Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Support for
Windows Server 2019 Failover Clusters:
Planning, Deployment, Management and Troubleshooting
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 is the on-premises release of Microsoft's flagship server OS. Windows Server 2019 incorporates all the enhancements for Windows Server 2016 formerly available only through Microsoft's Semi-Annual Channel. Windows Server 2019 offers significant enhancements in scale, throughput, management, cybersecurity, app compatibility, Linux co-existence, Kubernetes networking, and hybrid integration of local and cloud-hosted resources.
Headline new features of Windows Server 2019 are Windows Admin Center for centralizing the management and monitoring of hybrid local/cloud resources, System Insights for taking advantage of advance predictive analytics to manage on-premises environments, Windows Defender ATP Exploit Guard for host-intrusion defense, container networking with Kubernetes, Cluster Sets technology for creating and managing large 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 current versions of Microsoft's popular apps by providing services that include Microsoft Exchange Server expertise, SQL Server 2019 integration expertise, SQL Server 2017 upgrade support, Microsoft SharePoint 2019 design and deployment, and Office 365 hybrid integration expertise. Progent's consulting, troubleshooting and training services for Microsoft Windows Server 2019 are offered remotely and Progent also offers on-premises support in major metropolitan areas throughout the United States and Canada.
Hybrid Cloud Integration with Microsoft Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2019 makes Microsoft's Azure stack available to organizations of all sizes for building on-premises networks, private cloud solutions, or hybrid systems that integrate local resources with infrastructure and services hosted on the cloud.
The majority of modern companies manage a mix of local and cloud-based resources to deliver the appropriate balance of control, economy, throughput, reliability, and security/compliance they need. For some industries, regulatory compliance demand that specific types of resources and information be kept locally. In other cases, corporate policies or legacy applications necessitate mission-critical software to be run locally. Microsoft Windows Server 2019 offers a cloud-friendly solution that allows you to build and administer productive hybrid ecosystems that transparently utilize resources spread across local facilities and the cloud.
Designing, creating and managing efficient hybrid solutions with Windows Server 2019 demands a wide range of knowledge and experience. This can be beyond the expertise of typical in-house IT groups maintained by smaller businesses. Progent's team of subject-matter experts (SBEs) gives you on-demand access to the skills you require for any aspect of hybrid network implementation and management. Progent's Microsoft-certified and Cisco-certified consulting experts, project managers, and information security specialists can help you to determine the benefits of Windows Server 2019 for your company and create a hybrid ecosystem powered by Microsoft Windows Server 2019 that delivers top return on investment.
A Good Moment to Upgrade
The introduction of Microsoft Windows Server 2019 coincided with the announcement of End-of-Support (EOS) status for Microsoft's widely used Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 platforms. The result is that there will be no more security updates onsite, no other enhancements, no free support options, and no online technical content updates. Consequently, security and compliance issues will be more challenging, maintenance costs may go up, and network reliability may suffer.
If your company could use guidance upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2019 from Windows Server 2008 or from any other legacy edition of Windows Server, Progent offers the skills to make your migration efficient, economical, and on-schedule. Progent's Windows experts can assist you to:
- Identify and inventory your applications and server roles running on your current servers
- Migrate your virtual machines to the Progent Cloud or move to the latest release of self-hosted Windows Server or to Azure
- Optimize your configuration to minimize spend, manage resources, and enhance data security across hybrid applications
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 is offered in the economical Standard version and the enterprise-class Datacenter edition. The Datacenter edition permits unlimited VMs while the Standard edition supports two VMs. The Datacenter version also includes advanced features like Shielded Virtual Machines, Network Controller, Host Guardian Service (HGS), Storage Replica disaster recovery, Software-defined Networking, and Storage Spaces Direct pooled storage. Most of these features are described in Microsoft Windows Server 2016 consulting.
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 has two installation options: Server Core and Server with Desktop Experience. The Server Core option has a small attack surface and has no traditional desktop interface but supports all server roles. This "headless" version needs to be managed remotely, e.g. via the command line or RSAT. Server with Desktop Experience option is a full installation and features a rich graphical user interface for local management. Progent's consultants can assist your company to choose the versions and deployment alternatives best suited to your situation, understand Microsoft's licensing requirements, and choose an optimal on-premises, cloud, or hybrid deployment architecture.
Top New Features of Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2019 offers enhancements in expandability, performance, administration, virtualization, cybersecurity, hybrid deployment support, disaster recovery, orchestration, Linux compatibility, and other key improvements. Versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2019 acquired under the SAC release model are updated two times annually, and so make new features available more quickly than under the Long-Term Servicing Channel model.
