(RDS) Tip of the Day: Use Windows Server 2016 and software-defined networking to build a better network

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Today’s Tip…

Windows Server Program Manager Greg Cusanza joins Matt McSpirit to demonstrate the software-defined networking (SDN) capabilities in Windows Server 2016. Watch as Greg explains those capabilities and shows you how to use SDN to dynamically create, secure, and connect your network to meet the evolving needs of your apps, speed up the deployment of your workloads, and contain security vulnerabilities from spreading across your network, all while reducing your overall infrastructure costs.

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When you use Windows Server 2016 and SDN, you gain access to a level of agility that allows you to extend the capabilities of your existing physical network. The SDN sits on top of your physical network infrastructure and virtualizes the network and its services so that the management experiences are simpler and networks become application-specific. Apps can evolve as quickly, or become as complex, as developers want them to, because the SDN can isolate resources and eliminate shared dependencies. This connectivity flexibility doesn’t skimp on security either. Beyond isolating networks from one another, and beyond what you can do with VLANs or vSwitches, you can use policy statements to control communication channels within a network using micro-segmentation practices.

Greg pulls this all together with an example to make it concrete: he uses a two-tiered web app and an accompanying PowerShell helper script. The demonstration shows the ease with which an administrator can scale out the app tiers, add network services, and use the network controller to automate all the changes. The demonstration expands to show how the built-in services can be extended by adding third-party network services such as firewalls or WAN optimization appliances; any virtual appliance that works with Hyper-V can be integrated into the environment.

After you watch the video above, explore more resources on SDN and try the virtual lab for SDN.

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