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Windows Server 2019 Essentials Roles And Features

Mark O'Shea MVP — Sat, 01 Dec 2018 08:17:35 GMT

Back in September over on the Windows Server Blog there were some major changes announced for Windows Server Essentials. This post will focus on some of the differences between Windows Server 2019 Essentials and Windows Server 2019 Standard for those who are deciding on which is going to be more appropriate for their environment, and is a follow up to a previous post which covered the differences between the Standard and Datacenter editions. After installing one of the immediate differences that is highlighted post setup is that Standard will take you to Server Manager, but with the addition of an extra popup suggesting to try Windows Admin Center, which is the focus area for Windows Server administration moving forward. Windows Server Essentials instead doesn't launch Server Manager automatically, but when you do it pops up the same message. Previously Essentials provided more of a guided setup experience, but as was mentioned in the announcement, this has switched to be more like Windows Server 2019 Standard. [caption id="attachment_6965" align="alignnone" width="749"] Server Manager WAC Pop Up[/caption] Starting with Essentials, we can see the server roles as highlighted below. [caption id="attachment_6935" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Windows Server 2019 Essentials Roles Listing[/caption] [caption id="attachment_6955" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Windows Server 2019 Standard Roles Listing[/caption] If we note the two items that aren't listed for Essentials we have... Device Health Attestation - Introduced with Windows Server 2016, you can now run the DHA service as a server role within your organization which allows the raising of the security bar to hardware monitored and attested security, with minimal or no impact on operation cost. Host Guardian Service - Uses attestation to ensure that only known, valid hosts can start shielded VMs, and key protection to securely release the keys for shielded VMs. As we switch from the included roles to included features, we see a few more differences. [caption id="attachment_6925" align="alignnone" width="341"] Windows Server 2019 Essentials Features[/caption] [caption id="attachment_6945" align="alignnone" width="337"] Windows Server 2019 Standard Features[/caption] If we break down the differences we have the following... Containers - Containers are a way to wrap up an application into its own isolated environment. For the application in its container, it has no knowledge of any other applications or processes that exist outside of its environment. Everything the application depends on to run successfully also lives inside this container. Wherever the environment may move, the application will always be satisfied because it is bundled up with everything it needs to run. Failover Clustering - A failover cluster is a group of independent computers that work together to increase the availability and scalability of clustered roles (formerly called clustered applications and services). The clustered servers (called nodes) are connected by physical cables and by software. If one or more of the cluster nodes fail, other nodes begin to provide service (a process known as failover). In addition, the clustered roles are proactively monitored to verify that they are working properly. If they are not working, they are restarted or moved to another node. Host Guardian Hyper-V Support - corresponding component for HGS mentioned earlier Network Virtualization - provides overlays of virtual networks on the same physical network Storage Migration Service - orchestrates storage migration by invoking Storage Migration Proxy Service. Storage Migration Proxy - service to run inventory, transfer and cutover for storage migration Storage Replica - allows you to replicate data between servers System Data Archiver -provides services to collet and archive Windows Server system data System Insights - provides the services that are needed to manage and invoke predictive analytics capabilities that analyze Windows System data. VM Shielding Tools for Fabric Management - Provides shielded VM utilities that are used by Fabric Management solutions and should be installed on the Fabric Management server.

How Do Recent Microsoft 365 Announcements affect Microsoft 365 Business? – Part 4 Azure Active Directory Enhancements

Mark O'Shea MVP — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 06:00:49 GMT

