Microsoft Windows Admin Center is a web based App working in your modern browser like Edge or Chrome to manage your datacenter infrastructure. You can download it here
You can manage Windows Servers, Windows10 Desktops, Clusters, Hyperconverged Clusters, Storage Spaces Direct and more in a Hybrid environment and that’s what I like.
My Servers can be on-premises or in the Cloud like Azure and will manage them with Windows Admin Center.
This Inside Azure Management E-Book is a Must Have for All Azure Cloud Administrators! It’s made by Great Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVP’s)
who are working always with Microsoft Azure Cloud Services.You can download this Awesome Inside Azure Management E-Book here.
With 30+ Community talks, learning sessions, and skill-building activities exploring Minecraft, MakeCode, Visual Studio, AI, Azure, and more, there is something here for every student and every level of experience!
Azure Service Fabric is a distributed systems platform that makes it easy to package, deploy, and manage scalable and reliable microservices and containers.
When you want to great your own Azure Service Fabric Cluster for Production, you have to prepare your self and making a plan before you build.
When you have your Azure Service Fabric Standalone Cluster running, you want to deploy your microservices, apps or containers on it and test your solution. In the following steps I deploy with Visual Studio a Web App to Azure Service Fabric Cluster Standalone version 7.1.409
Monitor, diagnose, and gain insight into the performance and availability of your applications and services with Azure Monitor. In this video, you’ll learn how to use Azure Monitor to collect, analyze and act on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments.
Learn how to create time series charts of platform and resource metrics for visualization and analysis with Azure Monitor. Start in Azure Monitor to view metrics across multiple resources or start directly from individual resource blades. You will also learn how to add metrics charts to dashboards in the Azure portal for real-time monitoring and shared access across teams.
In this video, learn about action rules and how you can use them to configure actions and notifications for multiple alerts at scale across a subscription, resource group, and target resource.
In this video, learn how alerts enable you to proactively identify and address issues before it impacts the users of your system. Alerts are created on performance and availability data and can be associated with user-defined actions and notification mechanisms.
In this video, learn how to use source map support in Azure Monitor Application Insights to improve the diagnosis of client-side JavaScript errors. Source maps can be used to unminify call stacks found on the Application Insights end to end transaction details page.
Here you find more information about Microsoft Azure Monitor:
Azure Resource Graph is a service in Azure that is designed to extend Azure Resource Management by providing efficient and performance resource exploration with the ability to query at scale across a given set of subscriptions so that you can effectively govern your environment. Azure Resource Graph enables full visibility into your environments by providing high performance and powerful query capability across all your resources.
From here you can experience the power of Azure Resource Graph by doing it yourself.
From here we are going further with Azure PowerShell and Azure Resource Graph in CloudShell.
Login to https://shell.azure.com
Type following command : Install-Module -Name Az.ResourceGraph
Type Y
Type the Following Command: Get-Command -Module ‘Az.ResourceGraph’ -CommandType ‘Cmdlet’
From here we can start with Search in Azure Resource Graph
The first step to understanding queries with Azure Resource Graph is a basic understanding of the Query Language. If you aren’t already familiar with Azure Data Explorer, it’s recommended to review the basics to understand how to compose requests for the resources you’re looking for.
Command: Search-AzGraph -Query “Resources | project name, location, type| where type =~ ‘Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines’ | order by name desc”
Command: Search-AzGraph -Query “Resources | where type =~ ‘Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines’ | project name, properties.storageProfile.osDisk.osType | top 15 by name desc”
Command: Search-AzGraph -Query “Resources | where type contains ‘publicIPAdresses’ and isnotempty(properties.ipAddress) | project properties.ipAddress | limit 100”
Handy to see your External IP Addresses in Azure 😉
Command: Search-AzGraph -Query “Resources | where tags.environment=~’internal’ | project name”
To find tour Tagged Resources in Azure.
Microsoft Azure Resource Graph Explorer in the Portal.
Here you can make your kusto queries and save them for Colleagues by sharing them.
