What’s New in Windows Server 2012 R2 Lessons Learned Week 3


More great stories from Microsoft Technology Evangelists…

 

  1. Backup Windows Server 2012 R2 to Windows Azure #WhyWin2012R2 – If you have a small number of servers to protect and you currently have no backup solution, you are using the in box Windows Server backup tool on these servers, or use a third party backup solution, Windows Azure Back may be a viable option for you. If you have a larger infrastructure and already using System Center 2012 and using DPM for protection and you want to keep replicas offsite, Windows Azure backup is a brilliant solution. In this post we will look at both of these scenarios and give you the information you need to get started, including a Step-by-Step on how to deploy, configure and manage Windows Azure Backup on Windows Server 2012 R2.
  2. Why R2? Automated Server Self-Provisioning and Remediation with Desired State Configuration (DSC) in PowerShell 4.0 –  IT Pros spend tons of effort on provisioning new server workloads and then monitoring those servers to make sure their configuration doesn’t “drift” away from the implemented configuration over time. Wouldn’t it be great if new servers could self-provision themselves and then automatically self-remediate themselves if they fall out of configuration compliance?

    Good news! That’s EXACTLY what Desired State Configuration (DSC) in PowerShell 4.0 is all about. In this article, I’ll provide a brief description of Desired State Configuration and then we’ll step through a scenario where we’ll implement DSC together.

  3. What’s New in Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials – In Windows Server 2012 we introduced a new version called Windows Server 2012 Essentials edition.  The Essentials server is very flexible and easy-to-use.  This was a server solution that was primarily designed and priced for small businesses with up to 25 users and 50 devices.  This provided a great first server for many customers, as well as it can be used as the primary server in a multi-server environment for small businesses.

    With the new Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Server we really added many features to make this an even more rounded server.  The Essential server also provides a ton of flexibly for deployment and functionality.  We even included the popular client computer backup from Windows Home server.  The Windows Server Essentials Experience role is available in Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard and Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter. With Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials we have added a lot of new functionality… Read More