So far in this series I've covered Admin Center Updates, Office 365 Business deployment and Office 365 Business vs. Office 365 Pro Plus, and today's topic includes some of the recent Azure Active Directory enhancements that have been announced, and what they mean for Microsoft 365 Business customers. This isn't an all encompassing list of what's coming in AAD, but rather a selection of updates that will have a trickle-down impact. Let's start with Baseline Protection, provided by predefined Conditional Access policy. While the inclusion of full Conditional Access capabilities from AAD Premium P1 is something that many Microsoft 365 Business administrators would like to see, what we have right now is that users with priveleged accounts are going to have this predefined Conditional Access policy applied, and as of the time of writing it applies to the following roles - Global Admins, SharePoint admins, Exchange admins, CA admins and Security admins. [caption id="attachment_3229" align="alignnone" width="411"] Baseline policy enablement[/caption] What you can see in the above screenshot is what is provided, you can't tweak the underlying policy, all you can do is enable or disable it, and set up some specific user exclusions, which are hopefully not something that is used extensively in your organisation, otherwise you just end up poking holes through the protection. If you need granularity for these admins beyond what you see here, you will need to acquire AAD Premium P1 licences to get started, and depending on how far you want to take Conditional Access capabilities you can also layer AADP P2, MCAS and Intune. So now that we've got baseline protection for admins, what about protecting users? That's not something that is lighting up in the portal yet, but baseline protection is coming for all users, as you will see in the following table.

For admins	MFA enabled for Azure AD privileged roles
For all users	MFA enabled Enrolled in the Microsoft authenticator app for MFA Require MFA when sign-in risk is detected Block legacy authentication protocols Block logins from compromised users

While there are several items of interest, one of the big ones for many will be Block legacy authentication protocols. This policy will apply to older Microsoft Office clients that don't support modern authentication, and also applies to clients that use mail protocols like POP, IMAP, and SMTP. Reviewing your AAD logs to track legacy auth methods is going to be an important way to identify them and eliminate them from your tenants. [caption id="attachment_3230" align="alignnone" width="407"] Strengthen user sign-in security sample[/caption] Before moving on to the next item, which is a good follow on item to the baseline policies, it's important to point out again that these will be preconfigured policies that can be applied, and you won't have the ability to edit them. If you need that granularity for admins and users, AADP P1 licences will need to be acquired. Next up are some of the enhancements with the Microsoft Authenticator app, one being more end user targeted than the other, and the other being more critical for Microsoft 365 Business administrators. Let's start off with the more user appropriate feature, Password-less Sign Ins. When we enable this functionality we use key-based authentication to enable a user credential that is tied to a device via PIN or biometric option. In some ways it's similar to what we get with Windows Hello for Business. When we use password-less phone sign ins the user won't be prompted for a password, instead they will be provided with a number which needs to then be selected from a set of numbers presented to them from Microsoft Authenticator. [caption id="attachment_3232" align="alignnone" width="413"] MFA prompt from browser[/caption] First you will see the browser or app prompt you with the number you need to select in Microsoft Authenticator. [caption id="attachment_3231" align="alignnone" width="458"] Microsoft Authenticator Password-less[/caption] Then you will get the prompt and have to select from a list of three numbers. To enable this in your tenant to need to make sure you have the latest preview of the Azure Active Directory V2 PowerShell module, so you might need to uninstall the previous version. You can uninstall, install the latest, connect to your AAD tenant and enable password-less sign in with the following.

Uninstall-Module -Name AzureADPreview
Install-Module -Name AzureADPreview
Connect-AzureAD
New-AzureADPolicy -Type AuthenticatorAppSignInPolicy -Definition '{"AuthenticatorAppSignInPolicy":{"Enabled":true}}' -isOrganizationDefault $true -DisplayName AuthenticatorAppSignIn

I mentioned that this is something that is more of an end user targeted feature, and the reason why I see it this way is that this should be primary account an individual is using, and we can only have one password-less sign in per Microsoft Authenticator install. This occurs because Microsoft Authenticator device needs to be registered with AAD, and the device can only be registered with one AAD tenant. Having it associated with your user account versus an admin account makes more sense as that is the account you should be using more often, and once the baseline conditional access policy is enabled in your tenant this should help to make MFA better for users. The final item to mention is that that admins also benefit from new Authenticator/MFA enhancements, with up to five devices per account instead of the single instance previously allowed. For environments where multiple people need to sign in using the same accounts, such as a partner environment managing multiple Microsoft 365 Business tenants, this means that Microsoft Authenticator can be used more broadly rather than some of the workarounds that may have been used previously. If you reached the end of this post, hopefully you've got an idea of how some of these underlying enhancements are going to make your environments safer and easier to protect moving forward. While the Office 365 Secure Score and Microsoft 365 Secure Score have been around for a while, if you are focused on identity, take a look at the Identity Secure Score to get some ideas of what you can do to increase your security posture.

