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Opening my YouTube channel!

I am pleased to announce the opening of my YouTube channel which takes you into the future of IT infrastructure: modern, secure and sustainable!

In this channel, I will share with the latest innovations related to Microsoft technologies, providing valuable advice on how to manage corporate IT infrastructure effectively and efficiently. From cloud computing solutions to the implementation of hybrid environments, with a focus on security technologies, this channel will provide insights on how to improve business resilience, reduce costs and keep your IT infrastructure up to date.

Furthermore, I will cover sustainability and show you how IT infrastructures can be built and used responsibly and ethically to reduce environmental impact.

Figure 1 – Topics covered on the youtube channel

subscribe to my channel to stay up to date on the latest industry news and to find out how secure and sustainable IT infrastructures can make the difference in ensuring a competitive advantage on the market!

Windows Server 2019: the new service for the storage migration (Storage Migration Service)

A known issue that rotates from time around Windows Server is the lack of an effective methodology for migrating data on older operating systems and storage on. Due to the fact that the in-place upgrade of the operating system are not feasible and that the manual migration are often slow and require significant service interruptions, the trend is to continue to use older versions of Windows Server. This article will present the features of the new service Storage Migration Service (SMS), included in Windows Server 2019, and it will be examined how this service can migrate storage present on older Windows Server platforms to facilitate its disposal.

Figure 1 – An overview of Storage Migration Server

Storage Migration Service, in this first version, is capable of transferring the content using the SMB protocol (any version) towards different targets, which: traditional hardware and virtual machines on-prem, IaaS VMs running on Azure or on Azure Stack, and Azure File Sync.

The source of the migration may have an operating system of the following:

  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows Server 2012
  • Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Windows Server 2016
  • Windows Server 2019 Preview

The new role Storage Migration Service (SMS) can be activate both the Standard and in the Datacenter edition of Windows Server 2019, through Windows Admin Center, PowerShell or Server Manager.

Figure 2 – Installation, from Windows Admin Center, of SMS functionality

The SMS feature consists of a service called Orchestrator (Storage Migration Service Orchestrator Node) and one or more services called proxies. The Orchestrator manages migrations and keep the various results into a repository, while the proxies systems enrich with additional functionality the migration process and allow to obtain higher performance.

The management of the migration workflow, made possible by the role SMS, can be totally orchestrated through Windows Admin Center (also known as Project Honolulu). With this management tool, you have the option to migrate storage simultaneously, that resides on multiple systems, towards new targets present on-premises or in Azure.

Storage Migration Service is able to handle the most common problems that you may have when you are faced with storage migrations, including: file in use, share settings, security settings, network names and addresses, local security principals and encrypted data. All these operations are easily managed from an intuitive graphical interface, that masks the robust necessary automations, based on PowerShell.

In order to manage Storage Migration Service from Windows Admin Center is necessary to install a specific extension in preview.

Figure 3 - Installation in Windows Admin Center of the SMS Extension

After adding the Extension you will be able to create new migration jobs.

Figure 4 - Adding a SMS job

Storage Migration Service allows to approach the storage migration procedure in 3 different phases:

  1. Inventory existing servers (source), in order to retrieve information about the data, its security, SMB shares and network settings.

Figure 5 – Inventory phase

 

  1. Migration, through the SMB protocol, of the data, of the security and of the network settings to a new system (target).

Figure 6 – Transfer phase

  1. Identity management, by making the decommissioning of the old source, in order to make the migration transparent to users and applications, and without generating inefficiencies. At this stage the identity will be transferred to the new server, managing your network settings, the join to the domain and the rename of the source server. This phase, defined Cutover, today (may 2018) is not yet available to the public.

Conclusions

Storage Migration Server is a new tool present in Windows Server 2019, still under full development, which will be enhanced in future releases with innovative features. The potential shown is really interesting and certainly in the future will be a service widely used to easily deal with the migration of content from obsolete platforms , thus allowing their disposal. For those wishing to test the latest new features about Windows Server 2019 can participate in the program Windows Insider. Please remember that the preview of Windows Server 2019 and Storage Migration Service are not officially supported in production environments.

