Microsoft Virtual Training Day | NL this Wednesday March 11th. This day will be full of technical sessions based on our Microsoft Learning Paths.
Explore the tracks
We offer 7 tracks including 5 sessions per track, based on the Learning Paths of Azure Cloud Native, Azure Data, Azure Infra & Ops, Business Applications, Power Platform, Modern Workplace and Surface. On the day itself you can join sessions of different tracks. Please register your sessions here :
This blogpost is about the Microsoft Azure Migrate tool in the Cloud doing Azure Migrate assessments to see if your on-premises Datacenter is ready for Azure Cloud Services. Before you migrate your workloads with Azure Migrate to the Microsoft Azure Cloud, you want to know the costs before the migration and what your options are in the transition. For example when you have hardware in your on-premises Datacenter which is too high qua hardware specs like Memory, CPU and storage and you can do with less Compute power, then the performance assessments are really interesting. From here you see a step-by-step guide for VMWare workload assessment(s) to Azure Cloud.
When you search for ‘Azure Migrate’ in your Azure Subscription and click on the services you will see the Azure Migrate Overview screen. When you don’t have a Microsoft Azure subscription yet, you can get one here
Click on Assess and Migrate Servers.
Before we go further with the server migration assessments for VMware, there are more Azure Migration tools available to do assessments and migrations like the following goals :
For Databases Microsoft Azure Migrate uses the Data Migration Assistant for the Assessment and the Data migration to Azure SQL Cloud.
The Data Migration Assistant (DMA) helps you upgrade to a modern data platform by detecting compatibility issues that can impact database functionality in your new version of SQL Server or Azure SQL Database. DMA recommends performance and reliability improvements for your target environment and allows you to move your schema, data, and uncontained objects from your source server to your target server.
To identify the right Azure SQL Database / Managed Instance SKU for your on-premises Database you can use the CLI with a Script :
Here you find more detailed information about the Data Migration Assistant
When you have a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure on-premises and you want to migrate to Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) you can use this Azure Migrate tool :
ISV Lakeside with SysTrack
You can vote for the tools or scenarios that you would like to be integrated with Azure Migrate via this Online form
When you are in the beginning of your Cloud Transition journey, what will go first to the Cloud?
Of course there are much more scenarios like Lift and Shift or modernize your workload in the Cloud like moving to Azure Kubernetes Services for example instead of IaaS Virtual Machines.
So when you want to start moving your On-premises Website(s) or WebApp, Microsoft Azure Migrate Services has a tool for that too :
Assess any app with an endpoint scan. Download the Migration Assistant and start your .NET and PHP app migration to Azure App Service.
Click on Assess
and from here you can plan your migration.
At last when you have to move a big enterprise On-premises Datacenter to the Azure Cloud with a lot of Servers for example 10.000, you can use Azure Data Box Migration
The Microsoft Azure Data Box cloud solution lets you send terabytes of data into Azure in a quick, inexpensive, and reliable way. The secure data transfer is accelerated by shipping you a proprietary Data Box storage device. Each storage device has a maximum usable storage capacity of 80 TB and is transported to your datacenter through a regional carrier. The device has a rugged casing to protect and secure data during the transit.
Azure Data Box
When you want to read more about Microsoft Azure Migrate go to the website.
First we make the Azure Migrate Project ready in the Microsoft Azure Portal.
Select the right Azure Subscription and Resource group to collect the metadata reported by your On-premises environment. Give your Migrate project a name and select the geography.
Here you can select from different Assessment Tools
Select Azure Migrate Server Assessment
Here you can select from different Migration Tools
Select Azure Migrate Server Migration
Add your Tools in the Azure Portal.
Here you see both Microsoft Azure Migrate tools for the Assessment and the Migration as well.
We are going for the Assessment quick start, so click on discover
From here we select with VMware vShere Hypervisor, so you can download the Azure Migrate Appliance for VMware ( 12GB Ova file).