How Do Recent Microsoft 365 Announcements affect Microsoft 365 Business? – Part 3 Office 365 Business vs. Office 365 ProPlus

Mark O'Shea MVP — Mon, 26 Nov 2018 06:00:49 GMT

Back when the announcement of the Microsoft 365 Business April 2018 Update was announced one of the things that surprised and/or confused me was the addition of Azure Information Protection (AIP) and Exchange Online Archiving (EOA). It's not that thought they were strange choices, instead my thoughts were based on the fact that at the time, these were capabilities that couldn't be exposed through the included Office 365 Business client. At that point in time you would have needed Office 365 ProPlus to expose those features in the Office desktop apps. With the release of recent builds of Office 365 Click-to-Run this has changed. Take a look at the following screenshots, which is a recent build of Office 365 Business. Office 365 Business installed as part of Microsoft 365 Business Where things get interesting is now Azure Information Protection rights management capabilities are exposed natively in the apps, as you might be used to in Office 365 ProPlus. Previously you would have had to set AIP restrictions on the file itself with the AIP client. If you want the labelling and additional AIP client capabilities, you should still install this, preferably via the single file MSI deployment capability of Intune. See the bottom of this post for instructions on how to automate that with Microsoft Graph. The same Office 365 Business install, but now with AIP/IRM integration The other capability that we now see light up inside of the Office 365 Business Premium client is Online Archives. I don't know about you, but when I need to access archives, I want to do it in Outlook. I've been using Outlook and its predecessors for a very long time, and it would take something astounding to make me switch away. Online Archive via Office 365 Business Premium. The table below is what I've extracted and interpreted from the Office Applications Service Description. This is a much smaller list of differences between what Business is capable of versus what we can do with ProPlus. If I've missed anything or gotten anything wrong, let me know, but what we end up with are either some of the advanced capabilities or licensing benefits that ProPlus provides, such as running in Remote Desktop Services.

	Office 365 Business Premium (as part of Microsoft 365 Business)	Office 365 Enterprise E3
Database Compare	No	Yes
Desktop virtualization	No	Yes
Excel Spreadsheet Compare	No	Yes
Excel Spreadsheet Inquire	No	Yes
Group Policy support	No	Yes
Office Telemetry	No	Yes
Power Map for Excel	No	Yes
Power Query for Excel	No	Yes
Power View for Excel	No	Yes
Shared computer activation	No	Yes
Support for blocking cloud-based file storage	No	Yes

In the last post I covered using PowerShell and the Graph API to add Teams to your tenant, you can follow the instructions from that post, but add these lines instead or as well as the Teams deployment elements and you will be ready to deploy the AIP Client out to Intune managed Windows PCs.

####################################################
 
#### Install Microsoft AIP
$output = "$PSScriptRoot\AZInfoProtection_MSI_for_central_deployment.msi"
Start-BitsTransfer -Source https://download.microsoft.com/download/4/9/1/491251F7-46BA-46EC-B2B5-099155DD3C27/AZInfoProtection_MSI_for_central_deployment.msi -Destination $output
Upload-MSILob "$output" -publisher "Microsoft" -description "Microsoft AIP"

How Do Recent Microsoft 365 Announcements affect Microsoft 365 Business? – Part 2 Office 365 Business Deployment

Mark O'Shea MVP — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 06:00:56 GMT

