Pakhare Technologies

Microsoft Windows Server 2025 prepares you for tomorrow while delivering the security, performance, and flexibility you need today.Be more productive with easier networking, faster storage, and hybrid cloud capabilities that adapt to your needs. Get ahead of what’s next with forward-looking security, and AI-ready compute.
Some key improvements include:1) Hybrid: Adapt quickly across hybrid, cloud and edge. Easier to connect to Azure Arc to bridge on-premises and cloud-based servers. Deliver Azure capabilities to your on-premises servers.2) Security: Hardware and software-level security to deter cyberattacks; next-generation Active Directory that improves security and scalability. Enable a tailored security baseline and  configure drift protection from the start.3) Modern, future-ready platform: Windows Server 2025 is now easier to upgrade and scale, with better-than-ever app compatibility. Windows Server 2025 desktop brings consistent client and server UI experience, plus conveniences like WiFi and Bluetooth.4) Performance: Faster and easier networking and storage; live hotpatching for reduced downtime; GPU partitioning for inferencing at the edge. Improvements in flash-based storage make Windows Server an even better platform for SQL Server.

This article describes some of the new features in Windows Server 2022. Windows Server 2022 is built on the strong foundation of Windows Server 2019 and brings many innovations on three key themes: security, Azure hybrid integration and management, and application platform. Also, Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition helps you use the benefits of cloud to keep your VMs up to date while minimizing downtime.

Security

• The new security capabilities in Windows Server 2022 combine other security capabilities in Windows Server across multiple areas to provide defense-in-depth protection against advanced threats. Advanced multi-layer security in Windows Server 2022 provides the comprehensive protection that servers need today.

Secured-core server

• Certified Secured-core server hardware from an OEM partner provides additional security protections that are useful against sophisticated attacks. This can provide increased assurance when handling mission critical data in some of the most data sensitive industries. A Secured-core server uses hardware, firmware, and driver capabilities to enable advanced Windows Server security features. Many of these features are available in Windows Secured-core PCs and are now also available with Secured-core server hardware and Windows Server 2022. For more information about Secured-core server, see Secured-core server.

Hardware root-of-trust

• Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM 2.0) secure crypto-processor chips provide a secure, hardware-based store for sensitive cryptographic keys and data, including systems integrity measurements. TPM 2.0 can verify that the server has been started with legitimate code and can be trusted by subsequent code execution. This is known as a hardware root-of-trust and is used by features such as BitLocker drive encryption.

Firmware protection

• Firmware executes with high privileges and is often invisible to traditional anti-virus solutions, which has led to a rise in the number of firmware-based attacks. Secured-core server processors support measurement and verification of boot processes with Dynamic Root of Trust for Measurement (DRTM) technology and isolation of driver access to memory with Direct Memory Access (DMA) protection.

UEFI secure boot

• UEFI secure boot is a security standard that protects your servers from malicious rootkits. Secure boot ensures the server boots only firmware and software trusted by the hardware manufacturer. When the server is started, the firmware checks the signature of each boot component including firmware drivers and the OS. If the signatures are valid, the server boots and the firmware gives control to the OS.

Virtualization-based security (VBS)

• Secured-core servers support virtualization-based security (VBS) and hypervisor-based code integrity (HVCI). VBS uses hardware virtualization features to create and isolate a secure region of memory from the normal operating system, protecting against an entire class of vulnerabilities used in cryptocurrency mining attacks. VBS also allows for the use of Credential Guard, where user credentials and secrets are stored in a virtual container that the operating system cannot access directly.
• HVCI uses VBS to significantly strengthen code integrity policy enforcement, including kernel mode integrity that checks all kernel mode drivers and binaries in a virtualized environment before they are started, preventing unsigned drivers or system files from being loaded into system memory.
• Kernel Data Protection (KDP) provides read-only memory protection of kernel memory containing non-executable data where memory pages are protected by Hypervisor. KDP protects key structures in the Windows Defender System Guard runtime from being tampered.