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.
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!
As enterprise environments now span on-premises to the cloud, customers look to leverage the innovation in Azure services using their on-premises tools. To enable this, Microsoft has integrated System Center with a set of management services in Azure to augment the on-premises tools.
With Service Map integration with System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), you can automatically create distributed application diagrams in Operations Manager (OM) that are based on the dynamic dependency maps in Service Map.
With Azure Management Pack, you can now view perf and alert metrics in SCOM, integrate with web application monitoring in Application Insights, and monitor more PaaS services, such as Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Factory, etc.
Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2019 enables simplified patching of VMs by integrating with Azure Update Management.
What is New in Microsoft System Center 2019
Read here what is new on Microsoft System Center 2019 for your IT Management :
New features in Operations Manager 2019
See the following sections for detailed information about the new and updated features in System Center 2019 – Operations Manager. Features and updates introduced in Operations Manager version 1801 and 1807 are included in version 2019. Plan your Upgrade to SCOM 2019
Service Map integration
Service Map automatically discovers application components on Windows and Linux systems and maps the communication between services. It automatically builds a common reference map of dependencies across your servers, processes, and third-party services. Integration between Service Map and System Center Operations Manager allows you to automatically create distributed application diagrams in Operations Manager that are based on the dynamic dependency maps in Service Map.
Microsoft Azure Hybrid Cloud Architecture HUB-Spoke Model
Microsoft Azure Hub-Spoke model
This blogpost about Microsoft Azure Hub-Spoke model by Enterprise Design 2 of 4 “Lift and Shift” is part of a Datacenter transition to Microsoft Azure Intelligent Cloud. It’s talking about Azure Architecture, Security, Assessment, Azure Policy, and implementation of the design. Here you find the first blogposts :
When creating a building, scaffolding is used to create the basis of a structure. The scaffold guides the general outline and provides anchor points for more permanent systems to be mounted. An enterprise scaffold is the same: a set of flexible controls and Azure capabilities that provide structure to the environment, and anchors for services built on the public cloud. It provides the builders (IT and business groups) a foundation to create and attach new services keeping speed of delivery in mind. Read more hereI did the “Lift and Shift” between quotes because it’s important to follow the process workflow to be successful in your Datacenter transition to the Microsoft Azure Cloud.
App Migration to Azure: Your options explained by Jeremy Winter
The Azure Migrate service assesses on-premises workloads for migration to Azure. The service assesses the migration suitability of on-premises machines, performs performance-based sizing, and provides cost estimations for running on-premises machines in Azure. If you’re contemplating lift-and-shift migrations, or are in the early assessment stages of migration, this service is for you. After the assessment, you can use services such as Azure Site Recovery and Azure Database Migration Service, to migrate the machines to Azure.
In your datacenter you got all kind of different workloads and solutions like :
Hyper-V Clusters
VMware Clusters
SQL Clusters
Print Clusters
File Clusters
Web Farm
Two or three tiers solutions
Physical Servers
Different Storage solutions
When you do your Datacenter Assessment it’s important to get your workloads visible, because “Lift and Shift” with Azure Site Recovery (ASR) of a Virtual Machine is an different scenario then SQL database migration to Azure. That’s why Microsoft has different tooling like :
To get your dependencies in your Datacenter on the map, Microsoft has Azure Service Maps.
Service Map automatically discovers application components on Windows and Linux systems and maps the communication between services. With Service Map, you can view your servers in the way that you think of them: as interconnected systems that deliver critical services. Service Map shows connections between servers, processes, inbound and outbound connection latency, and ports across any TCP-connected architecture, with no configuration required other than the installation of an agent.
This is very handy to get insides of your Datacenter communication workloads.
Installation example of Hyper-V Virtual Machines with ASR
In the following step-by-step guide we will install the Azure Site Recovery Agent on a Hyper-V host and migrate a virtual machine to Microsoft azure in a “Lift and Shift” way.
First create a Recovery Services Vault => Click Add.
Then you go to your new created Recovery Vault and click on Getting started for Site Recovery. => Prepare infrastructure and follow the steps.
When you have selected Hyper-V VM to Azure, the next step is the ASR Deployment Planner tool kit. Here you find more information on Azure Site Recovery Deployment Planner user guide for Hyper-V-to-Azure production deployments.
