Tag: Azure Stack HCI

Sep292020September 29, 2020September 29, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Arc Center - Azure Portal

Check out the new Azure Arc Center – Azure Portal

Posted in Azure Arc, Azure Stack HCI, Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack

During the Microsoft Ignite 2020 virtual conference, Azure Arc got a couple of enhancements and announcements. For example, Azure Arc enabled servers is now generally available and Azure Arc and Azure Arc enabled data services is now in public preview. If you want to learn more what Azure Hybrid announcements we had at Microsoft Ignite 2020, check out (Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Azure) blog post. One of the enhancements which I find super helpful, but didn’t get a special mention, is the new Azure Arc Center blade in the Azure Portal.

All Azure Arc Resources

All Azure Arc Resources

In the Azure Arc Center, you can now find an overview of all your hybrid cloud resources and services you can use together with Azure Arc. These include different Azure Arc enabled services like:

You cannot just get an overview of different Azure Arc services, but also find an easy way to onboard, connect, and register new hybrid resources. To open the Azure Arc Center Blade, navigate to Azure Arc in the Azure Portal.

I hope this was helpful if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment.


Sep222020September 22, 2020September 22, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Stack Hardware Augmented Reality AR Experience

Azure Stack Hardware Augmented Reality AR Experience App

Posted in Azure Stack HCI, Cloud, Hardware, Hybrid Cloud, Lenovo, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Software, Virtualization

As you know, Microsoft Ignite 2020 has gone virtual this year. We have some great sessions, engagement options, the Cloud Skills Challenge, and much more for you. However, one part I would have missed this year would have been the expo hall, where I could look at all the new Azure Stack hardware. That is why the Azure Stack team created a mobile app that allows you to look at Azure Stack hardware and new form factors through augmented reality (AR) in the comfort of your environment.

This app allows you to look at some of our Azure Stack hardware portfolio, including Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack HCI, and the all-new Azure Stack Edge and Azure Stack Edge pro devices, running at the edge in your Hybrid Cloud environment.

Azure Stack Hub Lenovo Augmented Reality

Azure Stack Hub Lenovo Augmented Reality

If you want to learn more about the Azure Stack portfolio, check out my blog post and the following links.

  • Azure Stack Hub – Azure Stack Hub broadens Azure to let you run apps in an on-premises environment and deliver Azure services in your datacenter.
  • Azure Stack Edge – Azure Stack Edge brings the compute power, storage, and intelligence of Azure right to where you need it—whether that’s your corporate data center, your branch office, or your remote field asset.
  • Azure Stack HCI – Azure Stack HCI is a new hyper-converged infrastructure operating system delivered as an Azure service providing the latest and up to date security, performance, and feature updates.
Azure Stack Edge Pro

Azure Stack Edge Pro

You can download it for your iOS or Android device. I hope you enjoy the Azure Stack Hardware AR Experience! Let me know what you think! Also, check out the team’s Microsoft Ignite 2020 session about the IT Pro in the Cloud era!


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 ✔

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 ✔

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!


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.


Jul222020July 22, 2020July 22, 202013Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Microsoft Azure Stack HCI version 20H2

Azure Stack HCI version 20H2 – everything you need to know!

Posted in Azure Arc, Azure Stack HCI, Cloud, Hardware, Hybrid Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, PowerShell, Virtualization, Windows Admin Center, Windows Server

Microsoft just announced the new Azure Stack HCI, delivered as an Azure hybrid service, at Microsoft Inspire 2020. Azure Stack HCI, as a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) solution, is expanding the Azure Stack portfolio to offer a comprehensive and flexible lineup of edge infrastructure and hybrid cloud environments. In this blog post, I want you to provide you with an overview of the new Azure Stack HCI, version 20H2.

You can also find the full announcement blog on Azure.com.

What’s Azure Stack HCI

Azure Stack HCI is a hyper-converged cluster solution that runs virtualized Windows and Linux workloads in a hybrid on-premises environment. Some of the most popular use cases are datacenter modernization, Remote/Branch office scenarios, SQL Server based virtual applications, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, and running Kubernetes clusters.

