Azure Arc Enabled Server
With Microsoft Azure Arc Machine agent you can connect your Windows Server 2022 with Microsoft Azure Arc Services.
Microsoft Azure Arc-enabled servers lets you manage Windows and Linux physical servers and virtual machines hosted outside of Azure, on your corporate network, or other cloud provider. in October 2023 Microsoft released via Windows Update Center the setup of Azure Arc Machine agent. In the following steps I will install Azure Arc via the Windows Server Manager:
Click on Disabled
Click on Next
Azure Connected Machine Agent is installing.
Click on Configure
Click on Next
Sign into your Azure Subscription
Click on Next
Select your Azure Active Directory Tenant.
Select Subscription
Select the Resource Group
Select the Azure Region
Select Network Connectivity.
Click on Next
Your done, your Windows Server is now connected with Azure Arc
Click on Finish
Here is our Azure Arc enabled Windows Server 2022 in the Microsoft Azure Portal.
From here you have all the Azure Arc Services available for your on-prem Server.
When you connect your machine to Azure Arc-enabled servers, you can perform many operational functions, just as you would with native Azure virtual machines. Below are some of the key supported actions for connected machines.
- Govern:
- Assign Azure Automanage machine configurations to audit settings inside the machine.
- Protect:
- Protect non-Azure servers with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, included through Microsoft Defender for Cloud, for threat detection, for vulnerability management, and to proactively monitor for potential security threats. Microsoft Defender for Cloud presents the alerts and remediation suggestions from the threats detected.
- Use Microsoft Sentinel to collect security-related events and correlate them with other data sources.
- Configure:
- Use Azure Automation for frequent and time-consuming management tasks using PowerShell and Python runbooks. Assess configuration changes for installed software, Microsoft services, Windows registry and files, and Linux daemons using Change Tracking and Inventory
- Use Update Management to manage operating system updates for your Windows and Linux servers. Automate onboarding and configuration of a set of Azure services when you use Azure Automanage (preview).
- Perform post-deployment configuration and automation tasks using supported Arc-enabled servers VM extensions for your non-Azure Windows or Linux machine.
- Monitor:
- Monitor operating system performance and discover application components to monitor processes and dependencies with other resources using VM insights.
- Collect other log data, such as performance data and events, from the operating system or workloads running on the machine with the Log Analytics agent. This data is stored in a Log Analytics workspace.
This is handy to install a couple of Servers manually but when you have to do more, you can generate a script for multiple
Servers installation:
From the Azure Portal
Click on Generate Script
Here you can make a Basic script or for Configuration Manager,
or a script for a Group Policy or via Ansible.
Important:
Before you begin with making your Windows Server Azure Hybrid with the Arc Connected Machine Agent, you have to think about Security by Design. with Identity Access Management (IAM) you can manage who will get access to your Arc enabled Servers.
Wo may use Windows Admin Center for example in the Azure portal?
Access Control on Azure Arc enabled Server.
With Microsoft Azure policy you can set your governance and policies for the organization. There are a lot of pre-defined policies, but you can also make your own Azure policies for your Arc enabled Servers.
Conclusion
Make your datacenter(s) securely Hybrid with Microsoft Azure Arc Services is easy to do and gives you a lot of Azure Hybrid benefits.
Start with your test environment and make your own Azure Arc enabled solutions and when the experience is good you can do it in production 😉
Here you find more about Azure Arc enabled Services:
- Learn about Azure Arc-enabled servers.
- Learn about Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes.
- Learn about Azure Arc-enabled data services.
- Learn about SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc.
- Learn about Azure Arc-enabled VMware vSphere.
- Learn about Azure Arc-enabled VM Management on Azure Stack HCI.
- Learn about Azure Arc-enabled System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
- Experience Azure Arc by exploring the Azure Arc Jumpstart.
- Learn about best practices and design patterns through the Azure Arc Landing Zone Accelerators.
- Understand network requirements for Azure Arc.