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 delivers substantial enhancements in capacity compared to Microsoft Windows Server 2016:
| Scale Limit | Windows Server 2016 | Windows Server 2019 |
| Max raw capacity per cluster | 1 PB | 4 PB |
| Max raw capacity per server | 100 TB | 400 TB |
| Max number of volumes | 32 | 64 |
| Max size per volume | 32 TB | 64 TB |
Other headline improvements in Microsoft Windows Server 2019 include:
- Cluster Sets is a technology that allows orders of magnitude increases in cluster nodes in a virtual data center by grouping multiple Failover Clusters into one large, uniformly managed interconnected topology. You can transparently move virtual machines throughout the Cluster Set fabric and control all aspects of a Failover Cluster from initial deployment to retirement. Clusters joined within a Cluster Set can take advantage of added storage and memory in another cluster without requiring you to purchase more hardware. CPU and storage resources do not have to be the same, and resiliency is as good or better than with ordinary Failover Clusters.
Prior to Microsoft Windows Server 2019, large numbers of Hyper-V clusters for virtual machines were cumbersome to manage and expand 
Windows Server 2019 features Cluster Sets for unified control of failover clusters - Storage Replica is now part of the Standard version of Windows Server 2019. Storage Replica offers next-generation disaster recovery support and is described in Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Storage Replica deployment. Novel features of Storage Replica in Windows Server 2019 are a test failover option that enables managers to put a target volume online momentarily for testing and backup. In addition, administrators can now manage Storage Replica with Windows Admin Center, which offers a GUI tool for controlling processes like server-to-server and cluster-to-cluster replication.
- Storage Spaces Direct improvements include deduplication and compression for ReFS volumes, integrated support for persistent memory (PMem), support for using a commodity flash drive to act as a witness with dual-server clusters, increased expandability (as high as 4 PB per cluster), twice the performance for mirror-accelerated parity volumes, outlier detection for abnormal drive latency, and improved fault tolerance by selectively delimiting volume allocation. Windows Server's Storage Spaces Direct technology is discussed in Windows Storage Spaces Direct deployment experts.
- Storage Migration Service simplifies the task of migrating the volume data from legacy servers to volumes in current releases of Windows Server. You can use Storage Migration Service to migrate to current physical devices or to VMs. The tool inventories servers and their data; moves files, shares, and security configurations to their new hosts; and allows destination hosts to take over the identity of the legacy servers so that your users and applications can access their data without making any changes. Windows Admin Center's GUI can manage multiple simultaneous migrations.
- Broader Linux support allows organizations to run Ubuntu Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Enterprise Server on shielded VMs. Microsoft's Shielded VMs capability is discussed in Windows Server 2016 Shielded VMs consulting.
- Windows Admin Center is a new web-based application deployed on-premises for managing servers, clusters, HCI infrastructure running Storage Spaces Direct, Windows 10 endpoints, and Azure-hosted VMs. Windows Admin Center can be utilized to manage Windows Server 2012 and later. Windows Admin Center is an "in-box" utility and therefore can be used to manage servers on private networks not connected to the public Internet. By publishing the Windows Admin Center gateway server to the public Internet, you can manage your servers securely from any location.
Windows Admin Center enables you to administer on-premises and Azure-hosted VMs from a centralized console - Container orchestration with Kubernetes, the open-source open-source management tool for Docker containers, includes enhanced features such as the ability to utilize embedded network security to guard both Windows and Linux services. For information about containers on Microsoft Windows Server, refer to Microsoft Windows Server containers consulting.
- Duplicate Elimination and Compression for ReFS Volumes allows 10 times more data on a given Resilient File System volume. Microsoft's ReFS file technology, first released in Microsoft Windows Server 2012, integrates RAM-level high-performance tiers for hot data along with HDD/SDD capacity tiers for scale and fault tolerance.
- Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection is included with Microsoft Windows Server 2019 as a built-in feature requiring no special activation fee and no agent installation.
- Encrypted Networks is a new function that encrypts traffic between virtual machines interacting within subnets set to be Encryption Enabled. Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) on the virtual subnet prevents anyone accessing the physical network from reading, modifying, or spoofing network data. Data traveling between encrypted subnets is not encrypted.
- A USB Flash Drive plugged into your router can be assigned as a witness in two-server clusters under Storage Spaces Direct. Using this economical, easy-to-configure technique, when a server fails and then returns to operation, the USB drive cluster can say which of the servers contains the more current data.
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 permits a USB Flash drive to act as a witness in two-server clusters - Low Extra Delay Background Transport (LEDBAT) automatically avoids network traffic jams by consuming bandwidth only when the network is being sparingly used. LEDBAT allows an organization to distribute large, critical updates across a corporate network without degrading the responsiveness of business-critical applications.
