 Hi, welcome to the latest episode from the Rock to the Cloud season two. Obviously, we've had quite a lot of exciting stuff happening and we're here to talk to you about all things Rock to the Cloud, Windows Server, Windows Server 2022, Azure, all of the other lovely good stuff, HCI, all sorts of stuff that we want to talk to you about, demystify some of that stuff for you and also not just talk to me, but talk to an expert. So this time we've managed to wrangle the Microsoft Unicorn of Azure. So, Sarah Lee and Sarah, how are you today? How are you doing? I'm doing good. Thanks Thomas, how are you doing? I'm all right. That's why I've got Unicorn on my little picture box there, especially for you. So just let's remind everybody, why are we talking to Sarah? Why is Sarah a good person to talk to about all of this stuff? So I'm a senior cloud advocate at Microsoft and I'm in that IT Pro camp. So like you say, I'm a bit of a unicorn because I look after on-prem systems, look after infrastructure and also look after the cloud types of things. So I have a passion for Windows Server and all those kind of good stuff that the IT Pro is an operations team look after. So yeah, I'm quite excited to talk to you today about Windows Server 2022. Brilliant. Well, I'm glad that you are passionate about all those things because today we're going to talk about, maybe it's quite, is it a small thing, is it a big thing? I don't know, we've just launched a new OS, Windows Server 2022 and we're going to talk about what's new in Windows Server 2022. So it's pretty exciting. For me, it's exciting anyway. And I think it's always good to talk to somebody who is passionate about it like yourself. So how about we jump into today's topic? Yeah, sounds good. Always good when the person you're talking to says, yes, that's good. So obviously, Windows Server 2022, one of the biggest things that's changed is, this whole talk of hybrid being enabled for cloud solutions, integrating Azure Arc and all the policies and all the monitoring and all that kind of stuff that's happening. So Microsoft are calling Windows 2022 their first true hybrid OS. But can you tell us a little bit more about the features and benefits of why they're able to make such a bold statement? Yeah, so hybrid is very much at the forefront of what our customers are trying to do. I think lots of customers want to take advantage of that on-prem environment that they already have, the investments, the skills that they have, but they're starting to leverage some of the cloud functionality as well, the scalability. So what we're seeing is people putting resources in both locations and some of the issues that they're having with that is being able to consistently manage it, Thomas. So they don't want to be using one monitoring tool for their on-prem environment. They don't want to have another one for their cloud environment. So when we start to look at some of what they can do with Windows Server 2022 and then adding on the Azure Arc agent means that you can extend some of those Azure capabilities that you might want to use or are already using to your servers that are living on-prem so that you can use Azure as that kind of management plane. And as you said, installing the Azure Arc agent onto your Windows servers machines allows you to use Azure monitoring, use Azure security, using like update management to patch your servers. There's all sorts of goodness that can be extended from the cloud back into your on-prem environment. So yeah, and I think the focus of where they're going with Windows Server is very much that hybrid capability. That's where customers are focusing their environments on. So that's where the Windows Server team are focusing on. So I think that's why they're being very bold about their claims. Well, no, I mean, they're making lots of claims and bold statements. One of the things that I suppose is a buzzword that's kind of on everybody's lips is security. And I think I saw this new thing called, is it secure core technology? That has been added to Server 2022. So what have Microsoft done there to change the technology landscape for security? Yeah, I think security is something that everybody is thinking about. It's a constant worry for a lot of people in their environment, whether they're secure, whether ports are open, all that kind of thing. And if someone gets attacked, it can be very costly for an organization to have to deal with that, especially if we get into the data loss and data leaking type scenario. So with the security and Windows Server 2022, we have something called firmware protection or that secured core server that you were talking about. And that protects against the firmware attacks that we're seeing with a lot of customers. So when you look at like Windows Admin Center, which we talked about before Thomas on the show, you can actually start to implement it and see if you have all of those security features for your firmware turned on. And that's something that we've maybe not had in the past. I know certainly, you know, when I was looking after servers for a lot of production environments, we never really thought about firmware attacks, but it's becoming more something that you do have to think about. So it's nice to see something like that being built into the operating system being thought about and giving, you know, your IT pros less sleepless nights because they know that something is being done around trying to protect them against those types of threats. Okay, and I know they're not a boy band, but TLS, right? What is TLS? Sounds like JLS, doesn't it? Do you know what I mean? Yes. So TLS is your transport layer security protocol. And that's around ensuring privacy and security with your traffic over the internet. And with server 2022, you've got support for TLS 1.3. 