Microsoft is just running their annual Developer Conference call Build with some interesting news for developers on Azure, Database Servers, Visual Studio, PowerShell, .NET and much more. But Microsoft also had some interesting things to share about the future of Windows Server. In a blog post, Erin Chapple, General Manager Windows Server, shared some information what Microsoft is doing in the Windows server space and about the next first feature release which will be aligned with the Windows 10 Client Operating System and will be released this Fall.
Windows Server is joining the Windows Insider program – Microsoft will start releasing regular Windows Server Insider builds including container images, which will be available to all Windows Insiders.
Container-optimized Nano Server – The Windows Server team has closely partnered with he .NET Team to bring the .NET Core 2.0 work to Windows Containers with an optimized container image based on Nano Server. This will reduce the footprint of the .NET container image by 50 percent, which will also reduce startup time as well as density improvements.
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on Windows Server – At DockerCon Keynote we demonstrated a Linux container running natively on Windows Server. To enable this, the Windows Server team worked to bring the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), also know as bash on Windows 10, to Windows Server. Together with Hyper-V isolation technology, the WSL will allow users to run Linux Containers on a Windows Server Container Host. The great thing here, there is also a choice on the Linux kernel, which will allow you to run different Linux distributions as containers.
Container Orchestration – Microsoft works with different container orchestration technologies, such as Docker swarm and Kubernetes to bring support for Windows Server Containers.
Container Storage – In Windows Containers you could use locally mounted volumes to store persistent data. As another investment in Containers, Microsoft is adding the ability to map SMB file-based storage directly into a container.
Starting this summer, Microsoft will begin to post early builds of the new Windows Server features, including container-optimized Nano Server images to the Docker Hub, support for Linux containers, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), better orchestration support and SMB storage for containers in the Windows Insider program.
Tags: Container, Hyper-V, Hyper-V Cointainer, Linux Container, Linux Subsystem, Microsoft, Nano Server, Windows Container, Windows Server, Windows Server 2016 Last modified: November 1, 2018Aligned with the next release of Windows 10, these new features will be delivered as part of our first feature release this Fall. It will be available to customers with Software Assurance who commit to a more frequent release model. For customers who prefer the long-term servicing branch (LTSB) these features will be part of the next major release of Windows Server.
