Category: Windows Server

Dec012020December 1, 2020December 1, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
GET-IT Azure and DevOps 1-Day Virtual Conference

Speaking at GET-IT: Azure and DevOps 1-Day Virtual Conference

Posted in Azure Arc, Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Speaking, Thomas Maurer, Windows Server

Today, I am honored to let you know that I will be speaking at Petri’s GET-IT: Azure and DevOps 1-Day virtual conference on December 16, 2020. This is a full day of free learning dedicated to deep technical content aimed at IT Pros and Developers who are looking to enhance their knowledge and skills for developing, deploying, managing, and scaling their operations. This free virtual conference has a fantastic lineup with speakers like Brad Sams, Aidan Finn, Ryan Irujo, Sarah Lean, and Peter Zerger. I will be speaking about how you can manage and govern your hybrid cloud servers using Azure Arc.

My Session at GET-IT: Azure and DevOps 1-Day Virtual Conference

Manage and Govern your Hybrid Servers Using Azure Arc 

12:00 pm EST / 9:00 am PDT 📅

Thomas Maurer shows you how you can manage and govern your Windows and Linux machines hosted outside of Azure on your corporate network or other cloud providers, similar to how you manage native Azure virtual machines.

Agenda:

  • Kicking off Petri’s GET-IT: Azure and DevOps 1-Day virtual conference by Brad Sams
    9:25 am EST / 6:25 am PDT
    Kicking off Petri’s GET-IT: Azure and DevOps 1-Day virtual conference and how to download all the session material.
  • Azure Networking – The First Technical Challenge by Aidan Finn
    9:30 am EST / 6:30 am PDT
    When you get done with the business requirements, assessments, and governance stuff, it’s time to start designing your Azure architecture. And that means it’s networking time because you will need to connect to your services, secure your business, and integration features. Don’t be scared if you’re not a networking person – you probably have an advantage over the network admins. In this session, I will explain how Azure networking works, explain many of the technologies and discuss some architectural concepts.
  • YAML Pipelines – Up and Running in an Hour by Ryan Irujo
    11:00 am EST / 8:00 am PDT
    YAML can be intimidating your first time out, and many never find it all that simple. In this session, you’ll learn 3 secrets for building effective and reusable YAML pipelines for Azure DevOps. Whether you’re a beginner or pro you’re sure to pick up a couple of useful tips.
  • Manage and Govern your Hybrid Servers Using Azure Arc by Thomas Maurer
    12:00 pm EST / 9:00 am PDT
    Thomas Maurer shows you how you can manage and govern your Windows and Linux machines hosted outside of Azure on your corporate network or other cloud providers, similarly to how you manage native Azure virtual machines.
  • How to Tackle Your Datacenter Transformation to the Cloud by Sarah Lean
    1:00 pm EST / 10:00 am PDT
    Have you been tasked with moving your datacentre from on-prem to the cloud? Where do you begin with such a project, where are the important milestones? In this session, I’ll walk you through a migration project from start to things you need to think about once the migration is complete and your workloads reside in the cloud.
  • Kubernetes – Up and Running in an Hour by Peter Zerger
    2:00 pm EST / 11:00 am PDT
    In this session, you’ll learn the 3 keys to deploying a production-ready Kubernetes cluster, along with a usable demo app to validate that your deployment is functional. From development environment and code management to app publishing, you’ll get the time-saving that will help you get your cluster and container app up and running quickly, even if you’re new to Kubernetes.

I am really looking forward to this event and hopefully meet you virtually at the GET-IT: Azure and DevOps 1-Day Virtual Conference! If you want to join the event for free, check out the Petri website.


Nov262020November 26, 2020November 23, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
How to monitor an Azure virtual machine with Azure Monitor

How to Monitor an Azure virtual machine with Azure Monitor

Posted in Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Windows Server, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019

This week in the Azure tip video, we are going to have a look at how to monitor an Azure virtual machine (VM) with Azure Monitor. You can use Azure Monitor to collect and analyze monitoring data from Azure virtual machines to maintain their health. Virtual machines can be monitored for availability and performance with Azure Monitor like any other Azure resource, but they’re unique from other resources since you also need to monitor the guest operating and system and the workloads that run in it.

