 Hi, and welcome to the Windows Server Summit and my session about manage Azure FreeSync with Windows Admin Center. I hope I can give you some great insights about this both products and I choose this agenda because or this session because to show you the best of both worlds like how you can manage Windows, how you can use Windows Admin Center to manage your Windows servers as also how you can use Windows Admin Center to manage some Azure related services. My name is Gregor Weimling. I'm working for the ADESSO SE based in Germany. I'm living near Cologne and I'm one of the organizers of the Azure One Meetup. It's also near Cologne and also one of the organizers of the Cloud Identity Summit, a yearly conference about identity management and identity security related to Android. So when you're interested, please take a look at this at the website, identitysummit.cloud. We will organize the next event in September. I'm really pleased that I have awarded for Microsoft with MVP for security and also for Azure. And yeah, what you can see my main focus are also Azure services like enterprise scale, governance, migration, security and many, many things about the hybrid capabilities that you have with Azure. Enough for words for me. We will dive now into the session. I have a short agenda. I will give you an overview about both services then we will dive a little bit deeper into the Azure Fencing world and I also will dive into the Windows Admin Center world and I will show you how you can manage Windows Admin Center or how you can manage Azure Fencing with Windows Admin Center in a demo. Okay. Firstly, we will take a look at the Windows Admin Center and I hope you have heard about this because I think it is a great tool and services that you must use actually to manage your Windows servers. When you think about the server manager itself, it's a little bit complex to import your servers and you can only import servers that are new when you, for example, using a Windows Server 2016, you can import older servers and servers with the same version, but you cannot import like Windows Server 2019. This is not the case when you're using Windows Admin Center, but more important for the Windows Admin Center itself is that you have a modern web-based browser solution that you can use as a central solution for all your servers and it's easy to install. You only have to download a MSI file, install the solution and it's running fine directly after you have finished installation. This web-based, what I have said, directly and fully maintained and developed on HTML5, it's worked serverless, server agentless, which means you doesn't have to install any agent on the other servers that you will be managed from Windows Admin Center. You only have to install the Windows Admin Center and to open the WinRM port. So all the questions to the other servers will be done via PowerShell Remote. This is really easy and really fast. And I think this is a good way to start and to directly dive into the session. I will cover you here. We see the Windows Admin Center blade itself. It's a small one, so it's easy to use. You see that I have here for this demo environment integrated three servers, two Azure file sync servers, and one is the Azure Windows Admin Server client, or the Windows Admin Server itself. When we're going to the portal, you'll see that I have used this here on a local instance, but you can also share this via browser or via web access to your other clients, to your other colleagues and so on. And when we take a look at the settings, you'll see that we have different settings. You can access and change the language of the version. You can see that you can use extensions. There are many extensions available that you can use to manage also third-party solutions, which is also really great as the solution. These extensions will be updated itself from the Windows Admin Center. You see that you can all things configured like to the internet access. You can register the version with Azure that you also have access to the Azure environment and all this kind of stuff. And we take a look back at the server itself. I will use this remote server that is the Azure file server one. And here you see that we have an overview about the server itself. So you see that this will directly loading. You see all the important information from the server directly on display. You see the version or the installed version, the hardware capabilities that the servers bring, the usage of the CPU and something like this directly on the page. And then you see in the left bar that you have many options. It will be firstly start with the Azure options that you have, this hybrid capabilities, that's the Windows Admin Center itself brings, as an example, you can manage Azure backup, file sync, what I will show you later and all the other solutions from this Windows Admin Center. But more also important from the Windows Server management, you can also easily configure your Azure or your Windows Server. And when you take a look for an example as the event page, please keep in mind how long you need to look into a server or to access the events from another server. When you take a look here, how easy this is. I think this is really great to see how fast the solution itself is. And please keep in mind, the solution itself working directly with PowerShell and you will be voting and use the data and collect the data live because or show the data live from the source system. Needs now a little moment. Here we are. And now you see the same overview as when you're directly locked in on the server. You can go to the system information and directly search for some information. You can also see in the security events and here you will see a great example about the performance that you have when you use Windows Admin Center. And for an example, you're using the event system to analyze your locks. Also, you will see when you see on the files how your explorer looks like and so on. You can configure the firewall or the local firewall on the system. You see the rules and all kind of stuff. So you see some additional Defender for Cloud solutions or Defender solutions. And also when we take a look here as roles on features, you see directly how easily you can install the same when you're using the server manager, but a little bit faster, a little bit more comfortable to use this Windows Admin Center solution to install roles and features and all this kind of stuff. So I think it makes really sense to take a look about the Windows Admin Center to download it and really when you doesn't evaluate has in the past, please start now with this. I think also in the terms of the new release of Windows Admin of the Windows Server 2025 announcement, it make really sense to evaluate and to integrate the Windows Admin Center in your daily life. I think it makes really a little bit easier to maintain and manage your current Windows Server environment. Okay, so now we're going back and jump a little bit over to the error file thing solution, which I choose to show you how you can use also Windows Admin Center to manage some Azure related services. When we take a look at the Azure file thing solution, I think this is