Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of Windows Server 2019 in preview, along with details of the most pertinent new features in the platform.

In addition, the company said it will be released into general availability in the second half of this year, but it warned customers that they can expect to pay more for the latest version. Erin Chapple, director of program management for Windows Server, said in a blog post announcing the preview that it’s “highly likely” the company will increase pricing Windows Server Client Access Licensing.

The good news is that those who use Windows Server will at least get more features to play with for the added cost, since the latest version adds lots of new capabilities around software containers and hybrid clouds.

For starters, Windows Server 2019 will be integrated with something called Project Honolulu, which is a web-based client that provides admins with a way to control both Server and Azure cloud machines via a single portal. According to Chapple, the idea is to make things easier to operate for enterprises that are using both Windows Server and the Azure cloud in tandem.

“With Windows Server 2019 and Project Honolulu, customers will be able to easily integrate Azure services such as Azure Backup, Azure File Sync, disaster recovery, and much more so they will be able to leverage these Azure services without disrupting their applications and infrastructure,” Chapple said.

Another big feature is enhanced support for software containers, which are used by developers to abstract their applications away from the underlying hardware so they only need to be built once to run on many kinds of machines. The new version reduces the size of a Server Core base container image to under 2 gigabtyes, from about 5GB now.

Chapple said that Microsoft has learned from feedback “that a smaller container image size will significantly improve the experience of developers and IT pros… and will reduce download time of the image by 72 percent, further optimizing the development time and performance.”

There’s also greater support for Linux with the addition of Shielded Virtual Machines, which is a security measure that has been implemented in Hyper V since Windows Server 2016. And Microsoft is adding support for the Windows Subsystem on Linux, which makes it possible to run both Linux and Windows containers together.

Image: Microsoft