Category: Microsoft

Improvements to Azure VM backups are now available

Azure Backup now has even greater support and functionality for Azure VM backups:

  • Azure Backup is introducing restoring Unmanaged VMs/Disks as Managed VMs/Disks to provide the benefit of Managed disks for customers who are currently backing up their unmanaged disks.

For more details, please read our documentation

Restore virtual machine

  • Azure Backup now supports Replace existing disks as an option for VMs that have Managed Service Identities (MSI) Both User assigned Identities and System assigned Identities.

For more details, please read our documentation.

All the above features are generally available in all Azure regions.

Microsoft Ignite The Tour Amsterdam

Last week I’ve visited Microsoft Ignite The Tour in Amsterdam. Two realy great days with a lot of new information, presentations and knowledge. There also where a couple of new announcements from Microsoft.

IMG_7579

IMG_7612

My focus was Azure IaaS, security, governance and cost control within Azure. Of course there was a lot more to see, but this event was only 2 days, so I’ve had to make choices!

Microsoft has published the slide decks online, so you can download these now! (click)

Hoppefully I’ll be present the next year at this great event!!

How to: Remove ‘old’ RDS server from farm

When you delete a old RDS Session Host server from your environment whitout first deleting the server from your RDS Farm, you’ll receive the following error:

image

Install SQL Management Studio on your RDS Connection Broker and connect to the following server name:

\\.\pipe\MICROSOFT\##WID\tsql\query

2019-02-13_16h22_03

Create a new query:

SELECT TOP 1000 [Id],[Name] FROM [RDCms].[rds].[Server]

image

Here you can see all your servers in your RDS Farm. Notice the Id of your ‘old’ server. In this example it is server ‘RDS-01’ with ID 2.

Create a new query:

use RDCms;
delete from rds.RoleRdsh where ServerID = ‘2’;

image

Start Powershell on your RDS Broker server and type:

Get-RDServer

image

Now you can open your Server Manager again and manage your RDS Farm!

Live Demo Webinar: Windows Server 2019 in Action

So you’ve heard all about Windows Server 2019 – now you can see it in action in a live demo
webinar on November 8th!

The last WS2019 webinar by Altaro was hugely popular with over 4,500 IT pros registering for
the event. Feedback gathered from that webinar and the most popular features will now be
discussed and tested live by Microsoft MVP Andy Syrewicze. And you’re invited!

This deep-dive webinar will focus on:
• Windows Admin Center
• Containers on Windows Server
• Storage Migration Service
• Windows Subsystem for Linux
• And more!

Demo webinars are a really great way to see a product in action before you decide to take the
plunge yourself. It enables you to see the strengths and weaknesses first-hand and also ask
questions that might relate specifically to your own environment.

With the demand so high, the webinar is presented live twice on November 8th to help as
many people benefit as possible. The first session is at 2pm CET/8am EST/5am PST and the
second is at 7pm CET/1pm EST/10am PST.

With the record number of attendees for the last webinar, some people were unable to attend
the sessions which were maxed out. It is advised you save your seat early for this webinar to
keep informed and ensure you don’t miss the live event.

Save your seat!!

Microsoft Ignite 2018 – Book of News

Ignite Book of News: Your Guide to All the News at Microsoft Ignite

This document contains information on all the announcements made at Microsoft Ignite 2018, including:

  • Microsoft 365;
  • Microsoft Azure IaaS;
  • Azure SQL;
  • SQL Server 2019;
  • Security;
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI);
  • SQL Server 2019;
  • Internet of Things (IoT);
  • Windows Server 2019;
  • Windows Virtual Desktops;
  • Windows Admin Center;
  • Hyper-V;
  • Storage Space Direct (S2D);
  • And many, many, many more……

Download the full document here (or click the big picture below).

Example failover scenarios with Windows Server 2019 S2D cluster

In my previous blogpost, I’ve installed and configured a two node virtual S2D cluster with Windows Server 2019 within Hyper-V on my laptop (Windows 10).

Now the full infrastructure is up and running, and the first guest virtual machine is a live, it’s also nice to take a view on some failover scenarios! In the following examples, you can see the high availability and resiliency of a Storage Space Direct (S2D) cluster. It’s realy, realy, realy powerfull and absolute the feature of virtualization!!

The following scenarios I’m going to cover:

  • Live migration virtual machine;
  • Pause a Hyper-V cluster node (drain roles)
    • for maintenance, for example patching, firmware updates or driver updates.
  • Power Off a Hyper-V cluster node
    • For example a power failure or hardware failure

Scenario 1 – Live Migration:

This feature is already present in the previous versions of Hyper-V and it’s realy powerfull to migrate a virtual machine to another Hyper-V host without any downtime!

        

Scenario 2 – Pause a Hyper-V cluster node:

In this scenario I’m going to ‘pause’ a Hyper-V cluster node with the ‘drain roles’ option. This can be for maintenance, for example: Patching, firmware updates, driver updates or just investigate some issues within Windows.

     

     

As you can see, in my two node S2D cluster, we can ‘pause’ one of the Hyper-V cluster nodes and the virtual machine is still up and running!!

Scenario 3 – Power Off a Hyper-V cluster node:

In this scenario I’m going to simulate a power failure or hardware failure, just to ‘Power Off’ on of the Hyper-V cluster nodes! The virtual machine is saved for a couple of seconds, migrated to the other Hyper-V node and started again!

