Published on April 6th, 2020 | by Ali Dino
0Windows Server Standard 2019 Review
Windows server standard 2019 brings a number of new capabilities plus updates and performance improvements to its server operating system. The question for most IT administrators will be whether to upgrade existing systems now or wait.
Windows server standard 2019 is the latest iteration of Microsoft’s venerable operating system (OS), and it brings to the table a laundry list of new and improved capabilities and features. This release of Windows Server should especially appeal to IT professionals because of the huge number of functional scenarios it can address.
While Windows Server isn’t seen on customer premises as much anymore, it’s still the most popular server OS, and that’s across both on-premises data centers as well as in public clouds where it’s widely used in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) implementations.
That’s why it makes sense that Microsoft is focusing on deepening the relationship between Windows Server and its Microsoft Azure cloud service, evident in this iteration through what’s called the “Azure Hybrid Benefit.”
To qualify for this benefit, you must be a Microsoft Software Assurance customer with a current contract in place. The goal of this benefit is to make it financially attractive to move your virtual machine (VM) workloads up to Microsoft Azure. We’ll look at some of the other features added in this release that address the hybrid cloud model as well.
Windows server standard 2019 comes in several different flavors to include the most recently released Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019. This SKU was released on June 19, 2019, and provides a bare-bones OS specifically tailored to host VMs.
The two primary offerings are Standard and Datacenter. Windows Server 2019 Essentials rounds out the current SKU list targeted at small businesses with up to 25 users and 50 devices.
Pricing differences are significant between the Datacenter version at $6,155 and the other two SKUs. Standard retails for $927 per license while Essentials will cost you $501. What you don’t see here is the surcharge for each CPU core required for both Datacenter and Standard editions.
If you plan on hosting more than two VMs on a Standard edition license, then you will need additional Operating System Environment (OSE) licenses. The Datacenter edition supports an unlimited number of VMs, meaning you pay a larger fee upfront but you can provision as many Windows Server VMs as the system will support.
Security
Windows Server 2019 has an integrated protection system that can detect suspicious activity against a company’s systems. It also limits the damage in an environment if ever an intrusion is noticed. The various security features for companies using Windows server 2019 are as follows:
- Virtual machines’ protection: allows the use of BitLocker to encrypt virtual machines and ensure that they only work on hosts that are approved by the Host Guardian Service.
- Securing administrator credentials: helps protect administrative account credentials by using the Credential Guard and Remote Credential Guard features. It’s also possible to control administrator privileges.
- Operating system protection: Resists breaches by using the Control Flow Guard security feature that helps prevent memory corruption attacks and Windows Defender. With the Device Guard, we can ensure that only trusted applications will run on the server.
- Improved attack detection capability: Advanced auditing features help detect malicious programs and behaviors.
- Application’s isolation: helps protect applications with Windows Server containers that do not share kernels with other containers. There is also the option to use Distributed Firewall, a software-defined network capability to control internal and external network traffics to the machines.
What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Windows Server?
The Obvious Advantage:
Windows Server is developed and sold by Microsoft. The company continually provides support and updates. Users who are familiar with Windows will find themselves comfortably using Windows Server.
Most people using Windows Server hosting utilize Active Server Pages (ASP) technology. This is the main reason why people are turning to Windows Server hosting.
Users can develop a web site using familiar Microsoft tool interfaces such as Microsoft FrontPage, Visual Interdev, and Microsoft Access.
With ASP, users can develop a database-driven web site using Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL as the database.
The Disadvantages are:
Unlike UNIX, Windows Server requires more system resources. You need a powerful machine to run Windows Server.
Windows Server does not have a good reputation in terms of server stability. Windows Server needs rebooting more frequently than UNIX.
If you are using Windows Server hosting services, you may find yourself investing a lot of money in development tools and most of them are Microsoft products. The costs of the applications that can run on your web site are usually higher than UNIX.
For example, you can find a lot of free scripts to run web board, chat room, web stats, email (and more) for your UNIX-based web site, but you won’t find many free applications in Windows Server world.
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