azure/azurestackhci-evalguide

Welcome to the Azure Stack HCI Evaluation Guide!

Breaking News

Newly announced at Microsoft Ignite 2022 is a new partnership with the Arc Jumpstart team. Now you can build out the next generation of HCI-Sandbox in the newly announced Public Preview of Jumpstart HCIBox.

This new solution builds upon HCI-Sandbox but offers a few additonal features like:

• Automated Deployment of Azure Stack HCI Environment
• Automated Registration of Azure Stack HCI Cluster
• Automated Deployment of Azure Kubernetes Service
• Automated Deployment of Azure Arc Connected Resource Bridge for Virtual Machine Deployment via Azure

Please feel free to use this new Evaluation of Azure Stack HCI as it will be the new offering.

Azure Stack HCI 21H2 - Evaluation Guide

Important Update

---

This guide is currently not fully functional. For the time being please refer to Evaluate Azure Stack HCI in the mean time. This guide will be updated to the 22H2 Release very close to the Public Preview Release Date. Stay Tuned.

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Welcome to the Azure Stack HCI 21H2 Evaluation Guide

In this guide, we'll walk you experiencing a number of the amazing capabilities within Azure Stack HCI 21H2, and set the foundation for you to explore in your own time. You'll cover aspects such as:

• Building a hyperconverged Azure Stack HCI cluster using Windows Admin Center
• Configuring a cloud witness
• Registering Azure Stack HCI 21H2 with Azure
• Creating storage volumes and deploying a VM

Contents

• Welcome to the Azure Stack HCI 21H2 Evaluation Guide
• Contents
• What is Azure Stack HCI 21H2?
• Why follow this guide?
• Interested in AKS on Azure Stack HCI?
• Evaluating in Azure
• Nested Virtualization
• Deployment of Azure Stack HCI 21H2 nested in Azure
• Deployment Workflow
• Get started
• Product improvements
• Raising issues
• Contributions & Legal

What is Azure Stack HCI 21H2?

If you've landed on this page, and you're still wondering what Azure Stack HCI 21H2 is, Azure Stack HCI 21H2 is a hyperconverged cluster solution that runs virtualized Windows and Linux workloads in a hybrid on-premises environment. Azure hybrid services enhance the cluster with capabilities such as cloud-based monitoring, site recovery, and backup, as well as a central view of all of your Azure Stack HCI 21H2 deployments in the Azure portal. You can manage the cluster with your existing tools including Windows Admin Center, System Center, and PowerShell.

Initially based on Windows Server 2019, Azure Stack HCI 21H2 is now a specialized OS, running on your hardware, delivered as an Azure service with a subscription-based licensing model and hybrid capabilities built-in. Although Azure Stack HCI 21H2 is based on the same core operating system components as Windows Server, it's an entirely new product line focused on being the best virtualization host.

If you're interested in learning more about what Azure Stack HCI 21H2 is, make sure you check out the official documentation, before coming back to continue your evaluation experience. We'll refer to the docs in various places in the guide, to help you build your knowledge of Azure Stack HCI 21H2.

Why follow this guide?

This evaluation guide will walk you through standing up a sandboxed, isolated Azure Stack HCI 21H2 environment using nested virtualization in a single Azure VM. The important takeaway here is, by following this guide, you'll lay down a solid foundation on to which you can explore additional Azure Stack HCI 21H2 scenarios in the future, so keep checking back for additional scenarios over time.

Interested in AKS on Azure Stack HCI?

If you're interested in evaluating AKS on Azure Stack HCI (AKS-HCI), and you're planning to evaluate all the solutions using nested virtualization in Azure, it's certainly tempting to run AKS-HCI on top of an Azure Stack HCI 21H2 nested cluster in an Azure VM, however we strongly discourage this approach due to the performance impact of multiple layers of nested virtualization. The recommended approach to test AKS-HCI in an Azure VM using the official AKS on Azure Stack HCI eval guide.

Evaluating in Azure

As with any infrastructure technology, in order to test, validate and evaluate the technology, there's typically a requirement for hardware. If you're fortunate enough to have multiple server-class pieces of hardware going spare (ideally hardware validated for Azure Stack HCI 21H2, found on our Azure Stack HCI 21H2 Catalog), you can certainly perform a more real-world evaluation of Azure Stack HCI 21H2.

For the purpose of this evaluation guide however, we'll be relying on nested virtualization to allow us to consolidate a full lab infrastructure, down onto a single Hyper-V host inside an Azure VM.

---

Important Note - Production Deployments

The use of nested virtualization in this evaluation guide is aimed at providing flexibility for evaluating Azure Stack HCI 21H2. For production use, Azure Stack HCI 21H2 should be deployed on validated physical hardware, of which you can find a vast array of choices on the Azure Stack HCI 21H2 Catalog.

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Nested Virtualization

If you're not familiar with Nested Virtualization, at a high level, it allows a virtualization platform, such as Hyper-V, or VMware ESXi, to run virtual machines that, within those virtual machines, run a virtualization platform. It may be easier to think about this in an architectural view.

