 Hello everyone, welcome to Windows Server Summit 2024. My name is Aakash and I hope you are excited to hear what we have to share around System Center today. Well, the cats out of the bag now. Today we are proud to announce that the next version of System Center that is System Center 2025 will be released later this year. This is in continuation of the ongoing System Center investments that we have made a commitment to each of you. Before I jump into all the details, I will quickly run down the agenda for today. So today we have about 25 minutes to walk through these topics. We are going to read read what System Center means to each of us, share roadmap about all the version of System Center products, then we get into the crux of today's meeting by talking about System Center 2025 and what it entails. So let's jump into it. For those of you don't know me, I am Aakash Basraj and I work as a product manager at System Center Product Group. I've been in System Center business for about four plus years now and I'm joined by my colleague Karthik who will talk about his favorite topic, data center management using virtual machine manager. Thanks for joining Karthik. So let's get started. This is a quick overview of System Center products and their use cases. System Center has been the workhorse data center management tool for more than 30% of Windows Server customers over the past couple of decades. System Center's main target is for on-premises data center management and it will remain to do so for upcoming releases of Windows. What has really clicked is the close partnership that we maintain with Windows Server team ensuring support for all latest versions of Windows and its latest capabilities. Without draining further into each product, I want to address that System Center suite will be released with every new major version of Windows Server allowing you to install and manage them easily. Specifically, these six products are unmatched when grouped together and we appreciate you, our System Center users for your support and usage so far. While we continue to support and provide meaningful enhancements to these products, we want to help you transition to cloud management services such as SCOM Management Instance and others allowing you to read the benefit of Azure and its evergreen services. More on this in upcoming slides. I want to share a quick update on the existing LTSC releases that is System Center 2019 and 2022. We will be releasing UR6 for System Center 2019 to ensure your System Center 2019 environments are up to date with security fixes as the product is going out of mainstream support by end of April. UR6 will be released later this month. Additionally, System Center 2022 will continue to be supported for the next three years followed by extended support. So we will provide product updates and patches for System Center 2022 as mentioned in the slide. However, the big announcement for today is the System Center 2025 that will be released in GA version in the latter part of this year along with Windows Server 2025. We heard your strong feedback from last time where we delayed the release of System Center 2022 by six months from that of Windows Server 2022 and it impacted the users by preventing them from using Windows Server 2022. So this time around, we will ensure to release both these products together with high quality. So what is new in System Center 2025? Talking about talking from investment perspective, these are the three main focus areas. Our primary focus is for us to provide you with best-in-class data center management tool that can manage your heterogeneous infrastructure which are based on the evolution of data centers that are undergoing B to the cloud or updates to the hardware systems. As mentioned earlier, System Center 2025 will support installation and management of Windows Server 2025 servers and based on your feedback again, we are going to support management of Azure Stack HCI infrastructure, specifically Azure Stack HCI 23 H2. So keep your feedback coming in so that we can adapt accordingly. Moving to the next pillar, as you may have seen in Windows Server 2025 announcements that one of the big lever that we are pushing is that of security. As the data centers and applications evolve towards hybrid state, we want to ensure that the management tools are compliant, safe and secure. In System Center 2025, we plan to reduce the usage of NTLM and CRED SSP as much as possible and use alternate authentication such as Kerberos and Open Authentication wherever possible. We plan to add support for TL as 1.3 to ensure secure communication between systems and the servers and managed clients. Additionally, we will support Gen2 VMs, we will talk about Gen2 VMs and its benefit in upcoming slide. Lastly, as you evaluate and plan to reduce on-premises footprint, we want to support infrastructure modernization. You may have seen earlier in SCOM 2022, we added discovery of Azure Migrate, helping you evaluate cost benefits of moving to cloud while modernizing your management services. We will continue to invest in similar areas. For users who cannot migrate to cloud right away, we will help bringing cloud services to System Center via ARC, specifically ARC for SCVM. And last but not the least, System Center, SCVM specifically will provide capabilities to convert your private cloud software from VMware to alternatives such as HyperV and Azure Stack HCI. This ensures business continuity with reliable support and modernization of data centers. That said, let's get into the finer details of what is new in specific products. We will start with VMM and my colleague Karthik will walk you through the updates. By delivering System Center 25 closely with Windows Server 20.25, we are bringing you management support for the latest Windows Server version right from day zero. Understanding our customers' preferences to manage their heterogeneous infrastructure with SCVM, we are adding support for management of Azure Stack HCI 23H2 clusters from SCVM 20.25. Customers will also have an enhanced experience while converting their VMware VMs to Windows Server or Azure Stack HCI through SCVM. SCVM 20.25 also brings significant security enhancements as all virtual machines created through SCVM will default to Generation 2, which provides faster and secure routing. With SCVM 20.25, customers will also see a reduction in the number of scenarios which use credit SSP and NTLM as their authentication mechanisms. As customers' data