Windows Server 2016 is a server operating system developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems, developed concurrently with Windows 10. The first early preview version (Technical Preview) became available on 1 October 2014 together with the first technical preview of System Center. Windows Server 2016 was released on 26 September 2016 at Microsoft's Ignite conference and became generally available on 12 October 2016. It has two successors: Windows Server 2019, and the Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel, which excludes the graphical user interface and many older components. Windows Server 2016 has a variety of new features, including ♦ Active Directory Federation Services: It is possible to configure AD FS to authenticate users stored in non-AD directories, such as X.500 compliant Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directories and SQL databases. ♦ Windows Defender: Windows Server Antimalware is installed and enabled by default without the GUI, which is an installable Windows feature. Remote Desktop Services: Support for OpenGL 4.4 and OpenCL 1.1, performance and stability improvements; MultiPoint Services role (see Windows MultiPoint Server) ♦ Storage Services: Central Storage QoS Policies; Storage Replicas (storage-agnostic, block-level, volume-based, synchronous and asynchronous replication using SMB3 between servers for disaster recovery). Storage Replica replicates blocks instead of files; files can be in use. It's not multi-master, not one-to-many and not transitive. It periodically replicates snapshots, and the replication direction can be changed. ♦ Failover Clustering: Cluster operating system rolling upgrade, Storage Replicas ♦ Web Application Proxy: Preauthentication for HTTP Basic application publishing, wildcard domain publishing of applications, HTTP to HTTPS redirection, Propagation of client IP address to backend applications ♦ IIS 10: Support for HTTP/2 ♦ Windows PowerShell 5.1 ♦ Windows Server Containers.