- System Insights uses advanced analytics to simplify capacity planning. System Insights runs internally on each Microsoft Windows Server 2019 instance and looks at performance stats and events to predict capacity requirements in key areas including utilization for volumes, storage capacity, CPU, and networking.
- Windows Time Service works with the new time synchronization technique known as Precision Time Protocol (PTP) and provides correct time during a leap second. Microsoft Windows Server 2019 also supports time traceability and software time-stamping. These features provide improved accuracy and precision, comply with UTC and other regulations such as FINRA, and meet the requirements of various time-critical workloads. Because network configuration is challenging to support the PTP protocol, the older Network Time Protocol remains the default time synchronization technique for Windows Server 2019.
Progent's Microsoft-certified experts can help your organization to design and implement an efficient migration to Windows Server 2019 using a local network architecture or a hybrid local-plus-cloud model. Progent can help you to use Microsoft's new Storage Migration Service to trim off time and expense from the project of moving from legacy Microsoft Windows Server platforms as far back as Microsoft Windows Server 2003, and Progent's experts can help you to take advantage of the latest features of Windows Server 2019 to improve performance, scale, availability, and ease of management. Progent's Exchange Server 2019 support experts can help you to implement Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 Mailbox and Edge Transport server roles and management utilities, which need Microsoft Windows Server 2019. Progent's Microsoft SQL Server 2019 experts can help you to integrate Microsoft's primary database platform with Microsoft Windows Server 2019 to run your critical applications in a modern IT environment.
Progent's cybersecurity consultants can assist you 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 end points. Progent can help your company to set up proactive data security monitoring and management using an optimal mix of cybersecurity tools and services from Microsoft and third-party vendors. Progent also can run cybersecurity audits to confirm that your network meets regulatory and industry cybersecurity mandates such as SOX, PCI DSS 3.2, and FedRAMP.
Progent's team of Cisco-certified CCIE infrastructure experts is among the biggest of any independent IT services company in the U.S. Progent can assist your organization to plan, deploy and manage a resilient and cost-effective hybrid network infrastructure that delivers the latest high-availability and recovery technologies included with Microsoft Windows Server 2019. Progent's disaster recovery planning experts can assist your business plan and validate a comprehensive process for rebounding rapidly from any foreseen disaster.
To help your organization to manage your Microsoft Windows Server 2019 and Hyper-V environment, Progent can provide a range of services like Windows Admin Center consulting, PowerShell scripting, SC Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) hybrid on-prem/cloud management consulting, and SCOM deployment. Progent also offers the ProSight family of remote monitoring and management outsourcing packages that provide small and middle-size businesses an affordable and efficient solution for server and endpoint management.
Progent's Remote Consulting and Troubleshooting Services
Progent has 20 years of experience delivering fast, advanced remote technical guidance and troubleshooting support and has delivered remote support to businesses in every state in the US and throughout Canada. (Refer to Progent's Customer Testimonials.) Progent also provides on-premises support in most U.S. metropolitan areas. Progent can provide as-needed support to assist your organization with challenging IT problems or comprehensive project management outsourcing and co-sourcing support.
If you need immediate remote assistance from a Microsoft-certified expert, refer to Progent's Online Technical Support.
Contact Progent for Assistance with Microsoft Windows Server 2019
To learn more about Progent's consulting and debugging services for Windows Server 2019, call
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Technology Consulting Small Business
Small Business Small Business IT Outsourcing Group
Progent provide businesses of all sizes world-class IT remote or on-premises consulting for networks powered by Microsoft Windows technology and Microsoft's .NET servers including Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 and Microsoft SQL Server 2012. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco Premier Certified network consultants also can provide security expertise for companies ranging from the small office to the global enterprise.
Security Incident Response Consulting Services
Services GIAC Security and Compliance Test
Global Information Assurance Certification was founded in 1999 to validate the knowledge of computer security experts. GIAC certifications are recognized by businesses and institutions around the world including and the United States NSA. Progent's GIAC-certified information assurance specialists offer support for all of the network security services addressed within GIAC accreditation such as auditing infrastructure security mechanisms, event handling, traffic analysis, web-based application security and security information and event management (SIEM) solutions.