OMS and System Center: What's New in December 2017

Compared to what we were used to seeing in recent months, during the month of December, also because of the holiday period, have been announced by Microsoft a few news about Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center. This article will be made a summary accompanied by references required for further study.

Operations Management Suite (OMS)

Log Analytics

In Azure Monitor was including the ability to view and define alert of Log Analytics. This is a feature in preview that allows you to use Azure Monitor as a centralized point of management and visualization of alerts.

Figure 1- Defining a Log Analytics alert in Azure Monitor (preview)

This month the new version of the’OMS agent for Linux systems fixes in particular a major bug concerning the DSC package (omsconfig) that due to a possible hang prevents sending data to the OMS workspace. In this release, there are not new features. To obtain the updated version you can access to the official GitHub page OMS Agent for Linux Patch v 1.4.2-125.

Figure 2 – Bug Fix list for the new OMS agent for Linux

Azure Automation

In Azure Monitor, within Action Groups was introduced the possibility to define a Azure Automation Runbook as action type. It is a further integration that enables you to have an effective alerting platform to take action not only for workloads running on Azure, but independently from their location.

Figure 3 – Defining an action based on Automation Runbook

Protection and Disaster Recovery

Azure Backup introduced support for the protection of Azure virtual machines with discs, managed or unmanaged, encrypted using Bitlocker Encryption Key (BEK). This feature extends the possibilities of protection of encrypted virtual machines, already supported previously in the Bitlocker Encryption Key scenario (BEK) and Key Encryption Key (KEK), allowing to obtain with ease a high level of security in these protection scenarios. For further information you can consult theofficial announcement.

Figure 4 – Protection of VM encrypted using Bitlocker Encryption Key (BEK)

Microsoft has released Azure Site Recovery Deployment Planner a very useful tool that can be used when you plan to implement a disaster recovery plan through to Azure Azure Site Recovery (ASR). ASR Deployment Planner is able to make a detailed assessment of the on-premises environment, targeted use of ASR, and provides the necessary elements to be taken into consideration in order to contemplate effectively the various operations required by the DR plan (replica, virtual machine failover and DR-Drill). The tool works in VMware and Hyper-V also includes a cost estimate for the use of ASR and resources necessary for the protection of Azure virtual machines on-premises. This tool currently can also be useful to make the necessary assessments when you have the need to address real migration scenarios from Hyper-V to Azure. This is because the instrument Azure Migrate, designed specifically to assess migration scenarios, allows you to present to the assessment only of VMware environments. The support for Hyper-V in Azure Migrate will be introduced in the coming months. ASR Deployment Planner can be downloaded at this link and includes the following features:

  • Estimates of the network bandwidth required for the initial replication process (initial replication) and for delta replication.
  • Indicates the type of Storage (standard or premium) required for each VM.
  • Indicates the total number of storage accounts (standard and premium) required.
  • For VMware environments, indicates the number of Configuration Server and Process Server you need to implement on-premises.
  • For Hyper-V environments, provides guidance on additional storage needed on-premises.
  • For Hyper-V environments, indicates the number of VMs that can be protected in parallel (through batch) and the order to be followed in order to successfully activate the initial replication.
  • For VMware environments, specifies the number of VMs that can be protected in parallel to complete the initial replication at any given time.
  • Estimate the throughput attainable by ASR (on-premises to Azure).
  • Perform an assessment, of the supported virtual machines, providing details about the disks (number, its size and IOPS) and the type of the OS.
  • Estimate the costs of DR, for use it in a specific region of Azure.

For detailed information about using the tool you can consult the official documentation relating to the specific scenario:

Figure 5 – Sample reports generated by ASR Deployment Planner

System Center

System Center Configuration Manager

Released the version 1712 for the branch Technical Preview of System Center Configuration Manager. The new features in this update are:

  • Improvements on the Surface Device dashboard, that allows you to view the firmware version of Surface devices, as well as the version of the operating system.
  • Dashboard improvements in Office 365 client management.
  • Multiple installation of applications by accessing the Software Center.
  • Client can be configured to respond to PXE requests without adding a distribution point role (Client-based PXE).

