Sep202018September 20, 2018September 21, 20181Commentby Thomas Maurer
Windows Server 2019 Azure Network Adapter

Windows Server Azure Network Adapter

Posted in Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Virtualization, Windows Server, Windows Server 2019

In my series about Windows Server 2019, I have a new feature I want to introduce you to. Windows Server 2019 Azure Network Adapter is one of the Hybrid Cloud efforts Microsoft is making in Windows Server 2019. A lot of workloads are running cross cloud and require connections to virtual machines running in Azure. To achieve this there are several options like Site-to-Site VPN, Azure Express Route or Point-to-Site VPN. With Windows Admin Center and Windows Server 2019 Azure Network Adapter, you get a one-click experience to connect your Windows Server with your Azure Virtual Network using a Point-to-Site VPN connection.

Even this is might not for every enterprise scenario, there are a lot of scenarios where you might quickly want to connect a server to Azure. The Azure Network Adapter functionality gives you that feature with a one click button. And by the way it also works on Windows Server 2012 R2 and higher.

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Sep192018September 19, 2018September 21, 20181Commentby Thomas Maurer
Bag for Microsoft Ignite 2018

What’s in my bag for Microsoft Ignite 2018

Posted in Hardware, Microsoft, Microsoft MVP, Surface, Windows, Windows 10, Work

In a couple of days, I will board the plane and fly to the largest Microsoft Conference in the world – Microsoft Ignite 2018. I am very happy to travel to Microsoft Ignite 2018 in Orlando this year. In this blog, I will quickly share with you what I pack in my bag for Microsoft Ignite.

Microsoft Ignite is an annual conference for developers and IT professionals hosted by Microsoft. You can get the latest insights and skills from technology leaders and practitioners shaping the future of cloud, data, business intelligence, teamwork, and productivity.  I am really looking forward to it and meet other enthusiasts around Microsoft Cloud solutions. And of course, to connect and meet with members of the Microsoft Product Groups.

In the last couple of days, I am already preparing for the event. Besides checking out sessions and preparing side meetings, I am also packing my bag. One of the most important things for larger conferences like Ignite, is that you pack light. The conferences venue is huge, and your sessions and meetings maybe spread over the whole venue. You will walk a lot. It is important that you have good and comfortable shoes and save weight as much as possible, when packing your bag. And this is what I try this time.

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Sep172018September 17, 2018September 17, 20180Commentby Thomas Maurer
PowerShell Windows Server System Insights

Windows Server 2019 System Insights

Posted in Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, Windows, Windows Admin Center, Windows Server, Windows Server 2019

Currently Microsoft is releasing preview versions of Windows Server 2019 to the public. In one of the latest Windows Server Insider Preview builds, Microsoft released a new feature called Windows Server System Insights. The Windows Sevrer 2019 System Insights capability is a machine learning or statistics model that analyzes system data to give insight into the functioning of your Windows Server deployment. These predictive capabilities locally analyze Windows Server system data, such as performance counters or ETW events. This is helping IT administrators proactively detect and address problematic behavior in their Windows Server environment.

Windows Admin Center System Insights CPU Capacity forecasting

System Insights runs completely locally on Windows Server. All of your data is collected, persisted, and analyzed directly on your local machine, allowing you to realize predictive analytics capabilities without any cloud-connectivity. However, if you are using for example Azure Log Analytics (OMS), you forward the events created by System Insights to Azure Log Analytics, which than can give you a unified view about your environment.

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Sep152018September 15, 2018September 15, 20182Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Install SNMP Feature on Windows Server Core

Install SNMP on Windows Server Core

Posted in Microsoft, Server Core, Windows, Windows 10, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Work

If you run Windows Server as Core Installation, like Windows Server 2016 Core or any Microsoft Hyper-V Server edition and you want to use SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) on that system, you first have to install the SNMP feature on that Core Server. After that you can use the MMC to remotely connect to the services list on the Core Server.

Install SNMP on Windows Server Core

First lets see if the SNMP feature is installed, using PowerShell:

By default the SNMP feature is not installed. To install the SNMP feature on Windows Server Core, you can run the following command:

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Sep112018September 11, 2018September 11, 20182Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Windows Server FTP

Install FTP Server on Windows Server

Posted in IIS, Microsoft, PowerShell, Windows, Windows 10, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Work

Windows Server has IIS build in, which also offers a FTP server option. The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is still a very popular protocol that allows users to simply upload and download files. Of course today you have more modern options, however it is still very often used and a lot of legacy applications still support it.

In this blog post I wanna quickly go rough how you can install the FTP Server on Windows Server. I do this on a brand new Windows Server 2019 operating system, however it didn’t really change since early Windows Server versions.

Install FTP Server Feature on Windows Server

Install FTP on Windows Server using PowerShell

First you will need to install the FTP feature. I usually simply do that using PowerShell to install the FTP Server feature in Windows Server. You can also do that using the Server Manager. However, if you want to use PowerShell, you can use the following command:

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Sep042018September 4, 2018September 4, 20181Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Stack Backup with Azure Backup Server

Protect Azure Stack Tenant Workloads with Azure Backup Server

Posted in Cloud, Hardware, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Virtualization, Work

If you are running Azure Stack in your datacenter, you also want to backup workloads running on Azure Stack. This blog post covers how you can backup Azure Stack tenant workloads with Azure Backup Server. Azure Backup allows you to protect on-premise workloads running on different platforms as well as on Azure Stack and store long-term data in Azure.

Why protecting Azure Stack workloads with Azure Backup Server

Microsoft Azure Backup Server is included as a free download with Azure Backup that enables cloud backups and disk backups for workloads like SQL, SharePoint and Exchange regardless if these workloads are running on Hyper-V, VMware, Physical servers or Azure Stack. It also provides a central console to protect these workloads. If you compare this to the Azure Backup Agent, where you have to configure the agent on every single server. The Azure Backup Server also allows you to not only do file backup, but also backup of applications like SharePoint, SQL Server, Exchange and more. This gives you flexibility and centralized management to back up your infrastructure as a service (IaaS) workloads on Azure Stack.

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    Thomas Maurer

    My Name is Thomas Maurer. Microsoft MVP. Work as a Solutions Architect and Technology Lead for itnetX, a consulting and engineering company located in Switzerland. I am focused on Microsoft Technologies, especially Microsoft Cloud & Datacenter solutions based Microsoft System Center, Microsoft Virtualization and Microsoft Azure.

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