To learn more about how to monitor Azure virtual machines (VMs) with Azure Monitor, you can check out the following links:

  • Microsoft Docs: Monitoring Azure virtual machines with Azure Monitor
  • Quickstart: Monitor an Azure virtual machine with Azure Monitor

You can also check out how you can connect Windows Server machines in hybrid environments to Azure Monitor using Windows Admin Center here. If you have any questions, comments, or another great idea for an Azure tip video, feel free to leave a comment below.


Nov242020November 24, 2020November 24, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Management - Single control plane for resources everywhere using Azure Arc

Organize Azure Arc enabled Servers

Posted in Azure Arc, Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Windows Server

In this blog post, we are going to have a look at how you can organize and manage Azure Arc enabled Servers running on-premises or at other cloud providers, using Azure as a single control plane. But before we start with that let’s first have a look at how customers are using Azure Resource Manager to manage their Azure resources today. To organize and manage Azure resources and services like virtual machines, web apps, databases, storage, and much more in Microsoft Azure, we are using Azure Resource Manager. Azure Resource Manager (ARM) is the deployment and management service for Microsoft Azure. ARM provides a management layer that enables you to create, update, and delete resources in Azure, and you can use management features, like access control, locks, and tags, to secure and organize your resources after deployment. So when we are using tools like the Azure portal, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, SDKs, and APIs, to manage our Azure resource we are basically interacting with Azure Resource Manager.

Azure Resource Manager Management Overview

Azure Resource Manager Management Overview (Source: Microsoft)

Azure Resource Manager provides us with the logic and scope to manage and organize Azure resources like management groups, subscriptions, resource groups, and resources.

Azure Management - Single control plane for Azure resources

Azure Management – Single control plane for Azure resources

Now many of our customers said, that ARM is a great way to manage Azure resources, but how about resources that are deployed outside of Azure, in on-premises datacenters, branch offices, factories, or even at other cloud providers? With Azure Arc, they can now onboard services like servers, Kubernetes clusters, databases, and more, and use Azure as a single control plane to manage and organize these resources. Azure Arc extends the Azure Resource Manager and Azure Management capabilities for resources outside of Azure.

Azure Management - Single control plane for resources everywhere using Azure Arc

Azure Management – Single control plane for resources everywhere using Azure Arc

You can onboard Linux and Windows Servers using the Azure Arc Center in the Azure portal. Here you can also get an overview of all your Azure Arc resources.

Azure Arc Center - Azure Portal

Azure Arc Center – Azure Portal

You can also find the Azure Arc enabled servers like any other Azure resources on the all resources page. This allows you to get an inventory of all your servers in your environment.

Inventory for Azure Arc enabled Servers and Azure VMs

Inventory for Azure Arc enabled Servers and Azure VMs

You can see that your Azure Arc enabled servers to show up as Azure resources. You can use the filter to limit the view to only Azure virtual machines (VMs), and Azure Arc enabled servers.

Filter for Azure VMs and Azure Arc Machines

Filter for Azure VMs and Azure Arc Machines

You can also use tags, locks, and RBAC (role-based access control) to organize and manage these resources. This makes it easy to for example list all your servers from a spesific department, project, or cost center.

Using Tags

Using Tags

Azure Arc is not only limited to the Azure portal, but you can also use the Azure APIs, CLI, PowerShell, and the Azure Resource Graph to manage your Azure Arc machines.

I hope this gives you a very quick overview of how you can use Azure Arc enabled Servers to get a glimpse of all your hybrid servers running on-premises, at the edge, and even at other cloud providers. If you want to learn more about Azure Arc and the management capabilities, check out my blogs about Azure Arc, like Azure Arc Enabled Servers Extension Management and many more. Also, make sure you check out the official Azure Arc enabled servers documentation on Microsoft Docs.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.


Nov172020November 17, 2020November 17, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Manage updates and patches for your Azure VMs

Manage updates and patches for your Azure VMs

Posted in Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Thomas Maurer, Virtualization, Windows Server, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019

In this week’s Azure tip video we are going to have a look at how to manage updates and patches for your Azure virtual machines (VMs). After watching this video, you’ll be able to enable Azure Update Management, deploy updates, review an update assessment, and manage updates for your Azure VMs.

