Windows Server 2019 Will Feature Linux and Kubernetes Support (venturebeat.com)

Microsoft announced this week that it will launch the next major release of Windows Server later this year with better support for hybrid workloads, Linux workloads, and hyper-converged infrastructure. From a report: This release will succeed Windows Server 2016, which was made generally available in October 2016. While Microsoft moved to twice-yearly updates for Windows Server starting last year, the company bundles those changes into a long-term servicing channel once every two or three years for administrators who prefer less frequent releases. Those companies that haven't moved over to the semi-annual channel will get their first taste of Windows Server's Linux and Kubernetes support, which are currently in beta.

Comments

Re:In before...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is Embracing, Extending, and Extinguishing Windows!

Re:That's cool

[bobstreo]

If you are going with Windows Server, chances are you need Windows Server as the primary OS, because it is primary running a Windows Service (Say SQL Server for Application compatibility). But there are some things you may need Linux for and would prefer the Linux port over the windows port, say some sort of LAMP stack... Just as a secondary low resource web front end. So why bother setting up two computers when one will be good enough.

If only there was some way to run multiple operating systems on the same hardware. /s

I don't get it.

[AlanObject]

What the hell would I want this for?

All my Windows servers -- going back to still-running Windows/NT -- are hosted in a Linux-based hypervisor running as VMs. The older ones used to live on bare-metal and moved to a VM and the new ones have been VMs from the start.

So if I wanted something that Linux provides that Windows does not why wouldn't I just instantiate another Linux VM? All my LAMP, Glassfish, Wikis, mail servers, etc etc are VMs hosted on Ubuntu LTS.

(These days I never put a publicly routable IP address on a hypervisor environment.)

I just don't get why what Microsoft is doing would be useful, other than it sounds awesome to people who don't know what they are doing.

Re:I don't get it.

[Deathlizard]

I would assume it's more for Hyper-V environments where you're already running Windows Server as the host.

Re:I don't get it.

[llamalad]

Embrace, extend, extinguish.

Extinguish might be hard, but they've almost certainly got actual teams of smart people whose only job is to figure that out.

At the very least they'll be able to sow discord and fragment communities.

Re:I don't get it.

[chispito]

What the hell would I want this for?

You wouldn't. Others will.

Please stop!

[M0j0_j0j0]

Having just recently installed a windows server for the first time for many years due to some crap software requiring MS SQL, I could never imagine how bad it is, the process management, the resource hogging, man why!!! Why!!!

Re:Please stop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Having just recently installed a windows server for the first time for many years due to some crap software requiring MS SQL, I could never imagine how bad it is, the process management, the resource hogging, man why!!! Why!!!

SQL Server is available for Linux. You don't have to use windows just for that.

Windows server supporting Linux ...

[Murdoch5]

Why not just run Linux, the better OS, in the first place and when absolutely required (although rarely needed), run Windows Server in a VM?

Re:Windows server supporting Linux ...

[williamyf]

Why not just run Linux, the better OS, in the first place and when absolutely required (although rarely needed), run Windows Server in a VM?

Cloud computing for telco (OpenStack) technical trainer here:

A few reasosn why this makes sense:

Running Linux on top of Windows/Server Hyper-V

There are shops which are "Mostly windows" for historical reasons. For them is cheaper to run windows through and thorough, and only when "absolutely required, but rarely needed" run linux in a VM. The alternative is to retrain the workforce, and that has costs measures in $, time and resistance to change.

If your organization has the proper licensing scheme, Hyper-V is free (as in beer), while the "Certified Kosher/Halal Linux" virtualization solutions (Xen and KVM) cost a pretty penny, and the market leader solution (VMWare) cost more Still. So, even if your company is a Mostly linux shop, if you have the propper licensing, it may be less expensive to use Hyper-V, than the linux solutions available.

In some environments (in particular, regulated environments), linux is costly (windows is costly too, of course), because you can only use the "Propper Linuxes", RedHat, Suse, and to a lesser extent Ubuntu and Debian. Other things will lack support from the hardware maker propper certification (think PCI, not the bus/slot, the certification). So, is not like you can go and use a linux OS/virtualization solution based on a Gentoo roll your own distro + Bochs + QEMU. So, the cost advantage of linux becomes less of a draw.

In particular, if you want (or worse, are forced by internal/external regulation to) have support, red hat forces you to buy support for every single instance of redhat running in your environment, and not for select instances only...

Running Linux apps inside Windows:

In windows heavy shops, for administrators that come from an unix background, or can not grasp the power of Powershell, this is a boon.

If an app you want to run (in the broad sense, from a propper ELF executable, to a measly shell script) is only available in windows, cool, you can go for it without firing a Linux VM

Running Dockers containers in Windows:

As docker gains traction, more apps will be developed as a set of containers. Microsot would rather you run those apps on their OS, especially for customers who are Windows Heavy, than cede the market, or try to develop their own.

Hybrid Cloud:
If you want to make Hybrid Cloud, whith seamless movement of workloads from private to public and back, the pecking order is Azure, then Openstack, and VMware a distant third.

These are a few of the reasons why this makes sense, I am certain many in Slashdot can think of others.

Re:That's cool

[Tailhook]

What you want is to run your Windows Server on a VM and use that to emulate Linux and then launch containers inside the emulated Linux. Naturally, inside the containers you run your software inside virtual machine models such as the JVM. If you don't have at least four layers of 'virtual' between you and your hardware you're not trying hard enough.

Re:windows vs linux servers

[Anonymous Coward]

If M$ does it, it must be bad! Therefore, no one should use Linux servers.

Re: That's cool

[kenh]

Solaris zones? Kids! IBM mainframes has an os called VM in the late 70s - guess what VM stood for?

Re:windows vs linux servers

[BronsCon]

Oh, let me think...

A) Applications do exist that require performance you can only get from bare metal

B) Fields do exist that require that you don't put certain data in the hands of a 3rd party (think medical and legal, just for starters)

C) It's not uncommon for a business to wish to continue operations when their internet connection is down.

D) As your container host provider, I can see all of your dirty little secrets. That new service you're trying to bring to market with a team of 5? The one that's 50% done? The one you've handed me all of the current source code to? I've got a team of 50 working on getting it to market a year ahead of you and a big enough war chest to bankrupt you if you sue. Aren't you glad you used containers?

Need I continue?

Re: In before...

[Brockmire]

That's a valid exit strategy for Microsoft if they decided the OS business wasn't profitable in the future.