The last post on Admin Center changes highlighted some of the upcoming features that are showing up in preview in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, and this post is a good follow up post to introduce other recent changes that may lead you outside of the current Admin Center for now. In this post I'll discuss several of the recent announcements around Office deployment, including removing MSI based installs automatically, deploying Microsoft Teams instead of Skype for Business, the Office Customization Tool , and the move to 64 bit default installs. Let's start off with the one that I've seen the most enthusiasm for - the ability for the current MSI based Office installation to be removed as part of the Office 365 Business deployment. While there have previously been various scripts available to perform this task, you needed to run them before attempting to deploy Office via Click-to-Run (C2R), otherwise the new install would fail. So far this capability isn't exposed natively from Manage Office deployment option under Device actions in the Microsoft 365 Business Admin Center. The options that we are provided here are to select a group or multiple groups to target for deployment. The two deployment options we have are to install or uninstall Office. Even as recently as a few months ago, this really was the right set of options, because some of the things this post covers, such as the removal of MSI installs automatically, was only added to C2R deployments in the last few months. The guidance from the Microsoft 365 Business team for deployments including uninstalls of the MSI version was to remove the MSI version first, which was the approach that was required at the time. If you add the automatic deployment of Office C2R via Windows Autopilot to a new PC scenario which featured prominently with the early Microsoft 365 Business content, again this was the approach that made sense. If we jump into Intune's client app settings via https://portal.azure.com or https://devicemanagement.microsoft.com we can see that we have the option to remove MSI based version of Office exposed with a Yes/No selection, so it really couldn't be much easier. However, if you are working in an environment where internet bandwidth isn't going to cope very well with an Office C2R deployment via Microsoft's content distribution network, you need to look at a few other options. The first option is to use the new capability of the Office Deployment Tool, which supports the following entry for removing the MSI based installs.

As it suggests, this will remove all of the MSI installs, which could include Visio and Project in some scenarios, but we can keep those if needed with the following.

In this example, MSI installations of Visio Pro won't be removed, and you can have options for Visio and Project, both Standard and Professional versions. A new option that is available in preview is https://config.office.com, the Office Customization Tool. It allows you to create and edit the XML files with many more capabilities exposed for ease of use, including deploying from a file share, and some more granularity around the MSI uninstall options. Another important element of this tool is that it's functionality is already exposed to Intune and Configuration Manager, where they will provide a curated experience over the selections they choose to expose in their own consoles. One of the things that worth highlighting is that you will see references to Office 365 ProPlus in Intune, you can safely ignore those, this is the location for deploying Office 365 Business as well. Some of the options, such as Shared Computer Activation only apply to ProPlus and not Business, but otherwise you shouldn't see any issues from this. The next recent announcement, which kicked off on October 1st, is that Microsoft Teams is now the primary client for meetings and calls, replacing Skye for Business in new tenants of 500 seats or less. What this means is that for Office deployments in new tenants, again you should look into Office deployments via the Intune console. Select the components you want to install, but make sure you leave OneDrive (Groove) and Skype for Business deselected. This means that you need to deploy Microsoft Teams, and for this you have a few options to consider - do you want to do it manually via Intune, which isn't a bad option, but if you want to automate the process, and start scaling out across multiple tenants or editing the file to add multiple MSI deployments to a tenant., you should take a look at the Line Of Business deployment script on GitHub.

####################################################
 
#### Install Microsoft Teams 64 Bit
$output = "$PSScriptRoot\teams64bit.msi"
Start-BitsTransfer -Source https://aka.ms/teams64bitmsi -Destination $output
Upload-MSILob "$output" -publisher "Microsoft" -description "Microsoft Teams 64 Bit"

As of the time of publishing this post, you just replace the section at the end of the script so that it looks like the following. This brings us to the final piece for this post, which is that the Office team are now recommending 64 bit as the default deployment option. The wording from this docs article is "We recommend 64-bit on computers that have 4 gb or more of memory. But you should assess application compatibility and other factors that might require you to use the 32-bit version.". Installing 64 bit Office Business Premium onto PCs that don't have office installed is easy to do from within Intune, but make sure you have a good understanding of what add-ins and controls may be in use that don't have 64 bit equivalents, as well as a few other considerations that you can find here. When you add a new Office deployment in Intune, it's just a matter of selecting the right version under App Suite Settings. This will not uninstall a 32 bit C2R install, but the likelihood of needing to replace a 32 bit install with a 64 bit install is quite low. You could use the Microsoft 365 Admin Center to uninstall the existing deployment, and then redeploy with the new app profile.

