Reference Guide
Table Of Contents
- Microsoft HCI Solutions from Dell Technologies: Managing and Monitoring the Solution Infrastructure Life Cycle Operations Guide
- Contents
- Introduction
- Day 0 Operations
- Azure onboarding for Azure Stack HCI OS
- Licensing for Azure Stack HCI for Windows Server 2016 and 2019
- Creating virtual disks
- Managing and Monitoring Azure Stack HCI Cluster using Windows Admin Center
- Installing Windows Admin Center
- Adding the HCI cluster connection
- Accessing the HCI cluster
- Viewing server details
- Viewing drive details
- Managing and monitoring volumes
- Enabling data deduplication on Storage Spaces Direct
- Monitoring and managing VMs
- Managing virtual switches
- Dell EMC OpenManage Integration with Windows Admin Center
- Prerequisites for managing AX nodes
- Installing the Azure Stack HCI license (Ready Nodes only)
- Managing Azure Stack HCI clusters
- Full Stack Cluster-Aware Updating prerequisites for AX-7525 and AX-6515 nodes (offline update)
- Full Stack Cluster-Aware Updating for Azure Stack HCI clusters using the OpenManage Integration snap-in
- Updating a stand-alone node before adding it to the cluster
- Known issues
- Firmware updates using Dell EMC OpenManage Integration for Microsoft System Center for System Center Virtual Machine Manager
- Firmware and driver updates using the manual method
- Restarting a cluster node or taking a cluster node offline
- Expanding the Azure Stack HCI cluster
- Extending volumes
- Performing AX node recovery
- Operating system recovery
Managing volumes
About this task
Open, expand, delete, or make a volume offline as follows.
Steps
1. Go to Volumes > Inventory.
2. Click the volume name.
3. Click Open to open the volume folder.
4. Click Offline or Delete to make the volume offline, or to delete the volume.
5. Click Expand to expand the volume.
The Expand volume window is displayed.
6. Enter the additional size of the volume.
7. Select the volume size from the drop-down list and click Expand.
Enabling data deduplication on Storage Spaces Direct
About this task
Data deduplication helps to maximize free space on the volume by optimizing duplicated portions on the volume without
compromising data fidelity or integrity.
NOTE:
To enable data deduplication on an HCI cluster, ensure that the data deduplication feature is enabled on
all the cluster nodes. To enable the data deduplication feature, run the following PowerShell command: Install-
WindowsFeature FS-Data-Deduplication.
Enable data deduplication and compression on a Storage Spaces Direct volume as follows.
Steps
1. Go to Volumes > Inventory.
2. Click the volume on which to enable data deduplication.
3. In the optional features, switch the ON button to enable deduplication and compression on that volume.
The Enable Deduplication window is displayed.
4. Click Start and select Hyper-V from the drop-down list.
5. Click Enable Deduplication.
Deduplication is enabled and the Storage Spaces Direct volume is compressed.
Monitoring and managing VMs
You can use Windows Admin Center to monitor and manage the VMs that are hosted on the HCI cluster.
To access the VMs that are hosted on the HCI cluster, click the cluster name and, in the left pane, select Virtual machines. In
the right pane, the Inventory tab and the Summary tab are displayed.
The Inventory tab provides a list of the VMs that are hosted on the HCI cluster and provides access to manage the VMs.
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Day 0 Operations