Windows Server 2019

glenimp617 · 18 Jan 2019 at 14:53

We've only just finished moving all our servers to 2016, but wondered if anyone has put 2019 into production yet?

Installed it on a test server so we can get a feel for it.

I'd love to hear from anyone running it as a clustered node.

Thanks!!

glenimp617 · 18 Jan 2019 at 16:24

TechMinerUK said:
Not in production yet but also running a test at home and so for there is no way I would let it anywhere near a production environment. I don't have a cluster but I do have an NPS server which on the latest version appears to be break when the firewall is enabled as the MS default rules don't work.

However running it has a Hyper-V host I've yet to come across any major issues (Even Veeam seems to work with it without any problems)

I admit I am reluctant, and will wait a good few months after solid testing. It's based on the 1809 update for a start, which as we all know was/is a disaster.

glenimp617 · 19 Jan 2019 at 18:29

paradigm said:
I was looking at rolling out a production cluster using S2D on 2019, only to find that during testing the feature isn't actually available out of the box and will be coming with a future release.

Back to 2016 for me for the time being then! On the plus side I did manage to successfully use the update route from 2016 to 2019 during this test, so that's nice at least.

What do you use storage spaces for? I know Microsoft will tell you it, and hyperconvergence is the end of traditional sans but I can't see it myself.

glenimp617 · 20 Jan 2019 at 08:38

paradigm said:
It’s going to be a prod/live trial (non critical systems) for Hyper-V, I’m also not sold on replacing “traditional” storage but the powers that be have a bee in their bonnet about trialling it in a live environment, so that’s where we are.

No worries, I kinda understand the concept but I still prefer handing over the storage stuff to a proper san. Would you really trust windows with managing your data? I myself had a nightmare with refs on clustered volumes, it was a total nightmare. Had to go through the pain of moving them back to ntfs. Performance just dropped through the floor.

My compellent is getting 2:1 dedupe, snapshots, tiering, great iops....not sure I'd ever want to get rid of it.

Will you use windows core edition?

glenimp617 · 30 Jan 2019 at 08:08

We haven't had any issues with updates on either windows 10 nor server 2016? We are using the latest SCCM though which may be why?

In fact, one of the reasons for moving to 2016 was the better (more accurate) patch level reporting from SCCM. In 2012, reporting on the overall health of the network was a nightmare. It would mark a server down as being non compliant due to not containing an update, yet that update was not applicable to the server lol

In 2016 it's nigh on perfect, and haven't had any issues with getting them installed either. Yes, sometimes they take a while but we have maintenance plans in place which do all this during the night.

glenimp617 · 1 Feb 2019 at 16:01

Lanz said:
Hmm i believe SCCM still sends the same update packs as WSUS, it still sometimes takes forever to update. Some people don't care or even know that their servers goes offline for 40 mins for a simple monthly rollup. Are you saying all your 2016 servers come back in about 5 mins like a 2012R2 server does?

No, not five minutes lol they do take a while....but they always work and report back properly. Good to hear 2019 is quicker although I do get the inpression where going round in circles with Microsoft somewhat.
2008 slow, 2012 fast, 2016 slow, 2019 fast.

Most of our servers are clusterered so losing a single node for a while isn't really much of an issue.

glenimp617 · 5 Mar 2019 at 14:05

Just migrated our AppV platform over to server 2019. Let's see how it performs.

I might move one of our HV nodes to it just for a laugh.

glenimp617 · 25 Apr 2019 at 08:01

We'll in addition to our five appv servers, I have now moved one of our RDS SH blades and four HV nodes to 2019. So far so good.

There was a quirk where I couldnt see if secure boot was on or off in the VMs, but I think this is a console version issue than anything more sinister.

glenimp617 · 17 May 2019 at 07:55

TechMinerUK said:
Is anyone else seeing the issue where when they log on to Server 2019 VMs hosted on 2019 hosts they always get the "Unexpected Shutdown" box. I've found since a couple of months ago this always pops up even when the host or the VM haven't rebooted

No, I've just finished upgrading all my hosts (14) and think 2019 is a huge step up. It really feels like 2016 R2 in a good way.
Resolved no end of issues we had before. MPCLAIM command used to crash when configuring a compellent SAN, .net MMC shutdowns, bluescreens, IO timeout events in cluster logs.

Running 2019 for a few weeks with no issues at all.

In fact, we've liked it so much we've made a start on upgrading our RDS and domain controllers.

AppV was done weeks and weeks ago, it's been solid.

What version are your VMs? ours are at 8.0, even though I upgraded the cluster I don't have an option to go to 9?