Introduction

Windows Server 2016 may be the last true version of Windows Server. Really. Microsoft may still hit us with weird version names and numbers, but with the advent of Azure and the cloud, the virtual server, Nano Server, continuous updates, and self-healing technology, there may never be a need for you to consider “upgrading” again. You soon may only need to switch on new awaiting features or “drag” your software or solutions onto new servers in the cloud and think nothing more of it.

Remember the days when a new version of the operating system’s prerelease or release-to-manufacturing disk (RTM) arrived in your lab? Remember how you needed to commission huge arrays of hard disks, heavy server machines with gobs of memory, and special isolated LANs? Today, it’s a totally different story. You can simply log in to Azure or your own virtual server arrays and, with a few clicks, you have a server running in minutes. An hour later and the server is commissioned and serving thousands of users. Scale-up, out, down, and in, these days, just takes a click of a mouse button.

Those lonely, noisy days of installing and running the various versions of Windows NT, Windows 2000, and later, were for many, including me, still lingering in our minds in a form of post-traumatic stress disorder, something that only heavy regression under hypnosis could cure. For anyone who was a Windows Server administrator for more than five years, the server rooms were often our second homes.

Now the OS, while very much more advanced and complex, is now in many ways simpler to install and manage. It can be installed in a massive array of computing power, or it can come in the tiniest footprint known as Nano server. It can even masquerade as “no-name” server, as some form of X-technology that will run your UNIX and Linux services and applications unaffected.

The pages of this book are filled with a lifetime (actually several lifetimes) of experience with Windows Server, live production environments, best practices, and fully updated with RTM code specifics that will hopefully help you design, plan, prototype, implement, migrate, administer, and support your Windows Server 2016 environment. This book not only provides an introduction to Windows Server 2016, but also a general technology and administration overview, and highlights what is truly new in Windows Server 2016.

Part I: Windows Server 2016 Overview—Chapters 1 through 3 provide an introduction to Windows Server 2016. The chapters cover basic planning, prototype testing, and migration techniques, and provide a full chapter on the installation of Windows Server 2016, the GUI-less Windows Server Core, and the Tom Thumb of operating systems, Nano Server.

Part II: Windows Server 2016 Active Directory—Chapters 4 through 8 cover Active Directory planning and design. If you already have designed and implemented your Active Directory network, you likely might not read through this section of the book in detail. You should. At least you might want to look through the notes and tips throughout the chapters and the best practices at the end of each chapter because we highlight some of the tips and tricks new to Windows Server 2016 that differ from earlier versions of Windows. You might find that limitations or restrictions you faced when designing and implementing Active Directory in previous editions—topics such as federated forests, lightweight directory services, and identity lifecycle management capabilities—might be of interest.

Part III: Networking Services—Chapters 9 through 11 cover domain name system (DNS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), domain controllers, IPv6, IP Address Management (IPAM), and Internet Information Services (IIS) from the perspective of planning, integrating, migrating, and coexisting. Just as in Part II, you might find that the notes, tips, and best practices have valuable information on features that are new in Windows Server 2016; you might find yourself perusing these chapters to understand what’s new and different that you can leverage after a migration to Windows Server 2016.

Part IV: Security—Chapters 12 through 14 cover security. Here you find coverage of server-level security such as public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate services; transport-level security such as IP Security (IPsec) and Network Address Translation-Traversal (NAT-T); security policies; and more.

Part V: Migrating to Windows Server 2016—Chapters 15 and 16 discuss migrating a legacy LAN or directory-based environment to Active Directory and compatibility testing.

Part VI: Windows Server 2016 Administration and Management—Chapters 17 through 21 cover the day-to-day operations and administration of Windows Server 2016. Here chapters deal with the administration of migrations from earlier versions of Windows Server, administration and management of users, sites, organizational units, domains, and forests typical of a Windows Server 2016 environment.

Although you can continue to perform tasks the way you did in earlier versions of Windows, because of significant changes in replication, background transaction processing, secured communications, group policy management, and Windows PowerShell management tools, there are better ways to work with Windows Server 2016.

Part VII: Remote and Mobile Technologies—Chapters 22 and 23 drill down into specialty areas helpful to administrators of varying levels of responsibility, such as Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Remote Desktop Services (formerly Terminal Services) and DirectAccess.

Part VIII: Desktop Administration—Chapters 24 through 26 go in-depth on client-specific group policies, the Group Policy Management Console, Active Directory Administrative Center, Windows PowerShell-based group policies, Windows Deployment Services (WDS), and desktop administration tools in Windows Server 2016.

Part IX: Fault-Tolerance Technologies—Chapters 27 through 30 address file system management and file-level fault tolerance in Distributed File System (DFS), clustering, network load balancing, and backup and restore procedures. When these new technologies are implemented in a networking environment, an organization can truly achieve enterprise-level reliability and recoverability.

Part X: Optimizing, Tuning, Debugging, and Problem-Solving—Chapters 31 through 33 cover performance optimization, capacity analysis, logging, and debugging to help optimize and solve problems in a Windows Server 2016 networking environment.

Part XI: Integrated Windows Application Services—Chapters 34 through 36 cover core application services integrated in Windows Server 2016, including updates to Windows SharePoint Services, and deals with Hyper-V virtualization, Nano Server, and more, which are huge improvements in terms of high availability, redundancy, site replication, guest session management, and the like.

It is our hope that the real-world experience we have had working with Windows Server over many years and our commitment to relaying to you information that will be valuable in your planning, implementation, and migration to a Windows Server 2016 environment will help you get up-to-speed on the latest in the Windows Server operating system software.