 Hi everybody, how you doing? Welcome to the latest episode of From the Rock to the Cloud and as you know on this series we always talk about exciting things that are happening in the world of server and you know we talk about all things you know Windows Server 2019 and maybe some older editions as well but also some futuristic stuff stuff that happens in the cloud things that you can do all together all at the same time and as always you know we love your comments we love your feedback make sure you're talking to us making sure you're letting me know if there's anything you want to find out or want to talk to an expert then we'll get that expert and we'll talk to them about the relevant technology that makes this such an exciting industry so talking about experts we found another expert new expert alert and there we are that's um we're having with the budget for a big alert that's Lisa in the house so Lisa Clark is our expert to the name and coming to us from the sunny realms of Scotland that is correct yes I am coming to you why from Dundee Scotland Dundee also known as the city of discovery and apparently the we have a big ship called the discovery it's very old so that's why we've called the city of discovery and apparently the most sunniest city in Scotland there you go nice and also that doesn't mean it's all sunny it means it's the sunny in city in scotland but you I mean you're obviously sort of moonlighting for the for you know the tourist board tourist board of Dundee I must admit I like Dundee cake so um you know we're in the right place um so that's so cool and so um we're gonna talk to you today about some maybe azures that HCI or I can't even say it's I love that I love a good tongue twister um don't we all love acronyms in in the world of IT and also we don't serve a HCI and kind of maybe what the differences are and kind of again there's two things that are out there it's a bit confusing what's the right thing to use maybe kind of we'll talk about that but could you tell us a little bit about yourself and obviously you're from Dundee which is great um and um you've got your own you've got your own series of of you know live streams that you do so let's let's let's find a little bit out about Lisa well why are we talking today so my name is Lisa Clark based in Dundee Scotland I've actually been in the IT industry for about 10 years um I currently work for Dell Technologies um in the Global Engineering Outreach Specialist team team Geos for short um and I am catchy also another tongue twister um and my role I cover EMEA so Europe Middle East in Africa um but my role is to drive Azure Stack uh business across EMEA um and it's also to evangelize the Azure Stack products um to enable our sales and our presales and our customers to get the most out of the Microsoft hybrid cloud offerings um which is super cool I actually love my role um I'm also a Microsoft MVP I became a Microsoft MVP in March of this year um woohoo um I also have received some Microsoft um they're called badges they're um little badgers um on the Ethereum blockchain so I've got inclusive inclusive leader award and community award so that's pretty cool um and yes I have my own I have my own podcast called Lisa at the Edge do you like it do you like that Edge so well yeah we'll make sure we get like a little kind of pop-up to yeah awesome thank you so much not to be confused with Lisa on the edge um although some people have suggested that I uh do a spin-off and uh do some episodes where I rant about uh things that annoy me within cloud and technology but maybe we'll maybe we'll do that I would watch it I would watch it yeah what the Grimes Lisa is I love it that's me you know we're we're we're incredibly grateful to have somebody that actually knows what we're talking about rather than people just listening to me talk about um what I think I know rather than what what somebody actually knows um let's jump into the subject matter at hand uh Windows Server HCI and Azure Stack HCI so I know that HCI is hyperconverged infrastructure um but what is the difference between Windows Server HCI and Azure Stack HCI yeah okay so um Azure Stack HCI is a new purpose built um HCI operating system from Microsoft but delivered as an Azure service and so the new Azure Stack HCI operating system was GA from Microsoft from yourselves in December of 2020 and then the likes of various OEMs and brought out their own offerings around that so at Dell we brought out our integrated system for Azure Stack HCI in February of this year but we also have an offering which is kind of similar which is our Windows Server HCI offering right but what's the difference so um first up this new operating system it remains an enterprise class software defined hyperconverged infrastructure running the likes of Hyper-V storage space directs in Azure inspired networking um what's really important about this this this new operating system it is and I can't express this enough it's delivered as an Azure service okay so you consume it from Azure which was so cool um Microsoft have the tagline hybrid by design and I think with the likes of the Azure Stack portfolio and Azure Arc and this offering like that totally rings true um so Azure Stack HCI has its own resource provider within Azure meaning that the clusters are represented um in Azure as their own resources and you can manage them through the Azure control plane um using Azure resource manager um or you can use you know tools familiar to yourself like Windows admin center so the Azure Stack HCI OS is a it's a fork in the road from Windows Server OS and they're going their own path it's an operating system designed specifically to run on hyperconverse infrastructure um and therefore it has like a smaller