1.3 drops a lot of support for the older crypto algorithms, cryptographic algorithms. That's a mouthful. Which, because we're seeing a lot of attacks again from those older algorithms. So we've dropped support for that. But equally with 1.3, you're seeing a lot less handshakes for your HTTPS traffic, which means that your end users are actually going to get a faster performance and a faster experience. So it's not only good from that security point of view, but it's also good from the endpoint user as well. So yes, TLS 1.3 is the kind of thing to think about. So we've added insecure core. So I suppose you need, if you're using a server at the edge, you need to get yourself some new hardware, maybe with new Intel chips in it, that kind of stuff. Fine. But actually adding that in means that the OS is more secure from a firmware perspective. And then we've improved the TLS, which is the transport layer security, which is those handshakes. I love that. I love the way that we just take like, it's a handshake. So the amount of handshakes has been reduced, which is good in COVID times, right? Because with COVID, obviously you'd want to be shaking those hands. So obviously COVID friendly OS. And then there was the last thing that I think I remember seeing on the launch was for security SMB. And when I say SMB, we're not talking about small-medium business. We're talking about something else, aren't we, for server? Yeah. So there's lots to cover around the SMB because there's been a lot of talk around Windows Server 2022 there. But in terms of security, SMB, the server message block encryption, is now supported at 80S256. Got to love those acronyms. We've made it more secure with the extra functionality there as well. Okay. And so, right. Okay. So that SMB is better encryption. It's more secure. But what exactly is the benefit of that to me, right, with my new server? I think it's just that privacy. Again, you're upping the level of security because SMB is your file transfer type protocol. That's how you access. If you're an end user, you know your network drives and you access your file shares and things like that, Thomas. So adding that extra level of security makes us all protected, both from an end user point of view and obviously as an IT pro as well. So yeah, those kind of things might seem insignificant when you're looking through the technical specs of an operating system, but they're good to be there. It gives you that extra peace of mind. Cool. Does it adds like better compression? Am I right in thinking when you're transferring things across networks as well. So actually it kind of makes the network more efficient. Yeah. So one of the other big features in this new operating system is SMB compression. And that's really just compressing the files that people are transferring across the network. I think when we've looked at customer feedback, some of the larger files, you know, virtual machines that people have been copying across their network took a while. And you know, the down times, you know, the transfer times were coming down slowly as we all upgrade different components along our network. But SMB compression can really make a difference. I think I saw Ned Pyle actually do a demo of this where he was copying a 20 gig VHD or a virtual machine file. And without compression, it took about two and a half minutes, three minutes to do that, which is not a lot of time, which is great. But when he turned on compression, he made that transfer in 28 seconds. So that's a big difference that you can add that on. So again, maybe seem insignificant, you know, two or three minute transfer time isn't exactly, you know, the end of the world, but being able to reduce that to 28 seconds is just phenomenal. And again, makes everything just that bit easier and faster and nicer for everybody. Well, you know, we live in a world where time is money, right? And also data is as a cost. So if you can reduce the size of the data package and you can increase the speed that it moves, well, actually that's going to save money ultimately. And that will affect people's billing and mean that they can do more for their money. So that's got to be good, right? So, yeah, like it's bold statements indeed, but it's definitely worth. I'm going to ask you about something else, another acronym that again, maybe I, the thing is, is that I learned the acronyms and the explanation for the acronyms from people like yourself. But quick, like obviously, you know, people come on this show and they want to get off quick, get that. But what does quick mean in terms of server 2022? So, yeah, I actually don't know what the quick acronym stands for, but I can explain what it means. So I'll help you there. So SMB over quick. And I'm actually going to read this, Thomas, because there's a lot of acronyms, a lot of technical information. I don't want to make sure I get it right for the audience. So SMB over quick is a protocol that replaces TCP with a web orientated UDP mechanism. So unlike TCP, your quick is always encrypted and requires TLS 1.3 with certificate authentication for the tunnel that's happening. So what that really means in terms of like, that's a lot of acronyms, a lot of, you know, tech speak. So what does that mean? What it actually allows you to do is with your remote users, you know, your hybrid users that are not in the office, none of us are in the office anymore, actually access files through your SMB over quick without a VPN tunnel have it happening. So you don't have to have your VPN connected because what we've seen is when you use the VPN, those traditional ports that you would use for SMB can sometimes be blocked. You know, that traditional port was port 445, which is blocked, you know, if you're sitting in an internet cafe in a hotel, that can often be tricky for you. SMB over quick is using port 443. So that's the UDP 443 port, which is a lot more open and you don't have to connect to a VPN to actually access your files. There's no change to the end users experience. They'll just double click on the file, access it, but in the bank, we'll be using UDP 443 instead of TCP 445. So yeah, that's a lot of technical speak, but yeah, it's an improvement for everybody being able to access their files and again, from a security point of view as well. It just seems to me like what we've done is we've done things at every layer of, I suppose, the server ecosystem to improve that security experience. So, you know, that's pretty exciting. Now, again, you know, I was sort of thinking back to the launch a couple of weeks ago, which was brilliant. I loved it. I have to say that we spoke to Rick yesterday, so