Then in step 3 you will make your Hyper-V Site in Microsoft azure with the Right Hyper-V Servers.
Give your Hyper-V Site the right name, especially when you have a lot of Hyper-V Clusters with Different workloads.
Here is where the registration begins with the Azure Site Recovery (ASR) Agent installation on your Hyper-V Host.
Follow the five steps and make sure your Hyper-V Node can access Azure via secure port 443(https) via Proxy or firewall rules.
Install as Administrator the AzureSiteRecoveryProvider.exe file on the Hyper-V host.
Click on Next
Choose your Installation location and Click on Install.
The Azure Site Recovery agent is installed and need to be registered with your Azure Recovery Vault.
For this you need the key file from the Azure portal to download at step 4. Click on Register.
Browse to your downloaded key file from the Azure Portal Recovery Vault and click on Next.
When you have a proxy you can select that, otherwise select Next.
Now your Azure ASR Agent on Hyper-V is registered with your Azure Site Recovery Vault.
In the Azure Portal you will see your Hyper-V Node, in my Demo LAB it’s WAC01.MVPLAB.LOCAL.
In the next step you can choose an existing Storage account, or a new one with different specifications.
Check also after storage your network in azure.
In this step we create the replication policy.
Set your own settings.
The Replication policy is added to the configuration.
When you click on OK the Infrastructure is done.
We are now going to enable the replication :
Select your Source and location.
here you select your target Storage account, Resource Group and Network.
The connections are made between Hyper-V, ASR Vault and Storage.
Select the Virtual Machine(s) from the Hyper-V host to replicate for migration with ASR
Configure the properties.
Click on OK
From here the Replication will begin from Hyper-V Host to Azure 🙂
Azure Sire Recovery Replication Job status.
Replicated item(s)
To make your recovery plan and do the failover for migration to azure, you have to wait until the first replication is done for 100%.
Azure Site Recovery Plan for failover (Migration)
Make recovery Plan.
Click OK
The Target in the recovery plan can only be selected when the first replication is done.
Overview of the Azure Site Recovery Migration failover.
From the Hyper-V Host you can pause or see the replication health status.
Azure Migrate Virtual Machines using Azure Site Recovery video with Microsoft Jeff Woolsey
Microsoft Azure Data Migration Assistant
To migrate your SQL Backend to Microsoft Azure, use this step-by-step instructions help you perform your first assessment for migrating to on-premises SQL Server, SQL Server running on an Azure VM, or Azure SQL Database, by using Data Migration Assistant.
Conclusion :
“Lift and Shift” Migration of your complete datacenter exists of different scenarios for your workloads to Microsoft Azure. With that said, Microsoft has for each scenario tooling available to get the job done. It’s all about a good Architectural Design, Security in place, People and process to get your Intelligent Azure Cloud up and running for your Business.
Next Blogpost Microsoft Azure Hub-Spoke model by Enterprise Design 3 of 4 : SQL assessment and Data Migration to Azure
Windows Insider Program for Server allows you deploy the Windows Server 2019 Insider Preview builds in your enterprise. The docs cover the new enterprise features we’d like you to test and describes how to do the most common tasks.
To allow the Windows Admin Center gateway to communicate with Azure to leverage Azure Active Directory authentication for gateway access, or to create Azure resources on your behalf (for example, to protect VMs managed in Windows Admin Center using Azure Site Recovery), you will need to first register your Windows Admin Center gateway with Azure. You only need to do this once for your Windows Admin Center gateway – the setting is preserved when you update your gateway to a newer version.
In the following Step-by-Step Guide you will connect Windows Admin Center to your Microsoft Azure Subscription.
From here you have to copy the device Code and hit the Link device login (Â https://aka.ms/devicelogin )
This will make the connection between Windows Admin Center and your Azure Subscription.
Paste the Code into here and Click on Continue.
Sign in your Azure Subscription.
From here you are connected to your Azure Subscription.
Select the right Azure Tenant and Click on Register.
Go to the Azure AD App Registration link.
Click on Settings
Click on Required Permissions and then on Grant permissions
Click on Yes.