footprint as well right so smaller footprint um at foreign OS which reduces the attack vector from a security perspective but it's really really focused on being that operating system for hyperconverse infrastructure um with hybrid integration into the cloud and we'll see a lot faster feature updates etc so it will the other thing that's pretty cool about it right is the solution will always be kept up to date with um feature updates coming sort of annual by annually um so you'll never get into the sort of out of support type scenario that you might do with Windows Server so that's the new the new Azure Stack HCI OS okay that makes sense yeah yeah and so well some what you're saying really it's about um simplicity ultimately and longevity you know those are the kind of things that I kind of picking up from what you're saying actually it allows people to create those computing environments at scale when they need it so really that's kind of what hate you know the Azure Stack HCI feeling but it's also Windows Server HCI and so is that because again Azure Stack is that big scale right but then what's the point of still having Windows Server HCI because yeah it does exist and it you know and it offers lots of benefits in itself so some of the benefits are the same but then the way it works is slightly different so so you know so what's the sort of use case of why you would still use that so Windows Server Server will very much continue to focus on being that operating system for Windows workloads and but also where for instance the the focus is very much on on-premise infrastructure with not really much need to have a sort of hybrid either connection to Azure or they need to enhance or add Azure capabilities to those workloads also a key difference is that Azure Stack HCI means that you have to be connected to Azure once every 30 days for billing purposes and also you consume them completely different right you Azure Stack HCI you consume as a service so it's consumption based and some customers don't want to consume their operating systems in that way and so they would stick with Windows Server and you've also got you know the great sort of benefit of the unlimited Windows Server guest operating VM licenses that you get with the likes of Windows Server so that's obviously key if you've got a whole load of Windows workloads they're on-prem you don't really have any need to be integrating them with Azure then Windows Server is still the one both of them have and will continue to have feature rich roadmaps but really it's about how do you want to consume that operating license what is your roadmap into the future and do you have a desire to use Azure services and sort of bring your on-premises workloads into the Azure portal to manage its scale I think that's kind of like the difference so and again just thinking through what you just said with those two questions it's kind of it's almost like the Windows Server HCI gives you it's kind of like almost that first step towards that complete environment but actually it means that you can still have on-prem and things you need you know at your fingertips with what you've really got because you've probably got a bit and you can see infrastructure as well and so it kind of brings all of that along to a place where you can start using those cloud features as and when you need them but you're not necessarily tied into that sort of monthly billing you know you're not you're not going you're dipping your toe in the water as opposed to jumping in and with the Azure Stack HCI you're jumping all the way in so that's kind of it's kind of it's kind of like giving people the option to move at the pace they're in so either they're going to move along a little bit and get ready for the cloud you know the cloud computing to you know back up and all that kind of stuff that you might want and then Azure you know Azure Stack HCI is all the way in with it all build monthly and kind of at scale okay okay so put them on a spectrum and like Azure is here and Windows Server is here and Azure Stack HCI is kind of in the middle and I think that's a great point that you make Windows Server there are still you know Microsoft are working on integrations with Windows Admin Center to allow you to take advantage of some Azure services like Azure Backup if you want but you don't need to have a sort of Azure where with Azure Stack HCI you may need to be familiar right with Azure billing and Azure subscriptions and tenants etc like you need to be full on in there really yeah and I must admit I do love the fact that there's unlimited VMs with A-Center because that's kind of again a great place to start my big journey and you know it's a really cost-effective way of doing that so let's talk about like the ideal scenario for in that Azure Stack HCI now when you know when would be best to use that yeah so I would say that actually the use cases for Azure Stack HCI are quite wide and varied I think its ability to start at like two nodes switch list makes it perfect for those robo use cases right so where you need small infrastructures in your offices or factories etc and then you need to be able to manage them from like a global perspective potentially so you want to be able to manage them from the Azure portal yeah so you just said robo right yes remote office remote office and branch robo okay okay so I just knew it as a remote office but you're calling it robo okay that's fine I really really hope it's remote office and branch office but I'm pretty sure that it is um yeah yeah I mean it's cool it's a new one on me that's all Lisa sorry yeah so okay perfect right sorry I broke it you're trying to throw it back so okay start as little as two nodes right but then you can scale right up