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Tag Archives: Updates


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Azure Update Management for Windows and Linux in Multi Cloud #Azure #Winserv #Linux

Microsoft Azure Update Management Center

Microsoft Azure Update Manager (preview) is a unified service to help manage and govern updates for all your machines. You can monitor Windows and Linux update compliance across your deployments in Azure, on-premises, and on the other cloud platforms from a single dashboard. Important: It’s still in Preview but GA is coming Soon 

To support management of your Azure VM or non-Azure machine, Update Manager (preview) relies on a new Azure extension designed to provide all the functionality required to interact with the operating system to manage the assessment and application of updates. This extension is automatically installed when you initiate any Update manager (preview) operations such as check for updates, install one time update, periodic assessment on your machine. The extension supports deployment to Azure VMs or Arc-enabled servers using the extension framework. The Update Manager (preview) extension is installed and managed using the following:

The extension agent installation and configuration are managed by the Update Manager (preview). There’s no manual intervention required as long as the Azure VM agent or Azure Arc-enabled server agent is functional. The Update Manager (preview) extension runs code locally on the machine to interact with the operating system, and it includes:

  • Retrieving the assessment information about status of system updates for it specified by the Windows Update client or Linux package manager.
  • Initiating the download and installation of approved updates with Windows Update client or Linux package manager.

In my case I’m updating Windows Server Insider version which is Azure Arc enabled in the following steps :


Here you see my Azure Arc enabled Domain Controller with Windows Server Insider.
Here you Click on Check for Updates
Go to Update Management Center

When you Click on Machines you will get a Nice Overview of your Servers

When you Click on History, you will see the assessment and keeps all activity history in one place.

Update reports are Important and you can make your Own reports or download
Public Templates.

In the following steps we are going to install the three updates on the Azure Arc Enabled Server :

Select the machine(s) for the One-time updates.
Click on Next

here you see the Updates.

You can select your reboot Options and the Maintenance Window in Minutes.

If everything is correct you can click on Install.

In History you see your job in progress

Update Management Overview
In Progress

This is what I like most, when you have to manage more then 100 Servers and they are in your Own Datacenter On-premises but also at Multi Cloud vendors Like in Azure, AWS, Google Cloud or are not Domain Joined Servers then here you can see your Update Compliance in a Single point of Dashboard Overview in the Microsoft Azure Cloud.

Create your Own Maintenance Configuration.

Click on Next DynamicScopes

Add a Dynamic Scope

Select the Filter(s)

Filter for Arc Servers and OS type Windows.

Then you see the Azure Arc Servers by your Filter.

Dynamic Scope is set.

select.

Machines.

Include Update Classification

Azure Update Management Center Overview with Updates Completed 🙂

Updates completed on Windows Server Insider Domain Controller.

Conclusion

Microsoft Azure Update Management Center is still in Preview but is a Great Single Dashboard Overview for managing your Updates on Windows Servers and Linux at any Place. It gives you Great Overview and you can see the status in one view. GA is coming soon, but you can now test and experience it before you go in production with this Awesome product.
Follow Microsoft Azure Update Manager here on X

More information on Microsoft Azure Update Management Center (Preview) here

 


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Microsoft Azure Arc Extensions Updates #AzureHybrid #AzureArc #AzOps

Azure Arc Extensions

Keep your Azure Arc extensions up-to-date


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Azure Arc and Windows 11 Insider Preview Build Update #WindowsInsiders #WIMVP #AzureHybrid

Microsoft Azure Arc

Microsoft Azure Arc Services is a bridge that extends the Azure platform to help you build applications and services with the flexibility to run across datacenters, at the edge, and in multicloud environments. Develop cloud-native applications with a consistent development, operations, and security model. Azure Arc runs on both new and existing hardware, virtualization and Kubernetes platforms, IoT devices, and integrated systems. Do more with less by leveraging your existing investments to modernize with cloud-native solutions.

Azure Arc Control Plane

So with this Awesome Microsoft Feature Azure Arc, I have connected my Windows Insiders Domain mvplab.local servers like a Windows Server Insider Domain Controller, Windows Server Insider Cluster with a SQL Instance on it and Windows 11 Insider Preview Build in the Beta Channel domain joined. Here you can find how to install the Azure Arc Agent on your Servers

Microsoft Azure Arc comes with great features like Azure Security with Cloud Defender to keep your Azure Arc enabled Servers as secure as possible. Azure Policies is very handy to keep your IT governance on every Server the same. With inventory and Change tracking you are in control to get the right information of your machines. Monitoring your Azure Arc enabled servers with Insights and Log analytics is very powerful. But for now I’m going to use Updates feature of Azure Arc enabled Windows 11 Insider Preview Build machine.