As you can see from the graphic, at the base layer, you have your physical hardware, onto which you install a hypervisor. In this case, for our example, we're using Windows Server 2019 with the Hyper-V role enabled. The hypervisor on the lowest level is considered L0 or the level 0 hypervisor. On that physical host, you create a virtual machine, and into that virtual machine, you deploy an OS that itself, has a hypervisor enabled. In this example, that 1st Virtualized Layer is running a nested Azure Stack HCI 21H2 operating system. This would be an L1 or level 1 hypervisor. Finally, in our example, inside the Azure Stack HCI 21H2 OS, you create a virtual machine to run a workload. This could in fact also contain a hypervisor, which would be known as the L2 or level 2 hypervisor, and so the process continues, with multiple levels of nested virtualization possible.

The use of nested virtualization opens up amazing opportunities for building complex scenarios on significantly reduced hardware footprints, however it shouldn't be seen as a substitute for real-world deployments, performance and scale testing etc.

Deployment of Azure Stack HCI 21H2 nested in Azure

For those of you who don't have multiple server-class pieces of hardware to test a full hyperconverged solution, this evaluation guide will detail using nested virtualization in Azure to evaluate Azure Stack HCI.

In this configuration, you'll take advantage of the nested virtualization support provided within certain Azure VM sizes. You'll deploy a single Azure VM running Windows Server 2019 to act as your main Hyper-V host - and through PowerShell DSC, this will be automatically configured with the relevant roles and features needed for this guide. It will also download all required binaries, and deploy 2 Azure Stack HCI 21H2 nodes, ready for clustering.

This guide now offers 2 solutions for deploying Azure Stack HCI in a nested environment, there is the option to Deploy out the entire cluster from begining and get a True understanding of the Deployment process, or you can use our new "Rocket to HCI" deployment process, that will start you immediatly AFTER the HCI Cluster Creation Process. The choice is yours.

To reiterate, the whole configuration will run inside the single Azure VM.

Deployment Workflow including Cluster Creation Experience

This guide will walk you through deploying a sandboxed infrastructure, in one of 2 methods. - the general flow will be as follows:

Part 1 - Complete the pre-requisites - deploy your Azure VM: In this step, you'll create a VM in Azure using an Azure Resource Manager template. This VM will run Windows Server 2019 Datacenter, with the full desktop experience. PowerShell DSC will automatically configure this VM with the appropriate roles and features, download the necessary binaries, and configure 2 Azure Stack HCI 21H2 nodes, ready for clustering.

Part 2 - Configure your Azure Stack HCI 21H2 Cluster: In this step, you'll use Windows Admin Center to deploy an Azure Stack HCI 21H2 cluster - along with a Cloud Witness, a Cluster Shared Volume, and finally, you'll register this cluster with Azure.

Part 3 - Integrate Azure Stack HCI 21H2 with Azure: In this step, you'll use Windows Admin Center to register your Azure Stack HCI Cluster with Azure and explore what's presented in the portal

Part 4 - Explore the management of your Azure Stack HCI 21H2 environment: With your deployment completed, you're now ready to explore many of the management aspects within the Windows Admin Center.

Get started

• Part 1 - Complete the prerequisites - deploy your Azure VM
• Part 2 - Configure your Azure Stack HCI 21H2 Cluster
• Part 3 - Integrate Azure Stack HCI 21H2 with Azure
• Part 4 - Explore Azure Stack HCI Management

Rocket to HCI Deployment Experience

---

For your first step, simply click on the "Deploy to Azure" button above and you will be taken to the Custom Template Deployment Wizard in Azure Portal.

You will need to supply the Resource Group and the Admin Password still, but this is a fairly easy process.

Hit Review+Create and jump to the "After Deployment Section"

Warning

The deployment may error out, with a warning about the DSC extension not completing due to a system shutdown. Don't worry though. That's the beauty of DSC, the configuration will run every 15 minutes.

Go grab a coffee or lunch, the components need a few minutes to download, but once you see the shortcut on the desktop, named New-AZSHCI-Sandbox, you are ready to go.

Deployment-Post Azure

Now that the Azure Resource is completed, you are ready to begin deploying the HCI cluster. The Azure VM that you just deployed is only a Nested Host, to contain all the components neccesary for this 2 node HCI cluster.

Important The HCI Sandbox was meant to help you understand Software Defined Networking in Azure Stack HCI, but if you DO NOT want to deploy SDN or you WANT to DEPLOY AKS on HCI, you will need to EDIT the Config file BEFORE deployment. This can be done by using notepad or ISE to edit line 47 of the Config file. You will need to UPDATE the line "ProvisionNC= $True" to "ProvisionNC=$false" This is the neccesary step to be able to Install AKS on the HCI Sandbox.

You have 2 main options for deploying the HCI cluster:

1. Build Script located on the Desktop of the Azure Virtual Machine- simply run this script and 1-2 hours later cluster should be deployed.

2. Run the script from powershell and monitor the progress. The code is available here:

   & C:\AzHCI_Sandbox\AzSHCISandbox-main\New-AzSHCISandbox.ps1

Important If you find during the installation that something went wrong, please run the Installation Script in a PowerShell window, as this is the only way to understand the issue. If you have an issue during installation, file an Issue in GitHub for this Repo, and provide the Error Details from this process.

Once the build is complete, you will see the shortcut to RDP the Admin Center Server. You can use this to RDP your Windows 10 Workstation and begin using the HCI Sandbox.

