Microsoft has announced that Windows Server 2019 will be released in the second half of 2018.

The focus of the new release is based on these 4 themes – Hybrid, Security, Application Platform, and Hyper-converged infrastructure.  It will support Azure services like Azure Backup, Azure File Sync, disaster recovery, and more so their users will be able to leverage these Azure services in a hybrid cloud.

In the security field providing protected access to VMs – Shielded Virtual Machines with support for Linux. The addition of Encrypted Networks can be accomplished by clicking an option and protects the systems at the network layer.  In the Detect and Respond area Windows Server 2019 will have Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection.  This ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) protects the system at kernel and memory anti-tampering and protection from zero-day exploits.

In the Application Platform level the focus is on Windows Server Containers and Windows Subsystem on Linux. Which provides support for Docker containers.  Kubernetes support for Windows Server is currently in beta.

You can try out Windows Server 2019 preview released on 3/20/2018
https://insider.windows.com/en-us/for-business-getting-started-server/

Microsoft’s blog on this new release
https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2018/03/20/introducing-windows-server-2019-now-available-in-preview/