Windows Admin Center and The Container Extension #WAC #Containers #Winserv

Windows Admin Center

Windows Admin Center is a locally deployed, browser-based app for managing Windows servers, clusters, hyper-converged infrastructure, as well as Windows 10 PCs. It comes at no additional cost beyond Windows and is ready to use in production. If you want to work more secure with Windows Server Core images without the GUI or with Microsoft Azure Stack HCI operating system then Windows Admin Center is the tool for the Administrator to manage your workloads on-premises or in the Cloud. You have one web based interface for all your Server consoles (MMC) to manage your Hybrid Datacenter.
Here you can read more about Microsoft Windows Admin Center and download the free software.

Get the best with Windows Admin Center Extensions

Windows Admin Center and the Container Extension

When you have installed Microsoft Windows Admin Center you can configure the settings and extensions for your environment. When you want the benefits of the Microsoft azure Cloud Services you can configure your Azure subscription and add the extensions to your Windows Admin Center. There are also Third Party extensions like Dell, DataOn, Fujitsu and more.
Here you find more information about how extensions work.

Container Extension

In the following step-by-step guide we will work with the Container Extension of Windows Admin Center on a Windows Server 2019. You have already added the server in WAC and installed the Container extension. In my MVPLAB.CLOUD is that Windows Server 2019 datacenter Starship01.mvplab.cloud. When you open the server you will come in the Overview of the Windows Server:

Click on Containers.

Click on Install for the Docker installation on Starship01.mvplab.cloud.

This will install Docker on the Windows Server 2019 and reboot when it’s ready to use for Containers. From this moment you can work with Windows Containers on the host via Windows Admin Center.

Remote Desktop in Windows Admin Center, the docker host is installed with the Windows Filter by default.

When you want to use Docker Linux Containers with Windows Server 2019 host, you have to configure the Linux kit LCOW with a distro on the host. More info here

Containers on Starship01.mvplab.cloud

To start with containers you can create your own, or pull an image from Docker Hub with Windows Admin Center. In my case I pull Windows Server 2019 ltsc with IIS image.

mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore/iis  (Image)

windowsservercore-ltsc2019 (Tag)

Click then on Pull.

Select your image and click on Run.
Give your Container a name and set your settings.

Click on Run.

Click on Containers tab and you will see your running Container

More details you see the IP-Address of the Container.

IIS is running on Windows Server 2019 ltsc in a Docker Windows Container.
That was easy right 😉

Making your Own Docker file with Windows Admin Center Container Extension

When you have your own Github repository with your software, you can make your own docker file and make a docker image on your host for deployment. To show this I have used this sample on Microsoft docs, but you can clone also a github repository and copy the dockerfile on the host.

I copied the dockerfile on the host C:\BuildImage.

—————

# Sample Dockerfile

# Indicates that the windowsservercore image will be used as the base image.
FROM mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:ltsc2019

# Metadata indicating an image maintainer.
LABEL maintainer=”jshelton@contoso.com”

# Uses dism.exe to install the IIS role.
RUN dism.exe /online /enable-feature /all /featurename:iis-webserver /NoRestart

# Creates an HTML file and adds content to this file.
RUN echo “Hello World – Dockerfile” > c:\inetpub\wwwroot\index.html

# Sets a command or process that will run each time a container is run from the new image.
CMD [ “cmd” ]

---

Here is the Microsoft docs website

Image Creation in progress

New Image Created with Windows Admin Center

Running your Own Container image

Container “Hello World – Dockerfile” running

Conclusion :

In Windows Admin Center comes ITpro world and DevOps world Together in One web based console like with the Container extension. Microsoft is developing really fast in Windows Admin Center to get all the right Feature for ITPro, DevOps and SecOps Administrators in one place. Awesome are the Windows Admin Center Extensions, developers makes these better and better to do the job for Administrators 🚀
Windows Server 2019 Core and Azure Stack HCI are Operating systems without a GUI, and with Windows Admin Center they are really good to manage, update and keeping in control of security.
I like Windows Admin Center a lot and it Rocks for managing your hybrid Datacenter 😉

Send your comments and feedback via Microsoft GitHub repo by opening a new issue for the Container Extension. Follow @vrapolinario on Twitter

 

You can Follow Windows Admin Center here on Twitter : @servermgmt

JOIN #Microsoft Inspire 2020 Global Event July 21-22 #MSInspire #Azure #AzureStack #Cloud #MVPBuzz #Innovation

Microsoft Inspire 2020 Global Event 🚀

Innovation. Leadership. Partnership.

Now is the time. Join your global partner community for the Microsoft Inspire digital event experience. Register today and get ready to extend your partner network as we explore what’s coming in the year ahead and work together to find shared solutions for our customers. Join Microsoft Inspire 2020 Global Event on July 21-22 Now at no Cost!