  • Hyperconverged infrastructure stack – The Azure Stack HCI operating system is based on core components from Windows Server, and it is designed and optimized on being the best virtualization host and hyper-converged platform. It is enhanced with software from Azure that includes our latest hypervisor with built-in software-defined storage and networking, that you install on servers you control, on your premises. This provides additional functionally, features and performance.
  • Delivered as an Azure hybrid service – Azure Stack HCI is now delivered as an Azure service with a subscription-based licensing model and hybrid capabilities built-in. You can enhance the cluster with Azure hybrid capabilities such as cloud-based monitoring, site recovery, and backup, as well as a central view of all of your Azure Stack HCI deployments in the Azure portal.
  • Familiar for IT to manage and operate – Runs on your choice of hardware, from your preferred vendor, and continue using the tools and processes your team already knows to manage virtual machines, including Windows Admin Center, System Center, and PowerShell.

This new Azure Stack HCI product takes its name from a program that Microsoft has run for several years with recent versions of Windows Server. That program was very popular, and it’s what inspired this new product.

Azure Stack HCI - Inspired by its popular predecessor

Azure Stack HCI – Inspired by its popular predecessor

Part of the Azure Stack Portfolio

Azure Stack HCI joins the growing family of Azure Stack solutions, which offers a comprehensive and flexible lineup of edge infrastructure. The Azure Stack portfolio ranges from Azure Stack Hub, which is an extension of Azure, bringing the agility and innovation of cloud computing to your on-premises environment, to Azure Stack Edge, which brings Azure compute for AI and machine learning at the edge.

Azure Stack HCI version 20H2 - Part of the Azure Stack portfolio

Azure Stack HCI version 20H2 – Part of the Azure Stack portfolio

You can learn more about the Azure Stack portfolio on Azure.com.

Read More

May102020May 10, 2020May 18, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Cloud with Chris Podcast

Cloud with Chris – Podcast on Hybrid Cloud

Posted in Azure Stack HCI, Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Speaking, Thomas Maurer, Webinar, Windows Server

I was on the Cloud with Chris podcast to talk about Hybrid Cloud and especially what Microsoft Azure has to offer with the Azure Hybrid services. Cloud with Chris is a great podcast if you want to learn more about different cloud computing technologies and concepts. You can listen to the podcast right here.

Cloud with Chris

Exploring Cloud concepts with Chris Reddington (Welsh Tech Geek, Cloud Advocate, Musical Theatre Enthusiast and Improving Improviser!). We will regularly invite guests to talk about their experiences with the cloud and hear about some of the lessons learned around their cloud journey.

In episode 6, we focused on Hybrid Cloud and how Microsoft Azure can really provide value. Microsoft Azure is designed to be hybrid and helps our customers to run their services where ever they need them, connect existing services to the cloud, and make their on-premises environment even better. In the podcast, we are talking about how you can connect existing systems to Azure Hybrid services, the new Azure Stack portfolio, Azure Arc, and much more.

Joining me in this episode is Thomas Maurer, a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft who engages with the community and customers around the world! Most of the focus so far in Cloud with Chris has been on Public Cloud, so Thomas and I adjust course slightly, and talk about Hybrid Cloud, and the new and upcoming features of the Microsoft Azure platform. Get ready to be introduced to a wide variety of Azure Technologies, and how they may be able to strengthen your on-premises, public cloud or multi-cloud deployments. Let’s listen in…

You can check out his podcast site and listen to it on the platform of your choice. You can learn more about Azure Hybrid here:

I hope you will enjoy the Cloud with Chris podcast on Hybrid Cloud, and if you have any questions please let me know in the comments.


Apr082020April 8, 2020May 2, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Unblogged - Azure Stack HCI and the Future

Azure Unblogged – Azure Stack HCI and the Future

Posted in Azure Stack HCI, Azure Unblogged, Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Thomas Maurer, Virtualization, Windows Admin Center, Windows Server 2019

You might have seen last week’s Azure Unblogged video with Holly Lehman where we talked about Microsoft feedback and customer engagement programs. This week, I had the honor to publish an Azure Unblogged video with Carmen Crincoli (Senior Program Manager) to talk about the Azure Stack HCI solution program, why it was created, the value it provides to customers, and some of the work we’re doing to engage with customers to improve future versions of the product.

You can watch the video on Microsoft Channel 9.

Azure Stack HCI is a hyper-converged Windows Server 2019 cluster that uses validated hardware to run virtualized workloads on-premises. And allows you to optionally connect to Azure Hybrid services for cloud-based backup, Site Recovery, and more. This allows you to take advantage of the Microsoft Hybrid Cloud services to make your on-premises environment even better.

If you want to learn more about Azure Stack HCI, check out the following links:

You can also watch other episodes of Azure Unblogged on Microsoft Channel 9 and check out my blog at ITOpsTalk.com.

Let me know if you enjoyed the Azure Unblogged – Azure Stack HCI and the Future video and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel here.



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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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