Tag: Azure Arc

Sep272020September 27, 2020September 27, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Speaking at Experts Live Switzerland

Speaking at Experts Live Switzerland 2020

Posted in Azure Arc, Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Events, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Speaking, Thomas Maurer

After being a speaker at many of the past Experts Live conferences, I’m excited to be chosen again as a speaker at Experts Live Switzerland 2020. Experts Live Switzerland 2020 will take place on September 30 in the new Workspace Welle 7 in ​Bern Switzerland. Experts Live Switzerland is a one-day event with 15 sessions in three parallel tracks focusing on Microsoft Cloud, Datacenter, and Workplace Management topics, with Microsoft MVPs, speakers from Microsoft, and other industry experts.

My session

I am happy to let you know that I will be speaking about Azure Hybrid Cloud management with Azure Arc.

Azure Hybrid – Learn about Hybrid Cloud Management with Azure

In this session Cloud Advocate Thomas Maurer will give you an overview of the Hybrid Cloud offering of Microsoft Azure and how you can use the Azure Hybrid services like Azure Arc, Azure Update Management, Azure Stack, and many more to introduce new Hybrid Cloud Management to your environment.

About Experts Live Switzerland 2020

Experts Live Switzerland 2020 is limited to only 150 attendees, so make sure you reserve your ticket right now! There will be a lot of other great sessions and a lot of experts from the Microsoft Cloud community. One of the main advantages of joining the Experts Live events is that you get this great networking opportunity to learn from each other.

Experts Live Switzerland will also be one of the first in-person events for me since March 2020. And I am happy to see some familiar faces in person.

Some more information about the conference:

  • 1-day event
  • In the heart of Switzerland (Bern)
  • 15 sessions
  • 3 parallel tracks
  • Top Community speakers
  • limited to 150 attendees
  • Partner booths in the expo hall
  • modern location
  • focusing on Microsoft Cloud Technology

I hope to see you all there!


Sep142020September 14, 2020September 14, 20201Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Hybrid Cloud Webinar Series

Join the Microsoft Azure Hybrid Cloud Webinar Series

Posted in Azure Arc, Azure Stack HCI, Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Speaking, Thomas Maurer, Webinar, Windows Admin Center, Windows Server 2019

Together with Microsoft Indonesia, we are offering an Azure Hybrid Cloud Webinar Series with two webinars around Azure Hybrid Cloud. The first one on September 22nd will be called: Innovation Anywhere with Azure Hybrid and on September 23rd: Deep Dive VM and Kubernetes Management to any Infrastructure with Azure Arc.

Innovation Anywhere with Azure Hybrid

Tuesday, 22nd September 2020 | 2.00 PM-3.30 PM (GMT+7) 📆

Free Registration âś”

Join us in the first session of the Azure Hybrid Cloud Training Series to learn and discover how Microsoft Azure Hybrid Cloud products and services help to manage your environment. In this session, Cloud Advocate Thomas Maurer will give you an overview of the Microsoft Azure Hybrid Cloud offering. Learn how you can use the Azure Hybrid services and products like Azure Arc, Azure Update Management, the new Azure Stack portfolio, Azure Stack HCI, and many more to introduce hybrid cloud management to your environment.

Deep Dive VM and Kubernetes Management to any Infrastructure with Azure Arc

Wednesday, 23rd September 2020 | 2.00 PM-3.30 PM (GMT+7) 📆

Free Registration âś”

Azure Arc has the ability to managed multi-cloud and on-premise. Join us on the second day of the Azure Hybrid Cloud Webinar Series to learn and discover how to 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.

When a hybrid machine is connected to Azure, it becomes a connected machine and is treated as a resource in Azure. Azure Arc provides you with the familiar cloud-native Azure management experience, like RBAC, Tags, Azure Policy, Log Analytics, and more.

Conclusion

These two sessions will be a lot of fun including an overview of the Azure Hybrid Cloud capabilities. I hope this gets your interested and I hope to see you there!


Aug252020August 25, 2020August 25, 20201Commentby Thomas Maurer
Filter for Azure VMs and Azure Arc Machines

Inventory for Azure Arc enabled Servers

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

Azure Arc for Servers allows you to manage servers running in your on-premises location, at the edge, or in a multi-cloud environment directly from the Azure portal. There are many features available to manage these hybrid Azure Arc enabled servers, like Log Analytics or Azure Arc Machine extensions. However, one of the basic features of Azure Arc enabled Servers, is that you can now get an inventory and overview of all your servers. This allows you to see and manage your Azure Arc enabled servers next to your Azure resources.

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 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.

Read More

Jul262020July 26, 2020July 22, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
RunAsRadio Podcast Thomas Maurer

RunAsRadio Managing Your Hybrid Cloud using Azure Arc with Thomas Maurer

Posted in Azure Arc, Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Speaking, Thomas Maurer

This week I was on Richard Campbell RunAsRadio podcast to talk about Hybrid Cloud management using Azure Arc. RunAs Radio is a weekly podcast for IT Professionals working with Microsoft products. Each 30-minute episode covers a specific topic in the field of IT from a Microsoft-centric viewpoint.

We all have a hybrid cloud solution – how do you manage it? Richard chats with Thomas Maurer about Azure Arc, a tool in the Azure suite for managing virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters, and data services in Azure, your on-premises servers, even other cloud providers! Thomas talks about how IT folks end up with an array of tools for managing servers depending on the location and how Azure Arc ends that. Arc provides location-independent access to all your resources, and it’s in preview now, so free to use (although you may have to pay for additional Log Analytics data)… check it out!

