Windows Admin Center is not just the management control panel for your Windows Server environment, your hyper-converged infrastructure, and your Azure Stack HCI solutions. It is also your gateway when it comes to connecting Azure Hybrid Cloud services with your on-premises environment, or an environment hosted at another cloud provider. It allows you to easily set up Azure Hybrid Cloud services like Azure Backup, Azure Site Recovery, Azure File Sync, Azure Monitor and more.
These short video series give you an overview about how you can set up and configure Azure Hybrid services directly from Windows Admin Center.
Configure Azure Hybrid Services in Windows Admin Center Introduction
Register Windows Admin Center with Azure
To integrate Azure services directly in Windows Admin Center you will need to register your Windows Admin Center gateway with Azure. This will allow you to directly create and connect services in Azure from Windows Admin Center
Blogs:
Microsoft Docs:
Configure Azure Backup in Windows Admin Center
Azure Backup allows you to not just back up your Azure services, but also to back up your on-prem workloads to Microsoft Azure. In combination with Windows Admin Center, you can simply configure new Windows Servers with Azure backup and have a look at the latest backup status.
Blogs:
Microsoft Docs:
- Backup Windows Server to Azure
- Backup your Windows Servers from Windows Admin Center with Azure Backup
Use Azure Network Adapter to connect to Azure
With Windows Admin Center and Windows Server 2019 Azure Network Adapter, you get a one-click experience to connect your Windows Server with your Azure Virtual Network using a Point-to-Site VPN connection.
Blogs:
Microsoft Docs:
Replicate your VMs with Azure Site Recovery in Windows Admin Center
Site Recovery replicates workloads running on physical and virtual machines (VMs) from a primary site to a secondary location. When an outage occurs at your primary site, you failover to a secondary location, and access apps from there. With the Windows Admin Center integration, you can simply start replicating Hyper-V virtual machines to Azure and use Azure as a recovery location. Azure Site Recovery is also very useful if you want to migrate virtual machines to Azure.
Blogs:
Microsoft Docs:
- Hyper-V to Azure disaster recovery architecture
- Protect your Hyper-V Virtual Machines with Azure Site Recovery and Windows Admin Center
Sync File Servers with Azure File Sync in Windows Admin Center
Use Azure File Sync to centralize your organization's file shares in Azure Files, while keeping the flexibility, performance, and compatibility of an on-premises file server. Azure File Sync transforms Windows Server into a quick cache of your Azure file share. You can use any protocol that's available on Windows Server to access your data locally, including SMB, NFS, and FTPS.
Blogs:
Microsoft Docs:
- Deploy Azure File Sync
- Windows Admin Center Sync your file server with the cloud by using Azure File Sync
Azure Update Management using Windows Admin Center
You can use the Update Management solution in Azure Automation to manage operating system updates for your Windows and Linux computers that are deployed in Azure, in on-premises environments, or in other cloud providers. With Windows Admin Center you will get a direct integration with Azure Update Management.
Blogs:
Microsoft Docs:
- Update Management solution in Azure
- Use Windows Admin Center to manage operating system updates with Azure Update Management
Connect Windows Admin Center to Azure Monitor
Azure Monitor allows you to collect events and performance counters from Windows Server to run analytics and reporting in Azure and take action when a particular condition is detected. This can then be a notification (SMS, email, push notification) and/or a direct action using Azure Logic Apps, Azure Functions, Azure Automation Runbooks, webhooks or integration into ITSM tools.
Blogs:
Microsoft Docs:
- Azure Monitor overview
- Monitor servers and configure alerts with Azure Monitor from Windows Admin Center
I hope these short video series gives you a great overview of how to set up the Azure hybrid integration in Windows Admin Center. To learn more about Azure Stack HCI, check out my blog post. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.