to 16 nodes and it can run your most high-performance applications you know obviously perfect with SQL for instance and sort of everything in between but I would say the ideal use case is where you want that integration with Azure you want to be able to apply the likes of Azure update management to your workloads running on-prem and the workloads that you have in the cloud you want to be able to take advantage of some of the Azure governance and management capabilities right so you want to use an Azure monitor for maybe your workloads that you already have in Azure but also your Azure Stack HCI is on-prem and what I love about in Azure from a governance perspective is the ability to use tags and policies etc and I think being able to bring that capability to on-prem infrastructure and not have two separate sort of governance and management models across the two I think that's so powerful and then you know there's integration with Azure services but then there's also the ability to run Azure Kubernetes service the PaaS service on Azure Stack HCI so I think it's where you want to modernize your infrastructure to hyperconverse infrastructure you want to start to take advantage of Azure management and monitoring capabilities and maybe you've got some virtual machines and workloads that need to remain on-prem you're not really going to change the way they run but you'd like to enhance how they are operated and managed and then potentially you're looking at containers in Kubernetes and you want to start to take advantage of AKS and you want the ability to manage from both Windows Admin Center but also in the Azure portal so I would say that's the sort of perfect use case for Azure Stack HCI I mean you know that actually is pretty pretty good I don't know thanks for explaining that and also you know this is how I know that you're a proper geeky girl do you know because you said you love governance on service there's not many you know that you know when you were growing up you probably never thought you'd be saying that right that wasn't a thing that's there but you you love governance on in the cloud but that's how you know I love how Azure makes it easy, visual that's what I like when I was when I was first sort of introduced to tags and policies etc within Azure for Azure workloads I was like wow that would serve that would solve so many problems on-prem you know those are people if they're if they're being brutally honest they've got a list of their infrastructure maybe in a spreadsheet somewhere that they don't really update that much you know and I think this just makes it a lot easier visual it's nice looking you know the Azure portal is pretty but yes maybe I do need to get out more yeah well hopefully lockdown we finished so we're going to do that soon although to be fair our first phone call was you were walking through a park in Dundee which looked very nice so you know you're not just trapped in that room with your cats I am trying to go yeah no that's good and so stretch clustering is something we're hearing a lot about for disaster recovery I mean there's one of the technical features of Azure Stack HCI but you know what's its significance what's its importance makes it yeah so stretch clustering is something that people have been asking for from a windows operating system for a very very long time but the Azure Stack HCI stretch cluster will provide automatic failover to restore production quickly and without the need for manual intervention and that's really what everyone's looking for isn't it when it comes to disaster recovery so you've got the likes of storage replica providing the replication of volumes across sites for disaster recovery with all servers remaining in sync you can choose synchronous or asynchronous replication which is which is pretty awesome but yeah it gives that sort of native disaster recovery and business continuity to the Azure Stack HCI clusters and they provide that site local resiliency as well so each site is a separate fault domain providing that additional redundancy so I think it's like it's a really great strength of the new Azure Stack HCI and I think again there's a difference between Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI that that capability has come to Azure Stack HCI and the capabilities that will continue to come to that new OS are these new and exciting features and the ones that you really want when you're running a hyperconverged infrastructure and so you'll see a lot more additions like that coming to Azure Stack HCI I think but yes this is a big win for Azure Stack HCI something that people have been looking for for a while there are obviously a few requirements with it so you need to have the identical number of servers and hardware configuration in both sites and you need to have a minimum of four nodes and that's another thing to be aware of networking obviously is always important so you should have enough bandwidth but yeah it's a great new feature that everyone's been super excited about with Azure Stack HCI. Cool it just goes to show that Microsoft does listen sometimes when people ask for things it does it does eventually come and so you know just that HCI obviously is hard whether it goes on but then the OS is in the cloud and how how how does it use the cloud with you know in that you know that's kind of a question that people ask a lot right so yeah how would you answer this? This is where things do tend to get a little bit confusing just because of the new concepts that are coming out right like with Azure Arc so you've got Azure Arc for servers, you've got Azure Arc for data services and we've got new Azure Arc application services happening but if we take a look at Azure Arc for servers first Azure Arc actually