obviously I have to say that I said he was the best part of it. That helps with his ego, right? But there was a lot of talk on there about containerization, using containers. There was talk about some supporting tools around that. So can you tell us a little bit more about what that was angling at? So like you say, when we announced the new server, there was lots of talk about containerization and all the support around that. The two bits of things that I picked out of that announcement that people might have missed is some of the tooling to help you support that containerization. So Windows Admin Center has some capabilities to manage your containers. So you can actually start to even build your Dockerfiles for you, so you don't have to sit there and open a blank notepad and start to script out your Dockerfile. You can use Windows Admin Center to build that up. So for me, that's fantastic. And then you can use that Dockerfile and deploy your containers, either to AKS or AKS on Azure Stack HCI. So again, it's just those nice integrations that you've got. And then one of my favorite tools as well, Azure Migrate has containerized ability. So we can look at the server that's running your workload, try to containerize the part of that, build that container, and then you can deploy it to AKS, for example, as well. So there's lots of lovely little things that can help you get to that containerized point if that's where your organization is going to. I think at the Windows Summit, Jeff Woolsey had a lovely slide with tons of announcements around container support. And that's great for the organizations that are really mature and are on that journey already. But the tools I've just mentioned can help those organizations that are still trying to get on to that journey, trying to get on to using containers. So yeah, those are my highlights. And again, I'm going to ask the stupid question, but what is the advantage of somebody using a container? Because you've just told us they're great, and it's a great journey to go on. But why do I want a container? Containers, I think, are great from that point of view if you're trying to get away from looking after servers. Containers are very much in that cattle versus pets type role, and you don't have to fall in love with your server and to make some changes and stuff, and they can be very flexible and very quick for some developer type opportunities. So yeah, there's pros and cons against containers. If you're going down that journey, then there's lots of support for you. It just depends if that's... It's going to fit some organizations, Thomas, but it's not going to fit everybody, to be honest, containers. So it's one of those ones you have to weigh up, depending on your workloads and what your objective is for your organization. But we have the choice now. So that's the main thing. And that's really what this is all about. So another thing that I saw is the native Edge browser with a full desktop experience. Again, why is that cool? I think it's just cool because Edge has become a tool that lots of people love. Like I've got it on my desktop. It's my browser of choice. Probably not a surprise given I work for Microsoft, but it's also a lot of people's browser of choice, maybe on their mobile phone and things like that as well. And when we had previous Windows servers, we had Internet Explorer. Now, I loved Internet Explorer back in the day, but it's a bit aged now and we definitely need newer technology. So having Edge built into Windows Server allows us to just take advantage of that. Now, obviously there's a massive debate about whether you should have an Internet browser installed on your server at all, Thomas, but that's another topic of conversation. Well, it probably helps though, I suppose, if you... Something like Windows Admin Center, which runs in a browser. And that's pretty helpful. Yeah. So, yeah. See, look, I do this and I'm remembering that I am learning. So that's the good thing about these videos. They're actually for me to learn. So I'm going to do some fundamentals now. That's my next job. I might talk about that later. But there are several versions of Windows Server 2022. And maybe can you enlighten people about what the different versions are? Can you help me out with that? Yeah. So we've still got standard edition and data center edition, but there's also an Azure edition. Now, with the Azure edition, that's where you start to get to use some of the features we've talked about. The hot patch in our Azure auto manage feature that's built into the Azure edition. Equally, Azure extended network and the SMB over quick is only available on the Azure edition. So you don't get those three features on standard or data center. So that's something to bear in mind. Although these features are amazing, you have to be using them inside Azure virtual machine to actually make advantage of them or take advantage of them. Okay. So that's really where I suppose the HCI piece comes in. Maybe if you want to go down that route, then that's where you would use the Azure edition of Windows 2022. And then you can use those super, super new features. Yeah. And you can get away with that. Perfect. Okay. So what has driven, I suppose, all these changes? Where are they coming from? Do you know what I mean? Because Microsoft has put in a lot of effort. To me, it seems like a lot of effort, a lot of new features. Why are we doing this? Why do we keep on doing this stuff? It's customer feedback. I think we've seen Azure grow and go in directions because of customer feedback. And the Windows server team are now following that model. They're very much listening to customers. They're very much listening to their security concerns. When we think back to the firmware protection, that's a big ask for customers. How can you help us with those attacks? There you go. You've got that feature. SMB compression, SMB over quick. All of these things are based on customer feedback and customer pain points. So don't think that your feedback is not being listened to because here's a great example of team actually listening to you and building that into the Windows server operating system now. It's good to know that somebody is listening. So