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Introduction
8 Dell EMC SC Series: Microsoft Windows Server Best Practices | 680-042-007
Note: Nano Server was originally released as an additional installation option (in addition to Core and With
Desktop) for Windows Server 2016. Microsoft support for Nano Server as a physical host or virtual machine
(VM) OS was discontinued about a year after its initial release by Microsoft. As of the 1709 (September 2017)
semi-annual channel release of Windows Server, Nano Server is supported by Microsoft as a container OS
only.
Generally, when a Windows Server OS approaches end of life (end of support), hardware vendors including
Dell EMC will also discontinue support for the OS with new product releases. Reasons include the following:
• Testing and certification resources are limited.
• It is much more difficult to obtain hardware specific patches and bug fixes from Microsoft as a
Windows Server OS enters extended support phase and approaches end of life.
• It encourages customers to modernize.
1.4 Advantages of using SC Series storage with Windows Server
While Microsoft has continued to make improvements to Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), Storage Replica, and
hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) offerings, the rich feature set and management tools offered with a
mature SAN or DAS product such as SC Series storage makes it a compelling choice when architecting the
storage component of any Windows Server solution. Microsoft often showcases the IOPS performance of an
optimally-configured S2D or HCI configuration. However, raw IOPS potential is only part of the equation when
architecting a solution, just as raw horsepower is only part of the equation when deciding what sportscar to
purchase.
SAN and DAS features and management tools including intelligent snapshots, managed replication,
monitoring, alerting, and DR can be equally or even more important to server and storage administrators than
raw IOPS potential. While native S2D or HCI Microsoft solutions may offer similar basic features as a SAN or
DAS solution, the rich set of SC features and management tools listed in section 1.1 presents administrators
with a much more powerful and complete solution for managing, monitoring, reporting, replicating, and
protecting their storage investment and data.
1.5 Best practices overview
Best practices are typically based on and developed from the collective wisdom and experience of many
users over time, and this learning is built into the design of next-generation products. With mature
technologies such as Windows Server and SC Series storage arrays, best practices are already factored in to
the default configurations, settings, and recommendations.
Because default settings typically incorporate best practices, tuning is often unnecessary (and discouraged)
unless a specific design, situation, or workload is known to benefit from a different configuration. One of the
purposes of this best-practices documents is to call attention to situations where using a default setting or
configuration may not be optimal.
Some common goals of best practices include:
• Minimize complexity and administrative overhead
• Optimize the performance of a workload
• Maximize security
• Ensure resiliency and recoverability
• Maximize return on investment over the life of the hardware