WS-013: Azure Stack HCI

This three-day course is intended primarily for IT Professionals who already have significant experience with managing an on-premises Windows Server environment. Its purpose is to cover advanced topics related to Windows Server software-defined datacenter, Azure Stack HCI, and other Azure Stack products. The course also describes the use of existing Microsoft System Center products to implement and manage software-defined datacenters with Windows Server 2019. This course is advanced and is designed for people that want to run their virtual workloads on Windows Server 2019 at medium-to-large scale using software-defined datacenter and hyper-converged principles.

Audience

This course is for IT professionals who manage on-premises Windows Server environments and want to use Azure to manage server workloads and run their virtual workloads on Windows Server 2019. They also want to use existing Microsoft System Center products to implement and manage software-defined datacenters with Windows Server 2019.

Prerequisites

• Intermediate experience with managing Windows Server operating systems and Windows Server virtualized workloads in on-premises scenarios
• Intermediate experience with common Windows Server management tools (implied by the first prerequisite)
• Intermediate knowledge of core Microsoft compute, storage, networking, and virtualization technologies
• Intermediate knowledge of Windows Server–based compute and storage high-availability technologies
• Basic experience with implementing and managing Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) services in Microsoft Azure
• Basic knowledge of Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)
• Intermediate knowledge of Microsoft virtualization security-related technologies
• Intermediate knowledge of PowerShell scripting and PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC)

Course goals

• Describe the Azure Stack portfolio, including Azure Stack HCI, Azure Stack Hub, and Azure Stack Edge
• Describe the Azure Stack HCI core technologies and management tools.
• Describe the process of a typical Azure Stack HCI implementation.
  Identify Azure Stack HCI hybrid capabilities.
• Implement, manage, and maintain workloads on Azure Stack HCI.
• Plan for and implement Azure Stack HCI Storage, including Storage QoS and Storage Replica.
• Plan for Azure Stack HCI Networking.
• Implement Software Defined Networks in Azure Stack HCI.

Course outline

Module 1: Introducing Azure Stack HCI
This module describes the basic characteristics of Azure Stack HCI, along with its peer offerings that are part of the Azure Stack portfolio, including Azure Stack Hub and Azure Stack Edge. The module also presents an overview of the Azure Stack HCI core technologies and management tools, and a high-level walkthrough of a typical implementation process. Finally, the modules concludes with a summary of Azure Stack HCI hybrid capabilities, most of which are covered in detail in Module 4.

Module 2: Operating and maintaining Azure Stack HCI
This module describes how to implement, manage, and maintain workloads on Azure Stack HCI. As described in the first module, Azure Stack HCI is designed to optimize performance, resiliency, and scalability of specific types of workloads. Implementing these workloads follows the initial configuration, which involves provisioning virtualized storage and networking layers on top of the hardware approved by Microsoft that is running the Windows Server 2019 operating system. This module provides an overview of different Azure services and Windows Server functionality that can be used to manage and maintain those workloads, leveraging integration of Windows Server 2019 with Azure.

Module 3: Planning for and implementing Azure Stack HCI storage
This module describes how to plan for and implement Azure Stack HCI Storage. The module covers the core HCI storage technologies in detail and includes specific coverage of Storage QoS and Storage Replica (in the context of Azure Stack HCI). The module describes the process of planning, implementation and management of Azure Stack HCI storage.

Module 4: Planning for and implementing Azure Stack HCI networking
This module describes how to plan for and implement Software Defined Networking in Azure Stack HCI. The module focuses on the technology and its basic functionality, with emphasis on Windows Admin Center as the primary SDN management tool. The module also covers in more detail four specific components of SDN available in Azure Stack HCI; Switch Embedded Teaming (SET), Software Load Balancing (SLB), Datacenter Firewall, and RAS Gateways.

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