Sharing your Kusto queries
Resources | where type =~ ‘microsoft.compute/virtualmachines’ | extend nics=array_length(properties.networkProfile.networkInterfaces) | mv-expand nic=properties.networkProfile.networkInterfaces | where nics == 1 or nic.properties.primary =~ ‘true’ or isempty(nic) | project vmId = id, vmName = name, vmSize=tostring(properties.hardwareProfile.vmSize), nicId = tostring(nic.id) | join kind=leftouter ( Resources | where type =~ ‘microsoft.network/networkinterfaces’ | extend ipConfigsCount=array_length(properties.ipConfigurations) | mv-expand ipconfig=properties.ipConfigurations | where ipConfigsCount == 1 or ipconfig.properties.primary =~ ‘true’ | project nicId = id, publicIpId = tostring(ipconfig.properties.publicIPAddress.id)) on nicId | project-away nicId1 | summarize by vmId, vmName, vmSize, nicId, publicIpId | join kind=leftouter ( Resources | where type =~ ‘microsoft.network/publicipaddresses’ | project publicIpId = id, publicIpAddress = properties.ipAddress) on publicIpId | project-away publicIpId1
When you are the Microsoft Azure Administrator, the Resource Graph Explorer can be really Powerful and fast to get the right information you are looking for. When you invest in the kusto queries your can save them and Share with your Colleagues to serve your business needs. Hope this is useful for you and happy Scripting with Kusto, Powershell or Azure CLI in the Cloud
About Hands-On Linux Administration on Azure, Second Edition
Thanks to its flexibility in delivering scalable cloud solutions, Microsoft Azure is a
suitable platform for managing all your workloads. You can use it to implement Linux
virtual machines and containers, and to create applications in open source languages
with open APIs.
This Linux administration book first takes you through the fundamentals of Linux and
Azure to prepare you for the more advanced Linux features in later chapters. With the
help of real-world examples, you’ll learn how to deploy virtual machines (VMs) in Azure,
expand their capabilities, and manage them efficiently. You will manage containers
and use them to run applications reliably, and in the concluding chapter, you’ll explore
troubleshooting techniques using a variety of open source tools.
By the end of this book, you’ll be proficient in administering Linux on Azure and
leveraging the tools required for deployment.
Microsoft Azure Stack is a family of products and solutions that extend Azure to your datacenter or the edge. Includes Azure Stack Hub,Azure Stack HCI, and Azure Stack Edge.
The Power of Hybrid IT Management is awesome with Azure Hybrid Services for your Servers with Microsoft Windows Admin Center. While you can set up most Azure hybrid services by downloading an app and doing some manual configuration, many are integrated directly into Windows Admin Center to provide a simplified setup experience and a server-centric view of the services. Windows Admin Center also provides convenient intelligent hyperlinks to the Azure portal to see connected Azure resources as well as a centralized view of your hybrid environment.
Microsoft Windows Admin Center for Hybrid IT Management
I really like to work with Microsoft Windows Admin Center for managing my Hybrid workloads Windows Servers in Azure Cloud Services but also our On-premises Servers on Hyper-V and VMware platform. Even our physical Windows Servers can be managed from Windows Admin Center.
You can extend on-premises deployments of Windows Server to the cloud by using Azure hybrid services. These cloud services provide an array of useful functions, including the following:
Protect virtual machines and use cloud-based backup and disaster recovery (HA/DR) with Azure Site Recovery.
Track what’s happening across your applications, network and infrastructure with the help of advanced analytics and machine learning in Azure Monitor.
Simplify network connectivity to Azure with Azure Network Adapter.
Keep virtual machines up to date with Azure Update Management.
Azure hybrid services work with Windows Servers in the following configurations:
Stand-alone physical servers and virtual machines (VMs)
I’m working with Windows Admin Center since day one, and you see the hybrid management tool evolving with great new features to make your life as an Administrator more easier. For example you get notifications when there are updates in extensions.
Notification details about update Extensions
When you click on the link “Go to Extensions” you will see the Extensions installed and the Updates which you can install from there.
Here you see an Azure Security Center Extension update.
There are not only Microsoft extensions, but also third party solution extensions and you could build your own extension for your solution. Here you find all the information about Windows Admin Center Extensions
Third Party Windows Admin Center Extensions
Installing a New extension is easy to do, the Azure Cloud Shell (Preview) was the last extension I installed in my Azure MVP Lab to work with. Azure Cloud Shell is an interactive, authenticated, browser-accessible shell for managing Azure resources. It provides the flexibility of choosing the shell experience that best suits the way you work, either Bash or PowerShell. Cloud Shell enables access to a browser-based command-line experience built with Azure management tasks in mind. So how does this look in Windows Admin Center?
