A WORLD OF BITS AND BYTES…
A question I often get is ‘why should I use Windows Server Core edition’? This is difficult to manage and I do not like a server without a graphical interface.
The first thing I always tell you is, you DON’T HAVE to do anything, but my advice is to do it. Especially for a number of crucial server roles.
Some advantages of Windows Server Core edition at a glance:
Continue reading “Install and configure ADDS on Windows Server 2022 Core in Azure (Part 2)”
Today, I’m going to show you how to install and configure Active Directory Domain Services on Windows Server 2022 Core edition on Azure.
I’ve used some ARM templates to deploy my two domain controllers in Azure, based on Windows Server 2022 Core edition. These servers are in a separate subnet within my Azure environment. In this example, Í’ve two domain controllers, mss-dc-core001 and mss-dc-core002.
Continue reading “Install and configure ADDS on Windows Server 2022 Core in Azure (Part 1)”
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:
Install SQL Management Studio on your RDS Connection Broker and connect to the following server name:
\\.\pipe\MICROSOFT\##WID\tsql\query
Create a new query:
SELECT TOP 1000 [Id],[Name] FROM [RDCms].[rds].[Server]
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’;
Start Powershell on your RDS Broker server and type:
Get-RDServer
Now you can open your Server Manager again and manage your RDS Farm!
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:
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:
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:
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!
This video shows how powerful PowerShell is for doing some automation in Hyper-V and Azure (IaaS).
The following movie shows the power of Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016. From the local disks, to storage pools and cluster, all the layers are explained!! Very useful when you want to know exactly how Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) works.
Software Defined will be the feature! So prepare yourself….. 🙂
Have you missed the Microsoft Ignite 2016 event…..no problem!! MVP Michel de Rooij has created a script to download all the content (videos and slidedecks). So you can watch all the content again.
This script will download all the Ignite 2016 slidedecks and videos that are available from Techcommunity via the OneDrive URL on the session page. Video downloads will leverage a utility which can be downloaded from https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl.exe, and put it in the same folder as the script. The script itself will try to download the utility when the utility is not present.
Special credits goes to:
Original scraper for slidedecks by Mattias Fors, http://deploywindows.info.
Adjusted for video downloading by Michel de Rooij, http://eightwone.com
Enhancements by Scott Ladewig http://ladewig.com
Download the script here.
When migrating a customer to for example Microsoft Office 365, most of the time we install a ADFS environment to. With ADFS you create a single sign-on experience (SSO) for your users. Within Windows Server 2012 R2, ADFS is a default server role, which can be enabled really easily. After the installation, you’ve to configure some options and you’re ready to rock!
The default logon screen of ADFS is not that nice. Some basic colors and no custom branding. In the most environments our customers wanted to have some custom branding. There’re a few things you can change on the logon screen. For example:
In this example I’ve changed the ADFS logon screen with our new company branding. Within a few minutes, the logon screen looks really different and ‘personal’ (heeeey….that’s me!!! 🙂 )
## Change the company name
Set-AdfsGlobalWebContent -CompanyName "Lab Environment ADFS"
## Change the company logo
Set-AdfsWebTheme -TargetName default -Logo @{path="C:\ADSF_branding\Ictivity_Logo_Small.png"}
## Change the left side of the page
Set-AdfsWebTheme -TargetName default -Illustration @{path="C:\ADSF_branding\Ictivity_Logo_Large.png"}
As you can see, it’s really great to customize your ADFS logon screen with your company branding. In this example it’s really personal, because the picture on the logon screen is ME!! 🙂