Reference Guide

Day 0 Operations

Topics:

• Introduction

• Activating the Windows operating system license

• Creating virtual disks

• Dell EMC Solutions for Azure Stack HCI Life Cycle Management

Introduction

After deploying the AX node cluster, complete day 0 operations.

This chapter provides details about the day 0 operations.

Activating the Windows operating system license

When the server operating system is installed using the retail or volume licensing media, the operating system license must be activated.

On the Server Core operating system, activate the license by using either the sconfig tool or the slmgr command.

NOTE: Windows activation is not required if the operating system is factory installed.

To activate the operating system license by using slmgr, see https://technet.microsoft.com/library/dn502540(v=ws.11).aspx.

To activate the operating system license by using the sconfig command, see https://technet.microsoft.com/windows-server-docs/

get-started/sconfig-on-ws2016.

For volume activation of the Windows operating system in the data center, see the Microsoft documentation for using KMS.

Creating virtual disks

Cluster creation and enabling Storage Spaces Direct configuration on the cluster creates only a storage pool and does not provision any

virtual disks in the storage pool. The New-Volume cmdlet can be used to provision new virtual disks and in turn provision them as the

cluster shared volumes for the Azure Stack HCI cluster.

When creating volumes in the Azure Stack HCI cluster infrastructure:

• Ensure that you create multiple volumes—a multiple of the number of servers in the cluster. Limit the number of volumes in the

cluster to 32 on Windows Server 2016 and 64 on Windows Server 2019.

• Ensure that the storage pool has enough reserve capacity for any in-place volume repairs arising out of failed disk replacement. The

reserved capacity should be at least equivalent to the size of one capacity drive per server and up to four drives.

For general guidance on planning for volume creation in Storage Spaces Direct, see https://docs.microsoft.com/windows-server/

storage/storage-spaces/plan-volumes.

NOTE:

We recommend that you use the following resiliency settings when you create virtual disks:

• On Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019 clusters with three or more nodes—Three-way mirror

• On Windows Server 2019 clusters with four or more nodes—Three-way mirror or mirror-accelerated parity

Dell EMC Solutions for Azure Stack HCI Life Cycle

Management

Windows Admin Center is a browser-based management tool developed by Microsoft to monitor and manage Windows servers, failover

clusters, and hyperconverged clusters.

6 Day 0 Operations