Post Deployment - HCI Cluster Registration

One of the first steps when deploying Azure Stack HCI is registraiton of the Cluster to your Azure Subscription. You can register the cluster in a number of ways including with Windows Admin Center, instructions are available here.

For your convience a script has been added to automate that registration process. Run the code below in Powershell, you will be prompted for three additional items:

1. Login for the Contoso Domain Admin Account ( Default is "Password01)
2. Login to Azure with Device Credentials, you will see this in yellow text with a code to input to "Microsoft.com/devicelogin.
3. Select an Azure Region to deploy the cluster into from the list.

Run this from the Azure VM

& C:\AzHCI_Sandbox\AzSHCISandbox-main\Register-Cluster.ps1

After Azure Deployment

Connecting to Admin Center to Manage the Cluster

Using RDP, log into the 'Admincenter' virtual machine with your creds: User: Contoso\Administrator Password: Password01

Launch the link to Windows Admin Center

Add the Hyper-Converged Cluster AzStackCluster to Windows Admin Center with Network Controller: https://nc01.contoso.com and you're off and ready to go!

Azure Stack HCI Sandbox (2/7/2021)

The Azure Stack HCI Sandbox is a series of scripts that creates a HyperConverged environment using four nested Hyper-V Virtual Machines. The purpose of the SDN Sandbox is to provide operational training on Microsoft SDN as well as provide a development environment for DevOPs to assist in the creation and validation of SDN features without the time consuming process of setting up physical servers and network routers\switches.

SDN Sandbox is not a production solution! SDN Sandbox's scripts have been modified to work in a limited resource environment. Because of this, it is not fault tolerant, is not designed to be highly available, and lacks the nimble speed of a real Microsoft SDN deployment.

Product improvements

If, while you work through this guide, you have an idea to make the product better, whether it's something in Azure Stack HCI 21H2, Windows Admin Center, or the Azure Arc integration and experience, let us know! We want to hear from you! Head on over to our Microsoft Q&A forum, where you can share your thoughts and ideas about making the technologies better. If however, you have an issue that you'd like some help with, read on...

Raising issues

If you notice something is wrong with the evaluation guide, such as a step isn't working, or something just doesn't make sense - help us to make this guide better! Raise an issue in GitHub, and we'll be sure to fix this as quickly as possible!

If however, you're having a problem with Azure Stack HCI 21H2 outside of this evaluation guide, make sure you post to our Microsoft Q&A forum, where Microsoft experts and valuable members of the community will do their best to help you.

Contributions & Legal

Contributing

This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com.

When you submit a pull request, a CLA bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., status check, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact [email protected] with any additional questions or comments.

Legal Notices

Microsoft and any contributors grant you a license to the Microsoft documentation and other content in this repository under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License, see the LICENSE file, and grant you a license to any code in the repository under the MIT License, see the LICENSE-CODE file.

Microsoft, Windows, Microsoft Azure and/or other Microsoft products and services referenced in the documentation may be either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft in the United States and/or other countries. The licenses for this project do not grant you rights to use any Microsoft names, logos, or trademarks. Microsoft's general trademark guidelines can be found at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=254653.

Privacy information can be found at https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/

Microsoft and any contributors reserve all other rights, whether under their respective copyrights, patents, or trademarks, whether by implication, estoppel or otherwise.

azurestackhci-evalguide's Issues

Set-VMProcessor

I am not sure if this is something I am doing wrong. I am working through the step Deploy nested Azure Stack HCI 20H2 nodes with the GUI.

The command I ran(with the VM powered off):

Set-VMProcessor -VMName AZSHCINODE01 -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true -Verbose

The command looked to run without error. I proceeded through the guide without issue until I came to the point where I tried to create the cluster in Windows Admin Center. Everything went ok until Install Features step. Every feature except Hyper-V installed fine. The message regarding the installation of Hyper-V stated:

"Please ensure nested virtualization is enabled in order to successfully install Hyper-V on..."

In troubleshooting, I deployed a separate VM, this time running Windows 2019 Server. I went ahead and tried to install the Hyper-V role. At this point, I neglected to run that Set-VMProcessor... command against it. The role failed with a similar message as the Azure HCI vm.

I powered off the 2019 Server and ran that Set-VMProcessor... command. Again, it looked to run just fine.

I started up the 2019 server and retried installing the Hyper-V role. This time, the role installed successfully and I have this test box running fine.

This issue seems to be applying the Set-VMProcessor command against a vm running Azure Stack HCI OS.

Please let me know if this is helpful.

Thanks,

Jim

Cluster Manager says there are update available when there are not

Unable to create volume due to $ParityTier , error. How can this be resolved ?

Following through the guide , cluster and two nodes are up .
Before creating VM , volume should be prepared for VM
Currently its failing with below error .. how do we resolve this issue ?

Couldn't create the volume. Error: The variable '$ParityTier' cannot be retrieved because it has not been set.

Part 3a of guide missing $nodeName

Part 3a of this guide under section "Enable the Hyper-V Role on your Azure Stack HCI Node" is missing the $nodeName in the script.
(https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide/blob/main/nested/steps/3a_AzSHCINodesGUI.md#enable-the-hyper-v-role-on-your-azure-stack-hci-node)
As a workaround, I created the variable for each node and ran through the script.

