============================================================================================================================ New Features:
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 OpenGL 4.4 and OpenCL 1.1, 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 SMB3 between 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
IIS 10: Support for HTTP/2
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 networking solution); VXLAN encapsulation support; Microsoft Software Load Balancer interoperability; better IEEE Ethernet standard compliance.============================================================================================================================
Hyper-V:
Rolling Hyper-V cluster 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 ============================================================================================================================
Nano Server:
Microsoft announced a new installation option, Nano Server, which offers a minimal-footprint headless version of Windows Server.
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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2016