The Cloud Is Falling (Into Your Datacenter)! The Hybrid Cloud Just Got More “Azurey”

You may be familiar with the fable called “Chicken Little”, where a chicken keeps claiming that “The sky is falling!”. In fact, Disney made an animated movie of it. Well, consider this the techno-equivalent: “Azure Stack is coming!”

 

The Hype for Azure Stack

At the Ignite 2015 conference in Chicago, Microsoft announced the new Azure Stack.

Here is a Channel 9 recording about The Microsoft Azure Stack, and the official blog Announcing the Microsoft Azure Stack at that time.

 

The Details

Well, it’s been some time since the announcement at Ignite, and there is a lot of interest in this new platform. But information has been somewhat limited.

Thankfully, yesterday Microsoft announced that the first Public Technical Preview of Azure Stack will be released on Friday January 29th! So mark your calendars! In fact, you can sign up for a notification when it is released.

 

Basically Azure Stack is “Azure in a box” where it allows you to run “Azure” inside of your own datacenter! Think about it as having your own mini-Azure, that you have full control over.

This is Microsoft’s “go-to” diagram to explain the Microsoft Azure Stack Architecture:

Microsoft Azure Stack Architecture

What’s really cool about this concept, is the fact that the interface and technology are the same as Azure itself. While not all current Azure services and features may be available through Azure Stack, it does empower each business. How?

By deploying Azure Stack in your own datacenter, you enable your business to develop and deploy against the same model and service architecture as you would in Azure. This means that your developers can code your applications using technology like ARM templates, “As-A-Service” models, etc. and if/when you are ready, you can easily move that directly into Microsoft’s Azure cloud without any re-coding required! That’s a huge win, especially since it can give your developers a sort of “playground” to work in prior to making the big move into the Cloud.

It also helps the IT team as well, since it provides a mechanism to be able to deliver more rapid enhancements and features to your organization, and thus keeping others within your IT space vs. having “shadow IT”.

Now, you may be wondering a few things like, what are the hardware requirements to running Azure Stack? Per the following TechNet article (http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2015/12/21/microsoft-azure-stack-hardware-requirements.aspx), som e of the current POC requirements include:

• CPU: 12-16 physical cores
• RAM: 96-128 GB
• HDD: 4 disks each with 140 GB – 250 GB

That’s a heavy load for a single server! And yes, the POC (to my knowledge) is only being released for single-server deployment initially. I know that my home lab hardware can’t handle that (but if yours can, connect with me so that I can see it in action)!

 

Reference Material

There are many resources out there on this yet-to-be-released platform. For reference, here are a few good ones:

Azure Stack Overview: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/azure-stack/

Azure Stack Hardware Requirements: http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2015/12/21/microsoft-azure-stack-hardware-requirements.aspx

Understanding the Azure Stack: https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/Australia-2015/INF332?ocid=relatedsession

Announcing the Azure Stack: http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2015/05/04/announcing-microsoft-azure-stack.aspx

Introducing Azure Stack Webcast: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/azure-stack/webcast/

 

 

Microsoft Azure Backup Server (MABS) AKA DPM “Lite”

Recently, Microsoft announced the Microsoft Azure Backup Server (MABS). It’s technically a part of Azure Backup offering, but it’s a little different. In fact, it is more like System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) “lite”.

Microsoft Azure Backup Server (MABS), is functionally equivalent to System Center DPM with 3 differences:

1. It has no system center integration features such as VM discovery and central console for reporting, monitoring and alerting
2. It has no support for Tapes
3. It requires an active Azure Backup Subscription

It can protect workloads that are running on Hyper-V, VMware or Physical hardware. It supports all key Microsoft workloads such as SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, Hyper-V as well as infrastructure workloads like IIS, AD and DNS.

The data sent to Azure is encrypted before it is sent to the cloud, sent over the wire on HTTPs and stored encrypted in Azure Backup Vault.

Microsoft Azure Backup Server itself is free, and you only pay for the storage consumed in Azure Storage. It also includes the license for SQL Server to run the service.

 

Let’s start with download and installation to see the “DPMness”.

 

Download MABS

You first need to have an Azure Backup Vault created. Once that is created, navigate to the Quick Start screen. Here you will see a new entry under Protect On-premises workloads > 1. Install Microsoft Azure Backup Agent and register your server, labelled “Microsoft Azure Backup Server for Applications”.

The info says: “Now get backup of Microsoft SQL Server, Hyper-V VM, SharePoint Server, Exchange Server, Windows Server, Windows Clients to Azure or to on-premises disks using Microsoft Azure Backup Server.”

MABS – Azure Backup Vault Dashboard

When you click on the download link, it takes you to the Microsoft Azure Backup download page. Download all of the .BIN files and the .EXE.

MABS – Download

 

Install MABS

After the download is complete, run the MicrosoftAzureBackupInstaller.exe to complete the file extraction. After the extraction is complete, run the Setup.exe. Notice that the splash screen looks similar to the DPM splash screen! It even has “DPM Protection Agent” and “DPM Remote Administration”. Click the “Microsoft Azure Backup” link to start the installation.

MABS – Splash Screen

DPM Splash Screen

On the Welcome screen, click Next.

MABS – Welcome Screen

On the Prerequisite Checks screen, click the Check button. As long as the check passes, you can continue.

MABS – Prerequisites Check

On the SQL Settings screen, choose the appropriate option and click the Check and Install button.

MABS – SQL Settings

On the Installation Settings screen, specify the installation locations to use.

MABS – Installation Settings

On the Security Settings screen, enter a password.

MABS – Security Settings

On the Microsoft Update Opt-In screen, make your appropriate selection.

MABS – Microsoft Updates

On the Summary screen, review the information.

MABS – Summary

During the installation, the Azure Recovery Services Agent will also be installed.

MABS – ARS Agent – Proxy

On the Installation screen, click Install.

MABS – ARS Agent – Installation

The installation will continue, with connecting to your Azure Backup Vault.

MABS – Vault – Creds

Create an Encryption Passphrase. .

MABS – Vault – Encryption

Once the installation is complete, you’ll notice that it references DPM.

MABS – Complete

You’ll also notice that the desktop icons, although they say “Microsoft Azure Backup Server” actually look like the DPM icons.

MABS – Desktop Icons

And when you launch the Microsoft Azure Backup console, it looks a lot like the DPM console.

MABS – Console

You can compare this with the installation and configuration of DPM, in my SCDPM 2012 SP1 Install & Config Guides.

 

Features

Since MABS is built on DPM code, the interface is almost identical. The only things that you will not see in MABS is any reference to Tape Libraries.

It works just like DPM, and can even be used in a standalone “offline” manner, where you can use MABS exclusively for local disk backup. It costs the same in terms of instance pricing, but you will not be charged for storage as you are not using Azure for the offsite backup copy.

 

Conclusion

So, MABS is great for the Small-Medium Business (SMB) environment, where it may be difficult to deploy the bigger brother Data Protection Manager.