Cannot Create VM

I followed the guide pretty much to the letter but right at the end, I am unable to create any VMs (with a not-to-helpful error message).

It seems to create the hard disk but a tiny one (4096KB). I specified 5GB as per the guide.

I'm running under nested Virtualization on my AMD Desktop Machine. I have collected diagnostics ( at https://file.io/cyMZyGuTgJPu ). Happy to do a screenshare

Recommend adding "start-sleep" for each "Rebooting node for changes to take effect" sections

Not an issue...more of a suggestion.

Within the https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide/blob/main/nested/steps/3a_AzSHCINodesGUI.md#enable-the-hyper-v-role-on-your-azure-stack-hci-node section of 3a, I would suggest adding a sleep timer between commands for stop-vm and start-vm to stop powershell dropping an error.
This was picked up on my HV host as its slightly older but would reduce false positives.
I used 5 seconds for each and seemed a good amount of time.
If included a screenshot/snippet of what I put in each of the "Rebooting node for changes to take effect" sections:

Steps unclear when creating the 2nd Node (Node02)

Hi Team,

When creating the 1st Node (Node 01) the instruct mentioned to created 4 Disk of 100 GB there (Data01,Data02,Data03,Data04)

1. It doesn't mention why we we need 4 disks here
2. When create the 2nd Node - do we need to repeat 4 Disks for Node02 as well? Data01.vhdx, Data02.vhdx and so on.

It is unclear in this steps.

The powershell - Copy and Paste doesnt seem to work.

Error:

Invoke-Command : Cannot validate argument on parameter 'VMName'. The argument is null or empty. Provide an argument
that is not null or empty, and then try the command again.
At line:1 char:24

• Invoke-Command -VMName "$nodeName" -Credential $domainCreds -ScriptBl ...

•                    ~~~~~~~~~~~
  

  • CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (:) [Invoke-Command], ParameterBindingValidationException
  • FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.InvokeCommandCommand

AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide - Unable to Configure Networking on Nested Setup

I am attempting to set up Azure Stack HCI cluster for evaluation by following the guide as part of the HCI 20H2 using Nested Virtualization
https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide/blob/main/nested/steps/4_AzSHCICluster.md

I have been able to proceed through parts 1-3 and have my management VM, my domain controller, and 2 nodes set up, but am getting stuck during part 4 (creating cluster) of the guide in the Networking Step 2.5 - Define Networks.
When I get to Networking, I am able to set up everything until the Define networks step. There, I have left Ethernet 2 alone, and set up Ethernet 3 to be Storage 1 on each node, and Ethernet 4 to be Storage 2 on each node. Regardless of how I set up the IP addresses, I cannot get the cluster report to generate and proceed to the actual cluster creation.

Error Details:

I haven't been able to find anything about why the operations are failing, or what I can do to possibly resolve it. Can anyone help me out, either with some step-by-step guides.

I've checked the following post and the others related to the AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/236938/unable-to-configure-networking-on-nested-setup.html

As per the guide I have run the related commands to Troubleshooting cluster validation issues CredSSP issue - "During testing, you may see an issue initiating cluster validation due to a CredSSP issue."

Help!
Thanks Pradip!

DNS Server not resolving, indefinitely waiting for AD DS to signal that initial sync has been completed.

Hi - just ran into this, impossible for MGMT01 to join AZSHCI or azshci.local domain, "An AD DC for azshci.local could not be contacted". I suspected a DNS server issue on DC01, and found many 4013 warnings in the DNS Server event log, obtained with WAC running on MGMT01.
warning 4013 description: The DNS server is waiting for Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) to signal that the initial synchronization of the directory has been completed. The DNS server service cannot start until the initial synchronization is complete because critical DNS data might not yet be replicated onto this domain controller. If events in the AD DS event log indicate that there is a problem with DNS name resolution, consider adding the IP address of another DNS server for this domain to the DNS server list in the Internet Protocol properties of this computer. This event will be logged every two minutes until AD DS has signaled that the initial synchronization has successfully completed.

Quick advice could be adding a "how to trigger this initial synchronization" line.
I got the WS 2019 version 1809 from the URL and passed all Windows Update as recommended. The OS Build is now 10.0.17763.737. Maybe this issue is related to some update after you wrote the tutorial.

image not working

image link: https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide/blob/main/deployment/media/nested_virt_arch_ga_oct21.png

please replace this image with the working one

this image not available if we go to the page (https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide/blob/main/deployment/steps/1_DeployAzureVM.md) .

Azure registration PoSH modules required

Even when using a MGMT or from the HOST itsself, these are the modules required for the registration:
Install-Module Az.Accounts
Install-Module Az.Resources
Install-Module AzureAD
Install-Module Az.StackHCI (only this one is mentioned)

It doesn't look like the latest screen.

It doesn't look like that below steps have not the latest screen.
"2_DeployAzSHCI.md"
- "Networking"
- "Clustering"
I can't proccess creation cluster. Cloud you update these page for latest?