You can use Update Management in Azure Automation to manage operating system updates for your Windows and Linux machines in Azure, in on-premises environments, and in other cloud environments. You can quickly assess the status of available updates on all agent machines and manage the process of installing required updates for servers. If you want to learn more, check out my blog post on how to manage updates on Azure VMs. Also, make sure you check out a new feature called Azure Automatic VM Guest OS patching. To learn more about that feature, check out my blog post: How to configure Azure Automatic VM guest OS patching

To learn more about Azure Update management for your Azure virtual machines, check out the following links:

I hope this video was help full when it comes to managing updates and patches for your Azure VMs. If you have any questions, comments, or another great idea for an Azure tip video, feel free to leave a comment below.


Nov122020November 12, 2020November 9, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Connect a hybrid server to Azure using Azure Arc

Connect a Hybrid Server to Azure using Azure Arc

Posted in Azure Arc, Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Thomas Maurer, Windows Server, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019

New week, new Azure tip video!. This week we are going to have a look at how you can connect a hybrid server to Azure using Azure Arc. Azure Arc enabled servers enables you to manage and govern your Windows and Linux machines hosted across on-premises, edge, and multi-cloud environments. You’ll learn how to deploy and configure the Connected Machine agent on your Windows or Linux machine hosted outside of Azure for management by Arc enabled servers.

You can also check out the following links to learn more about Azure Arc enabled servers and how you can connect a hybrid server to Azure using Azure Arc.

Connect a Hybrid Server to Azure using Azure Arc

To connect a server running on-premises or at another cloud provider to Azure using Azure Arc, you can simply go to the Azure Portal to the Azure Arc Center and select Azure Arc enabled servers. Here you can click on the “Add” button.

Add Azure Arc Enabled Server

Add Azure Arc Enabled Server

There are currently two different ways to onboard a server. You can use an interactive script or an adding servers at scale method. With the interactive script method, you will need to provide credentials when running the script on a machine. With the onboarding at scale method, you will need to create a Service Principal Name with the minimum set of Azure permissions to onboard your servers. I highly recommend that in production environments, you o for the service principal method.

Select a method

Select a method

For demonstration purposes, we will go on with the interactive script method because this provides you with more details when you do it the first time. You will be provided with some of the prerequisites for Azure Arc enabled servers.

Add a server with Azure Arc

Add a server with Azure Arc.

You will need to provide some resources details, such as the Azure subscription, resource group, region for the metadata. You will also need to select the operating system type since the script you will get at the end will be a PowerShell script for your Windows machines and a shell script for your Linux servers.

Resource Details

Resource Details

You can now configure tags for your Azure Arc enabled server, or you can skip that step and do that later. In the end, you will be provided with a script, which you can run on the server you want to onboard to Azure Arc. This script will download the Azure Connected Machine agent, install the agent and register the server to Microsoft Azure.

Azure Arc Onboarding Script

Azure Arc Onboarding Script

This should provide you with a quick overview of how you can add a hybrid server to Azure using Azure Arc. Now the Azure Arc enabled server will show up as an Azure resource, and you can start using Azure management services for your on-premises server, like monitoring. If you want to learn more about Azure Arc, check out the recording of my session at Experts Live – Azure Hybrid Cloud Management.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a comment below.


Nov102020November 10, 2020November 9, 20201Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure VM Run Command Run PowerShell Script

How to Run Scripts in your Azure VM using Run Command

Posted in Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell, Virtualization, Windows, Windows Server

You can access your Azure IaaS virtual machine (VM) in multiple ways like SSH or RDP, depending on your operating system and configuration. However, if you have issues with the RDP or SSH network configuration, you need to have a way to troubleshoot your virtual machine (VM). Luckily Azure offers you different management tools to work with Azure VMs for automation or troubleshooting. With the Run Command can run a PowerShell or shell script within an Azure VM remotely by using the VM agent. This scenario is especially useful when you need to troubleshoot operating system network configurations or user access configuration. For example, it can be convenient to reset RDP configurations on Windows Server virtual machines.

