Microsoft Touts SDN in Windows Server 2019

As if to back up its contention that software-defined networking has gone "mainstream," Microsoft is continuing to tout the SDN capabilities in its upcoming Windows Server 2019 OS. The company has been all over the game-changing networking technology in a series of blog posts detailing "The Top 10 Networking Features in Windows Server 2019," with one post for each feature. Last month, its No. 7 feature post proclaimed "SDN Goes Mainstream." If so, it's been about an eight-year onramp. A Wikipedia post claims actual deployments of the disruptive technology -- beyond academic projects -- started around 2010. As it has grown from its early roots in academic exercises to proof-of-concept testing labs to adoption by Web-scale giants, carriers, service providers and telecom operators, SDN has increasingly infiltrated the enterprise, and Microsoft is furthering that migration in its flagship server OS. "If you've ever deployed Software Defined Networking (SDN), you know it provides great power but is historically difficult to deploy," Microsoft's post said. "Now, with Windows Server 2019, it's easy to deploy and manage through a new deployment UI and Windows Admin Center extension that will enable anyone to harness the power of SDN." Since then, the company has continued to feature SDN front and center in its Windows Server 2019 series, with follow-up posts titled "High Performance SDN Gateways" and, just last week, "Security with SDN." "Windows Server 2019 SDN delivers many features to increase customer confidence in running workloads either on-premises or as a service provider in the cloud," last week's postsaid. "These security enhancements are integrated into the comprehensive SDN platform that our customers have already been using since Windows Server 2016." Security features detailed by Microsoft include encrypted subnets, firewall logging, fabric ACLs, virtual network peering, IPv6 support and more.