"Validate the cluster" fails immediately, and there's no CredSSP popup or message

Hi there, I cannot get to the actual Cluster Validation process. In step 3.1 "Validate Cluster", I get the following error message instantly: "Something went wrong with enabling the Credential Security Support Provider protocol (CredSSP). This is a known issue that may be fixed in a future Windows Admin Center update. See the known issues section of the documentation at aka.ms/deploy-hci for instructions to work around this issue."
The notification says a bit more:
"Could not validate cluster. Error: The workflow to enable CredSSP has been completed, but there was an error. Connecting to remote server mgmt01 failed with the following error message : The WS-Management service cannot process the request. Cannot find the microsoft.sme.powershell session configuration in the WSMan: drive on the mgmt01 computer. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic."
The doc says "If the Credential Security Service Provider (CredSSP) pop-up appears, select Yes to temporarily enable CredSSP for the wizard to continue. Once your cluster is created and the wizard has completed, you'll disable CredSSP to increase security.", but there's no popup nor the Message Box mentioned in the present guide.
I've run all the workarounds in the "Troubleshoot" section, rebooted everyone, but still no luck.
Any idea ? Something missing in MGMT01 ?

Incorrect Network Controller URL

There is a typo at the Network Controller URL:
https://nc01.contoso**c**.com --> https://nc01.contoso.com

It's not working If you want to add to Network Controller Endpoint in Windows Admin Center --> "Invalid URL"

cannot create volume due to S2D configuration issue

after running the script we got
000010b8.00000540::2021/12/08-19:34:02.433 INFO [Provider {29d1f3ee-dbcf-44e9-b0cc-085bfa362499}] StoragePoolEventInterpreter::ProcessPoolTransactionEvents - Wrote HealthDataStore at key:{xxxxxxxxx}:SP:{xxxxxx} name:StoragePoolFailureEventData with value 132834525225620000, EventStatus:3221226593. -- > STATUS_DISK_RESOURCES_EXHAUSTED The physical resources of this disk have been exhausted

Cluster quit working

Used this Eval Guide to create a nested HCI instance in Azure Commercial...guide was fantastic and worked great. Problem I have as of this morning, when I start my Host VM, the cluster nodes will no longer start. I get the message in the image attached below:

Multiple Eval instances in the same Tenant/Sub

What files/parameters need to be modified so that my team can deploy multiple instances of an Eval HCI cluster in a single tenant/sub? My team has a need to have an HCI instance for each dev to work independently. Since each HCI instance will create app registrations, when using the guided eval to create the instance it does not have the flexibility to change the name of the cluster and therefor the app registrations.

Is there a way for us to edit scripts that get run to provide the uniqueness?

Access denied when running "get-azurestackhci" on MGMT node

Hi Matt,

Thoughts on why AZSHCINODE01 might be denying MGMT access?

Eval guide incorrect

So in the Eval guide

https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide/blob/main/deployment/steps/1_DeployAzureVM.md

It says you can sign up for free Azure acocunt , get the $200 free and you'll have plenty resource to try

"The second option would be to sign up for a free trial, which gives you $200 credit for the first 30 days, and 12 months of popular services for free. The credit for the first 30 days will give you plenty of headroom to validate Azure Stack HCI."

Well did that and have my free account. Now to try and deploy the template, it want a 16vCPU count and free account is limite3d to 4vCPU. Tried the upgrade to Pay as You go and now i aint got any CPU's. Really wanted to do the eval but looks like might not be able to going by the guide.

Commentrs? Why say you can try for free when it appears not?

DSC fails to create AD Forest

DSC Extension fails to create AD Forest during deployment.

The password supplied to the Desired State Configuration resource MSFT_ADDomain
is not valid. The password cannot be null or empty.

Results in unsuccessful deployment.

Consolidate node name and IP address variable at the beginning

When creating a second host, the user needs to modify the value of the $nodeName and $newIP variables. However, the $nodeName is set multiple times during the script, and the $newIP is pretty buried in the code and hard to spot. I would suggest to put those at the very beginning of the code in https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide/blob/main/nested/steps/3b_AzSHCINodesPS.md, so that the code is more reusable.

Thanks!

Question: Network ATC support

Is this guide supporting the deploy Azure Stack HCI environment with Network ATC?

Tried deploying with Network ATC but failed deploy host network settings with the following error.

Error: Exception calling "ReadExistingGoalStatesForAllNodes" with "2" argument(s): "Failed to open local cluster"

I'm guessing that CNO's IP address is lost during the host networking settings deployment because the CNO's IP address is not showing in Hyper-V manager after the host networking settings deployment. Also not finished the configuration for the ConvergedNic3 because the network adapter has lost IP address.

Environnement Info:

• Azure Stack HCI OS: 10.0.20348.288
• Windows Admin Center: Version 2110, Build 1.3.2111.01001
• Using Azure VM with nested virtualization.

Unable to pass test on Define Network pages

I'm following the steps in the guide but the connectivity test doesn't pass on 'Define Network' pages. Do you know how to pass the test?

