Tag - Windows Server 2016

PSA RE: Hotfixes: A friendly reminder to keep up with the latest bits

Hey IT Pros. I know many of you are still maintaining (and even still deploying) older versions of Hyper-V, Remote Desktop Services and other Windows Server roles. These in particular, Hyper-V (and failover clustering) as well as Remote Desktop, are notorious for buggyness and issues that can easily be resolved with...
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Tutorial: How to Setup Azure Virtual Network with Windows Server Essentials and a Hardware VPN Appliance

Most tutorials on Azure Virtual Network and site-to-site VPN rely on Windows Server's RRAS role to create a quick and dirty VPN connection for demonstration purposes. But in a real world production environment, this is hardly ever the case; the better option by far for reliability and simplified routing is...
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How to perform an Unplanned Failover from Azure Site Recovery

In a previous series, I wrote about Azure Site Recovery, and the new integration tools available in Windows Server 2016, through the Essentials role (enabling some pretty cool new offerings, potentially, for service providers and consultants). ASR for Windows Server Essentials makes setting up Disaster Recovery into the Microsoft Azure...
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How to Encrypt your Hyper-V Guest VM’s using the GUI

Encrypting guest virtual machines is another layer of protection you can add in Hyper-V. Why would an admin want to do this? Because while encrypting the Hyper-V Host itself can protect against stolen physical disks, enabling BitLocker inside your virtual machines protects against stolen virtual disks as well (e.g. if an attacker were...
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How to Encrypt your Hyper-V Host Server using the GUI

Full disk encryption is becoming more important in the SMB.  I recommend this for every Windows 10 Pro PC, and also for your Windows Servers. Small businesses often have a single physical Hyper-V host server, maybe two. And these are usually located in a network closet or mechanical room, in...
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Bug with Essentials Integration for Azure Site Recovery

Awhile back, I had written a series on all the neat integrations available with Windows Server Essentials (or Essentials Experience, if installing it on top of Standard as a role).  You may have noticed that I never published an article regarding one of the most exciting features--integration with Azure Site...
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2016 Essentials Integration: Azure Virtual Network, part 2

In the previous post, we enabled the Windows Server Essentials integration with Azure Virtual Network, and configured a virtual network in the cloud with a Site-to-site VPN right from our Dashboard. While we wait for the connection to become active, we can deploy a virtual machine into that network. Step 5:...
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2016 Essentials Integration: Azure Virtual Network, part 1

This is one of the new features I am most excited about in Windows Server 2016 Essentials Experience.  Today we are going to setup a connection to an Azure Virtual Network. With this technology, we have the ability to extend our on-premises server and domain infrastructure into the Microsoft Azure cloud, and run...
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2016 Essentials Integration: Azure Backup

Customers of the late SBS line of products will be familiar with the Essentials Experience backup options for client PC's, and Windows Server Backup to external hard drive, but these days we have a new option with Microsoft Cloud Services integration: reliable offsite backups to the Azure cloud. From the Home screen of the Dashboard,...
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2016 Essentials Integration: Microsoft Intune

Today we're going to enable the Microsoft Intune integration service from the Essentials Dashboard and discuss what it means a little bit. Intune is another cloud offering by Microsoft. It's purpose is to enable more robust Mobile Device Management. You can obtain an Intune subscription separately, which is what this process is basically leading...
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