Tag: Hybrid Cloud

Sep032020September 3, 2020September 3, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Learn about Windows Server Hybrid and Azure IaaS VMs

Learn Windows Server Hybrid and Azure IaaS VMs

Posted in Azure Arc, Certification, Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Windows Admin Center, Windows Server

A couple of weeks back I promoted a post about how you can learn about Windows Server on Azure and a post on ITOpsTalk for New Microsoft Learn Modules for Azure and Windows Server IT Pros. This week I got another message by colleague Orin Thomas (Cloud Advocate and Author of the Windows Server 2019 Book), that a lot more Microsoft Learn modules have been published, covering Windows Server Hybrid and Windows Server on Azure IaaS VMs (Infrastructure-as-a-Service).

Learn about Windows Server Hybrid and Windows Server Azure IaaS VMs 🎓

Here is a full list of Microsoft Learn modules to learn about Windows Server Hybrid and Windows Server Azure IaaS VMs (virtual machines). This includes many of the Azure Hybrid Cloud services you can use together with Azure, like Azure Arc, Azure File Sync, Azure Site Recovery, and many more. These Microsoft Learn modules also cover a lot of the Azure Management services to manage your Windows Server virtual machines running on Azure, like Azure Monitor, Azure Update Management, networking, and much more.

I hope you enjoy the new Microsoft Learn modules for Windows Server Hybrid and Windows Server on Azure IaaS. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below. If you are looking forward to take some exams, also check out my Microsoft exam study guides, for example for:

Happy Learning!


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.

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Jul302020July 30, 2020July 30, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Stack Hub Partner Solutions Video Series

The Azure Stack Hub Partner Solutions Video Series

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

This week Tiberiu Radu (Microsoft Program Manager) and I had the chance to launch the Azure Stack Hub Partner Solutions video series. Azure Stack Hub is part of the Azure Stack portfolio, and has led the way for Microsoft’s Hybrid cloud offerings and partners have joined us to enhance the hybrid cloud journey of our customers. These partners and customers have built solutions that leverage Azure Stack Hub as part of their hybrid cloud strategy. In this video series, we explore the ways our customers and partners use, deploy, manage, and build solutions on the Azure Stack Hub platform.

Join Thomas Maurer (@ThomasMaurer) and Tiberiu Radu (@rctibi) in  this series, as we will meet customers that are deploying Azure Stack Hub for their own internal departments, partners that run managed services on behalf of their customers, and a wide range of in-between as we look at how our various partners are using Azure Stack Hub to bring the power of the cloud on-premises.

You can find more information check out Tiberiu’s blog post on Tech Community, and you can check out the first three videos:

Through August, we have quite a few partner videos following, and we will update this thread, as well as announce them on our Twitter feeds (#AzStackPartners) – follow us in this journey as we explore the partner solutions built on Azure Stack Hub!

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

I hope you enjoyed the blog and the videos, if you have any questions, let me know in the comments.


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.


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.

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Jul192020July 19, 2020July 19, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Windows Server on Microsoft Azure

Learn about Windows Server on Microsoft Azure

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

As many of you know, Microsoft Azure is the best cloud to run Windows Server workloads. Last week the team published two new Microsoft Learn Learning paths, where you can learn more about how to run Windows Server on Azure. The first two learning paths available are “implement Windows Server IaaS VM networking” and “implement Windows Server IaaS VM Identity”. These two learning paths offer a couple of modules around the specific topics.

Implement Windows Server IaaS VM networking

In this learning path, you’ll learn about Azure IaaS networking and identity. After completing the learning path, you’ll be able to implement IP addressing, manage DNS, and deploy and manage domain controllers in Azure.

Modules

  • Implement Windows Server IaaS VM IP addressing and routing
    In this module, you’ll learn how to manage Microsoft Azure virtual networks (VNets) and IP address configuration for Windows Server infrastructure as a service (IaaS) virtual machines (VM)s.
  • Implement DNS for Windows Server IaaS VMs
    In this module, you’ll learn to configure DNS for Windows Server IaaS VMs, choose the appropriate DNS solution for your organization’s needs, and run a DNS server in a Windows Server Azure IaaS VM.
  • Implement Windows Server IaaS VM network security
    In this module, you will focus on how to improve the network security for Windows Server infrastructure as a service (IaaS) virtual machines (VMs) and how to diagnose network security issues with those VMs.

You can find the full learning path on Microsoft Learn.

Implement Windows Server IaaS VM Identity

After completing this learning path, you’ll know how to implement identity in Azure. You’ll be able to extend an existing on-premises Active Directory identity service into Azure.

Modules

  • Implement hybrid identity with Windows Server
    In this module, you’ll learn to configure an Azure environment so that Windows IaaS workloads requiring Active Directory are supported. You’ll also learn to integrate on-premises Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) environment into Azure.
  • Deploy and manage Azure IaaS Active Directory domain controllers in Azure
    In this module, you’ll learn how to extend an existing Active Directory environment into Azure by placing IaaS VMs configured as domain controllers onto a specially configured Azure virtual network (VNet) subnet.

You can find the full learning path on Microsoft Learn.

Prerequisites for the learning paths

Before you take the learning path, make sure you are familiar with the prerequisites.

  • Experience with managing Windows Server operating system and Windows Server workloads in on-premises scenarios, including AD DS, DNS, DFS, Hyper-V, and File and Storage Services.
  • Experience with common Windows Server management tools (implied by the first prerequisite).
  • Basic knowledge of core Microsoft compute, storage, networking, and virtualization technologies (implied by the first prerequisite).
  • Basic knowledge of on-premises resiliency Windows Server-based compute and storage technologies (Failover Clustering, Storage Spaces).
  • Basic experience with implementing and managing IaaS services in Microsoft Azure.
  • Basic knowledge of Azure Active Directory.
  • Basic understanding security-related technologies (firewalls, encryption, multi-factor authentication, SIEM/SOAR).
  • Basic knowledge of PowerShell scripting.
  • An understanding of the following concepts as related to Windows Server technologies:
    • High Availability and Disaster Recovery
    • Automation
    • Monitoring

Learn more

There are even more learning paths for different technologies available on Microsoft Learn. If you want to learn more about Windows Server on Azure, check out the following resources:

  • Windows Server on Azure (link)
  • Ultimate Guide to Windows Server on Azure (link)
  • Migration Guide for Windows Server (link)
  • Windows virtual machines in Azure (link)

Windows Server on Azure is not just great because of the unmatched security features or the hybrid integration, Microsoft Azure also offers three years of extended security updates for your Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 servers for free, and the option to of bringing your on-premises licenses to the cloud, which provide substantial cost savings.

I hope this blog post was helpful to make you aware of the different options to learn about Windows Server on Azure. If you have additional resources or 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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