I have already updated Cluster Creation Extension - version 2.38.0

Error details:

• Message:
  We couldn't configure adapter
• Error:
  We couldn’t configure and test network adapters. Please try again. Error: Command already contains prefix

Branch 21H2 refere to main scripts

the scripts always refere to the main branch. This causes deployments issues and also brake the deployment for the 21H2 branch.
link from the deployment:
https://portal.azure.com/#create/Microsoft.Template/uri/https%3A%2F%2Fraw.githubusercontent.com%2FAzure%2FAzureStackHCI-EvalGuide%2Fmain%2Fdeployment%2Fjson%2Fazshcihost.json

Script missing after phase 1

Team
I am at the step where the VM is created, and I am supposed to run some script :https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide/blob/main/deployment/steps/1_DeployAzureVM.md#troubleshooting
Unfortunatly I am blocked here. According to the documentation I am am supposed to have a directory but it is not there

Could you advise me ?
Thanks a lot
fred

Azure HCI evaluation Guide

Hello,

Where can I find the evaluation guide for deployment on Physical Hardware. This used to be part 1a of the original evaluation guide. (part 1b was to deploy in Azure)

Thanks

CredSSP

I was able to install the Cluster with two node. I was trying to install AKS on the Node. however, I am keep getting the CredSSP error. I went disabling and enabled the CredSSP with role Server on the MGMT01, and disable and enable the CredSSP with Client role on the nodes. still the same.

Error: Couldn't enable CredSSP delegation. Error: Processing data from remote server MGMT01 failed with the following error message: Could not find the role capability, 'MS-CredSSP-Admin'. The role capability must be a file named 'MS-CredSSP-Admin.psrc' within a 'RoleCapabilities' directory in a module in the current module path. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.

Cannot Register Cluster in West Europe

It seems like a bug that when I go to register a cluster one of the three option is West Europe yet I cannot get it to register there as it says it is not available. I had to register it in East US to get it to finally register. Is that going to either be removed from the drop down list or is West Europe support immanent?

Issue deploying template DSC Config: A drive with the name 'AD' does not exist

Trying to deploy the Arm template into Azure, it fails at the AzSHCIHost001/ConfigureAzSHCIHost step, the error which is returned is:
{
"status": "Failed",
"error": {
"code": "VMExtensionProvisioningError",
"message": "VM has reported a failure when processing extension 'ConfigureAzSHCIHost'. Error message: "DSC Configuration 'AzSHCIHost' completed with error(s). Following are the first few: PowerShell DSC resource MSFT_ScriptResource failed to execute Set-TargetResource functionality with error message: Cannot find drive. A drive with the name 'AD' does not exist. The SendConfigurationApply function did not succeed. LCM failed to start desired state configuration manually."\r\n\r\nMore information on troubleshooting is available at https://aka.ms/VMExtensionDSCWindowsTroubleshoot "
}
}

Region is East US, and Resource Group name is AzSHCILabRg, attempted using both MSDN and Internal accounts.

Error when trying to configure ComputeSwitch in Windows Admin Center

Following instructions on https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide/blob/main/nested/steps/4_AzSHCICluster.md I got an error message at ComputeSwitch creation in Windows Admin Center

This is a Nested setup and I followed all instructions (except I change 192.168.0.x/24 IP range with my own 192.168.10.x/24)

Template Deployment Issue

The deployment is tied to the resource group location. If you create a new resource group in the workflow and then update the location (which comes after the resource group creation), the deployment actually ends up in the default region (where the resource group got created) instead of the selected region in the parameters.

Unable to register cluster to Azure

I am registering my cluster EvalGuide to azure following the instructions found here via Windows Admin Center https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide/blob/main/deployment/steps/3_AzSHCIIntegration.md

I am receiving the following error:

Failed to register with Azure for cluster: azstackcluster.contoso.com. Error: RemoteException: Failed to register. Couldn't generate self-signed certificate on node(s) AzSHOST1,AzSHOST2,AzSHOST1,AzSHOST2. Couldn't set and verify registration certificate on node(s) AzSHOST1,AzSHOST2,AzSHOST1,AzSHOST2. Make sure every clustered node is up and has Internet connectivity (at least outbound to Azure).

I'm quite new on HCI so I don't know where to start... any advice?
N

Validation cluster failed

Validation cluster failed when retrieving report:

WAC Install VM Request

Not an issue but a request? I have found that using the auto-update feature for WAC sometimes doesn't work. So the next solution is to click the link to download WAC. However, that doesn't work either cause WAC was deployed on the host which is now a Domain controller. Would it be possible in future releases to have the solution deploy a third VM on the host along with node01 and node02 and have WAC deployed to that VM?

failed to deployment AzureStack HCI Nested SDN in Azure VM

Hello ,I tried to deploy AzureStack HCI SDN, All the NC,MUX,GW,VM are good to deploy ,finnally it failed to deploy and get the error below :
C:\ISO\SDN-master\SDN-master\SDNExpress\scripts\SDNExpress.ps1 : Terminating error was thrown while executing
'C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\networkcontroller\Microsoft.NetworkController.Powershell.dll' operation on the
server side endpoint 'https://sdn.azshci.local/networking/V1/operations/063640bb-c765-4b4f-b2f1-4feaf208514b'.
At line:1 char:1

• .\SDNExpress.ps1 -ConfigurationDataFile MultiNodeSampleConfig.psd1 -V ...

•   + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (https://sdn.azs...f1-4feaf208514b:Uri) [SDNExpress.ps1], InvalidOperationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ODataEndpointProxyInvokeFailure,SDNExpress.ps1
  
  

that would be really appreciated if someone knew this issue and help me out of this issue.

Issue: The NIC is getting changed to DHCP after Static IP

Hello Team,

I've setup the NICs with the static IP address. However, after reboot the IP address chnaged back to DHCP. This is happening for almost all NICs. When I'm trying to change the IP address back to static then I get below error.

