 Today we are excited to release a new build of the Windows Server vNext Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release that contains both the Desktop Experience and Server Core installation options for Datacenter and Standard editions. There are some features to look for such as UDP performance improvements — UDP is becoming a very popular protocol carrying more and more networking traffic. With the QUIC protocol built on top of UDP and the increasing popularity of RTP and custom (UDP) streaming and gaming protocols, it is time to bring the performance of UDP to a level on par with TCP. In Server vNext we include the game-changing UDP Segmentation Offload (USO). USO moves most of the work required to send UDP packets from the CPU to the NIC’s specialized hardware. Complimenting USO in Server vNext we include UDP Receive Side Coalescing (UDP RSC) which coalesces packets and reduces CPU usage for UDP processing. To go along with these two new enhancements, we have made hundreds of improvements to the UDP data path both transmit and receive. TCP performance improvements — Server vNext uses TCP HyStart++ to reduce packet loss during connection startup (especially in high-speed networks) and SendTracker + RACK to reduce Retransmit TimeOuts (RTO). These features are enabled in the transport stack by default and provide a smoother network data flow with better performance at high speeds. PktMon support in TCPIP — The cross-component network diagnostics tool for Windows now has TCPIP support providing visibility into the networking stack. PktMon can be used for packet capture, packet drop detection, packet filtering, and counting for virtualization scenarios, like container networking and SDN. You're also likely to see Improved RSC in the vSwitch. RSC in the vSwitch has been improved for better performance. First released in Windows Server 2019, Receive Segment Coalescing (RSC) in the vSwitch enables packets to be coalesced and processed as one larger segment upon entry in the virtual switch. This greatly reduces the CPU cycles consumed processing each byte (Cycles/byte). However, in its original form, once traffic exited the virtual switch, it would be re-segmented for travel across the VMBus. In Windows Server vNext, segments will remain coalesced across the entire data path until processed by the intended application. Now you can keep things together or apart. When moving a role, the affinity object ensures that it can be moved. The object also looks for other objects and verifies those as well, including disks, so you can have storage affinity with virtual machines (or Roles) and Cluster Shared Volumes (storage affinity) if desired. You can add roles to multiples such as Domain controllers, for example. You can set an AntiAffinity rule so that the DCS remains in a different fault domain. You can then set an affinity rule for each of the DCS to their specific CSV drive so they can stay together. If you have SQL Server VMs that need to be on each side with a specific DC, you can set an Affinity Rule of the same fault domain between each SQL and their respective DC. Because it is now a cluster object, if you were to try and move a SQL VM from one site to another, it checks all cluster objects associated with it. It seems there is a pairing with the DC in the same site. It then sees that DC has a rule and verifies it. It seems that DC cannot be in the same fault domain as the other DC, so the move is disallowed. BitLocker has been available for Failover Clustering for quite some time. The requirement was the cluster nodes must be all in the same domain as the BitLocker key is tied to the Cluster Name Object (CNO). However, for those clusters at the edge, workgroup clusters, and multidomain clusters, Active Directory may not be present. With no Active Directory, there is no CNO. These cluster scenarios had no data-at-rest security. Starting with this Windows Server Insiders, we introduced our own BitLocker key stored locally (encrypted) for the cluster to use. This additional key will only be created when the clustered drives are BitLocker protected after cluster creation. Complete details are posted on OUR FORUM.  Windows 10’s Start Menu and Action Center could be refreshed with UI tweaks if a new code reference spotted in the preview builds has anything to go by. On August 21, Microsoft published Windows 10 Build 20197 to the testers in the Dev Channel of the Windows Insider program. This preview build comes with a new Disk Manager and bug fixes, but it also includes reference to ‘WinUI’ for Windows 10’s Start Menu and Action Center. According to the scan of Microsoft Program Database (PDB) files in Windows 10 Build 20197, Microsoft is currently testing these features internally:  While both Apple and Google are in US and EU crosshairs, Apple is in a far more precarious position. Are iOS users ready for the pros and cons of opening Pandora's app box? This week, Apple reached a significant milestone in its nearly 45-year history: a valuation of over $2 trillion. It's the first American company to achieve that lofty status, surpassing the valuation of Saudi Aramco as a publicly traded firm. This comes only a year after reaching the $1 trillion mark, a milestone that its industry rivals Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet (Google) soon followed. But Apple's rise in valuation has placed the company under increased scrutiny and growing concerns about how it has been managing its developer ecosystem, notably its App Store. In May of last year, I discussed how the US Supreme Court paved the way for potential antitrust by allowing a class action suit against the company alleging monopolistic practices on its App Store to proceed. Although the ruling was not a judgment against Apple and was remanded to the lower courts -- the Court did not classify the company as a monopoly, and did not move forward with any antitrust penalty -- the decision does set a potentially damaging precedent for the company. By allowing this lawsuit to move forward, the high court's ruling opened up the possibility that there could be, at some point, antitrust proceedings against the company. All signs indicate that antitrust litigation against the company is virtually inevitable -- especially if Cupertino continues to maintain a status quo of allowing only Apple-trusted applications in its App Store and not permitting third-party payment services to be used for in-app transactions. In the last year, legal complaints against the company have increased, as have antitrust monitoring efforts by the US and European regulators. In 2019, Spotify issued a complaint to the European Union, alleging that because Apple's Music services aren't subject to the same 30% App Store transactional fees as third-party music services, it competes unfairly. Although Spotify's service can be subscribed to outside the App Store via an out-of-band browser purchase (in the same way other companies, such as Amazon, have also engaged in content purchases that bypass the App Store), Spotify argues that the 30% fee forces the firm to operate in an unfair environment, if it wants to offer subscriptions directly via the iOS app. This complaint has resulted in the EU proceeding with a formal investigation into Apple's App Store practices but has stated that it may take years to complete. In the past, the EU has fined American firms billions of dollars, such as its prior actions against Microsoft regarding browser bundling within Windows, which resulted in the company needing to build a "browser choice" screen into its operating system, and its $5B fine against Google for anticompetitive behavior in tying its search engine to Android. All of these legal activities seemed to have been pushed to the back burner given the current political climate and priorities of the Trump administration. The upcoming US elections and the COVID-19 pandemic have proven to be effective distractions. But recently, Apple has again come under scrutiny due to its interactions with Epic Games. The company made changes to its popular Fortnite game to allow for in-app transactions that do not go through Apple's App Store or Google's Play Store on their respective iOS and Android platforms. These changes resulted in the immediate removal of Fortnite from both the App Store and the Play Store, as well as a notification by Apple to Epic that its official developer accounts would be canceled at the end of the month due to violation of its developer agreements. Epic has since launched antitrust lawsuits against both Apple and Google, arguing that both of the companies are engaged in multiple violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act due to monopolistic practices. While both Apple and Google are in US and EU crosshairs, it could be argued that Apple is in a much more precarious position: Any antitrust activity could create more significant issues for iOS platform end-users than for Android users. Why? Android already can side-load applications, which includes third-party app stores. This capability exists in the event an end-user wants to install software that either doesn't conform to the Play Store's policies (such as adult content) or that simply isn't listed in the Play Store for whatever reason. Additionally, Android is fully open source as part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), so there is full transparency when it comes to APIs. Only apps that use Google Mobile Services -- which are fully documented by the company and licensed to devise manufacturers (such as Samsung and Microsoft) -- are considered to be proprietary. Complete details are posted on OUR FORUM.
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