a great benefit, how you can extend your current on-prem environment with some Azure services to get the best of both worlds. And what Azure file thing does is it is a synchronized mechanism and synchronized your file servers between company boundaries. And it's available since 2018. For this, you need an agent because the agent is is responsible for the synchronization between your files to an Azure file share. I will show you this a little bit later. And this is fully transparent for the user. So when you think you have different file server solution in different environments, now you can enable and set up an Azure file share in Azure. And all the file servers in your different locations can be, you can install an agent there. And the agent can be connected to the Azure file share. And then you can start a synchronization between all these different range offices as an example to the Azure file share. And all your files will directly stored on the Azure file share solution. Why this is so, why this can be helpful? Firstly, for cloud access, for multi-site synchronization. So think about when you have different sites that you will be synchronized synchronized with a tool or with a solution. And you can use cloud tiering. What cloud tiering does is it brings only the hottest files to the local server, the files that will be used from the employees on this branch on this location. The older files will be only stored in the Azure file share solution. This brings you the capability that you can use servers with limited capacity in your branch offices and use and have the full capacity in your Azure file share. When you synchronize all your files from your different file servers into one central solution, you have the great benefit that you can backup all this data on a central place. You just have to think about how can I backup my files on a location on a branch office or whatever for a solution I need. Or maybe some of my customers using have used Robo copy in the past to copy the files from a branch office to the headquarter. Now with Azure file sync, you don't have to think about this. You can directly use Azure file sync, synchronize this files to the Azure file share solution and make the backup there where the files are centrally stored. And also, I use this also as a solution for rapid file server disaster recovery. So think about you have a file server in a branch office and is failed on a hardware error or whatever. Then you have to set up a new window server. You need new hardware, all this kind, all this new stuff. And then you have to set up this. And then you have to think, how can I synchronize my data? Where is my data? Maybe you have, you need to do a local backup with Azure file sync. You can easily set up a new window server, install the agent, connect the agent with the existing Azure file share, and directly the agent will synchronize all the stuff from your Azure file share to your local file server. And now here we are. We have the disaster recovery solution also for our environment. How it works. So this is easy. You have here on this right side Azure file share solution. So you see here's the name of the Azure file share solution and the share name. We'll see this a little bit later in the demo also. And then we connect the file sync agent, which is being installed here as an example on a window server. And this agent connects via port 443 via HTTPS. Keep this in mind. It's not nothing using or is not using SMB, which can be something like hard to use this via internet because it's blocked mostly of the providers. It while directly using port 443 for the synchronization. When you have some trouble with this, then you can also enable private link, which brings the possibilities that you can use your own VPN connection, which you have from your data center, your local branch office to your Azure environment. And then you can also encapsulate your traffic inside this VPN that the synchronization will not use the public internet as for an example. When you use file share solution in Azure, please keep in mind it makes really sense to make a difference when you use when you have now actual file file shares in use in Azure. Please use for Azure file sync and excluded or reserved instance for Azure file sync doesn't share this with directly connection from the clients or doesn't allow that clients on the that clients can directly connect to the to the Azure file share where the sync is also be running on it because this can be some challenging because the clients itself has no agent and the file share itself see only the synchronization is coming from the agent and only makes a limited information to the agent itself and directly on the file share in Azure will be something changed. The components are here are the components and the short overview you need to start sync service which is which you have to enroll in Azure. Then you create a sync group. A sync group is a synchronization group where you registered all the servers that will be synchronized his files over it. Here's a short my short hint. You can only actually create one server to one sync group. It's not possible at the moment that you have more than one sync group or that the server is part of more than one sync group. You need the cloud endpoint which is the Azure file share solution or the Azure file share itself and then you will need also the server endpoint. This is the server path on the local file server in the agent itself that you have to install. I have also some minutes ago the overview giving you the overall to cloud tiering and I think this is really also really great about this solution yet you can use this cloud tiering which only leaves the hottest data on your local file servers but it will be then synchronized to your and all the other files will be only available in the cloud when a user access a file which is not directly available on the server then it will be downloaded in the background from the agent and will be loaded and it will be open for the user. So the user doesn't see any change. He sees the files that are all available and doesn't see if the file local available or the file only in caching mode available. Okay I think great time to start into the demo and I will show you some different things. So here you see that we have this different file server solution. Here's the file server one and the file server two and the windows admin server instance that I have installed. When we take a look here at the file server one you can go to the file explorer that you see that I have here and and file available which contains many many presentations. When we take a look here at the second server you doesn't see any kind of this stuff. Now we will change and back to the to the windows admin center itself. I will firstly go to the portal itself when we search for the azure file sync solution. You see he doesn't found this directly found this as a solution in the marketplace. When you also search for this you can also search for the name storage sync service then you directly found the available azure file sync solutions. I have enrolled two for this session. We use this one where I have set up a synchronization group where you can