allows you to bring Azure management and capability to your virtual machines wherever they're running so I mean that could be a bare metal infrastructure could be a virtual machine in AWS and Azure Arc for servers is allowing like customers say they really love the way that Azure does and Azure update management for Windows Server or like the governance the monitoring etc and they're like I'd like to use that model across all my workloads but I'd like to use you know have my workloads in different places and Azure Arc for servers allows you to do that now when it comes to Azure Stack HCI OS obviously that's the best platform to use that on because it's built in so it's built in like we said before you can view your cluster as a resource in Azure and then interact with it how you would with Azure services so PowerShell, Azure CLI you know all the sort of new and fun ways to do infrastructure is cold but then you can also start to use the likes of Azure Site Recovery, Azure Monitor, Azure Backup, Update Management and soon as well I think it's still in preview but these things change rapidly so we should check Azure Security Center right so that's super powerful being able to take the likes of Azure Security Center and apply that to your Azure Stack HCI so I would say that's how it integrates but then you've also got other ways to integrate so you can now get AKS Azure Kubernetes service on Azure Stack HCI and then when you've got AKS you will and there are few services currently in preview for Azure Arc like Azure App Service, Azure Functions that you'll be able to bring down and run with on that containerized platform so yeah there's a whole different bunch of options out there and on how you're going to be able to sort of consume Azure services in the future on different platforms outside of Microsoft Data Center but you'll get the the most sort of seamless integration with that on the likes of Azure Stack HCI because the operating system itself is also an Azure service. So again you know I'm turning this into my laden software but it's almost like you know it's like when you go to the you know the sweet shop and they've got a pick and mix it's a bit like that you're going in there you can pick and choose any of those services as you need them as much as you want so that's really the advantage of that so that that makes sense. So when you think about your data right everyone like data is very important well it it isn't important because our data is my personal data I'm sure is absolutely everywhere but actually it just is I think you know I think that's the reality of being human being today right your data footprint is dreadful but actually people get very passionate about their data like and especially when they come to their business data and they're putting you know workflows and into the cloud and they're kind of going well and where is my data actually like where is my data going with Azure Stack? You know I and that's also one of the reasons why people are you know I want to have my still on-prem you know I want my old database kept in my back office because I know it's safer than that apparently but yeah data is a big issue so what would you say when someone says to you you know where does my data going with Azure Stack HCI? Yeah so it's really important to define what data you mean I think as soon as someone hears that it's connected to Azure they're like oh my god they can access on the data and that's just not the case so if you choose to run the Azure Stack HCI OS operating system and you don't start to consume or you start even if you start to consume Azure services right the only data that's going back unless you do or add something is metered data for billing purposes so the only data that's going back is how many cores do you have operational so we can charge you and if you're using for instance Azure Kubernetes service how many worker nodes do you have running again so we can charge you and so the only data that goes back is metered data for billing purposes and unless you start to take advantage right of Azure Stack Azure backup for instance so and this is where sort of the difference there is another product in the Azure Stack family called Azure Stack Hub right so Azure Stack HCI Azure Stack HCI has to be connected to Azure at least once every 30 days for billing purposes but if you don't consume and start sending like like you make a decision start sending your data to Azure either for backup or to do mass analytics on or whatever your data will be main on-prem if you need to be what we describe as completely disconnected you want an air gap between Azure and yourselves and we see this in like the defense space quite a lot and then Azure Stack Hub will want Azure Stack Hub is the product for you because that's effectively Azure in your own data center it brings with it the portal Azure Stack Resource Manager the marketplace it's like Azure in your data center and therefore you can operate entirely disconnected but Azure Stack HCI if you want all your sending back is your metered data okay so you don't have to you put it back to what you want next yeah so keep your keep your data on your virtual machines in your infrastructure keep it in my other room this is Zach I thought you could hear him because he just he likes to meow rather loudly to let you know he's entered the room either completely like running across the back knocking things down on the desk running in front of the video or they're completely disinterested and disinterested there's no I think you talk about the connectivity piece that about how HCI works about once every 30 days so I think we don't need to probably go into that but if we talk about the management options maybe within Azure Stack HCI um