How Do Recent Microsoft 365 Announcements affect Microsoft 365 Business? - Part 1 Admin Center Updates

Mark O'Shea MVP — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 08:39:33 GMT

In late October, Microsoft held their annual Ignite conference, and as you would expect, there were a huge number of product announcements for different Microsoft technologies. There is even the Microsoft Ignite 2018 Book of News that brings many of these major announcements together. The challenge, however, is how do these announcements affect you, or in the case of this blog post series, how do the announcements for Microsoft 365 impact Microsoft 365 Business. To be clear from the outset, this series will focus mostly on the modern management story, rather than the teamwork or application usage changes. To start off with, let's look at some of the changes and previews of the Microsoft 365 Admin Center that were first mentioned in item 8 of the blog post 10 new ways for everyone to achieve more in the modern workplace. In some ways, the Microsoft 365 Business Admin Center has implemented some integrated capabilities that we don't see in the Enterprise offerings, such as linking to device policies rather than launching Intune in the Azure Portal for those capabilities, but right now it has to work within the constraints of the Admin Center framework. Moving forward, the changes that we will see will allow us to have more control over the items that appear on our Microsoft 365 landing page. Existing Microsoft 365 Business Admin Center with preview disabled. In the screenshot above you can see that I have some Microsoft 365 Business specific cards, focused on some of the abovementioned integration capabilities, but as you might know if you've customised the Admin Center previously you can't really bring everything you want in to that main screen, instead it's a very small subset of what Microsoft 365 provides. Default view with preview enabled Because this is still preview, we aren't seeing too many cards by default here, but we do start to see some of the initial customisation capabilities, so we can start off with the Edit option on the left hand side. Edit your navigation menu Here we can see the ability to change the items we see in the navigation menu. For those who have to perform multiple duties in the Admin Center, showing more, or potentially all of the items might make sense. For those that just want to expose the things they do regularly without additional clutter, that's an easy goal to achieve. Adding additional Cards So far we only have two additional cards available at this stage of the preview, so it's not likely something you would be switching to just yet, but as it gets closer to release you should see more of what you need lighting up. Below is one of the sample screens that is available, in case you want to get a better idea of where it's headed. Example of future Admin Center cards What you will see here is that the Microsoft 365 Admin Center transforms into a true Microsoft 365 Admin Center, rather than being as heavily weighted towards the functionality of its Office 365 heritage. Here we've got cards exposing details from Office 365 ATP, Azure Active Directory, Intune and more. Below you will see the timeline for the roll out of new capabilities, with GA in H1 2019. For Microsoft 365 Business, I think it's safe to assume they will be doing utmost to take advantage of the updated Admin Center to make sure that SMB customers are getting the most out of what is included, with a big focus on ensuring that security and compliance requirements are being met, and being able to easily action items that need attention.

Ignite 2018 – Windows Autopilot Session Recordings

Mark O'Shea MVP — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 17:12:28 GMT