              

With also with a hardware or power failure, the impact and downtime is that much!! Because the power of Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), your workloads are maximum protected and available!!

Wrap Up:

In this blogpost you’ve seen some scenarios with Storage Space Direct (S2D) in Windows Server 2019. Here you can see the high availability and resiliency of a Storage Spaces Direct infrastructure. Realy powerfull and it meets all your needs for your virtualization environment.

Build a virtual S2D cluster with Windows Server 2019 build 17744

Windows Server 2016 and 2019 Storage Sapces Direct (S2D) allows building HA storage systems using storage nodes with local storage, such as SATA or SSD disks.

In this blogpost, I’ll deploy a two node S2D cluster based on Windows Server 2019 build 17744. The main machine is a HP ProBook 450 G5 with Windows 10, 16 GB memory, 512 GB SSD disk, and Hyper-V enabled.

First of all, I’ve deployed the following virtual machines:

  • S2D-W2019-DC01 (Domain Controller, DNS, Group Policies)
    IP address: 172.16.0.100
  • S2D-W2019-HV01 (Hyper-V host, S2D node)
    IP address: 172.16.0.101 (LAN)
    IP address: 10.10.0.101 (Live Migration)
  • S2D-W2019-HV02 (Hyper-V host, S2D node)
  • IP address: 172.16.0.102 (LAN)
    IP address: 10.10.0.102 (Live Migration)

All the servers are installed with Windows Server 2019 build 17744. The first server I’ve configured is the domain controller. My internal domain is s2dlab.local.

For both S2D nodes (S2D-W2019-HV01 and S2D-W2019-HV02), you’ve to configure some additional settings, because this servers are virtual. So we’re going to run Hyper-V in Hyper-V and on that Hyper-V host there’re some guest virtual machines (nested virtualization) 😀 Cool stuff!!!


$S2DHOST1 = 'S2D-W2019-HV01'
$S2DHOST2 = 'S2D-W2019-HV02'

# List all virtual machines
Get-VM

# Enable nested virtualization on virtual machines
Set-VMProcessor -VMName $S2DHOST1 -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true
Set-VMProcessor -VMName $S2DHOST2 -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true

Next, you’ve to Configure the following settings within the VM configuration:

  • Disable dynamic memory;
  • Set the number of virtual processors to 2 or 4;
  • Turn on MAC address spoofing on your network interface(s);

           

Now the domain controller is up and running and both S2D nodes are installed and configured with Windows Server 2019, it’s time to add some storage. Both servers have 3 x 50 GB virtual disks attached! Note!! this is only for testing and demo!! 

So we’ve 300 GB storage available for our S2D cluster. After this is done, you can install the following roles and features within Windows Server:

  • (Role) File and Storage Services;
  • (Role) Hyper-V;
  • (Feature) Failover Clustering;

           

Now all the components are ready to build the cluster. It’s recommended to run the cluster validation before building your cluster! The name of my cluster is ‘S2D-CL01’ with IP address 172.16.0.200/16. Note!! Uncheck the option ‘Add all eligible storage to the cluster’!!

The cluster is up and running. As you can see within your Active Directory and DNS configuration, there’re three computer objects (two cluster nodes and one Failover Cluster object).

                 

The last step before enabling ‘S2D’ on our cluster is checking the disk configuration.


# List all available disks within the cluster nodes
Get-PhysicalDisk

# Enable Storage Spaces Direct on the cluster
Enable-ClusterS2D

# List all Storage Pools within the S2D cluster
Get-Storagepool S2D*

     

Now our cluster is Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) enabled. The last step is to create a virtual disk within our Storage Pool and add it as a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) to the cluster, wo we can store workloads on it! Bacause we’ve a two node cluster, the only Resiliency type is Two-Way Mirror.

                 

Wrap Up:

In this blogpost we’ve builded a two nodes virtual Storage Spaces Direct cluster in Hyper-V (Windows 10). The S2D nodes are running Windows Server 2019. It’s really a nice opportunity to run this configuration virtual on your laptop or desktop, while nested virtualization is supported and it works great!!

In the next blogpost I’ll show you to install and configure a virtual machine within our S2D cluster. Also performing some live migrations to show the high availability and resiliency of our setup!

Webinar – What’s new in Windows Server 2019

Windows Server 2019 Webinar
With Microsoft Ignite just around the corner, Windows Server 2019 is set to get its full release and the signs look good. Very good.

Unless you’re part of the Windows Server insider program – which grants you access to the latest Windows Server Preview builds – you probably haven’t had a hands-on experience yet
with Windows Server 2019 but the guys over at Altaro have and are preparing to host a webinar on the 3rd of October to tell you all about it.

The webinar will be held a week after Microsoft Ignite so it will cover the complete feature set included in the full release as well as a more in-depth look at the most important
features in Windows Server 2019.

Whenever a new version of Windows Server gets released there’s always a lot of attention and media coverage so it’s nice to have an hour-long session where you can sit back and let
a panel of Microsoft experts cut through the noise and give you all the information you need.

It’s also a great chance to ask your questions direct to those with the inside knowledge and receive answers live on air.

Over 2000 people have now registered for this webinar and I’m going to be joining too. It’s free to register – what are you waiting for?