you know what how does that work what's the difference there yeah so it's quite a nice mix actually because you can use the tools that you're familiar with so you can use Windows Admin Center and you can use PowerShell etc and in fact if you wanted to you could never go into Azure to manage it so you can use all your traditional tools that you're used to but you have the additional option of also managing from Azure so logging into your Azure portal viewing your clusters and managing them from there Windows Admin Windows Server um you have all the tools that you're you're used to right Windows Admin Center maybe a bit system center although I know Microsoft are focusing a lot of their attention on making Windows Admin Center the way the place to go again because people have fed back about the numerous different portals etc and um not to do a shameless plug but uh Dell Technologies have focused really heavy really heavy on our integration with um Windows Admin Center as well with our open managed integration because at the end of the day like we get the Azure Stack HCI is an integrated Azure experience we don't want those two experiences to be like night and day so we want to provide the most seamless sort of managing the hardware like you know click of a button type uh type process so we work really hard on that integration so that customers can focus on the value of Azure Stack HCI which is this new integration into Azure um but yeah you can still use familiar tools familiar skills like you said earlier it is a nice way to dip your toe in it is a nice way to sort of start to pick which Azure services make sense and sort of bring them into your way of working yeah and that will ultimately save you a bit of money as well which is people love to do so let's talk about pricing and building and kind of like you know obviously um it's more complicated it's less complicated what you know what what what's what's the billing piece all about I think right now it's most complicated that it will ever be I think it's going to get better so right now because it is an Azure service you pay for on a consumption basis so you pay ten dollars or the local equivalent um per core um per month and that's Microsoft Azure pricing so then you know if you have any like discounts on your Azure service or whatever go talk to Microsoft they can they can help you out but that's that's what it is charged for me but that's the that's the charge for the operating system right so everything in the OS now that's the operating system if you then run workloads on top you have to license those and again here's a key difference as well right so if you've got Windows Server data center for instance my uh license the OS but then you also get unlimited guest um OS is for Windows servers right um whereas an Azure Stack HCI OS and I think it's kind of like bringing it more in line with maybe other hypervisors in the market when you think about it also when you think about the fact that it it will be receiving far more updates per year than Windows Server you will be getting more capability brought to it etc um but that's for the OS so then if you put workloads on top if you put Linux workloads on top pretty cheap right if you're only running Linux workloads that's a nice way to do it if you've got Windows workloads it depends then on how much like Windows operating system uh Windows VMs you're running if you are running a couple you can maybe license them individual and I'm sure that Microsoft will at some point bring out other options to license those and bring them in line with consumption based licensing but if you've got you know a ton of those then it might be worthwhile applying a Windows Server data center license to that to just give you an unlimited amount of Windows VM OS right and then it depends what you consume on top of that so if you're going to start to consume Azure Kubernetes as a service then you're going to pay a consumption cost for that service and I know for Azure Stack HCI you just pay for the worker nodes so you don't pay for any of the this is quite cool this is quite like nice actually you don't pay for any of the huh yeah you don't pay for any of the like the infrastructure that you have to put on Azure Stack HCI to run AKS right you're only paying for the worker nodes that deliver you that PAS like service which I think is great I think that's that's a good that was a good move from Microsoft and therefore you know if you consume other Azure services and you'll pay for those so there's a little bit more layers to it than maybe there is with Windows Server and if you're not ready to sort of do that consumption based type pricing and then maybe Windows servers it is for you and but that's how currently you build up the pricing simple I do actually have a nice I did there are some nice visuals and slides out there that try and sort of describe but like I say this is very new it's a very new concept so I think it's only going to get clearer cool and I suppose if people really want to get into it they can give you and they can give the Delta Marine and they can get you to do it for them which ultimately make life a lot easier and so I think we've changed the boat but what you do for a day job as well so sorry now you know we try our best and so we've we've chatted all things Azure Stack HCI so thank you Lisa for your knowledge and wisdom and certainly I've learned a lot which isn't hard but yeah we appreciate it so just before just before we let you escape we do a little thing at the year towards the end of every episode which we call the ME review this is where the guys that helped me produce this fantastic live stream in the infinite wisdom like sort of take the mickey out of me a little bit um what we also