You can also work with an Import CSV file but that’s Preview.
Now you can download and Install the Azure Migrate Virtual Appliance on VMware.
Follow the instructions here
When you have installed the Microsoft Azure Migrate Virtual Appliance for VMware successfully in your environment and has access to all the Virtual Machines then you can run the setup in the Appliance to make connectivity with your Azure subscription.
This will check all the prerequisites and get the updates.
Getting access to vCenter Server with the right permissions.
Now when your Azure Migrate Virtual Appliance for VMware is ready and collecting metadata, we see in the Microsoft Azure Portal the discovery running :
Discovery is in Progress.
After a view minutes we have discovered the Servers running on VMware platform On-premises.
Discovered Servers
Now we have the Servers in our metadata, we can do the Assessment(s) to get all the information we want for preparing to migrate to Azure Cloud Services. Click on Assess.
From here you give the Assessment a name and then you go to the properties of the assessment by clicking on View All
Here you can set the parameters for the assessment for example based on :
Here I made different Azure Migrate Assessment groups with different parameters to see the difference in Costs.
Here you see for example Migrate As Is On-Premises and Performance-Based, but also an Azure Migrate Assessment without SQL Cluster Nodes. In this way you can make your own Azure Migrate Assessment with all your Servers or just a view Servers of your On-premises solution which you want to Migrate to Azure Cloud Services.
Overview of your Azure Migrate Assessment
Server is ready for migration
Server Ready but with conditions
Microsoft Azure Migrate gives you all the information to make the right decisions to migrate you workload from VMware to Microsoft Azure Cloud. When the Azure Migrate Assessment(s) are ready you can make a CSV export file to check the information before you migrate.
Overview of the Azure Migrate Assessment
Azure Migrate Assessment based on Performance for the VM
and there is a separated tab for Storage.
When your assessment is done, you can do the migration by replicating them to Microsoft Azure.
Here you can see the Azure Migrate for VMware (Agentless) steps
Dependency mapping helps you to visualize dependencies across machines
Setup Agentless Dependency visualization for assessment (Preview)
Microsoft Azure Migrate gives you insight information about your own On-Premises Datacenter by doing assessments to get the right migration information to move to Microsoft Azure Cloud. It gives you Azure Cloud costs before you do any migration at all, based on Total Cost of Owner (TCO) ship you can calculate if your solution in the Microsoft Azure Cloud is cheaper or not. Realize that’s it is not always about the money but also :
Hope this blog post helps you by your transition journey to Microsoft Azure Cloud
Microsoft Azure AKS Kubernetes Cluster
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) makes it simple to deploy a managed Kubernetes cluster in Azure. AKS reduces the complexity and operational overhead of managing Kubernetes by offloading much of that responsibility to Azure. As a hosted Kubernetes service, Azure handles critical tasks like health monitoring and maintenance for you. The Kubernetes masters are managed by Azure. You only manage and maintain the agent nodes.
Azure AKS Kubernetes Services in Resource Group.
When you go to settings of your Azure AKS Kubernetes Cluster and then to Upgrade, there you can see your version of Kubernetes and the New versions of Azure AKS Services. Before you upgrade :
Here you find all the information about Azure AKS Kubernetes Change Log on GitHub
You can Upgrade from here by clicking on version 1.15.5 and click on Save at the top.
Azure Activity log.
When the first upgrade is succeeded you can do the next version upgrade.
With Azure Monitoring Insights you can view the live data and see what’s going on.
Azure Monitoring Container Insights.
When the upgrade is completed, you want to see if your new Azure AKS Cluster Services is Healthy.
This Health (Preview) feature is handy to see if all Services are running good.
Azure Monitoring Insights Health of the AKS Kubernetes Services.
The Upgrades are of course also possible via Microsoft Azure Cloud Shell with Azure CLI
Azure CloudShell
To Upgrade your AKS Services via Microsoft Azure CLI
As a DevOps person you like to work with Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Deploying and managing your Azure AKS Kubernetes Cluster services from there with the right extensions.