Windows Admin Center has now Permission.
Microsoft Windows Admin Center (WAC) Gateway is now registered to your Azure Subscription and you can use Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication and Azure Site Recovery to protect your Virtual Machines with WAC.
IMPORTANT : Before you can add Microsoft Azure VM’s to Windows Admin Center, you have to set the Azure Network Firewall portal settings and also the Microsoft Windows OS Firewall of the VM.
Networking Settings of the Azure VM.
Open for http WAC port 5985 and for https 5986.
To make the port more Secure you have these Options in the Firewall rule.
Now you have done this for Azure Networking in the portal, you have to do the same in the Firewall settings of the Virtual Machine Inside.
Join Microsoft Windows Server Summit on June 26, 2018
Join Microsoft on Tuesday, June 26, 2018 for a virtual experience to learn tips and tricks for modernizing your infrastructure and applications—regardless of whether you’re running Windows Server on-premises or in the cloud.
Windows Admin Center is an evolution of Windows Server in-box management tools; it’s a single pane of glass that consolidates all aspects of local and remote server management. As a locally deployed, browser-based management experience, an Internet connection and Azure aren’t required. Windows Admin Center gives you full control of all aspects of your deployment, including private networks that aren’t Internet-connected.
Windows Admin Center supports several optional features that integrate with Azure services. Use the following information to configure the Windows Admin Center gateway to support these Azure integration features. Configuring Azure Integration in WAC
When you have Azure integration in place with Microsoft Windows Admin Center you can use Azure Site Recovery (ASR). Azure Site Recovery is an Azure service that replicates workloads running on VMs so that your business-critical infrastructure is protected in case of a disaster. Learn more about Azure Site Recovery
Protect your Hyper-V Virtual Machines from Windows Admin Center with Azure Site Recovery
.Use the following information to configure replication settings and create a recovery plan from within the Azure portal, enabling Windows Admin Center to start VM replication and protect your VMs.
Follow Jeff Woolsey Principal Program Manager Windows Server / Hybrid Cloud
Windows Admin Center Just Rocks also for our PowerShell Administrators 😉
Microsoft is introducing the New Windows Admin Center ( former Project Honolulu )
Last weekend I made my MVPLAB.LOCAL domain with Project Honolulu version 1803 and Windows Server Insider version.
I Made my Domain controller first and later a Cluster with the Windows Server Insider Build version 17639
With Microsoft Windows Admin Center it’s great to manage Windows Server Core version Servers, you got a great GUI interface and you still have a small footprint for your Server OS with Core 🙂
Windows Admin Center is a new, locally-deployed, browser-based management tool set that lets you manage your Windows Servers with no Azure or cloud dependency. Windows Admin Center gives you full control over all aspects of your server infrastructure and is particularly useful for managing servers on private networks that are not connected to the Internet.
Windows Admin Center is the modern evolution of “in-box” management tools, like Server Manager and MMC. It complements System Center and Operations Management Suite – it’s not a replacement.
Architecture
In my MVPLAB.LOCAL I was busy to make a Gateway to Azure for Hybrid Cloud Management :
But with the Microsoft announcement of Windows Admin Center version 1804 yesterday, I will Upgrade my MVPLAB 😉
In this episode, Microsoft takes a look at updates to Project Honolulu and PowerShell Core to manage your server infrastructure. Jeff Woolseyexplains the updates IT pros will want to know about and demonstrates what’s new in Project Honolulu – including Remote Desktop Protocol,Windows client management and PowerShell support. Speaking of PowerShell, Jeff also shows how everything has evolved to PowerShell Core, so you can manage your Windows and Linux workloads from one unified scripting place. You’ll even see how with a single cmdlet, you can talk to both Windows and Linux machines and get cross-platform joined outputs.
Project Honolulu is a flexible, lightweight browser-based locally-deployed platform and a solution for management scenarios. One of Microsoft goals with Project Honolulu is to make it simpler and easier to connect existing deployments of Windows Server to Azure services. With Windows Server 2019 and Project Honolulu, customers will be able to easily integrate Azure services such as Azure Backup, Azure File Sync, disaster recovery, and much more so they will be able to leverage these Azure services without disrupting their applications and infrastructure.
