Description
Features
Windows Server 2016 has a variety of new features, including
Active Directory Federation Services: It is possible to configure AD FS to authenticate users stored in non-AD directories, such as X.500 compliant Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directories and SQL databases.
Windows Defender: Windows Server Antimalware is installed and enabled by default without the GUI, which is an installable Windows feature.
Remote Desktop Services: Support for OpenGL4 and OpenCL1.1, performance and stability improvements; MultiPoint Services role (see Windows MultiPoint Server)
Storage Services: Central Storage QoS Policies; Storage Replicas (storage-agnostic, block-level, volume-based, synchronous and asynchronous replication using SMB3between servers for disaster recovery). Storage Replica replicates blocks instead of files; files can be in use. It’s not multi-master, not one-to-many and not transitive. It periodically replicates snapshots, and the replication direction can be changed.
Failover Clustering: Cluster operating system rolling upgrade, Storage Replicas
Web Application Proxy: Preauthentication for HTTP Basic application publishing, wildcard domain publishing of applications, HTTP to HTTPS redirection, Propagation of client IP address to backend applications
Windows PowerShell 5.1
Windows Server Containers
Networking features
DHCP: As Network Access Protection was deprecated in Windows Server 2012 R2, in Windows Server 2016 the DHCP role no longer supports NAP
DNS:
DNS client: Service binding – enhanced support for computers with more than one network interface
DNS Server: DNS policies, new DDS record types (TLSA, SPF, and unknown records), new PowerShell cmdlets and parameters
Windows Server Gateway now supports Generic Routing Encapsulation(GRE) tunnels
IP address management(IPAM): Support for /31, /32, and /128 subnets; discovery of file-based, domain-joined DNS servers; new DNS functions; better integration of DNS, DHCP, and IP Address (DDI) Management
Network Controller: A new server role to configure, manage, monitor, and troubleshoot virtual and physical network devices and services in the datacentre
Hyper-V Network virtualization: Programmable Hyper-V switch (a new building block of Microsoft’s software-defined networkingsolution); VXLAN encapsulation support; Microsoft Software Load Balancer interoperability; better IEEE Ethernet standard compliance.
Hyper-V
Rolling Hyper-Vcluster update: Unlike upgrading clusters from Windows 2008 R2 to 2012 level, Windows Server 2016 cluster nodes can be added to a Hyper-V Cluster with nodes running Windows Server 2012 R2. The cluster continues to function at a Windows Server 2012 R2 feature level until all of the nodes in the cluster have been upgraded and the cluster functional level has been upgraded.
Storage quality of service (QoS) to centrally monitor end-to-end storage performance and create policies using Hyper-V and Scale-Out File Servers
New, more efficient binary virtual machine configuration format (.VMCX extension for virtual machine configuration data and the .VMRS extension for runtime state data)
Production checkpoints
Hyper-V Manager: Alternate credentials support, down-level management, WS-Management protocol
Integration services for Windows guests distributed through Windows Update
Hot add and remove for network adapters (for generation 2 virtual machines) and memory (for generation 1 and generation 2 virtual machines)
Linux secure boot
Connected Standby compatibility
Storage Resiliency feature of Hyper-V is formed for detecting transitory loss of connectivity to VM storage. VMs will be paused until connectivity is re-established.
RDMA compatible Virtual Switch
