New to Windows Server 2012 - Part 2: Storage Systems

I present to you the translation of the second part of the article by Michael Pietroforte on innovations in Windows Server 2012. Michael is an MVP with 28 years of system administration experience.
The original can be read here: New in Windows Server 2012 - Part 2: Storage

Storage management has undergone significant changes for the better in Windows Server 2012. SMB 3.0 deserves the most attention, which shows us a new level of use of shared resources.


')

SMB 3.0

The Server Message Block protocol used to share files on local area networks has been completely redesigned, here’s a short list of what's available to you: SMB for Server Applications (for example, SQL Server running in Hyper-V can store data on network shares ), SMB Scale-Out (manage load on the local network in cluster solutions), SMB Direct (data exchange between servers, with direct access to memory), SMB Multichannel (with support for multiple network interfaces), SMB Transparent Failover (switch between cluster nodes remain invisible for applications are accessing shared resources), VSS for shared resources SMB (SMB now supports Windows Volume Shadow Copy), SMB encryption and SMB Directory Leasing (reducing latency across the WAN).

SMB 2.2 is now SMB 3.0
Windows Server “8” - Taking Your File Server
Storage and Continuous Availability Enhancements in Windows Server 8

Microsoft Online Backup

Microsoft's cloud backup solution is still in beta and available only in Windows Server 2012. We cannot yet be sure whether other versions of Windows Server will support RTM. Microsoft Online Backup can back up files only. Applications such as, for example, Exchange or SharePoint are not supported.

Microsoft Online Backup

Windows Server 2012 - Microsoft Online Backup

Storages Spaces / Storage Pools

I already described Data Storage Spaces in my article on Windows 8 innovations : Data Storage Spaces allow you to combine multiple disks into a single storage pool. This technology is comparable to RAID, but is more flexible and customizable. The coolest feature of it is probably that the disks can be of different sizes and use different interfaces, such as USB, SATA, and SAS (Serial Attached SCSI). Storage pools support thin provisioning (physically free space is used only when needed) and resiliency (mirroring for fault tolerance).

Virtualizing storage for scale, resiliency, and efficiency

Windows Server 2012 - Storage Spaces - Storage Pools

Resilient File System (ReFS)

Tim Warner wrote on his new 4sysops blog about Microsoft's ReFS file system. ReFS improves reliability and scalability and is backward compatible with NTFS.

Resilient File System (ReFS) in Windows Server 2012
Building the next generation file system for Windows: ReFS

Windows Server 2012 - Resilient File System (ReFS)

Branchcache

BranchCache ships to Windows Server 2012 with a relatively small number of improvements, most of which are related to scalability. The main ones are the ability to deploy BranchCache on multiple servers and the use of the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE). Management tools have also been improved. Here it is worth noting that you can automatically configure clients and have the ability to force a remote office to cache the content.

What's New in BranchCache
Highlighting BranchCache Hosted Cache Mode in Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012 BranchCache Early Adopters Guide

Windows Server 2012 - BranchCache

Storage Management API (SMAPI)

Storage Management API (SMAPI) is a new WMI-based API for managing directly attached storage devices and external disk arrays. SMAPI supports SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative –Specification) and SMP (Storage Management Provider). The Management Service feature in Windows Server 2012 allows you to discover and manage SMI-S devices without installing additional software.

Windows Server 8: Standards-Based Storage Management

File Server Resource Manager

Resource Manager now supports the new Dynamic Access Control (which I will discuss in more detail in one of my next posts). Users can now manually set the level of access to files without the need to enter automatic rules for this, you can also customize the text of the "access error" message that appears when you try to open a file or directory to which the user does not have rights from the workstation installed Windows 8.

What's New in File Server Resource Manager

Windows Server 2012 - File Server Resource Manager

Please let me know if I have missed any Windows Server 2012 innovations related to storage systems. In the next part, I will talk about security updates in Windows Server 2012.

You can read the translation of the first part of the article here: New in Windows Server 2012 - Part 1: Server Management