Please note that the Technical Preview Branch releases help you to evaluate new features of SCCM and it is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

Microsoft allows you to test and evaluate for free Operations Management Suite (OMS) by accessing this page and selecting the mode you find most suitable for your needs.

OMS and System Center: What's New in November 2017

In November there have been several announcements from Microsoft concerning Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center. This article will summarize briefly with the necessary references to be able to conduct further studies.

Operations Management Suite (OMS)

Log Analytics

As already announced since 30 October 2017 Microsoft has launched the upgrade process of the OMS workspaces not yet updated manually. In this regard has been released this useful document that shows the differences between a legacy OMS workspace and a updated OMS workspace, with references for further details.

Solutions

Those that use circuit ExpressRoute will be glad to know that Microsoft announced the ability to monitor it through Network Performance Monitor (NPM). This is a feature currently in preview that allows you to monitor connectivity and performance between the on-premises environment and vNet in Azure in the presence of ExpressRoute circuit. For more details about the features announced you can consult theofficial article.

Figure 1 – Network map showing details of ExpressRoute connectivity

Agent

As usual it was released a new version of the OMS Agent for Linux systems that now takes place on a monthly basis. This release fixes bugs related diagnostics during agents onboarding. Are not being introduced new features. To obtain the updated version please visit the official GitHub page OMS Agent for Linux Patch v 1.4.2-124.

Protection and Disaster Recovery

Azure Backup always protected backups from on-premises world toward Azure using encryption that takes place using the passphrase defined during the configuration of the solution. To protect VMs in Azure the recommendation for greater security in the backup was to use VMs with disk-encrypted. Now Azure Backup uses Storage Service Encryption (SSE) to do the encryption of backups of virtual machines on Azure, allowing to obtain in an integrated manner in the solution a mechanism for the implementation of the backup security. This also will happen to existing backup automatically and through a background task.

Microsoft, in order to bring more clarity with regard to pricing and licensing of Azure Site Recovery, updated the FAQ which you can see in the official page of pricing of the solution.

System Center

As is already the case for the operating system and System Center Configuration Manager, the other System Center products, in particular, Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, and Data Protection Manager will follow a release of updated versions every 6 months (semi-annual channel). The goal is to rapidly deliver new capabilities and to ensure a speedy integration with the cloud world, which is essential given the speed with which it evolves. In November was announced the System Center preview version 1711 which you can download at this link.

Figure 2 – Summary of what's new in System Center preview version 1711

To know the details of the new features in this release, please consult theofficial announcement.

System Center Configuration Manager

For System Center Configuration Manager current branch version 1706 was issued an important update rollup you should apply as it solves a lot of problems.

Released the version 1710 for the Current Branch (CB) of System Center Configuration Manager that introduces new features and major improvements in the product. Among the main innovations of this update definitely emerge the possibilities offered by the Co-management that expand the possibilities for device management using either System Center Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune.

Figure 3 – Features and benefits of Co-management

For a complete list of new features introduced in this version of Configuration Manager, you can consult theofficial announcement.

Released the version 1711 for the Technical Preview branch of System Center Configuration Manager. The new features in this update are:

  • Improvements in the new Run Task Sequence step.
  • User interaction when installing applications in the System context even when running a task sequence.
  • New options, in the scenario of using Configuration Manager associated with Microsoft Intune, to manage compliance policy for devices Windows 10 related to Firewall, User Account Control, Windows Defender Antivirus, and OS build versioning.

I remind you that the releases in the Technical Preview Branch allows you to evaluate in preview new SCCM functionality and is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

Released an updated version of the Configuration Manager Client Messaging SDK.

System Center Operations Manager

Released the new wave of the SQL Server Management Packs (version 7.0.0.0):

The Management Packs for SQL Server 2017 can be used for the monitor of SQL Server 2017 and subsequent releases (version agnostic), this allows you to avoid having to manage different MPs for each version of SQL Server. The controls for versions of SQL Server earlier than 2014 are included in the generic MP "Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server".

System Center Service Manager

Microsoft has published a series of tips and best practices to be followed during Authoring Management Pack of System Center Service Manager (SCSM).

Please remember that in order to test and evaluate for free Operations Management Suite (OMS) you can access this page and select the mode that is most appropriate for your needs.