SOLVED: What is Thunderbolt Networking in Server 2016?

Server 2016 supports Thunderbolt Networking which, put simply, is networking devices using simple and common USB Thunderbolt hardware.

This is of particular use in Clustering because it is desirable to keep your disk storage used in the cluster on a separate network.  In the past that meant you needed to add a second NIC (usually expensive 10GB or faster) to each of your Host servers.  You also likely needed an expensive 10GB switch to manage the connections in between your VM Host servers and your storage disk array.  In large companies this was fine, but in small companies this is cost prohibitive.

The solution is to use cheap USB connections directly from your Server 2016 Host Server to your storage array.  Of course, regular USB 3 does not have the performance you will need but USB Thunderbolt will automatically setup at 20GB/s on Server 2016 and that is smokin’ fast.

If you want more information, these might be helpful:

• blog.brianrandell.com/post/a-nice-surprise-thunderbolt-3-working-in-server-2016/
• communities.intel.com/thread/113299