Install the Azure Cloud Shell (Preview) Extension
You find the Installed Azure Cloud Shell in the pulldown menu of WAC
For Management of your Windows Servers you need some tools and consoles. Windows Admin Center is supporting you to get the Management consoles in one place to do your administration and updates.
The next tree Features are in Windows Admin Center to manage your Windows Server.
Powershell inside WAC of my Domain Controller
Windows PowerShell is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language designed especially for system administration. Built on the .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell helps IT professionals and power users control and automate the administration of the Windows operating system and applications that run on Windows.
Here you find more information about Windows Commands
Windows Update in Windows Admin Center.
Of course you need to update your Windows Servers, and what I like in WAC is that you get the information if an update needs a reboot before you click on Install Updates. This option is good for my Azure MVP Lab but when you need to update more then 100 Servers, you would do that centrally managed like with Update Management solution in Azure
Windows Remote Desktop in WAC
Remote Desktop is one of the Features of Windows Admin Center, to take over the desktop for installations of Applications for example.
Windows Admin Center got a lot more Features and Tools to Manage your Windows Servers in a Hybrid world.
Like these :
Storage
Security
System Insights
Scheduled Tasks
Installing Roles and Features of Windows Server
Registry
Processes running on your Windows Server
Managing and deploying Clusters
and much More………
You can install the following Resources to Manage with WAC
Windows Admin Center Overview
Conclusion:
Microsoft Windows Admin Center is the New Management tool for your Hybrid IT Management to Controle your Servers for your Business. It got all the Management consoles covered of Windows Servers to manage from one tool.
It’s easy to use and It keeps you Up-to-date of what is happening on your Windows Server but also what is New and updated. With Microsoft Windows Admin Center your are learning on the job and that’s what I Like 😉
Hope you will use Microsoft Windows Admin Center too for your Business, download it here for Free!
Microsoft Products for Backup – Restore -DR, we have:
Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager
Microsoft Azure Backup
Microsoft Azure Site Recovery (DR)
1. Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM)
You can install Microsoft SCDPM on different solutions, like:
As a physical standalone server
As a Hyper-V virtual machine
As a Windows virtual machine in VMWare
As an Azure virtual machine
If you don’t want to manage hardware like a physical Server, you can virtualize your DPM Server on-Premises on Hyper-V or VMware but you can also install DPM into the Cloud as an Azure VM.
Before you begin you should know what Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager support and can protect by Backup. Here you find the highlights.
For Customers there are different installation scenarios possible :
You already have DPM Installed for years but you have to renew the hardware.
A complete New Installation of System Center Data Protection Manager 2019
Upgrade existing System Center DPM solution.
For the first bulletpoint, when you behind with Upgrading to the latest System Center DPM 2019 and you are still using DPM 2012 R2 for example with a SQL 2012 Database on old hardware, you have to follow a work flow.
When you installed Windows Server 2019 on your new hardware, you have to install DPM 2012 R2 and the same SQL version as before and then restore the latest DPM 2012 R2 database of your old hardware. When that’s done you can proceed with upgrading to DPM 2016 and with the right SQL version. You can’t upgrade from DPM 2012 R2 straight to DPM 2019. Here you can read more about Upgrading your System Center DPM Solution
Microsoft MVP @CHARBELNEMNOM :
He wrote this blogpostwhich can help you out with the installation of System Center DPM 2019.
The third bullitpoint, is upgrading your existing DPM Backup Solution. Important is that you have a Backup of the DPM database on a other Server or storage then the Server your are going to Upgrade. You must have a rollback scenario if something went wrong. Read more about Upgrade path of System Center DPM
2. Microsoft Azure Backup
Use Azure Backup to protect the data for on-premises servers, virtual machines, virtualized workloads, SQL server, SharePoint server, and more. Because this is a Microsoft Cloud Service, you don’t have to buy expensive hardware like Physical Servers, Storage, Tape Library, you just pay for what you are using in Azure, Here you find the Microsoft Azure Calculator to calculate your Backup costs.
First you have to create a Recovery Services Vault :
Click on Review + Create a Recovery Services Vault.
Site Recovery helps ensure business continuity by keeping business apps and workloads running during outages. Site Recovery replicates workloads running on physical and virtual machines (VMs) from a primary site to a secondary location. When an outage occurs at your primary site, you fail over to secondary location, and access apps from there. After the primary location is running again, you can fail back to it.
