ESX Virtualization

VMware ESXi, vSphere, VMware Backup, Hyper-V... how-to, videos....

Nakivo Backup and Replication - #1 Backup solution for Virtual, physical, cloud, NAS and SaaS

Menu
  • Certification
      • VCP-DCV vSphere 8
          • vcp2024-125.
        • Close
    • Close
  • VMware
    • Configuration Maximums
    • vSphere
      • vSphere 8.0
      • vSphere 7.0
      • vSphere 6.7
      • vSphere 6.5
      • vSphere 6.0
      • Close
    • VMworld
      • VMware EXPLORE 2024
      • VMware EXPLORE 2023
      • VMware EXPLORE 2022
      • VMworld 2019
      • VMworld 2018
      • VMworld 2017
      • VMworld 2016
      • VMworld 2015
      • VMworld 2014
      • VMworld 2013
      • VMworld 2012
      • VMworld 2011
      • Close
    • Close
  • Microsoft
    • Windows Server 2012
    • Windows Server 2016
    • Windows Server 2019
    • Close
  • Categories
    • Tips – VMware, Microsoft and General IT tips and definitions, What is this?, How this works?
    • Server Virtualization – VMware ESXi, ESXi Free Hypervizor, VMware vSphere Server Virtualization, VMware Cloud and Datacenter Virtualization
    • Backup – Virtualization Backup Solutions, VMware vSphere Backup and ESXi backup solutions.
    • Desktop Virtualization – Desktop Virtualization, VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion, VMware Horizon View, tips and tutorials
    • How To – ESXi Tutorials, IT and virtualization tutorials, VMware ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.x and VMware vSphere. VMware Workstation and other IT tutorials.
    • Free – Free virtualization utilities, ESXi Free, Monitoring and free backup utilities for ESXi and Hyper-V. Free IT tools.
    • Videos – VMware Virtualization Videos, VMware ESXi Videos, ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.x tips and videos.
    • Home Lab
    • Reviews – Virtualization Software and reviews, Disaster and backup recovery software reviews. Virtual infrastructure monitoring software review.
    • Close
  • Partners
    • NAKIVO
    • StarWind
    • Zerto
    • Xorux
    • Close
  • This Web
    • News
    • ESXi Lab
    • About
    • Advertise
    • Archives
    • Disclaimer
    • PDFs and Books
    • Close
  • Free
  • Privacy policy

Microsoft Windows Server Management Challenges – Project Honolulu

By Vladan SEGET | Last Updated: April 16, 2018

Shares

It seems that Microsoft hasn't said their last word concerning GUI management for Microsoft Server systems. In this post we will discuss the new Project Honolulu but get back to Nano Server which seems to be dying fast. In fact, after trying to develop Nano server for some time, a very lightweight server node, recent news announced the end of life of Nano server (Spring 2018 !!). Today we'll show you which direction for management is Microsoft preparing. It's called project Honolulu and it is a very very cool, especially for SMBs.

Project Honolulu is a flexible, lightweight browser-based locally-deployed platform and solution for Windows Server management scenarios for troubleshooting, configuration, and maintenance. It's not sure how it scales with large server management platforms, but as I said, perfect web management platform might just be around the corner.

The End of Multiple Consoles?

Probably, and it is a good news. You can replace multiple management and configuration tools, such as MMC snap-ins, Server Manager, Task Manager, etc., with a simplified server management experience.

All this is promised by Project Honolulu. For now, the project just got out of beta and it is in public tech preview. But many folks attending last week's Microsoft Ignite simply loved the presentations and demos there.  The product is still in active development.

How about Nano?

But let's get back to Nano server first as we liked the idea of having a small lightweight server which could do a good job for some apps, such as web app etc. It seems that Microsoft has phased out Nano server and that current users will simply have to migrate their workloads somewhere else.

Some of Nano features which have been present so far will simply disappear from next release.

Quote:

However, starting with the new feature release of Windows Server, version 1709, Nano Server will be available only as a container base OS image. You must run it as a container in a container host, such as a Server Core installation of the next release of Windows Server.

Is Nano server dead?

It seems that yes.

Quote:

Windows PowerShell, .NET Core, and WMI are no longer included by default, but you can include PowerShell and .NET Core container packages when building your container.

What about existing Nano users?

They'll have to rebuild their nodes with Windows Server 2016 Server Core ( or desktop).

Server Management Platform called Project Honolulu – how does it look like?

What Microsoft says about the project Honolulu?

Quote:

Our vision continues with simplifying the experience where appropriate. Deployment is quick and easy, with no Internet dependency. Tools are familiar, and cover the core set of administrative tasks for troubleshooting, configuration, and maintenance. Some Windows Server capabilities, which were previously manageable only via PowerShell, now also have an easy-to-use graphical experience.