If you want to listen to the podcast episode, check out RunAsRadio.com.


Jul232020July 23, 2020July 22, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
MJFChat Whats New in the Azure Hybrid Space

MJFChat What’s New in the Azure Hybrid Space?

Posted in Azure Arc, Azure Stack HCI, Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Thomas Maurer

This week I had the honor to be on Mary Jo Foley podcast called MJFChat on Petri.com and talk about what’s new in the Azure Hybrid space. This was the perfect time since we had some great Hybrid Cloud announcements this week during Microsoft Inspire, especially when it comes to Azure Stack HCI.

MJFChat: What’s New in the Azure Hybrid Space?

This episode of MJFChat is all about what’s happening in the Azure hybrid space. Microsoft was the first of the major cloud vendors to offer not just a public cloud, but also a hybrid platform. Azure Stack was the core of Microsoft’s hybrid 1.0 strategy. More recently, Microsoft outlined its hybrid 2.0 plan, which centers around Azure Arc.

If you want to listen to the podcast, you can go to Petri.com or your favorite podcast platform, MJF Chat on Spotify; here for Apple Podcasts on iTunes; and here for Google Play.


Jul162020July 16, 2020July 16, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Create Custom Script Extension for Windows - Azure Arc

How to Run Custom Scripts on Azure Arc Enabled Servers

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

With the latest update for Azure Arc for Servers, you are now able to deploy and use extensions with your Azure Arc enabled servers. With the Custom Script extension, you can run scripts on Azure Arc enabled servers and works similar to the custom script extension for Azure virtual machines (VMs). There is an extension for Windows and Linux servers, which is a tool that can be used to launch and execute machine customization tasks post configuration automatically.

When this Extension is added to an Azure Arc machine, it can download PowerShell and shell scripts and files from Azure storage and launch a script on the machine, which in turn can download additional software components. Custom Script Extension for Linux and Windows – Azure Arc tasks can also be automated using the Azure PowerShell cmdlets and Azure Cross-Platform Command-Line Interface (Azure CLI).

Introducing Azure Arc
For customers who want to simplify complex and distributed environments across on-premises, edge and multicloud, Azure Arc enables deployment of Azure services anywhere and extends Azure management to any infrastructure.
Learn more about Azure Arc here.

How to run Custom Scripts on Azure Arc enabled servers

To run a custom script on an Azure Arc enabled server, you can simply deploy the Custom Script Extension. You open the server you want to run the custom script in the Azure Arc server overview. Navigate to Extensions and click on Add, and select the Custom Script Extension for Windows – Azure Arc or on Linux the Custom Script Extension for Linux – Azure Arc.

Add Custom Script Extension

Add Custom Script Extension

Now you can select the PowerShell or shell script you want to run on that machine, as well as adding some optional arguments for that script.

Create Custom Script Extension for Windows - Azure Arc

Create Custom Script Extension for Windows – Azure Arc

After that, it will take a couple of minutes to run the script on the machine.

Conclusion

The Custom Script Extensions for Linux and Windows can be used to launch and execute machine customization tasks post configuration automatically.

You can learn more about how Azure Arc provides you with cloud-native management technologies for your hybrid cloud environment here, and you can find the documentation for Azure Arc enabled servers on Microsoft Docs.

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


Jul142020July 14, 2020July 13, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Arc Servers Log Analytics

Azure Log Analytics for Azure Arc Enabled Servers

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

In this blog post, we are going to have a quick look at how you can access Azure Log Analytics data using Azure Arc for Servers. The Azure Log Analytics agent was developed for management across virtual machines in any cloud, on-premises machines, and those monitored by System Center Operations Manager. The Windows and Linux agents send collected data from different sources to your Log Analytics workspace in Azure Monitor, as well as any unique logs or metrics as defined in a monitoring solution. When you want to access these logs and run queries against these logs, you will need to have access to the Azure Log Analytics workspace. However, in many cases, you don’t want everyone having access to the full workspace. Azure Arc for Servers provides RBAC access to log data collected by the Log Analytics agent, stored in the Log Analytics workspace the machine is registered.

Introducing Azure Arc
For customers who want to simplify complex and distributed environments across on-premises, edge and multicloud, Azure Arc enables deployment of Azure services anywhere and extends Azure management to any infrastructure.
Learn more about Azure Arc here.

How to enable Log Analytics for Azure Arc Enabled Servers

To enable log collection, you will need to install the Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) on your Azure Arc enabled server. You can do this manually for Windows and Linux machines, or you can use the new extension for Azure Arc enabled servers. If you already have the MMA agent installed, you can start using logs in Azure Arc immediately.

Create Microsoft Monitoring Agent - Azure Arc

Create Microsoft Monitoring Agent – Azure Arc

After you have installed the agent, it can take a couple of minutes until the log data shows up in the Azure Log Analytics workspace. After the logs are collected in the workspace, you can access them with Azure Arc.

Azure Arc Servers Log Analytics

Azure Arc Servers Log Analytics

Now you can run queries using the Keyword Query Language (KQL) as you would in the Azure Log Analytics workspace, but limited to the logs for that specific server.

Conclusion

With Azure Arc for Servers, we can use role-based access controls to logs from a specific server running on-prem or at another cloud provider, without having access to all the logs in the log analytics workspace.

You can learn more about how Azure Arc provides you with cloud-native management technologies for your hybrid cloud environment here, and you can find the documentation for Azure Arc enabled servers on Microsoft Docs.

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



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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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