You will be Inspired by Microsoft New Technologies and Innovations !

Manage Servers On-premises with Microsoft Azure Cloud Services #Azure #Arc #Security #Cloud #AzureMonitor #ASC

Microsoft Azure Arc Servers On-Premises and Azure Cloud Services

Earlier I wrote a blogpost about Microsoft Azure Arc services installation to manage on-premises Servers with Azure Cloud Services, like Azure Monitor and Azure Security Centre from the Cloud.
Here in this post you will see the Newest Microsoft Azure Cloud Services to Manage and Monitor your Servers on-premises with security and compliance included.

Azure Arc Extensions settings of the Server.

Here you can see we have installed the Microsoft Monitoring Agent for Azure Monitor and log analytics, second we have installed the dependency Agent for Windows for
insights, Performance and Service maps. Here you find more information about Virtual machine extension management with Azure Arc for servers (preview)  

After initial deployment of the Azure Arc for servers (preview) Connected Machine agent for Windows or Linux, you may need to reconfigure the agent, upgrade it, or remove it from the computer if it has reached the retirement stage in its lifecycle. You can easily manage these routine maintenance tasks manually or through automation, which reduces both operational error and expenses.

Managing and maintaining the Connected Machine agent

Azure Arc Insights Performance monitor

The Azure Arc Insights Performance monitor is there by default and installed with the following dashboards :

• CPU Utilization
• Available Memory
• Logical disk IOPS
• Logical disk MB/s
• Logical disk Latency
• Max logical disk used %
• Bytes Sent Rate
• Bytes Received Rate

Azure Arc Logs Analytics

Of course you can make your own custom Dashboards in the Azure Portal with your own triggers, so in this way you get the same Azure Monitor Innovative Tools for your On-Premises Servers. 😉

Within Microsoft Azure Arc Insights, you can also see a Service Map of the Server

Here is were the dependency agent comes in, you get a service map of the Server and see the communication lines with other resources. In this picture you see Server Yoda01 a Domain Controller of my MVPLAB.
You can see that there are three Clients are logged on the domain controller.

Microsoft Azure Security Center for Azure Arc Servers

 

One of the most powerful and important features of Microsoft Azure Cloud platform is Security! Microsoft Azure Security Center (ASC) is a unified infrastructure security management system that strengthens the security posture of your data centers, and provides advanced threat protection across your hybrid workloads in the cloud – whether they’re in Azure or not – as well as on premises.

Here you see my Azure Arc Servers (On-Premises) in Azure Security Center.

Azure Arc Server in Azure Security Center recommendations Summary

Five security assessments passed the test, but Azure Security assessment has two recommendations one is Medium Risk and one low.

Here you see the Security advise and the Remediation to take action on your Server.

Microsoft Azure Security Center Overview with the Overall Secure Score.

Security controls – Each control is a logical group of related security recommendations, and reflects your vulnerable attack surfaces. A control is a set of security recommendations, with instructions that help you implement those recommendations. Your score only improves when you remediate all of the recommendations for a single resource within a control.

To immediately see how well your organization is securing each individual attack surface, review the scores for each security control.

 Here you find More information about Azure Security Center Secure Score

To get your Azure Arc Servers (On-premises) complaint for the business and security, you can use Microsoft Azure Arc Policies

Azure Arc Policies to meet your Compliance state.

Conclusion

Microsoft is bringing Azure Cloud Power tools everywhere with Azure Arc Services to give you modern tools like Azure Monitor and Azure Security Center to keep you in control, Secure and Compliant for your business. Keep following Microsoft for Hybrid IT Management, because more awesome features are added every day in Microsoft Azure Cloud Services. Let’s start to get your Azure Security Score UP and UP 😉

#Microsoft Windows Admin Center and Azure Backup Management #WAC #Azure

Microsoft Windows Admin Center

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.

Download the Windows Admin Center Overview Poster

Here you find all the Microsoft documentation about Windows Admin Center

Windows Admin Center and Azure backup integration

 

When you have Windows Admin Center running you can register with Microsoft Azure first in the settings of Windows Admin Center.

Register to your Azure Subscription, just follow the instructions.

Install Azure Backup Extension at Available extensions.

From here the basic settings are done and we will have a look at my MVP LAB to backup a virtual Server.

Windows Admin Center in Domain MVPLAB.CLOUD

I have selected stormtrooper01.mvplab.cloud Windows Server 2019 and on the left Azure Backup.

You can read here more about Microsoft Azure Backup

Click on setup Azure Backup.

Here you select the Azure Subscription and the Backup Vault
and this will be a system state backup.

Next Step is Backup Schedule and Encryption key.