This year at Ignite there were several sessions focused on Windows Autopilot, and the Autopilot message was heavily featured in many of the modern management sessions during the week. Compared to last year's event, when my live Autopilot deployment during a session on Microsoft 365 Business was the first time many of the attendees had seen it in action or even heard of it, but this year it was everywhere, and the level of interest was incredibly high. I've restricted the session recordings hear to the ones that are more heavily focused on Windows Autopilot rather then general modern management sessions, which I will post about in the next in this series of posts. Modern deployment with Windows Autopilot and Microsoft 365 (Part 1 of 2) Windows Autopilot leverages the capabilities of Microsoft 365 to enable organizations to move away from imaging. In this first of two sessions, we’ll look at Windows Autopilot and the Microsoft 365 services that it leverages, demonstrate the available scenarios, explore how customers and OEMs are adopting it, and review the roadmap for new features. Modern deployment with Windows Autopilot and Microsoft 365 (Part 2 of 2) In this session, we’ll pick up where we left off in part 1, looking at Windows Autopilot new features, and integration into Microsoft 365 services such as Microsoft Intune and System Center Configuration Manager, with an emphasis on demos of new features about to be released. Rockwell Automation simplifies endpoint management with Windows Autopilot With more 30,000 end users globally Rockwell Automation needed a better way to register devices and streamline new OS deployment. Come hear their approach and by partnering with Dell EMC Services they accomplished unified endpoint management provisioning which includes generic image, Windows Autopilot, and the ability to deploy a custom version of Windows. Hands-on Surface modern management See how a Microsoft 365 Powered Surface, deployed by Windows Autopilot and managed by Microsoft Intune creates a secure, productive Modern Workplace that has an exceptional end user and IT experience. Find how to setup, administer, deploy, and manage your Microsoft Surface devices through toolsets in Microsoft 365, discuss modernization using Co-Management, dealing with advanced scenarios and complex environments. Bring your device and follow along in your own tenant as we explore settings and configurations. Walk away with a firm understanding of the advantages of cloud-based device management and the tools needed to transition your infrastructure to Microsoft 365 modern manageability and the benefits of a Surface device.

Ignite 2018 - Windows Server 2019 Azure Integration Session Recordings

Mark O'Shea MVP — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 05:39:57 GMT

One of the key hybrid messages with Windows Server 2019 is extending your current capabilities with Azure, even when workload migration to the cloud isn't necessarily the highest priority for your organisation. In the videos below you will see how you can leverage cloud based security, Azure backup and recovery capabilities, and extending your network into Azure.

Securing your hybrid cloud environments with Azure ATP and AAD Identity Protection

Protect users from identity threats with Azure Advanced Threat Protection and Azure AD Identity Protection. Learn about the top types of attacks against identities and users and how Microsoft 365 can help secure your environment.

Microsoft security: How the cloud helps us all be more secure

The IT environment you are responsible for is changing: cloud apps, hybrid infrastructure, mobile work, and digital connections with customers and partners to name just a few. Meanwhile, cyber-attacks are more frequent and damaging. The cloud is your secret weapon in this new security battlefield. See how unique intelligence and new innovations from Microsoft can help you be more secure across your entire digital estate.

Deploying Azure File Sync

With Azure Files and Azure File Sync, centralizing file shares in Azure not only is possible, it’s practical. But how do you actually get started with your existing file server or SAN? Never fear! We show you just how easy it is to get started, including leveraging still-relevant existing file servers and migrating off of ancient SANs and NAS devices.

Backup your data with Microsoft Azure Backup

Organizational data is susceptible to corruption, accidental deletion and ransomware. In this session, you will discover how Azure can securely backup and restore your data across multiple workloads running in the cloud as well as on-premises. Come join this jam-packed demo session and witness how Azure Backup significantly reduces complexity and cost through a zero-infrastructure solution for backing up resources. You will learn Azure Backup's native support of Windows Admin Center, Azure Files, Azure VMs, as well as SQL running in Azure VMs.

Implement Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery at Scale in Azure

Organizations increasingly need to scale their IT operations to protect their data and bolster disaster recovery(DR) strategy. Join this session to learn how Azure Backup and Site Recovery (ASR) help solve typical problems of managing backups, as well as recovering applications at scale. Learn about capabilities like PowerShell/CLI automation, policy management, RBAC, template-based deployments, monitoring and reporting that are critical to manage large scale deployments in enterprise environments. We will also present practical examples of real-world deployments in this session.

Establishing hybrid connectivity with Windows Server 2019 and Microsoft Azure

Windows Server 2019 has the most advanced networking capabilities ever shipped in a Windows operating system. See how we’re using Windows Admin Center to make Windows Server 2019 the easiest OS to connect to your Azure virtual network. In this session we also cover advancements in the data plane, transports, security (802.1x), container networking, and time accuracy.

