Category: Surfcae

Microsoft Surface Devices

Good Fun with Surface Pro3, Nested Hyper-V, Nano Server and Azure Site Recovery

For a Microsoft event on Jamaica I was asked to deliver a session on Azure DR. I believe that seeing is believing so I always tend to use as little slides as possible and just demo the Solution. On a Saturday morning, I started out thinking and drawing out the Infrastructure I would need to pull that off.

I have a SOHO environment, and for Inova Solutions, my employer, I moved everything to the Microsoft Cloud. My Surface Pro3 (i5, 8 GB RAM) will just have to do as my “local datacenter”.

The steps for the Azure Site Recovery are very well explained here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/site-recovery/site-recovery-hyper-v-site-to-azure including the screenshots so I will not copy that into this blog. For my “Onprem Datacenter I need a Hyper-V machine, well, Windows 10 has Hyper-V. Download the Azure Site Recovery Provider from the Azure Portal and run it. Bummer.

Apparently, the installer does not see Hyper-V on Windows 10 as Valid to install the ASR Provider. I need a Server 2016 or Server 2012R2 Hyper-V. Lucky for me, both Windows10 Hyper-V and Server 2016 Hyper-V support Nested Hyper-V. To enable Nested Hyper-V you need to download and run a PowerShell script called Enable-NestedVm.ps1 from https://github.com/Microsoft/Virtualization-Documentation/tree/master/hyperv-tools/Nested after which you can test by running Get-NestedVirtStatus.ps1 downloaded from the same repository. In the 1st script I had to confirm that I’d be running the Nested Hyper-V Server with less than 4 GB of memory.

My Nested Hyper-V Server running with 3 GB of memory I need to create some seriously small servers. And, another reason for creating small servers is that I want small disks to replicate. Thanks again Server 2016, we now have Nano Server! Here is a Quick Start Guide for Nano Server https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server-docs/get-started/nano-server-quick-start . In no time, I created 2 Nano Servers, Nano1 and Nano 2, each assigned 128 MB of RAM and a 1 GB OS Disk. I successfully installed the ASR Provider and registered the Nested Hyper-V Server with the downloaded Registration file. Within 5 minutes my Server popped up in the Azure Portal and I could select my Nano1 and Nano2 Server to start replicating. And here they go:

And here they are:

I ran a Test Failover just to see if I could complete the whole exercise within 45 minutes, the length of my presentation. The test failover only took about 2 minutes.

Just to demonstrate that with minimal equipment you can demo an Enterprise grade feature like Azure Site Recovery using some neat Technologies. The first build took a bit longer than 45 minutes to figure it all out. Ran the whole thing 3 times now to get comfortable with it doing it on stage, well within 45 minutes J.

 

Happy demoing!!!

Working with Microsoft Surface Pro 3

Selffie of Surface Pro 3

At Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference, July 14 – July 17 in Washington DC, they offered the Surface Pro 3 with a discount of some $ 300,-. I bought one after stumbling back and forth trying to decide for 2 days. It’s still a lot of money.

But oh joy! This is really an amazing piece of hardware (and I’m pretty spoiled when it comes to hardware). I’m not going to put in all specs, there are plenty of places where you can find those. It’s about experience. The first experience after unboxing is its weight, it will probably float (but I’m not going to try that). It’s much lighter than my Surface Pro, maybe not when you compare specs, but it’s about the experience. Probably you’ve seen the picture somewhere of Surface3 compared with an iPhone for thickness, which shows is exactly how thin it is. How the h*ll do they get all that stuff in a light and thin device like this.

Plug it in and switch it on! Surfaces boot really fast, so does this one. No need to get a cup of coffee first. Great screen resolution! Go through to necessary configuration steps and ready to go. Configure the Pen for the screen, Stream a copy of Office Professional Plus from Office 365 and install a couple of my favorite Apps, run Windows Update. Playtime … or worktime! This device does both. I think I’m out of the 3-devices world. My Surface Pro 3 and my Lumia 925 will do. I travel really a lot so that is a big win.

I bought myself 2 extra’s, the Surface Mouse and a Miracast Receiver. The latter allows to project your screen wireless to any HDMI screen, beamer or projector. Did my first presentation with that yesterday. Just walk across the room, Surface Pro 3 in the hand and do my demo, my presentation and white boarding in PowerPoint and OneNote and the Pen… boy, impressive. And not just for me, imagine what my customer wants now…… At home, stream Netflix movies to my television. Nice technologyJ.

For work, I use my Administrative accounts form a Virtual Machine and Hyper-V runs smoothly on the Surface Pro 3. The type-cover is a bit bigger than the one on my Surface Pro and certainly the mouse pad area is works much better. Of course I’m typing this on my new “machine”.

My impression after one week: totally terrific! Welcome to the 2-devices world. No compromise from a tablet point of view and no compromise from a laptop point of view.