Important :  I’m working with Windows Server Insider preview Build and Windows 11 Insider Preview Build.
They are for testing purpose only and not for production environments!
Of course you can use Windows Server 2019 / 2022 or Windows 10 / 11 Build with Azure Arc 🙂

Here we have Windows 11 Insider Preview Build with new Updates in the Beta Channel.
Click on One time Update

I’m going to update this Azure Arc enabled Windows 11 Insider preview Build once manually but you can schedule updates also and use Update Management Center.

Select the Machine and Click on Next

Here you can select the updates or exclude updates.
Then Click on Next

Here you can set the Reboot option and
Maintenance Window in minutes.
Click on Next

Review and Click on Install

Install Updates Request is submitted.

At Updates of your Azure Arc enabled Machine you can open
Update Management Center

Here you can see the Complete Overview of the Updates on your Machines.
Left under you see the 3 updates for the Windows 11 Insider Beta Build.

When you Click on the left panel on Machines you get this status overview.

When you click on History you will see the status in progress.

Updates are running on the Machine.

But with the Azure Resource Graph Explorer you can also
see when the updates are succeeded.

Update Management Center after successful running updates

Updates Done for Azure Arc enabled Windows 11 Insider Beta Build.

Now I have got the Newest Windows 11 Insider Preview Build in the Beta Channel at this moment

Conclusion

You have seen how easy it is to work with Microsoft Azure Arc services to manage your Virtual Machine with Updates, when you have lot of Virtual Machines / Servers to manage you can configure them once and do this automatically via schedule tasks for every month. Now I can manage my on-prem Servers / machines in the same way I do the Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines.
So this was only Updates, but you can do the same for Security and keep your machines secure by default with the same Azure policies on your machines for IT Governance. Hope you see the benefits of Azure Hybrid and please start your own journey.
When you have a test environment, please consider the Microsoft Windows Insider program for Windows 11 Insider Builds and for Windows Server Insider Build to work with the newest features and getting experience before GA becomes available.

 JOIN the Azure Hybrid Community Group on LinkedIn

 


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#MVPLABSerie Azure Update Management Center (Preview) and #AzureArc enabled Servers #AzureHybrid

Microsoft Azure Update Management Center (Preview)

Update management center (preview) is a unified service to help manage and govern updates for all your machines. You can monitor Windows and Linux update compliance across your deployments in Azure, on-premises, and on the other cloud platforms from a single dashboard. Using Update management center (preview), you can make updates in real-time or schedule them within a defined maintenance window. Here you can find more information about Azure Update Management Center

In the following step-by-step guide, we will start with Azure Update Management Center (Preview) and Microsoft Azure Arc enabled Windows Servers running on-premises in my mvplab.local domain.

With getting started you can configure the environment.

I start here with my Azure Arc enabled Storage Server.

You have options like Hotpatch

We Check manually for Updates on Windows Server mvpstore01
Click on OK for Assessment.

Here are the Windows Server Security updates.
You can click on One-time-Update
But first we look in Update Management Center.

Here you see the Pending Windows Updates in Azure Update Management Center
Open query 

Microsoft Azure Resource Graph Explorer can be really powerful tool

When you have to manage many Windows Servers you can get the status
of these Azure Arc enabled servers and export the results into a CSV file.
Here you find some Azure Resource Graph Explorer queries

Now we start to Install One-time Updates.

Include Update Classification
Click on Add

Click on Next

Select the option if you want to reboot or not.

Review and Install

Updates installed on the Azure Arc Enabled Windows Server.

In Azure Update Management Center Overview Dashboard
you can see that one machine is completed.

For Monitoring you can make your own workbooks.

I like this History, to see if updates are successful or not.

Conclusion

Microsoft Azure Update Management Center is still in Preview but it’s a new way to manage all of your updates on your Servers on-premises with Azure Arc enabled, or on Azure Cloud, but also in other Clouds if you want. One Update Management Center from the Azure Portal is Awesome to work with and gives you control and overview of your update compliance in your datacenter(s).
Important: This Great tool is still in preview and not for production environments yet until it’s made GA by Microsoft and you have the full support on this awesome management tool.

JOIN Azure Hybrid Community Group on LinkedIn