Ignite 2018 - Windows Server 2019 Security and Identity Session Recordings

Mark O'Shea MVP — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 05:43:07 GMT

Continuing with another post of Windows Server 2019 sessions from Ignite, this one includes some of the security and identity sessions. There will be coverage of additional hybrid Active Directory sessions in an upcoming post, but I've included the AD FS ones here alongside the security recordings.

Elevating your security posture with Windows Server 2019

Windows Server 2016 started the journey helping customers elevate their security posture starting with the operating system. Windows Server 2019 brings many enhancements to these features as well as a whole new set of capabilities. This session provides a rich overview of many of the security capabilities that are built-in to Windows Server with a specific focus on what’s new to Windows Server 2019. The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) will also join us to discuss Microsoft’s participation in their trusted cloud project which outlines security best practices for hybrid clouds--a solution built on Hyper-V Shielded VMs. Additionally, the SQL Server team will demonstrate how they leverage Virtualization-based Security and health attestation in Windows Server 2019 to protect data at rest and at runtime in their imminent release of SQL Always Encrypted with Enclaves.

What's new in Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) in Windows Server 2019

Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) continues to be the #1 federation provider to login to Office 365 and has grown to power logins for over 77M users globally! AD FS is also actively used to build modern applications to power the next generation of line-of-business applications that cater to the digital transformation for modern workplaces. Learn about the exciting new and upcoming capabilities in Windows Server 2019 to securely and seamlessly sign-in users from anywhere on a variety of devices. We primarily focus on securing extranet access and enabling logins without passwords, and discuss additional security features to protect password-based logins for extranet access. We focus on new capabilities introduced to support modern applications built using OpenID Connect and OAuth. We also discuss advances made to enable smooth sign-in experiences for end users.

There are no compensating controls for an insecure Active Directory

Today everything needs to be secure, but you need to start with Active Directory. Because if AD isn’t secure – nothing else in your organization is regardless of operating system, products, or procedures. That’s a strong statement, but one that Randy Franklin Smith can back up with facts. In this fast-paced session Randy spotlights the multitudinous ways that virtually any component or information on your network can be compromised if the attacker first gains unauthorized access to AD. The good news is AD was designed well and has stood the test of time. AD security is a matter of design, comprehensive management, and monitoring and is the basis for the list of fundamentals for securing AD shared in this session.

Secure access to Office 365/Azure Active Directory with new features in AD FS in Windows Server 2019

Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) continues to be the #1 federation provider to login to Office 365 and has grown to power logins for over 77M users globally! In this session, learn about the exciting new and upcoming capabilities in Windows Server 2019 to securely and seamlessly sign in users from anywhere on a variety of devices. We primarily focus on securing extranet access and enabling logins without passwords, and discuss additional security features to protect password-based logins for extranet access. We focus on the new Azure AD Password Protection feature to ensure strong passwords for all users. We also discuss advances made to enable smooth sign-in experiences for end users.

Ignite 2018 - Hyper Converged Infrastructure Session Recordings

Mark O'Shea MVP — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 06:08:54 GMT

Moving on to part three of this series (Windows Server 2019 and Windows Admin Center being previously covered), this time the focus is on technologies included in Windows Server 2019 Datacenter edition, with Storage Spaces Direct being one of the key ones. Once again you will see that Windows Admin Center features heavily in the sessions, highlighting the importance of becoming familiar with what it can offer. One of the important things that needs to be said upfront about HCI solutions is that you should work with your preferred OEM and one of their Windows Server Software-Defined program certified solutions to ensure you get a solution that meets your requirements.

From Hyper-V to hyper-converged infrastructure with Windows Admin Center

Discover how Windows Admin Center (Formerly Project "Honolulu") makes it easier than ever to manage and monitor Hyper-V. It’s quick to deploy, there’s no additional license, and it’s built from years of feedback – this is YOUR new dashboard! Ready to go hyper-converged? New features like Storage Spaces Direct and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) are built right in, so you get an integrated, seamless experience ready for the future of the software-defined datacenter.

