Windows Server 2022 Preview

If you’ve chosen the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) track of Windows Server, then you may be aware of the new Windows Server 2022 preview that was announced by Microsoft this past March. The newest LTSC update is slated for wide release later this year.

Newest Features

The highly anticipated public preview was recently showcased at Microsoft Ignite. During a 29-minute presentation, Bernardo Caldas, Microsoft’s Vice-President of Program Management, highlighted its newest features (e.g., security updates and Azure integration as it relates to security monitoring and management).

Enhanced Security

With multi-layer security across firmware, hardware, and operating systems via Windows Defender System Guard, Windows Server 2022 secured-core server is better prepared to prevent firmware attacks. This virtualization-based security (VBS) system allows you to view, identify and access security features from any web interface, plus it features Windows Defender Credential Guard and Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI).

Your network will also be more secure with Windows Server 2022.

System Guard can be accessed from an iPad, laptop, or mobile phone; so, with one click, you can manage any attack! Use its analytics to easily locate incident logs. A new alert identifies and flags incidents in Azure Sentinel, allowing both detection and prevention on the server.

Secured-core servers will be available from Lenovo, HP Enterprise, and Dell EMC later this year. “TLS 1.3 is enabled by default,” said Mr. Caldas during his presentation at Microsoft Ignite. “You can secure your apps with DNS client support for HTTPS and SMB protocol hardening, such as AES 256 Encryption.”

Improved Flexibility & Support

Windows Server 2022 is updated to further support large-scale operations like SQL (which requires 48TB memory and 2,048 logical cores running on 64 physical sockets). Its roadmap also includes improvements to Windows containers, which includes Nano Server updates and support lifecycle changes, virtualized time zones, scalability improvements, Direct Server Return (DSR) routing, and generalized size improvements (reducing Windows container image sizing for better performance). In addition, the Windows container experience in Kubernetes has been improved via consistent network policy implementation with Calico, and node configure support for host-process containers and IPv6.

Azure Hybrid Capabilities

Cloud-based agility and using virtual machines (VMs) to streamline and govern server management are developing trends within Windows Server 2022. Furthermore, two hybrid capabilities, Storage Migration Service and Azure Arc, work best within these multi-cloud environments.