I think we're going to probably move to the memes quite soon. But before we do, one of the things I saw alongside the Server 2022 launch, I saw that there were a whole new range of exams and certifications, like a whole new raft of stuff. Can you maybe fill us in a little bit on where people can go and do to learn a bit more about Server? Yeah. So this is very exciting because we haven't had Windows Server exams for quite a while and it's definitely again been another customer ask. So we're going to have two new exams, which will feed into the Azure server hybrid administrator associate certification. I think that's how you say it. So you're going to end up with AZ 800 and AZ 801. And those two exams will make into that certification. Now they're not quite out yet. They're going to be in beta round about the end of the year and hopefully go live in 2022. But it's really exciting to see not only an exam that covers Windows server, but that hybrid technology, that hybrid technology that a lot of organizations are using. So you're going to have to be a Windows server expert and you're also going to have to know parts of Azure, things like Windows admin center, Azure Arc. The things we've been talking about are going to be featured inside these two exams. So my colleague, Oren Thomas has created great study guides that you can go and use right now. Start to study so that when the beta comes out, you can actually go and, you know, set those exams and hopefully pass with flying colors. But yeah, definitely on my radar. And it's a very exciting announcement for us. Cool. Well, you know what? I think this series Rock to the Cloud is going to help me with taking those exams. So, Sarah, thank you. Thank you for all your help, advice and wisdom. So we're moving to that part of the show, which is the meme review. The bit where I get embarrassed and generally speaking, my guests are able to have a little laugh at the meme of my expense. So, right. Here we go. You're ready, Sarah. I'm getting comfortable. I'm getting in the zone for this. Right. Okay. So, meme one, please, producers. That is surely the end goal for any server administrator, isn't it? Oh, yeah. That's pretty cool. I've been in some messy server rooms, but never you made the cables into a hammock. I'll need to try that next time. I've got a hammock and I know how good it is, but I kind of would actually prefer a server room hammock. That is, that's just brilliant. I mean, oh, lovely. Do you think they've got one of those somewhere in one of our Microsoft data centers? That would be awesome, wouldn't it? That would be pretty cool. I don't think they would ever admit it. I know, too noisy though, I think to get a good night's sleep though, would it not be? I suppose, but you've got that monotonous kind of like zoning out sound. It's quite, I mean, it might be a bit noisy, but it's kind of got like a background. It could be nice. It could be nice to sleep in a server room. I'm sure some people have slept in a room before. If you have, I'm up to it. Cool. Right. Okay. Well, let's do, let's do meme number two. Are you ready? Not sure if it's a virtualized environment or if it's a cloud infrastructure. Yeah. Okay. There's a nice argument there, I think. So it's explaining that to me. I'm not sure if we're in a virtualized environment or a cloud infrastructure. To me, this is a reference to the matrix. What was it? I don't, I haven't seen the matrix. No, I don't know. I have no idea. I have no idea. So what would you say? Cloud infrastructure is just virtualized appliances anyway, isn't it? Someone else's hardware and then you're using the virtualization on top of that. So I think I'll just leave on words, because we've also got virtualization on prem as well. Maybe something like that. It's one of those inception ones, I think, you know. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's the idea of fry within fry within fry. Yeah. Yeah. It's far too clever for me. And like I said, this is where I look stupid. So perfect. I didn't let that one was over my head. Wow. Now I did say I look stupid. So let's, let's just do, let's just do a quick, quick summary of what, you know, what, what we learned today. I suppose new server OS. It's the most hybridized version ever. It's got all new layers of security. And it's basically good to go with lots of new exciting features for people to get involved in Windows Server. And you told us about some cool new certifications that are coming from Microsoft. I think, yeah, is there anything else that you would summarize about Windows Server 2022 that, that you were excited about, but you never, you didn't get to say, or did we cover it all? Actually, I think one of the good features, I've noticed people mentioning it on Twitter was they were able to do great in place upgrades. So previously you would be really frightened of doing an in place upgrade, you know, reinstalling the operating system on top of your server because it might not have worked previous versions, but that is something the team have actually worked on. So it's really good to go to do an in place upgrade now from some of the newer ones. I saw lots of people doing upgrades from server 2019 to 2022 as an in place upgrade. And it just worked, which is what we want, right? So I think that's, that's something to bear in mind if folks are looking to adopt Windows Server 2022, you can take advantage of the in place upgrade because the team will be able to do great in place on that as well. Cool. See that? There's always a little bit more that I could learn. So Sarah, thank you so much for coming today on from the rock to the cloud. Everybody at home, really appreciate you taking the time to watch this episode. Obviously, we're very lucky to have Sarah. Thank you, Sarah. And keep your eye out on Channel 9, LinkedIn and YouTube for the next episode. And remember, if you've got any thoughts or comments, drop us a line. The subjects you want to talk about, let us know. We'll make sure that we get the right person from the amazing, you know, resources out there. There's a series of this world to come and talk to us about any exciting subjects that you might want to know about server. Thanks a lot and have a great day.