Jumpstart your hyper-converged infrastructure deployment with Windows Server

The time is now to adopt hyper-converged infrastructure and Storage Spaces Direct. Where to start? This session covers design considerations and best practices, how to choose and procure the best hardware, sizing and planning, deployment, and how to validate your cluster is ready for showtime. Get tips and tricks directly from the experts! Applies to Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019.

Storage Spaces Direct + Windows Server 2019 + Windows Admin Center: Experience the power of performance history

Performance history is a new feature that gives Storage Spaces Direct administrators easy access to historical compute, memory, network, and storage measurements across host servers, drives, volumes, virtual machines, and more. In this session, see how you can access this Performance history data and how you can use Windows Admin Center to visualize it.

Be an IT hero with Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2019

The virtualization wave of datacenter modernization, consolidation, and savings made you an IT hero. Now, the next big wave is here: Hyper-Converged Infrastructure, powered by software-defined storage! Storage Spaces Direct is purpose-built software-defined storage for Hyper-V. Save money, accelerate IO performance, and simplify your infrastructure, from the datacenter to the edge. This packed technical session covers everything that’s new for Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2019. What is the Windows Server Software Defined (WSSD) program and why does it matter? The Window Server Software Defined (WSSD) program allows vendors to build and offer a tested end-to-end hyper-converged infrastructure solution. After implementing more than 100 Storage Spaces Direct projects, Carsten think this is more important than ever. Why? In this session, learn the reasons, and get help choosing the right solution for you!

Dave Kawula's notes from the field on Storage Spaces Direct

This session looks at the field notes from production deployments of Storage Spaces Direct over the past six months. Various scenarios are covered from two-node SMB to enterprise configurations and everything in between. We look at some lessons learned for hardware configurations, firmware updates, and core network configurations. We also review some upgrade paths to the latest release of Windows Server 2019 LTSC. This session is action packed and you should definitely come ready to learn—delivered by Hyper Converged expert MVP Dave Kawula who has deployed Storage Spaces Direct all over the world.

Modernize your datacenter with Software-Defined Networking (SDN) in Windows Server

In Windows Server 2019, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is faster, more powerful, and simpler to use than ever before with SDN Express for deployment and Windows Admin Center for day-to-day management. Use SDN to harden your network and avoid being the next victim of a malicious person or hacking group. Gain flexibility with virtual appliances from Microsoft and third parties and benefit from rich analysis and visibility into traffic that routes through your network. This packed, technical session shows you how to get started and covers everything new for SDN in Windows Server 2019.

Ignite 2018 - Windows Admin Center Session Recordings

Mark O'Shea MVP — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 05:39:21 GMT

To be fair, most of the Windows Server sessions during Ignite 2018 did include Windows Admin Center content, but these are the ones that focused heavily on it. You will also find it covered in the sessions I included in yesterday's post. In these videos you'll see an overview of Windows Admin Center, as well as how it works with Server Core and Azure Networking to simplify administration tasks.

Windows Server management reimagined with Windows Admin Center

Windows Admin Center (formerly Project “Honolulu”) represents a new era in the remote management of Windows Server and Windows PCs. It is generally available, and has enjoyed extremely positive reception and fast adoption from the IT pro community. Come learn how Windows Admin Center was designed for you, with your input, to address your graphical management needs. Through customer stories and partner investments, we show how Windows Admin Center continues to grow in functionality and value, and how this reimagined experience and ecosystem will benefit you.

Enhance your Windows Admin Center capabilities with partner extensions

Windows Admin Center provides a rich web experience for Windows Server administrators, but it can go beyond the initial deployment when you add the available partner extensions to it! Come and see how Windows Admin Center can be even better with a partner extension!

The Perfect Match: Windows Admin Center & Server Core

In this session, learn how Visa, an industry leader in payments, was able to decrease its security vulnerability footprint by 30–40% by adopting the Server Core installation option in Windows Server. Come to hear tips on how to introduce Server Core into your environment and break down barriers to adoption.