IMPORTANT: Keep this Encryption key somewhere save !
You need this key for recovery and Microsoft does not have access to that key.

Azure Backup Schedule settings.

When you apply here it will setup the Azure backup agent and your policies.

Backup is scheduled.

Here I did the Backup by hand.

Here you see the backup in the Azure Backup Vault.
Backup done via Windows Admin Center 😉

Here you see a video from Microsoft Mechanics at Ignite with Jeff Woolsey

Follow Windows Admin Center here on Twitter

Don’t forget to give feedback or great ideas !

Inside Azure Management E-Book Available ! #Azure #MVPBuzz #Management #Cloud

Inside Azure Management

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.

If you want a hard copy of this Awesome E-Book you can order at Amazon

Here you can find the Authors of the Inside Azure Management E-Book on GitHub.

Thank you Guys for Sharing this with the Community 👍😎🚀

#Microsoft Build 2020 Virtual Event May 19-20-21 Build your Schedule Now! #MSBuild #MVPBuzz

Microsoft Build 2020

Choose from 48 hours of continuous content to create your own digital event experience. Registration is free and is required to get full, interactive access to the digital event. Here you can register for Microsoft Build 2020 Virtual Event

The Session Catalog is Live ! Build your own Schedule 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!

Check out the full list here or search by keyword to add lessons to your schedule.

Don’t miss this Awesome Event 👍😎🚀

Microsoft Azure Service Fabric Standalone Cluster for Testing #microservices #Containers #Apps

Microsoft Azure Service Fabric standalone

Azure Service Fabric is a distributed systems platform that makes it easy to package, deploy, and manage scalable and reliable microservices and containers.

To build and run Azure Service Fabric applications on your Windows development machine, install the Service Fabric runtime, SDK, and tools. You also need to enable execution of the Windows PowerShell scripts included in the SDK.

I have installed the latest version :

• Service Fabric SDK and Tools 4.1.409
• Service Fabric runtime 7.1.409

here you find more information about installing Azure Service Fabric Standalone version for testing
I have installed the Azure Service Fabric Cluster on my Windows10 Machine for testing only.

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

Here is a Github Sample for Azure Service Fabric.

git clone https://github.com/Azure-Samples/service-fabric-dotnet-quickstart

Here you have your Clone from Github.

To deploy this App to the Azure Service Fabric Cluster we use Microsoft Visual Studio

Once the application is downloaded, you can deploy it to a cluster directly from Visual Studio.

1. Open Visual Studio
2. Select File > Open
3. Navigate to the folder you cloned the git repository to, and select Voting.sln
4. Right-click on the Voting application project in the Solution Explorer and choose Publish

Click on Publish.

Select connection Endpoint Local Cluster and click on Publish.

The Web App is Published to the Azure Service Fabric Standalone Cluster.

When you open the Azure Service Fabric Explorer you will see your App Running

This sample is for testing only and is not secure for production, just to learn how it works 😉

Of course you can also deploy Containers with Visual Studio to your Azure Service Fabric Standalone Cluster.

Deploying Service Fabric Container via Visual Studio.

More Azure Service Fabric information

Here you find the Azure Service Fabric documentation

Here you find the Microsoft Azure Service Fabric website

Here you find the Azure Service Fabric Tech Community Blog

Happy Testing your Apps, microservices, and Containers.

Join the Containers in the Cloud LinkedIn Community Group

 

Microsoft Azure Monitor Overview #Cloud #Analytics #Hybrid #AzOps #Azure

Microsoft Azure Monitor

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:

Microsoft Azure Monitor Documentation 

 

Get Started with Microsoft Azure Monitor

Follow Azure Monitor on Twitter 

Microsoft Azure Monitor & Security for Hybrid IT Community Group on LinkedIn

Keep in control of IT with Microsoft Azure Monitor

Microsoft Azure Resource Graph is a Powerful Tool #Azure #Cloud #AzOps #Kusto #PowerShell

Welcome to Azure Resource Graph

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.

Https://shell.azure.com

You can use Microsoft Azure Resource Graph with different language support like :

• With Azure CLI
• With PowerShell
• With Kusto in Azure Resource Graph Explorer

Start here when you like to work with Microsoft Azure CLI

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.

Samples

Command : Search-AzGraph -Query ‘Resources | project name, type | limit 5’

Without the Limit 5 you get all of your resources.

Command: Search-AzGraph -Query ‘Resources | project name, type | limit 10 | order by name asc’

Command: Search-AzGraph -Query “Resources | summarize count()”

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

More information about Microsoft Azure Resource Graph Explorer

Conclusion

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

#Linux Administration on #Azure Hands-On E-book

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.

You can download the Linux Administration on Azure here

Thank you Authors :

Kamesh Ganesan, Rithin Skaria, Frederik Vos.