Orin Thomas
Principal Cloud Operations Advocate, Microsoft
Azure Stack HCI is a hyper-converged infrastructure operating system delivered as an Azure service. Rather than attempt to put all the elements of a Windows Server hyper-converged solution together yourself and then trying to integrate it with Azure hybrid elements, Azure Stack HCI essentially comes in a pre-assembled state. After some simple configuration, you plug it in and much of the challenging configuration and management administrivia is taken care of for you.
In this post we’ll go through the current Azure Stack HCI content on learn and describe each of the learning paths and modules that you can take to become more familiar with the operating system.
A good place to start, this learning path introduces you to the Azure Stack portfolio and describes basic architecture, core capabilities, and primary use cases of its products. You’ll also learn about differences and similarities between Azure Stack HCI, Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack Edge, and Azure.
Includes the following modules:
Introduction to Azure Stack
Introduces you to the Azure Stack portfolio and describes basic architecture, core capabilities, and primary use cases of its products. You’ll also learn about differences and similarities between Azure Stack HCI, Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack Edge, and Azure.
Introduction to Azure Stack HCI core technologies
This module provides a high-level introduction to Azure Stack HCI technologies, including Hyper-V, software-defined storage, and software-defined networking.
Plan and deploy Azure Stack HCI
This module introduces you to planning for and deploying Azure Stack HCI. Content includes identifying suitable workloads, determining the optimal configuration to host these workloads, stepping through the deployment process, validating post-deployment operational status, and evaluating Azure integration options.
Integrate Azure Arc and Azure Stack HCI
In this module, you will learn the fundamentals of Azure Arc and how is it used to bring new capabilities to the management and monitoring of your Azure Stack HCI clusters at scale.
- Operate and Maintain Azure Stack HCI Learning Path
This learning path goes beyond the introductory level coverage and explains how to manage Azure Stack HCI clusters, integrate Microsoft Azure services with Azure Stack HCI, manage Azure Stack HCI VM workloads, and manage Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI.
Includes the following modules:
Manage Azure Stack HCI clusters
This module covers the most common Microsoft Azure Stack HCI management and maintenance tasks that will help you improve the resiliency, stability, and performance of your existing IT infrastructure.
Integrate Azure services with Azure Stack HCI
This module describes the benefits, considerations, and implementation process of integrating Microsoft Azure services with Azure Stack HCI and its workloads.
Manage Azure Stack HCI virtual machine workloads
This module describes how to manage and maintain Microsoft Azure Stack HCI virtual machine (VM) workloads.
Manage Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI
This module describes how to implement and manage Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI.
- Storage
There are two modules that are not presently part of a Learning Path related to Azure Stack HCI Storage. These modules are:
Plan and implement Azure Stack HCI storage
In this module you’ll learn how to think about planning, implementing and manage Azure Stack HCI software defined storage technologies.
Manage Azure Stack HCI volumes
In this module you’ll learn how to think about planning, manage, and maintain volumes in Microsoft Azure Stack HCI including stretched volumes and replication.
- Networking
The following three modules are related to configuring networking including software defined networking on Azure Stack HCI. These modules are:
Manage Azure Stack HCI tenant networks
Describe and implement Azure Stack HCI logical and virtual networks. Describe the functionality and implementation of Gateway Services for hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) tenant virtual machines (VMs) that use Remote Access Service (RAS) gateways and understand the Route Reflector role.
Implement Datacenter Firewall and Software Load Balancer on Azure Stack HCI
Microsoft Azure Stack HCI-based SDN facilitates the implementation of software-defined filtering and load balancing of network traffic.
Plan for and deploy SDN infrastructure on Azure Stack HCI
This module explores the architecture and core capabilities of Software Defined Networking (SDN) on Azure Stack HCI. It also includes a couple of demonstrations illustrating a sample deployment of SDN on Azure Stack HCI.
Orin’s blog originally appeared on Microsoft.com.
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