would like is obviously anybody in the audience if you've got a city server meme or you've got a comment about the memes that we show please let us know we'd love to hear from you so um what we do is we we've the latest word for you is that like said the producers flash up a meme and then we're trying to decipher it and usually I look a bit silly and usually my guest is is is the wiser uh of the two of us so let's have a look at the first meme here we go dependencies dependencies everyone so um yeah so I sort of understand what a dependency is but like what what's what's this saying to you I mean my dependency is you can't answer this question so to be honest my first thought was you know when you ask a technical person a question um and the answer with it depends that was where my brain went first but from a dependencies um point of view um I think in like the server world and where we are today the one of the biggest problems in terms of figuring out how to modernize infrastructure or applications or move them to the cloud is dependencies because dependencies are everywhere like and so like I I get that and I enjoy that I also love a bit of toy story so yes I'm a fan of this meme yeah you can't go wrong with with with Buzz and Woody right okay so uh dependencies are everywhere memes are everywhere so let's go to our second meme right here we go I like it please wait while the wizard installs the software and like that's Gandalf I can get that but um I don't like the fact that he's using an apple mac right straight away I'm just saying sorry that's not cool it's not yeah we're gonna we need to edit this meme and do a bit of full shopping and make that a windows um for the surface so windows sign maybe yeah um yeah but yeah I'm actually I'm proud I also get I also get this one because you and I'm not technical remember but you use a wizard when you're installing things quite often um songs word um and that's what's used to install the software because for some people people like me I just say yes I'd like to use the wizard next next done that's that's really why the wizards are for yeah I mean it'd be fair if I could get a wizard to do stuff around house that'd be great uh you know I mean just oh my god a living wizard that's what I need that's that's that's what we need um yeah like if you could uh imagine me have a bit of lunch that'd be great um okay so I was thinking I was thinking I needed a you know started to get a home husband or something but what I clearly need is just an at-home wizard well yeah exactly it's much more practical and also as well you can make them say it might disappear when you want as well which uh you know okay well at least thank you so much for going through today um obviously uh you know it's been a pleasure to talk to you I think maybe if we just wrap up um yep some notes I've made which you know are dreadful and quite frankly so you might have to help me out on my notes honestly this is one of the pleasures I outside I mean I'm dyslexic so my notes actually I write them and then I go back in the mart and say I actually don't know what they mean which is that's a brilliant skill to have yeah well exactly it's all about choice um it's all about the right product for the customer at the point in time what they're ready to do where whether they're ready to go on a small cloud journey or a big cloud journey um it's all about choice it's that you know it's that pick and mix of services um Azure Stack HCI is there it's it's as scalable as you need it to be and then there's also Windows Server HCI if you're kind of taking baby steps so that's kind of really sort of me summarizing it I've also put here as well and you know I think um I'm going to steal this obviously but it's already in my episode saying but hybrid by design and I think that's kind of maybe the thing well now it's my tagline I've stolen it um but um but but but but yeah I think it's really about people understanding that it's not just on-prem it's not just the cloud it's that in the middle where it seems complicated but there's lots of options but actually we talk to an expert like Lisa Clark we will understand what we're doing and we'll get there and so that's why I'm taking away from today um is there anything up next week sir no I would say that's definitely it I think it only seems complicated because it's new and because there are so many options I think just to remember where Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI OS are today this is as sort of as similar and as close as they will be Azure Stack HCI will start to sort of diverge and take off at you know faster speed than Windows Server and so therefore it might become clearer but there are definitely use cases for both and you just need to you know it's the annoying bit but you need to be super clear on your requirements and what you're looking to achieve both now and in the future um but yeah like you said there is an option for whatever you want to do hybrid is here to stay um and yeah on-prem doesn't need to be this separate world um and that's definitely true when it comes to Microsoft cool well that Lisa absolutely amazing thank you so much we're very very grateful um and I know how busy you are so um you making the time to do this has been incredibly incredibly beneficial to me and hopefully to the audience everybody thanks very much for joining us today on this episode of From the Rock to the Cloud and we look forward to talking to you again soon again if you've got any things that you want to hear I don't think you want to find out any experts that we need to go and get let me know we will go and do that and certainly we look forward to talking to you again soon thanks a lot everybody cheers awesome thank you bye bye