Windows Server 2016 installation, configuration, storage systems

The course will introduce participants to the architecture, features, installation, configuration and deployment of Windows Server 2016 in an enterprise environment. The course will cover in detail the overview and implementation of different storage and high availability and Hyper-V based virtualization solutions.

The course is designed for IT professionals who will be responsible for the installation and implementation of Windows Server 2016 based infrastructure in their company.

• Windows Server 2016 deployment and upgrade: Windows Server 2016 overview, architecture, key features and what's new; Nano Server and Server Core features and deployment; preparing for upgrade and migration; migrating server roles, activating Windows Server 2016, installing and configuring Nano Server.
• Configuring local storage: disk management under Windows Server 2016; managing volumes; creating and managing virtual disks using Windows Powershell; converting virtual disks; resizing volumes.
• Implementing enterprise storage solutions: overview of storage technologies (DAS, NAS, SAN, Fibre Channel, iSCSI, FcOE, ISNS, data center bridging, MPIO); storage requirements analysis and design; configuring iSCSI storage; configuring and managing network file sharing (NFS).
• Implementing Storage Spaces and data deduplication: basic concepts, implementing and managing Storage Spaces; implementing data deduplication.
• Using Hyper-V: overview; installing Hyper-V; configuring storage on Hyper-V host servers; configuring networking on Hyper-V host servers; configuring and managing virtual machines; using Powershell Direct to manage virtual machines.
• Windows Server and Hyper-V containers deployment and management: overview, basic concepts; Windows Server and Hyper-V containers deployment, installation, configuration and management.
• Implementing High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR): basic concepts, availability levels; designing HA and DR solutions with Hyper-V virtual machines; Hyper-V Replica implementation; implementing storage migration; Windows Server 2016 system backup and restore using Windows Server Backup.
• Implementing and managing failover systems using Failover Cluster: design guidelines; building and configuring a new failover cluster; failover cluster maintenance and troubleshooting (performance monitoring, event log management, using Windows PowerShell diagnostic commands); using stretch clustering to build a site HA solution.
• Implementing and managing failover cluster in Hyper-V environment: overview, operation, implementing and managing virtual machines under failover cluster, Network Health Protection concept and configuration.
• Network Load Balancing (NLB) implementation: overview of NLB clusters; NLB cluster configuration and testing; NLB implementation design.
• Creating and managing deployment images: overview, basic concepts; using the Microsoft Deployment Kit to create and manage Windows Server 2016 deployment images; designing and building a server virtualization environment.
• Monitoring and maintenance: overview and operation of WSUS; managing upgrade processes using WSUS; overview and use of Powershell Desired State Configuration (DSC); overview of Windows Server 2016 monitoring tools; use of Performance Monitor to analyse performance issues; use of event logs, analysis of log files; common errors and how to troubleshoot them.

Windows 8 or higher, networking skills and experience. Previous basic server operations knowledge, knowledge of server technologies an advantage. As the course materials are in English, a basic level of English at document reading level is required. The lecture will be held in Hungarian.