Administering Azure Stack HCI using Windows Admin Center (WAC) – Part4

Note: In our lab environment, there is no Internet connection. But normally, in production, you can download latest Windows Admin Center from URL below:

Going to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-admin-center to download the tool

To make it simple, we have already downloaded the file and put into server: MYIANLAB01 in C:\Temp\

At Windows Admin Center Setup , before click Finish,

Click on the URL to open the connection

User: wslab\wslab.admin

Password: Wear@mask2020

1.2

In production environment, we using Windows Admin Center we can add any manage any Server in the domain, any Windows PCs, Server Clusters and even Azure VMs.

In this lab, we will add Server Cluster which we have created in LAB1-2

Click Add

Now S2DCluster.wslab.local has been added in Windows Admin Center

Create a user by click New user >>

In “Notification details” à check the status

Click Install

Click Yes to continue

Click the bell icon to see the Installation status,

After a few seconds, you can access to Windows Admin Center Dashboard

In this Dashboard you can see all Azure stack HCI health status.

Note: sometime you must wait a few mins for the Windows Admin Center to collection inventory of all nodes.

We can group all drivers by Server, Type, Status and more by click on

Click Group by >> select Server >> Save

Now all disks are grouped by Server:

Click In-memory cache to see the current server memory use for cache read

Click Storage Spaces Direct to see current Read/Write setting

Click General >> change Virtual Hard Disks Path and Virtual Machines Path to C:\ClusterStorage\VirtualDisk01

Note: we will use this setting later when create VM

Check Notification details

Enter 100GB >> Expand

And check the Volume02 has been expanded to 100GB

Click MyIANLAB-01 >> click Manage >> you will jump to this server

Follow steps in LAB2-3.1.7 to install Data Deduplication

Check deduplication status:

Get-DedupStatus

Force deduplication job:

Start-DedupJob -Volume C:\ClusterStorage\Volume02\ -Type Optimization -Memory 50

Note: you can test by copy files, Iso, create VM in this Volume. Data Deduplication can save up to 90% of storage.

Enter server name: AppServer01

Host: you can choose myianlab-01 or myianlab-01

Path: Choose C:\ClusterStorage\Volume02

Scroll down and enter the below information:

Virtual processors: 2

Memory: 2

Network: MYIAN-WSLAB-Switch

Storage: click Add

Size: 20GB

Operating system >> Install an operating system from an image file (.iso)

>> Choose C:\TEMP\Windows10-1903-32-64.iso

You can add or modify Disk size from here:

Choose Windows 10 (64-bit)

Follow normal OS installation steps to complete this installation

Note: you can use Failover Cluster Management to create VM (which will be a bit faster)