see here the sync group contains the region and also the file share solution that I have provisioned for the as a cloud endpoint. You see that we as of now we doesn't have at any server endpoints which means currently when we take a look here at the file file server there is currently no data stored. So we'll take a look at here housing so as you see is as of now is empty. Now we're going back and we're going back also here but what you also see I have registered the first server the file server one here with the latest agent information and so you see also what when the servers was last seen from the agent itself or when the agent has the last contact to the yeah to the portal. We're going back to the windows admin center solution and going here to the azure file sync solution and here you see also the same that you have seen but a little bit with more information and also with more links available to some of the documentation side and then you see that I have also registered this servers to the azure file sync solution or with the name of which you can see here and now I can go to the sync folder choose the local folder I choose the local VSS folder that I have shown you where some data are stored some presentation then I can use an existing sync group which I have enrolled I can use an existing azure file share which I have set up some minutes before and then I can set up the sync process now you so you see it will be directly integrated and configured on the servers via PowerShell on the agent side and the synchronization will directly start and we take a look at the at the here at the azure file share solution and we take a look at the azure portal itself so you see that we now have a new server endpoint available you see the health status suspending because it will be now set up the synchronization for the files to upload and download the files that you are available. I use the time to show you also how we can use this to install azure file sync on a new server I have set up here the azure file server too we go connecting to this one directly go over to the azure file sync solution so you see this server has actually no configuration about the azure file sync this is why you now see a link to a youtube video where you can show the solution itself you can go to set up the server and it needs a little bit a little moment and we can choose our region which will be used we can choose our subscription for synchronization the right one I use this one and now we have set up all the stuff that we need and we will directly set up and now in the background PowerShell will go to the server download to the agent install installing the agent and will directly configure the agent and connect the server directly with my cloud endpoint which will be seen a little bit in a little in a little some seconds we go back here so firstly what you now see is we have so synchronization is done all our files that we have some minutes ago only on the file server one are now also synchronized directly with on the azure file share solution and we go to the storage service itself you see we can here make a refresh and you see this is now set up or it's not also impending but you have seen the installation also synchronization is done we will take a look at the registered server and now directly you see the second server we will go back see all set all settings are done azure file sync is directly installed via windows admin center you can now close it you see the same overview as some minutes ago on the azure file server one and now we can also sync synchronize the folder here we go to sync as a folder i will also one moment i will directly show you also here that currently there are no files currently installed or no folders from this are currently available on this server which you can see here now actually all we doesn't have any new folder here available i go back to the azure file sync solution we go to a sinker folder create a new folder a bit folder is created now we're selecting the folder use an existing synchronization group use an existing azure file share set up the synchronization we're going back directly into the into the portal to take a look here now we're going here and now you directly see that we have now available two azure file server solution one is also in the state of pending the other one is in provisioning state and we'll also start the download of the files in some seconds when we go back i hope it will be shown now need a second i tried again and here we are now we have directly downloaded or the agent have there has directly downloaded the files from the azure file share and you see now we are done we have set up the full solution by our windows admin center and have set up the synchronization process we have seen the changes in the portal live and how the windows admin center can help us to also set up this solution and to see some of these challenges that you have currently with login to the different servers now you can use windows admin center as an example for set up this directly on the server okay i know we have a limited time so i will going back to the presentation sync when you have any questions feel free to ask this in the chat i will answer you as soon as possible and yeah what you have seen is that you have now a central web based replacement for your server so keep this in mind use windows admin center for many many other solution also for third party solution i have shown this also on the portal use windows admin center also for hybrid cloud scenario i think it's really the deployment is really easy when you use windows admin center because you doesn't have to log in directly on the server download the agent to search for the agent installation and so on and yeah you have a central view also for your azure file sync solution please keep also in mind what i have mentioned some in on the beginning of the servers use azure file sync also in terms of backup for file servers or also for centralized backup and also maybe as in disaster recovery solution for your file servers i think this can be is really uh worth to take a look at it what i like as far as installing and stable synchronization i think the costs are really rare because you only need as a first service free each additional server costs five dollars the scale label that you have the scale scalability and it's also supporting dfs is and scale out file servers you can also migrate easily your backup and actually all the file share limit for one file share is around 400 terabyte i think this is really also good um and you can also enable azure file share authentication which which azure which active directory okay i hear are some links to the slides that you are to the sessions or to some additional information thanks for your time thank for your attention i hope i give you a short overview why i know a lot of stuff in this short amount of time but i hope i can give you a great overview of it about this both solution and also why windows admin center can really helpful to manage your on-prem environment as an also also to manage your azure hybrid solutions thanks for your attention wish you a great of the day and a great conference see you and goodbye