Installing Azure Stack PoC –My Experience

RiteshGrover — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 00:48:17 GMT

Recently I got a chance to play around with Azure stack so here is my blog with some of my learning and findings.

Review Azure stack hardware Prerequisites before you start.
A download link for Azure Stack can be found here
Followed the deployment steps mentioned here
Hardware configuration
- Intel i7 (6 Core)
- 64GB RAM (Available 63GB as around 1GB used by my onboard display
- 1 x 2 TB HDD as OS Disk (200GB free Space required)
- 4 x 240GB SSD
Minimum memory required is mentioned as 96GB however prerequisite check script validates minimum 64GB of memory availability. Since I only had 63GB memory available on my server, I had to tweak the pre-check script with name “Invoke-AzureStackDeploymentPrecheck.ps1”. After boot from VHDX , mount MicrosoftAzureStackPOC.vhdx which can be found under the install location for the Azure stack and browse to the pre check file at location ..\AzureStackInstaller\PoCDeployment\ and modify the function CheckRam.
There is no check related to minimum number of cores hence less number of cores availability is not an issue for PoC.
During the installation process system reboots twice, One reboot to install Hyper-V, etc. and a second reboot to join the host to the AzureStack.local domain.
My deployment failed after second reboot with below mentioned error at task CreateSOFS.
- ***********************************************************Start-PocFabricInstallerTasks : POCFabricInstaller failed because thefollowing tasks failed: CreateSOFSAt C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\AzureStack\Deployment\RunAzureStackDeploymentTask.ps1:158 char:19+ ... $result = & "Start-$moduleName`Tasks" -StatusUpdatedCallback {+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Write-Error], WriteErrorException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WriteErrorException,Start-PocFabricInstallerTasks C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\AzureStack\Deployment\RunAzureStackDeploymentTask.ps1 : Azure Stack deployment failed in Task Group PocFabricInstaller At C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\AzureStack\Deployment\Invoke-AzureStackDeployment.p s1:41 char:5 + & $PSScriptRoot\RunAzureStackDeploymentTask.ps1 -ErrorAction Stop ... + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Write-Error], WriteErrorException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WriteErrorException,RunAzureStackDeploymentTask.ps1 ****************************************************************************
PocFabricInstaller-Verbose log had below entry
- Name Status PendingReboot Runs---- ------ ------------- ----EnableRemotePS PassInstallFeature Pass 0SetupvSwitch PassHostConfigration Pass EnableVFP Pass DisableUnusedNic Pass FindFreeDisk Pass CopyVhdx_Local Pass ADVM Pass DCPromo Pass SetupDNS Pass SetupCA Pass CreateServiceAccount Pass DomainJoin Pass 0 ChangeTimeSync Pass EnableCredSSP Pass AddHostToSG Pass CreateFailoverCluster Pass CreateStoragePool Pass CreateCSV Pass CreateSOFS Fail 4 CopyVhdx_SOFS NotStarted CreateDSCCert NotStarted BGPVM NotStarted NATVM NotStarted SetupGW NotStarted SetupNAT NotStarted NCVM NotStarted MuxVM NotStarted ImportDCSCert_NCVM NotStarted SetupNC NotStarted SQLVM NotStarted PortalVM NotStarted ACSVM NotStarted xRPVM NotStarted
One can run the powershell Invoke-DeploymentLogCollection.ps1 from :\AzureStackInstaller\PoCDeployment\ to collect the detail log information in case of any failure or troubleshooting, the logs will be collected to C:\LogCollection\ folder.
Validated manually the domain join, Hyper-v , cluster role installation etc. All the roles were installed in my case successfully.
Validated if I can launch cluster console and can see the resources. I was able to launch the console and can see the resources online with IP address assigned as expected.
Since I Since I didn’t find any issues, I tried reinstalling the Azure stack by just re launching the installation script .\DeployAzureStack.ps1.
Installation successfully resumed from the failed task and continue with rest of the remaining deployment without any issue.
My guess is after second reboot cluster service took some time to come back online and hence the next follow-up task which was CreateSOFS failed at first attempt.
Good thing is that the scripts are very well written to understand the failed or last successfully executed steps hence it didn’t require us to do any cleaning before we can reattempt the setup/ deployment.