"Failed to release DHCP lease"
Result Code: 83

PFA screenshot for your reference. PLease can you help?

Can't get passed Cluster Compute and Storage Network

Hi, ive been following this guide so far.

I have a simple Domain Joined server with Windows 2022 and Windows Admin Center.
My Hyper-V host is running fine and I have two VM with the latest Stack HCI source.
Also Latest Admin Center, fresh installed.

When i get the the Cluster Define Network I'm stuck:

I tried every combination, private switch, internal switch, or external switch
Different IP scheme, more VNIC,
I can ping each scheme from the VM (shell).

I dont get why i would have a WINRM issue when i did configure everything else so far.
I restarted all, vm, tried again. always gets to the same point.

Configuring Storage and Computer Network

Hyper-V VM networking

Creating Vswitches

ipconfig from the two VM:

Testing Cluster Network

Error:

Error:

We couldn't configure adapter

Message

We couldn't configure adapter
Error
We couldn’t configure and test network adapters. Please try again. Error: (1) RemoteException: The WinRM client cannot process the request. Default authentication may be used with an IP address under the following conditions: the transport is HTTPS or the destination is in the TrustedHosts list, and explicit credentials are provided. Use winrm.cmd to configure TrustedHosts. Note that computers in the TrustedHosts list might not be authenticated. For more information on how to set TrustedHosts run the following command: winrm help config.

(2) RemoteException: The WinRM client cannot process the request. Default authentication may be used with an IP address under the following conditions: the transport is HTTPS or the destination is in the TrustedHosts list, and explicit credentials are provided. Use winrm.cmd to configure TrustedHosts. Note that computers in the TrustedHosts list might not be authenticated. For more information on how to set TrustedHosts run the following command: winrm help config.

Any logs on the hosts i should look at?

Cannot create cluster in Azure VM - stuck at "define networks"

hey folks, seems like i have hit a brick wall. i cannot get past the "define networks" section. behavior is very erratic; sometime i get lucky and the following error is displayed:

"We couldn’t configure network adapters. Please try again. Error: Connecting to remote server 11.0.0.6 failed with the following error message : WinRM cannot complete the operation. Verify that the specified computer name is valid, that the computer is accessible over the network, and that a firewall exception for the WinRM service is enabled and allows access from this computer. By default, the WinRM..." --> to eliminate this i have created a gpo which will allow some traffic

In some other cases, WAC itself crashes. When this happens WAC displays thh following "Error Couldn't get user info. Source
Go to source. Type Error Message ajax error

And in some others, some NICs do get configured. What is common is that CPU usage across all HCI nodes goes up to 25%.
Any hints or ideas? thanks.

Longer Term Deployment Options

Not sure if what I want to do is even possible but let's say you have successfully completed the guide (following all of the instructions) and deployed the cluster with Hyper-V nested virtualisation. You will end up with 4 VMs,

• 1 Domain Controller
• 1 Workstation Windows 10 VM
• 2 HCI Node VMs

They are connected to the NAT switch. You deploy your first VM on the Stack HCI cluster and you want to join it to the Domain (let's assume it is a secondary domain controller you are trying to deploy). As the only domain controller existing outside of the Stack Cluster I don't think it will be able to see the existing Domain controller.

This might be impossible or it might a simple nested virtualisation/networking question but my mind is drawing a blank. The VMs are connected to an 'external' compute switch on the Stack HCI nodes but I don't think they will be able to see the Domain controller on the Nat switch on my top level hypervisor host

How do I extend the existing domain into the cluster network where the VMs will be located?

Configure Adapter in Virtual Switch step fails, error details not usable

Hi, in WAC Cluster Creation, at step 2 "networking", at step 2.4 "virtual switch", I select the adapter named "VMs" on each node, click "Apply and Test", and I get "Couldn't configure adapter", on both adapters, with following error message:
Exception calling "Invoke" with "0" argument(s): "The term 'Set-VMSwitch' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again."


I rebooted both nodes, but same error occurs, and I can't get past to enter "Clustering" step... Any idea ?
The build of WAC is Version 2007, 1.2.2007.18002 that I got from the download links at the beginning of the guide.

Error when trying to Enable AKS on AzSHCI (Azure based) Eval

On the last step of Set Up AKS, my cluster keeps getting this error.. what's wrong? Seems as if the cluster is trying a dead 404..

Message
Applying platform configurations failed. Error: GetCatalog error returned by API call: Post "https://msk8s.api.cdp.microsoft.com/api/v1.1/contents/default/namespaces/default/names/aks-hci-stable-catalogs-int/versions/latest?action=select": POST https://msk8s.api.cdp.microsoft.com/api/v1.1/contents/default/namespaces/default/names/aks-hci-stable-catalogs-int/versions/latest?action=select giving up after 6 attempt(s): Received unexpected response code: 404

DSC in a loop copying vhdx

Trying to deploy the Template into Azure, it fails at the AzSHCIHost001/ConfigureAzSHCIHost.