centers evolve, so do our solutions. With the general availability of Azure Arc-enabled SCVM from November 2023, customers can now use Azure management services like Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Azure Monitor, Azure Update Manager, etc. to secure, govern, monitor, and configure their SCVM managed VMs through Azure Arc. Customers will also get Arc-enabled capabilities of Windows Server 20.25 like hotpatching for Arc-enabled SCVM VMs right from day zero. The end-of-life Windows Server 20.12 or two VMs can continue to be in supported state with extended security updates procured via Arc-enabled SCVM. Azure Arc-enabled SCVM also gives the ability to perform lifecycle operations such as start, stop, create, scale, resize, and delete your SCVM managed VMs that are hosted in customers' data centers. All these activities are governed by Azure role-based access control enabling customers' team to perform VM operations in a self-service fashion. This will serve as an effective replacement to end-of-life approaching Windows Azure Back. With System Center 20.25, we are also discontinuing Azure Profiles Future of SCVM and System Center Service Provider Foundation, SPF, as these capabilities are now being built into Arc-enabled SCVM. Thanks Karthik for the update on watching machine manager. Moving on to data protection manager. With a steadfast commitment to improving workload coverage, data protection managed 20.25 ensures comprehensive management support from day zero for Windows Server 20.25 connecting seamlessly with the SharePoint subscription edition and introducing features like virtual DPM support for VMware. Additionally, a DPM 20.25 brings the capability to exclude specific disks from backups in Hyper-V environments, offering flexibility and efficiency in data protection strategies. At the core of DPM 20.25 innovation is a heightened emphasis on security enhancements. Recognizing the paramount importance of safeguarding sensitive information, DPM 20.25 introduces the capability to securely store the passphrase in Azure Keyword, significantly increasing data security by leveraging Azure's robust cloud infrastructure. Furthermore, it embraces the latest in encryption technology by supporting TLS 1.3, ensuring that all data transmissions are protected by the security standards available. The adoption of support for OLED between 19 further underscores DPM 20.25's commitment to security. That said, these are some of the final details that we are looking to share currently as part of our 20.25 plans. Let me give you a little bit more information on what's coming next. So we are planning to release System Server 20.25 by the end of April in the preview version. So we plan to release virtual machine manager and data protection manager in the preview version based on the feedback that we have received and based on how the validation has happened. We will take those features or take those enhancements to 20.25 GA. Having said that, we will be releasing all the six products, which is Orchestrator, OSCOM, DPM, VMM, Service Manager, SMA, all of them we are planning to release in 20.25 GA and then we hope to continue supporting with enhancements to these products. That brings us to the end of our session today. I really thank you for the time you shared and the feedback that you constantly give on System Server products. For any feedback, I request each of you to drop a note to systemscenterfeedbackatmax.com and you can get in touch with me at LinkedIn as well under the same name. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. My name is Yaramir and welcome to my session. My session is called Testing Windows Server 20.25 with MSLab. I'm the guy who wrote MSLab when I was in Microsoft. I really like sharing this information because this is the tool that will help you a lot. Trust me. I'm now working with Dell. I'm an engineering technologist working with the product managers in Dell, with the customers and also with the product managers in Microsoft just to make sure that we deliver the best products possible. So what's MSLab? If you've never heard about MSLab, it's just a tool that will help you to test Windows Server or any builds, any new builds or even an Azure Stack HCI. Why you want to use this tool is that if there is a new build and you want to test it, you need to have some kind of infrastructure. And this infrastructure needs to be like a domain controller. You want to have Windows Server Core. You want to have Windows Server with a GUI just to see what's new in the GUI. You maybe just need to see if there is any new PowerShell command and you don't want to bloat your production infrastructure. And you want to test, for example, what's new in Active Directory and you cannot just simply join it into your production environment. So with this tool, you can simply deploy fully functional environment where you have your machine's domain joined and you can also simulate some kind of networking so you can test advanced things like network ATC in Azure Stack HCI or Windows Server 2025. So let's take a look what MSLab tool really is. It's just a bunch of scripts. Where when you will go to address aka.ms-mslab or if you just simply bing MSLab, hopefully it will be the first page. If not, just bing MSLab GitHub and then it will be definitely the first page. So what you will find there is there's a zip file that you can download and in this zip file, you have these scripts. And to use these scripts, it's super simple. You just fire up the first script. You don't even have to run any PowerShell from the command line. The only thing you have to do is just right click and run with the PowerShell. What it will do, it will create some folders then you will fire up the second script. It will ask you for the ISO file. Just provide it Windows Server 2022. The reason is that if you will provide Windows Server 2025, it will create a domain controller with Windows Server 2025 and then it will fail to deploy it because there is some known bug. So you will have to wait for the newer release as now Windows Server 2025 is in the preview and this is a known bug, unfortunately. So just provide it Windows Server 2022 and it will do its job. So it will create its domain controller automatically and it also creates parent disks. I call it parent disks because these disks are then used to create virtual machines. So you can define what virtual machine you want to have and just simply point it to the parent VHD. So you