You use Run Command for Azure VMs through the Azure portal, REST API, Azure CLI, or PowerShell. Here are some examples:

Azure VM Run Command in the Azure Portal

You can run the command directly from the Azure Portal. In the menu of the Azure VM, you can select Run command. Here you can find some predefined scripts to troubleshoot your Azure VM. In the case of a Windows VM, you will find scripts like configuring RDP port or enable PowerShell remoting. But you can also run your custom PowerShell script.

Azure VM Run Command Run PowerShell Script

Azure VM Run Command Run PowerShell Script

For Linux VMs, you will find predefined options to run a Linux shell script or ifconfig to list the network configuration.

Read More

Oct292020October 29, 2020October 29, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Monitoring and Insights for Azure Arc enabled Servers and Azure Monitor

Monitoring and Insights for Azure Arc enabled Servers

Posted in Azure Arc, Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Windows Server, Windows Server 2019

As many customers are moving to a hybrid cloud environment, where they run servers and applications not just in Microsoft Azure, but also on-premises, at the edge, or even in a multi-cloud environment, Azure Arc can provide them with a single control plane to manage all of these servers. One of the management capabilities you can enable for servers running outside of Azure Arc is monitoring and insights. With monitoring and insights for your, Azure Arc enabled servers, you can use Azure Monitor to keep control of your hybrid environment directly from Azure. In this blog post, we are going to have a quick look at how you can leverage Azure Monitor for monitoring and insights for your Azure Arc enabled servers.

Before you can get started to use the monitoring and insights feature for your servers, you will need to add the server to Azure Arc and deploy the Azure Monitoring Agent. You can also learn more about the new extensions in my video. You can connect your hybrid servers running Linux or Windows Server, running on-premises, at the edge, or even another cloud provider.

Monitoring and Insights for Azure Arc enabled Servers using Azure Monitor

After you have connected the server, which can be a Windows Server or a Linux server, you can enable Insights within the Azure portal. Just navigate to the Azure Arc enabled servers and on the menu, you can find insights. Here you can now find Azure Monitor tools like the dependency map to view a map directly from a VM or view a map from Azure Monitor to see the components across groups of VMs.

Azure Arc Enabled Server Monitoring and Insights Dependency Map

Azure Arc Enabled Server Monitoring and Insights Dependency Map

You can learn more about dependency maps in Azure Monitor on Microsoft Docs.

Another part of insights for your Azure Arc enabled servers is performance monitoring. Azure Monitor includes a set of performance charts that target several key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you determine how well a virtual machine is performing. The charts show resource utilization over a period of time so you can identify bottlenecks, anomalies, or switch to a perspective listing each machine to view resource utilization based on the metric selected.

Azure Arc Enabled Server Performance Monitoring

Azure Arc Enabled Server Performance Monitoring

The following capacity utilization charts are provided:

  • CPU Utilization % – defaults showing the average and top 95th percentile
  • Available Memory – defaults showing the average, top 5th, and 10th percentile
  • Logical Disk Space Used % – defaults showing the average and 95th percentile
  • Logical Disk IOPS – defaults showing the average and 95th percentile
  • Logical Disk MB/s – defaults showing the average and 95th percentile
  • Max Logical Disk Used % – defaults showing the average and 95th percentile
  • Bytes Sent Rate – defaults showing average bytes sent
  • Bytes Receive Rate – defaults showing average bytes received

You can learn more about performance monitoring in Azure Monitor on Microsoft Docs.

If you want to learn more about Azure Arc enabled servers monitoring, I recommend that you follow the Tutorial: Monitor a hybrid machine with Azure Monitor for VMs.

I hope that quick blog post provide you with an overview about monitoring and insights for Azure Arc enabled servers in a hybrid cloud environment. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.



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    Thomas Maurer

    My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team (Cloud + AI) and engage with the community and customers around the world. I am located in Switzerland. I am focusing on Microsoft technologies, especially cloud and datacenter solutions based on Microsoft Azure, Azure Stack and Windows Server. Opinions are my own.

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