{"id":7830,"date":"2017-03-23T07:13:57","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T07:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.accuwebhosting.com\/blog\/?p=7830"},"modified":"2025-01-24T13:49:01","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T13:49:01","slug":"why-you-should-upgrade-your-server-to-window-server-2016-os","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.accuwebhosting.com\/blog\/why-you-should-upgrade-your-server-to-window-server-2016-os\/","title":{"rendered":"Why You Should Upgrade Your VPS To Window Server 2016 OS?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Why<\/a><\/p>

The latest server OS from Microsoft, Windows Server 2016<\/a>, was released on September 26th, 2016. It has introduced lots of new and prominent features over its predecessor, Windows Server 2012.<\/p>

Our server research team has been hearing about this latest server OS and its new features for months. So they went ahead and tried out functional upgrades that were included. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the features of Windows Server 2016. <\/span>We are sure you will be convinced to upgrade your existing server OS to Windows Server 2016.<\/p>

Internet Information Services 10.0<\/h2>

IIS 10.0 is the latest version of web server shipped with Windows Server 2016 OS. It comes with plenty of new features that will make your site a lot faster. We’ll discuss them one by one in this section.<\/p>

\"Windows<\/a><\/span><\/p>

1. HTTP\/2 Protocol Support<\/h3>

HTTP\/2 is the major upgrade of the HTTP protocol in the last decade. Thanks to its efficient connection reusability, it can significantly improve the page load time. Let’s have a look at some of the outstanding features of HTTP\/2 protocol.<\/p>

One Connection For Multiple Requests<\/strong><\/p>

HTTP\/2 reduces the need for a request to wait while a new connection is established, or wait for an existing connection to become idle. This ensures faster access to site resources, which results in fast web page loads.<\/p>

Header Compression With HPACK<\/strong><\/p>

An older version of HTTP supports data compression, but headers are sent as uncompressed text with a lot of redundancy between requests. This makes a browser have to send smaller requests on the first packet which includes headers.<\/p>

HTTP\/2 introduces HPACK compression scheme for HTTP headers, which reduces the redundancy between requests, so the first connection becomes much faster.<\/p>

Server Push<\/strong><\/p>

HTTP\/2 has introduced the concept of PUSH<\/strong> i.e., the server will respond to requests the client hasn’t made yet, by assuming the client will request it soon. For instance, if you browse some part of the web page having 20 requests, but the full page contains more than 100 requests, PUSH will store all 100 assets in the cache, assuming that you’ll request them soon. This feature allows web servers to continue providing the latency benefits, so the client can cache their site assets and reuse them on other pages.<\/p>

This feature allows web servers to continue providing the latency benefits, so the client can cache their site assets and reuse them on other pages.<\/p>

To get the benefits of IIS 10 and HTTP\/2, recently we moved our website<\/a> to Windows Server 2016<\/a>. Here’s the screen excerpt of the online HTTP\/2 lookup tool<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>

2. IIS 10.0 on Nano Server<\/h3>

Nano Server is a lightweight installation option for Windows Server 2016 which installs only necessary OS components and therefore uses a very small amount of hardware resources. We will discuss Nano Server thoroughly in a separate section of this blog post.<\/p>

IIS 10.0 on Nano server supports ASP.NET Core, Apache Tomcat<\/i><\/a>, and PHP<\/i><\/a> workloads. The IIS features included on Nano Server are <\/span>listed here<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>

3. Wildcard Host Headers Support<\/h3>

IIS 10 now supports Wildcard Host Headers. Wildcard Host Headers allows IIS to serve all subdomain requests for any single website. For instance, the following would all be valid hosts for accuwebhosting.com website.<\/p>

    \n
  1. subdomain.accuwebosting.com<\/li>\n
  2. subdomain1.accuwebhosting.com<\/li>\n
  3. subdomain2.accuwebhosting.com, and so on.<\/li>\n<\/ol>

    \"Windows<\/a><\/p>

    The wildcard host header of *.accuwebhosting.com can be added<\/span> while setting up the website in IIS Manager.<\/p>

    Windows Defender Without GUI<\/h2>

    Windows Server 2016<\/a> now includes a built-in anti-malware application called Windows Defender. It actively protects your system against known malware definitions and keeps them updated through the Windows Update.<\/p>

    \"Headless<\/a><\/p>

    On the Windows Server 2016 OS, Windows Defender runs headless<\/strong>, i.e., without GUI (Graphical User Interface). Running without GUI has lots of benefits, including the ability to utilize the server resources in other areas. Since there’s no GUI, you are less prone to the security vulnerabilities.<\/p>

    If Windows Defender GUI is essential for you, it can be easily installed through Windows PowerShell by issuing the command, shown below, as an Administrator user.
    \n<\/span><\/p>

    Install-WindowsFeature -Name Windows-Defender-GUI<\/strong><\/pre>
    <\/div>
    Nano Server<\/h2>
    Until Windows Server 2012 R2, we had 2 types of installation of Windows servers: a server with a GUI (full installation) or just a server core (No GUI).<\/p>
    \"Nano<\/a><\/p>
    With the introduction of Windows Server 2016<\/a>, Microsoft has provided the third type of server installation known as Nano Servers. We can also call it a headless installation<\/strong> as there is no GUI, RDP access and no local login capabilities.<\/p>
    Nano servers can be deployed and managed via PowerShell only. Furthermore,<\/span> they only support 64-bit application, tools, and agents as Microsoft has removed 32-bit support.<\/p>
    Features of Nano Server<\/h3>