The error which is returned is:
"statusMessage": "{"status":"Failed","error":{"code":"ResourceOperationFailure","message":"The resource operation completed with terminal provisioning state 'Failed'.","details":[{"code":"VMExtensionProvisioningError","message":"VM has reported a failure when processing extension 'ConfigureAsHciHost'. Error message: \"DSC Configuration 'ASHCIHost' completed with error(s). Following are the first few: Exception setting \"TargetPath\": \"Interface not registered\r\n\r\nFailed to find proxy registration for IID: {ADD8BA80-002B-11D0-8F0F-00C04FD7D062}.\" The PowerShell DSC resource '[cShortcut]BuildScript' with SourceInfo 'C:\\Packages\\Plugins\\Microsoft.Powershell.DSC\\2.83.2.0\\DSCWork\\ashcihost.0\\ashcihost.ps1::106::5::cShortcut' threw one or more non-terminating errors while running the Set-TargetResource functionality. These errors are logged to the ETW channel called Microsoft-Windows-DSC/Operational. Refer to this channel for more details. The SendConfigurationApply function did not succeed. LCM failed to start desired state configuration manually.\"\r\n\r\nMore information on troubleshooting is available at https://aka.ms/VMExtensionDSCWindowsTroubleshoot "}]}}",

Thanks.

Hyper-V nesteed issue with Standard_E16ds_v4

Hello,

Whene I choice the VM sku "Standard_E16ds_v4", it's impossible to install Hyper-V role on nesteed VM.
“Please ensure nested virtualization is enabled in order to successfully install Hyper-V on azshcinode0X.azshci.local.”

But nesteed features are enabled on the VM:

With the sku "Standard_E16s_v4" I don't have issue.

Thanks

Major Issue in Lab 4 - Cannot get past Lab 4 beginning - Create Volume, no error, no information in the console

The Update Lab Guide for Azure Stack HCI 21 H2 is faulty beyond - Part 3 - Explore Azure Stack HCI Management

The Azure Stack HCI 21H2 - Evaluation Guide - https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide works fine up till Lab 3 Perfectly.

Lab 4 has major issues when creating Volume - https://github.com/Azure/AzureStackHCI-EvalGuide/blob/main/deployment/steps/4_ExploreAzSHCI.md#create-volumes-for-vms

I have run in around 7 different instance in 4 different Azure Tenants and was not able to get past below this point.

There is no Error, no notification, nothing to check after clicking on create volume "In Size on HDD, specify 20GB for the size of the volume, then click Create."

I even rebuild the Nodes from scratch using the Azure Stack HCI 20H2 - Evaluation Guide - No luck

I have even added another member server and installed Windows Admin Center on it and then created cluster - No luck.

I am sure other have also faced the same problem but may be too busy to post it here.

Anything insight or guidance would be greatly appreciated

Cluster Validation Failure

Hello, I'm getting the "Test Report" issue when trying to validate the cluster. I've followed the workaround, but still it persists. Oddly I also have notifications in Windows Admin Center stating "successfully validated the cluster". However the test report issue is preventing me from progressing to the next step. Any help would be much appreciated!

Missing Hyper-V-PowerShell in AzSHCINodes

In WAC wizard vmswitch failed because Hyper-V-PowerShell module is not installed on each nodes.

Internet access over InternalNAT vSwitch

Pardon my Hyper-V ignorance but I cannot seem to give the MGMT VM access to the internet to perform Azure registration and updates etc. I tried attaching a second adapter of type "External" but that alone didn't do the trick. Any help would be appreciated! Also I tried following the steps in this guide https://jimmoldenhauer.blogspot.com/2016/05/hyper-v-internal-network-with-internet.html and now the Azure VM is inaccessible ....if anyone knows of a way to fix that that'd be great!

Indicate that Physical deployment is ONLY for Intel CPUs

I created my entire management infrastructure using the guides (which are very well written - both GUI and PowerShell), before I learned that nested virtualization is not supported on AMD CPUs. It's by far the most requested feature on User Voice (https://windowsserver.uservoice.com/forums/295047-general-feedback/suggestions/31734808-nested-virtualization-for-amd-epyc-and-ryzen), and I'm sure this will be a frequent issue for testers. The official documentation that states this is at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/user-guide/nested-virtualization. There may be other issues that users will run into, so referencing that document might be useful.

I'd recommend adding the restriction information to the very beginning of the physical deployment guide (along with the discussion of hardware memory requirements and other caveats). Depending on steps taken, this could waste many hours of IT Pros' time.

The good (or at least, better) news is that support has reportedly been added in recent preview builds (I haven't checked this myself). As of right now, though, AMD-based users can't take advantage of any of the "physical" deploment options. Had I known, I would have considered setting up an Azure test environment, instead.

Deployment step 'AzSHCIHost001/ConfigureAzSHCIHost' Failing

I did try the steps listed in the tshooting section:
cd "C:\Packages\Plugins\Microsoft.Powershell.DSC*\DSCWork\azshcihost.0\AzSHCIHost"
Set-DscLocalConfigurationManager -Path . -Force
Start-DscConfiguration -Path . -Wait -Force -Verbose

But still getting the following:

Network Controller Rest URI - Invalid URI

When Creating Cluster Task: Add the cluster to Windows Admin Center

Adding URI https:// NC01.contoso.com

Error Dialogue "You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression"

Invalid URI

Checked SDNExpressLog and Network Controller successfully installed NC01.contoso.com.