Windows Server 2019 Standard

Windows Server 2019 is the operating system that bridges on-premises environments with Azure services enabling hybrid scenarios maximizing existing investments. Increase security and reduce business risk with multiple layers of protection built into the operating system. Evolve your datacenter infrastructure to achieve greater efficiency and scale with Hyper-converged Infrastructure. Windows Server 2019 also enables you to create cloud-native and modernize traditional apps using containers and micro-services.

Windows Server 2019 is built on the strong foundation of Windows Server 2016 and brings numerous innovations on four key themes: Hybrid Cloud, Security, Application Platform, and Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI).

New Features:

General
Windows Admin Center
Windows Admin Center is a locally deployed, browser-based app for managing servers, clusters, hyper-converged infrastructure, and Windows 10 PCs. It comes at no additional cost beyond Windows and is ready to use in production.

You can install Windows Admin Center on Windows Server 2019 as well as Windows 10 and earlier versions of Windows and Windows Server, and use it to manage servers and clusters running Windows Server 2008 R2 and later.

Desktop experience
Because Windows Server 2019 is a Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release, it includes the Desktop Experience. (Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) releases don’t include the Desktop Experience by design; they are strictly Server Core and Nano Server container image releases.) As with Windows Server 2016, during the setup of the operating system, you can choose between Server Core installations or Server with Desktop Experience installations.

System Insights
System Insights is a new feature available in Windows Server 2019 that brings local predictive analytics capabilities natively to Windows Server. These predictive capabilities, each backed by a machine-learning model, locally analyze Windows Server system data, such as performance counters and events, providing insight into the functioning of your servers and helping you reduce the operational expenses associated with reactively managing issues in your Windows Server deployments.

Hybrid Cloud
Server Core App Compatibility Feature on Demand
The Server Core App Compatibility Feature on Demand (FOD) significantly improves the app compatibility of the Windows Server Core installation option by including a subset of binaries and components from Windows Server with the Desktop Experience, without adding the Windows Server Desktop Experience graphical environment itself. This is done to increase the functionality and compatibility of Server Core while keeping it as lean as possible.

This optional feature on demand is available on a separate ISO and can be added to Windows Server Core installations and images only, using DISM.

Security
Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
ATP’s deep platform sensors and response actions expose memory and kernel level attacks and respond by suppressing malicious files and terminating malicious processes.

For more information about Windows Defender ATP, see Overview of Windows Defender ATP capabilities.
For more information on onboarding servers, see Onboard servers to Windows Defender ATP service.

Windows Defender ATP Exploit Guard is a new set of host-intrusion prevention capabilities. The four components of Windows Defender Exploit Guard are designed to lock down the device against a wide variety of attack vectors and block behaviors commonly used in malware attacks while enabling you to balance security risk and productivity requirements.

Attack Surface Reduction(ASR) is set of controls that enterprises can enable to prevent malware from getting on the machine by blocking suspicious malicious files (for example, Office files), scripts, lateral movement, ransomware behavior, and email-based threats.
Network protection protects the endpoint against web-based threats by blocking any outbound process on the device to untrusted hosts/IP addresses through Windows Defender SmartScreen.
Controlled folder access protects sensitive data from ransomware by blocking untrusted processes from accessing your protected folders.
Exploit protection is a set of mitigations for vulnerability exploits (replacing EMET)that can be easily configured to protect your system and applications.
Windows Defender Application Control (also known as Code Integrity (CI) policy) was released in Windows Server 2016. Customer feedback has suggested that it is a great concept, but hard to deploy. To address this, we have built default CI policies, which allow all Windows in-box files and Microsoft applications, such as SQL Server, and block known executables that can bypass CI.

Security with Software Defined Networking (SDN)
Security with SDN delivers many features to increase customer confidence in running workloads, either on-premises or as a service provider in the cloud.

These security enhancements are integrated into the comprehensive SDN platform introduced in Windows Server 2016.

HTTP/2 for a faster and safer Web
Improved coalescing of connections to deliver an uninterrupted and properly encrypted browsing experience.

Upgraded HTTP/2’s server-side cipher suite negotiation for automatic mitigation of connection failures and ease of deployment.

Changed our default TCP congestion provider to Cubic to give you more throughput!

Storage

Storage Migration Service
Storage Migration Service is a new technology that makes it easier to migrate servers to a newer version of Windows Server. It provides a graphical tool that inventories data on servers, transfer the data and configuration to newer servers, and then optionally moves the identities of the old servers to the new servers so that apps and users don’t have to change anything.

Storage Spaces Direct
Here’s a list of what’s new in Storage Spaces Direct. For details, see What’s new in Storage Spaces Direct. Also, see Azure Stack HCI for info on acquiring validated Storage Spaces Direct systems.

Deduplication and compression for ReFS volumes
Native support for persistent memory
Nested resiliency for two-node hyper-converged infrastructure at the edge
Two-server clusters using a USB flash drive as a witness
Windows Admin Center support
Performance History
Scale up to 4 PB per cluster
Mirror-accelerated parity is 2X faster
Drive latency outlier detection
Manually delimit the allocation of volumes to increase fault tolerance

Storage Replica

Here’s what’s new in Storage Replica. For details, see What’s new in Storage Replica.

Storage Replica is now available in Windows Server 2019 Standard Edition.
Test failover is a new feature that allows mounting of destination storage to validate
replication or backup data. For more information, see Frequently Asked Questions about
Storage Replica.
Storage Replica log performance improvements
Windows Admin Center support

ETC

System requirement:

Processor
Minimum:
1.4 GHz 64-bit processor
Compatible with x64 instruction set
Supports NX and DEP
Supports CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW
Supports Second Level Address Translation (EPT or NPT)

RAM
Minimum:
512 MB (2 GB for Server with Desktop Experience installation option)
ECC (Error Correcting Code) type or similar technology, for physical host deployments

Storage controller and disk space:
Minimum: 32 GB