Reference Guide

The AX nodes for Storage Spaces Direct offer software-defined storage building blocks for creating highly available and highly scalable
hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI). The AX nodes are preconfigured with certified components and validated as a Storage Spaces
Direct solution that includes Dell EMC PowerSwitch S-Series switches, with simplified ordering and reduced deployment risks. Dell
Technologies offers configuration options within these building blocks to meet different capacity and performance points. With Windows
Admin Center, you can seamlessly monitor and manage the HCI clusters that are created on these building blocks.
Installing Windows Admin Center
You can download Windows Admin Center version 1910.02 from Microsoft download center and install it on Windows 10, Windows Server
2016, Windows Server 2019, or Windows Server version 1709. You can install Windows Admin Center directly on a managed node to
manage itself. You can also install Windows Admin Center on other nodes in the infrastructure or on a separate management station to
manage the AX nodes remotely. It is possible to implement high availability for Windows Admin Center by using failover clustering. When
Windows Admin Center is deployed on nodes in a failover cluster, it acts as an active/passive cluster providing a highly available Windows
Admin Center instance.
The Windows Admin Center installer wizard performs the configuration tasks that are required for Windows Admin Center functionality.
These tasks include creating a self-signed certificate and configuring trusted hosts for remote node access. Optionally, you can supply the
certificate thumbprint that is already present in the target node local certificate store. By default, Windows Admin Center listens on port
443; the port can be changed during the installation process.
NOTE: The automatically generated self-signed certificate expires in 60 days. Ensure that you use a certificate authority
(CA)-provided SSL certificate if you intend to use Windows Admin Center in a production environment.
For complete guidance on installing Windows Admin Center on Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019 with desktop experience
or Server Core, see https://docs.microsoft.com/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/deploy/install.
NOTE:
This section assumes that you have deployed the Azure Stack HCI cluster from Dell by using the deployment
guidance that is available at: https://dell.com/azurestackhcimanuals.
After the installation is complete, you can access Windows Admin Center at https://managementstationname:<PortNumber> .
Figure 2. Windows Admin Center start screen
Adding the HCI cluster connection
About this task
For monitoring and management purposes, add the hyperconverged cluster that is based on Dell EMC Solutions for Azure Stack HCI as a
connection in Windows Admin Center.
Steps
1. Go to Windows Admin Center > Cluster Manager, as shown in the following figure.
Day 0 Operations
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