S. metropolitan areas. Progent offers on-demand expertise to help your company to resolve challenging IT issues or comprehensive project management outsourcing and co-sourcing help.

If you are in need of urgent remote technical support from a Microsoft-certified expert, see Progent's Remote Technical Support.

Contact Progent for Expertise with Windows Server 2019
To find out more about Progent's consulting and troubleshooting services for Windows Server 2019, phone 1-800-993-9400 or see Contact Progent.