A web-based management for next decade? Will see…

Screenshots from Technet… (source link at the end of the article).

Web based server management - Project Honolulu

Stay tuned for more about this very promising product which might be integrated into the next release of Windows Server 2016.

A hyper-converged infrastructure with Project Honolulu….

Project Honolulu - Hyperconverged Infrastructure

System Requirements for Installation

First of all, it's necessary to understand that you can have two different kinds of installation:

  • Local (W10 only)
  • Gateway (WS 2016)
  • Directly on Management Server

Deployments option - Project Honlolulu

Get a PDF Poster of Project Honolulu…

While you can install it on Windows 10 management computer, It installs as a network service on Windows Server 2016. And further requirements are needed, such as certificate (can be self-signed).  You must specify the port that the service listens on, and it requires a certificate for HTTPS.

The installer can create a self-signed certificate for testing, or you can provide the thumbprint of a certificate already installed on the computer. Note that Windows Server 2012R2 isn't supported for the installation as Project Honolulu needs some underlying Powershell which isn't present on Windows Server 2012.

You'll need another browser than Internet Explorer, IE isn't supported.

Note from Microsoft:

Honolulu requires PowerShell features that are not included in Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2. If you will manage Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2 with Honolulu, you will need to install Windows Management Framework (WMF) version 5.0 or higher on those servers.+

Type $PSVersiontable in PowerShell to verify that WMF is installed, and that the version is 5.0 or higher.

If it is not installed, you can download WMF 5.1.

Wrap Up:

It is certainly a good move from Microsoft which finally listen to customers willing to manage their Windows server with all their functions and configurations, including troubleshooting, with a single console. It's been quite a long time that different configuration functions needed different console every time. Sure, there was PowerShell, but not every admin is up-to-date with their PowerShell knowledge and practice. Having a possibility to configure, validate and change different configurations options within a light-weight web based console will certainly make more people happy.

More from ESX Virtualization:

  • How to Clean Previous Windows Installation Files after latest Windows 10 Update
  • What is Storage Replica? – Windows Server 2016
  • What is Veeam Proxy?
  • VMware Mirage Server Infrastructure [Guide]
  • Upgrade Windows Server 2012R2 AD to Server 2016
  • DISM ++ is Free Utility better than the command line version
  • VMware Horizon View 7.3.1 Released

Stay tuned through RSS, and social media channels (Twitter, FB, YouTube)

Source: Technet

Shares
5/5 - (2 votes)

| Filed Under: Windows 10, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2016 Tagged With: Microsoft Windows Server Management

About Vladan SEGET

This website is maintained by Vladan SEGET. Vladan is as an Independent consultant, professional blogger, vExpert x16, Veeam Vanguard x9, VCAP-DCA/DCD, ESX Virtualization site has started as a simple bookmarking site, but quickly found a large following of readers and subscribers.

Connect on: Facebook. Feel free to network via Twitter @vladan.

Comments

  1. Support Wala says

    April 5, 2018 at 1:56 pm

    The post contains really lot of valuable information i really gathered lot of information from your post.

Private Sponsors

Featured

  • Thinking about HCI? G2, an independent tech solutions peer review platform, has published its Winter 2023 Reports on Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) Solutions.
  • Zerto: One Platform for Disaster Recovery, Backup & Cloud Mobility: Try FREE Hands-On Labs Today!
Click to Become a Sponsor

Most Recent

  • Nakivo Backup and Replication v11.1 BETA adds more Proxmox friendly features
  • Vulnerability in your VMs – VMware Tools Update
  • FREE version of StarWind VSAN vs Trial of Full version
  • Commvault’s Innovations at RSA Conference 2025 San Francisco
  • VMware ESXi FREE is FREE again!
  • Installation of StarWind VSAN Plugin for vSphere
  • Protect Mixed environments with Nakivo Physical Machine recovery (bare metal)
  • No more FREE licenses of VMware vSphere for vExperts – What’s your options?
  • Tails – Your Private OS on USB Stick
  • StarWind V2V Converter Now has CLI

Get new posts by email:

 

 

 

 

Support us on Ko-Fi

 

 

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Sponsors

Free Trials

  • DC Scope for VMware vSphere – optimization, capacity planning, and cost management. Download FREE Trial Here.
  • Augmented Inline Deduplication, Altaro VM Backup v9 For #VMware and #Hyper-V – Grab your copy now download TRIAL.

VMware Engineer Jobs

VMware Engineer Jobs

YouTube

…

Find us on Facebook

ESX Virtualization

…

Copyright © 2025 ·Dynamik-Gen · Genesis Framework · Log in