Here you see also that the KubeProxyVersion is v1.15.7
The extension for developers building applications to run in Kubernetes clusters and for DevOps staff troubleshooting Kubernetes applications.
Features include:
Upgrade Azure AKS Kubernetes Services is Done 😉
When you manage and monitor your Azure AKS Kubernetes Cluster Services, have also a look at Microsoft Azure Advisor for new features and security issues :
Azure Advisor recommendations for Kubernetes services.
The cool thing is that Microsoft also give you the solution to solve a high risk :
Remediation steps.
Microsoft Azure AKS Kubernetes is a managed services and made upgrading for customers really easy to do. You can monitor the upgrades and see the Health status of the Azure AKS Kubernetes services. You get free advise to improve the Services and this all keeps you in control and your business running.
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.
Here you find all the information you need about the Microsoft Azure Stack Family
Here you find the Azure Stack HCI Overview
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.
Hybrid IT Management with Azure Family and Windows Admin Center.
See here the Differences between global Azure, Azure Stack, and Azure Stack HCI
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:
Azure hybrid services work with Windows Servers in the following configurations:
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
Copy your code here https://microsoft.com/devicelogin
You will see this screen when you copy-paste the code
When you go back to Windows Admin Center you will see you are connected with Azure Cloud Shell CLI 😉
Azure Cloud Shell in Windows Admin Center
from here you can manage all your Azure Cloud Services via the Azure Cloud Shell CLI with Bash or Powershell.
Here you find more about Microsoft Azure Cloud Shell tools and Features.
you can add an Azure Network Adapter to your on-premises servers to help you securely connect the server to an Azure Virtual Network.
Read more about adding Microsoft Azure Network Adapter (Preview) in the top 10 Features of Windows Server 2019. Nice link speed of 40 Gbps 😉
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 :
You can install the following Resources to Manage with WAC
Windows Admin Center Overview
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 System Center Data Protection Manager 2019 (DPM)
In a Earlier blogpost I wrote about Backup – Restore – DR Strategy in a fast changing world
Microsoft Products for Backup – Restore -DR, we have:
You can install Microsoft SCDPM on different solutions, like:
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.
Here you can read What’s New in System Center DPM 2019
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 :
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
The Second bullitpoint is installing a brand new Windows Server 2019 with System Center Data Protection Manager on new hardware or on a Virtual Machine. Here you find the Prerequisites and the installation on Microsoft Docs.
Microsoft MVP @CHARBELNEMNOM :
He wrote this blogpost which 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
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.
Security features to help protect cloud workloads that use Azure Backup
When you Click on Create, the Microsoft Azure Recovery Services Vault will be made.
I already made a Azure Recovery Services Vault.
Overview of the Azure Recovery Services Vault.
You can backup of course Azure Virtual Machines.
You can Backup SQL Server in a Azure VM
You can Backup Azure FileShares. ( Preview)
You can Backup AzureStack workloads
You can backup On-premises workloads.
Azure Backup Policies to set different policies for the right Backup Job
Example of creating a Backup Policy with retensions
Here you see the backup en snapshots of an Azure Virtual Machine.
When you start with Microsoft Azure backup, begin with reading the backup Documentation here
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.
Here you can read everything about Azure Site Recovery (ASR)
Hope this Backup – Restore – DR Microsoft Overview is helpful for you and your Business.
Cheers @JamesvandenBerg 😉
You don’t want to miss this Awesome Microsoft Ignite 2019 Event of the Year in Orlando, Florida !
If you can’t attend, don’t worry you can follow the Live Stream of MS Ignite here
Or here on Microsoft Ignite YouTube Channel
Have a look at the Microsoft Ignite 2019 Agenda
Plan your sessions for Microsoft Ignite 2019 ( More 1000+)
Download the Microsoft Events Mobile App for MS Ignite 2019 here
Follow @MS_Ignite on Twitter here