will just configure it if you want to use Windows Server with a GUI or Windows Server Core. So it's like a Swiss knife. So once you will finish this first stage, that will take like 45 minutes to create this DC and parent disks, the next step is just simply deploy the lab. You don't have to modify anything, you can just run deploy just for the first time, right? Because you don't know what to expect and if you run it, it will simply import the DC that was created in the first step and it will just deploy four virtual machines. So as a first lab, when you hit deploy, you will see domain controller and then four S2D nodes. This is on Windows Server 2022 by default and as you can see, four S2D nodes. In these nodes, you will have like 10 different VLens that you can play with. You have multiple disks and then you can just follow MSlabs scenarios just to create a cluster. But today we want to talk about how to test Windows Server 2025. So with Windows Server 2025, you have to first create your parent disk, right? So when you will be creating a lab, you have to point it to the VHD and to create extra VHD or any VHD, not only Windows Server 2025, but Azure Stack HCI operating system, Windows 10, Windows 11, or even older operating system. You can go back to Windows Server 2008 if you really want to. However, if you will navigate into the MSlabs folder into the parent disks, you can go and right click, create parent disk PS1 and once you create a run with PowerShell, it will simply ask you to provide the ISO file. So you can provide it ISO file and the next thing it will do, it will find a VIM file inside the ISO file and it will ask you what version of the operating system you want to use. So you will select either if you want to use GUI or Core or you can just, you know, fire up whatever you want and then the next time you will run it again, you can choose whatever you want again. So you end up with multiple VHDs. In this case, I created two VHDs, one for the Windows Server GUI and one with the Windows Server Core. You can see it by the name, it's Windows Server Insider and there is also the version. And the next step is to modify your LAP config. So this LAP config is defined what should be created in the lab. As you can see, it's pretty simple. The only thing you have to have or you have to keep is the domain admin name, the password and then, you know, the addition of the DC, if you want to have an internet or not, if you want to connect this lab to the internet and then you will specify the name of the patent disks. In this case, Core for the Core machine and GUI for the GUI machine. And as a result, if you run deploy in let's say five minutes, maybe even less, if you just simply right-click and run with PowerShell, you will have this lab. DC and then domain joined Server Core and Server with the GUI and as you can see, it's not consuming almost any memory. So you can run it in any machine, in your laptop. So what to do if you have this lab and you want to play with real-world stuff. Let's take a look about Hands-on Lab that I created for you, especially for this session. So this lab is located on Dell Geos GitHub, just bring it, bring this name and what you will find out, there is a page that points you here and it will be also below the video and I will answer your question in the comments if you have any. And this is an end-to-end guide to create S2D cluster with Windows Server 2025 in your laptop. So this is what it will deploy. As you can see, it will deploy it in let's say 12 minutes and you will have a domain controller, you will have a machine for the management where you will connect to and where you will manage everything from and the rest of the machines are server cores, two for the storage spaces direct and one for the Windows Admin Center gateway. So this is the result. You will have two machines up and running. If you follow the guide, you will deploy everything with the PowerShell, so hopefully you will learn something new and yep, you will have two fully functional nodes and let's take a look in the demo I guess, cool. So in the demo, I want to show you my Hyper-V manager in my laptop, but first I want to show you the page that if you will just simply bring for Dell Geos GitHub, you will navigate to the hands-on labs, you will find here lab guides. These lab guides are or one of the lab guides is testing Windows Server Insider and this is as I mentioned, step by step document where you will deploy the lab with the lab config that you will specify and then either you will just choose option one, just go with a PowerShell ISC and just paste the code or there is an option two where I will describe everything what's happening, so for example, configure memory dump and PowerPlan and there is a PowerShell script, so you will just simply copy it and paste it into the PowerShell and just observe what's happening. So this is the lab itself. Let me just connect to the management machine and let me log in into this machine with the default password and as you can see, here is storage-pasted data cluster, there's a file share witness here, we do have, we don't have any role, we don't have any virtual machine here, we have two nodes with Windows Server 2025 data center with two disks. We also do have networks configured with Network ATC, so you can test Network ATC and as you can see, these networks are in VLAN 7.11 and 7.12, so even the VLANs are working here because in LabConfig you can specify additional VLANs that you want to create, so the machines can use it and what's interesting is that each machine has two network adapters and so it looks, it really looks like real environment and if you think about it, you can run real storage-pasted data cluster in your laptop and as you can see, it consumes almost nothing. It's like two gigs per node, less than two gigs per node, management machine, domain controller and then Windows Admin sent to Gateway. So I will ask you, if you like the session, please, this is something that we really need is evaluation, please navigate to the page, provide us feedback, if you like the session, if you want to know more, if you want to record even the one-hour session about MSLab, how it works, I'm open to it. Let us know in the evaluation and please, please comment under the video if you have any question or just ping me. Thank you very much for this and if you have any questions, simply ping me on this email address or just find me on Twitter and just ping me on Twitter anytime.