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Getting Started with Azure Stack HCI
Originally published at https://adamtheautomator.com by Thomas Bründl on October 11, 2022.
Nowadays, small and even large companies are confronted with the question of the right IT strategy and how to start evolution towards the cloud. The good news is that Microsoft comes with a suitable product, Azure Stack HCI.
This tutorial covers how you can get started with Azure Stack HCI. You will build a virtual test environment and install a four-node cluster to onboard in Azure.
Read on and get started deploying VMs with Azure Stack HCI!
Prerequisites
This tutorial comprises hands-on demonstrations. To follow along, be sure you have the following:
- A client or server operating system with Hyper-V enabled. (Windows 10 or 11) — This tutorial uses Windows 10.
Related:The Essential Guide to Hyper-V Windows 10 VMs
- 32 GB RAM and a processor with at least four cores (if you provision only two nodes instead of a four-node lab, 16GB RAM should be enough).
- MSLab scripts downloaded.
- A Windows Server ISO either from MSDN Downloads, Eval Center, or VLSC Portal.
- Azure Stack HCI OS ISO
What is Azure Stack HCI?
Before diving in, you may wonder, what is Azure Stack HCI anyway? Azure Stack HCI provides a Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) failover cluster. This cluster host virtualized Windows and Linux workloads and their storage in an on-premises hybrid environment. The environment is, therefore, also connected to services in the cloud.
The easiest way to explain this infrastructure is with the illustrations below. In other words, HCI is a transformed and compressed hardware stack with a simplified and centralized administration interface.