Overall the deployment is pretty straight forward and I was able to finish the same at almost first attempt :-)

What’s New in Windows Server 2016

RiteshGrover — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 23:14:05 GMT

It’s been existing 3 months in my new role as Datacenter TSP at Microsoft, most of the time we have been asked by customer about what’s new in Windows server 2016 and what are the top features. So here is my first blog with some of the interesting key features which has been introduced in Windows Server 2016. Hope you will find them interesting. Here is a quick glance, happy learning. What’s new in Hyper-V / Virtualization

Host Resource Protection
- This feature prevents virtual machines to use more than its share of resources by looking at excessive activities and reduce their resource allocation dynamically
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/dn765471.aspx#BKMK_host
Shared VHDX Support
- Shared VHDX drives are used to create guest clusters, Resizing support of these shared vhdx on Live VMs and Hyper-V replica support has been introduced.
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/dn765471.aspx#BKMK_shared
Runtime Memory Resize
- Adjust the amount of memory assigned to a virtual machine while it's running.
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/dn765471.aspx#BKMK_hot
Add/Remove Network adapters
- Add or remove network adapters while VM is running.
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/dn765471.aspx#BKMK_hot
Manual upgrade process for VMs version
- Manual process to upgrade VM version allows VMs movement between Hyper-V 2012 R2 and Hyper-V 2016.
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt695898.aspx
Production Checkpoints
- Windows Server 2016 uses VSS based checkpoint instead of save state which provides application consistent snapshots hence supported in production.
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/dn872510.aspx
Nested virtualization
- This feature allows running Hyper-v on VM.
- https://msdn.microsoft.com/virtualization/hyperv_on_windows/user_guide/nesting

What’s new in Clustering

CSV Cache Improvement
- More than 64GB Cache size support
Diagnostic Improvements
- Additional Cluster Validation tests to check AD and configuration issues
- Improved validation time for both storage and non-storage tests
- Improved cluster log – Less noise and more details
- Active Memory Dump – Alternate to full Memory Dump (captures what is important with less size).
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/dn765474.aspx#BKMK_Diagnostics
VM Compute resiliency
- Increased Missed cluster heartbeat threshold from 5Sec to 10Sec and 20 Sec for stretched clusters (20 Sec to match TCP timeout). This provides more stability to cluster.
- Host Isolation allowed, 4min as of now (don’t failover and allowed them to come back to cluster)
- Quarantine flapping Node :We Prevent flapping node from negatively impact the cluster stability and Quarantined it if ungracefully leave cluster 3 times in an hour. VMs are drained once Quarantined, not more than 25% can be quarantined. Nodes prevented to join back before 2 hour.
- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clustering/2015/06/03/virtual-machine-compute-resiliency-in-windows-server-2016/
VM Storage resiliency
- In case of transient storage disruption, VM state is preserved, VM moved to Paused Critical state and will wait for storage to recover
- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clustering/2015/06/03/virtual-machine-compute-resiliency-in-windows-server-2016/
SMB Multi channel support
- Support multiple NICs on same subnet
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/dn765474.aspx#BKMK_SMBMultiChannel
VM Start Ordering
- VM start ordering support based on POST, event ID, timer or service etc
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/dn765471.aspx#BKMK_StartOrder
Cloud Witness
- Support for cluster witness node on cloud, without the need of 3^rd site in case of stretched cluster.
- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clustering/2014/11/13/introducing-cloud-witness/
Cluster without domain joined
- Now it’s possible to create cluster with servers on workgroup. Very useful for different SQL cluster scenarios like SQL on different domain always-on, SQL Migrations and SQL in workgroup
- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clustering/2015/08/17/workgroup-and-multi-domain-clusters-in-windows-server-2016/
Site Awareness
- Resource grouping based on physical location
- Failover node to same site before failing to node in different site.
- VM follows storage and are placed in same site.
- Preferred Site/ define primary sites – Feature used in cold start, drain node etc.
- Define fault domain – Used for Spaces direct along with Site awareness, fault domain with rack
- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clustering/2015/08/19/site-aware-failover-clusters-in-windows-server-2016/
Private cloud equality also called as Node fairness
- Identify idle nodes and distribute VMs load (Using CPU, Memory pressure), this was supported earlier as well however there was a dependency on System center to achieve this. It’s natively available in Windows server 2016 now.
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/dn765474.aspx#BKMK_VMNodeFairness
Rolling Upgrades
- Online cluster upgrade support from Windows 2012 R2 to Windows 2016.
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/dn850430.aspx
Security
- Virtual Secure Mode : Process and Memory access protection from the host
- Host Guardian Service : Enabler to run Shielded Virtual Machines on a legitimate host in the fabric
- Shielded VM : Bitlocker enabled VM
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt599611.aspx

Ritesh's Tech Blog

Installing Azure Stack PoC –My Experience

What’s New in Windows Server 2016