SCCM 2016 Software Inventory Network Consulting
SCCM 2016 Migration Online Help
Configuration Manager 2016 automates software provisioning across multiple sites, centralizes compliance settings management, keeps track of network assets, protects against corporate data leakage, performs health monitoring, allows safe self service, and offers a single control mechanism for administering mixed-operating system ecosystems running on-premises, cloud-centric, or hybrid deployment architectures. Progent's Microsoft-certified Configuration Manager 2016 consultants and Azure cloud integration specialists can assist your organization with any aspect of planning, implementing, using and troubleshooting a System Center 2016 Configuration Manager solution for on-premises, cloud-based, or hybrid networks.
Fortinet Firewalls Professionals
Fortinet FortiGate NGFW Firewalls Remote Support
Fortinet next-generation firewalls are industry leaders in offering best-in-class throughput for SSL inspection. Progent's Fortinet FortiGate firewall experts can assist your business to deploy your Fortinet security appliances to protect all your digital resources at the network perimeter, within the data center, at branch locations, and at the cloud edge.
Azure and Dynamics GP Contract Programmer
Engineer Microsoft Azure cloud integration
Progent can assist companies of all sizes to move all or part of their network infrastructure to Microsoft Azure. This can streamline network management and lower hardware expense. Microsoft Azure offers a comprehensive library of public cloud services and Progent can help you to understand the advantages and restrictions of different cloud computing architectures you can use with Azure. Progent can help you administer cloud-resident or hybrid cloud and on-premises apps and network infrastructure and make sure you avoid the typical errors small organizations make when moving to the cloud. Progent can show you how to set up cloud servers on Azure Virtual Machines, use cloud storage with Azure Storage, handle authentication with Azure Active Directory, and build transparent backup mechanisms with Azure Backup. Progent can also show you how to prepare perimeter firewalls and VPN tunnels and also to integrate Apple iOS devices and Google Android smartphones and tablets.
Specialist Dynamics GP BizTalk Adapter
Dynamics GP Integration Manager Consultancy
Progent's background delivering Microsoft .NET services and Microsoft SQL Server consulting, and Progent's application development experience with Microsoft VBasic, XML, and other developer platforms enable Progent to design specialized mission-critical programs and eCommerce solutions that operate seamlessly with Dynamics GP/Great Plains Software. Progent's Microsoft Dynamics GP reporting services can show you how to create reports that let you track your business more effectively, transforming raw information into useful understanding of your business.
Work from Home Endpoint Management IT Services
Remote Employees Endpoint Management Computer Engineer
Progent can help small and medium-size organizations to configure unified remote endpoint management and monitoring platforms for administering endpoint devices operated by work-from-home employees.
Microsoft and Cisco Certified Expert Professionals Oracle database administration
MySQL application development Consult
Progent offers affordable online access to an Oracle-certified MySQL administrator or application programmer and can assist businesses of all sizes to integrate and maintain MySQL within a reliable network infrastructure that offers high levels of speed, scalability, and protection. Progent also has proven skill assisting companies migrate databases from Oracle to MySQL.
macOS Classes
Microsoft Outlook for Mac Train
Progent offers one-on-one education designed for individuals who want to expand their knowledge of the macOS and OS X platform, Mac computers, or Mac office productivity software including Word, Excel, and Outlook for Mac. Progent also offers customized group or individual webinar classes for Mac application software.
Windows Server 2012R2 Security Remote Support
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 IT Consultants
Progent's certified professionals can assist you to evaluate the advantages of Windows Server 2012 R2 for your organization, develop test environments and migration strategies, optimize your network infrastructure for on-premises, multi-location, private or public cloud-based, and partial-cloud datacenters, train your IT support team, create a corporate-wide security plan, automate network management, help with creating applications, and generate and test a DR/BC plan.
Professionals VMware Hy7brid Cloud
VMware VMotion Engineer
Progent offers the support of a certified VMware VCDX expert to help you plan, deploy, manage and repair VMware vSphere and vCloud-powered virtualization solution for on-premises datacenters, cloud environments, or hybrid cloud systems. Progent can provide world-class expertise for installing and configuring VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) and VMware's NSX network virtualization platform for disaster recovery and application continuity. Progent has extensive understanding of VMware vCloud Director (vCD), vRealize Automation, vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) and vCloud Suite used for administering private and hybrid cloud solutions that provide maximum uptime, fault tolerance, and disaster recovery.
Non-stop Data Centers Computer Consultant
Data Center Consultant
Progent's Data Center professionals can show you how to find fault-tolerant data centers that meet the specific requirements of your business. High availability off-site data centers are particularly attractive to small businesses due to of their low cost and simplified logistics in comparison to pursuing a do-it-yourself approach. Trying to design an in-house data center with even a minimum degree of fault tolerance is too costly for typical small businesses. Progent is ready to show you how to reap all the benefits of non-stop data centers and fault tolerant colo sites by offering a full array of engineering and support services.
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