- Coming up, new tools for managing servers
across versions of Windows and Linux
and across cloud platforms.
We'll show you the updates to Project Honolulu,
allowing you to manage Windows Server configurations
from one place.
And how we're moving from Windows PowerShell
to PowerShell Core, letting you manage your servers
wherever they are from just about any device
and across Linux and Windows.
(electronic music)
So I'm joined again by Jeff Woolsey
from the Windows Server team.
Welcome.
- It's great to be back.
- So we've been evolving the tools to manage
servers to become more flexible.
And last time we saw an early look at Project Honolulu
to configure and manage Windows servers.
- That's right.
We know that most of you have infrastructure
that runs multiple versions of Windows server
or other server platforms.
For example, you have Windows Server running
on physical or virtual machines.
These workloads might be located in your data center
or hosted in a cloud service like Azure or AWS.
You probably wanna manage your infrastructure,
either using a graphical user interface at GUI,
or a command line via the browser
from a PC, Mac, or other device.
So whether you're using a command line or a GUI
on whatever device you're using,
we wanna provide a great experience.
- So what has the team done to deliver against that?
- The last time I was on the show
we talked about Windows server version 1709.
We also discussed some of the challenges
with the multitude of tools that you typically
have to use to manage Windows.
So, we're moving to a unified management hub.
And let me switch on over to Project Honolulu.
Now, what this allows you to do is
gives you the ability to monitor and troubleshoot
your Windows through this Honolulu portal.
So let me walk you through it.
And by the way, if you've already started evaluating Honolulu
I'll point out some of the updates along the way.
So the first thing I wanna show you here is
I'm at the Honolulu start page
here at the server manager.
And I'm gonna add some server connections.
Now I can come in here and I can simply
type in some of the names of these.
But I'm gonna go into import servers,
where in fact I've created a text file
with a whole bunch of names of servers
that I already have running.
And I'm gonna simply submit those.
And in fact, these are the servers that I'm gonna manage.
You can see here that I've got four silver nodes here.
These are my physical servers.
These green and red nodes are actually my Windows servers
running in virtual machines.
So let's go ahead and click on silver node one.
And I'm connecting to it.
I'm gonna point out that everything
I'm running right here is actually happening
here on my Surface Pro.
You can see here on the overview page
you see most of the things you would expect to see
typically in task manager.
For example I can see CPU, memory, ethernet,
additional things like that.
I can see the computer name, the domain,
and in fact if I want to change that,
I can do all of that remotely by changing
the name of the computer or joining a work group
or changing domains.
Also I'm gonna point out devices.
Now typically using the traditional RSAT tools,
I'll have to leave the task manager
and go to something like device manager.
Well here in Project Honolulu,
I can see for example my devices like my network adaptor.
I can click on my network adaptor.
I can actually see, here's the driver
and here are the details behind that driver as well.
Another thing I commonly want to do
is I want to take a look at events on my server.
So for example here I'm gonna go to my event tool.
And you can see here under Windows logs,
I'm gonna take a look at some of my security logs.
Now you notice wow, I actually have quite a few of these.
I'm gonna take a look at these.
So the first thing I wanna do is
I wanna go here and filter this out.
And we can easily filter these out
to show you just the critical errors.
So I don't wanna see any of the warning
or any of the verbose things.
And if you used earlier versions of the technical preview,
you've probably noticed that was a lot faster.
We've done a whole bunch of performance work
under the hood to make the Honolulu even faster.
Next, let's quickly move on over to files.
Last thing I wanna show you of course,
is that I can of course create files,
I can manage files, all remotely using Honolulu.
For example, if I need to create a new folder,
simply create a new folder.
Let's call this a temp folder.
Quickly click on submit.
And just like that there's my new temp folder.
So I can copy files to it.
I can delete files. Things you would normally expect.
Now, one of the most requested features,
and I wanna take a moment to say thank you
to our folks on Windows Server UserVoice,
is that we've actually had folks providing us feedback
and input for the things that they really
wanted to see in Project Honolulu.
And one of those things is remote desktop.
- And remote desktop is definitely a tool
that any Windows server admin's gonna want.
- Yes. Now here we are using RDP over HTML5.
And I'm in a server core, and you can see,
this is great, I'm running headless.
Exactly the way you wanna manage a server.
- [Matt] That is awesome.
- [Jeff] So I'm able to log in and you can see,
this is simply just server core.
Now, one of the other top requested features
I wanna show you of course is PowerShell.
So one of the things people tell us they wanna do
is, you know, I get that Honolulu's great
for doing a lot of the common things?
But what if I need to get under the hood for example
and I wanna be able to bring up a full
command line in PowerShell?
Well you can see, I brought up a PowerShell.
I've typed in get VM.
And I get some statistics on some of the VMs here.
And by the way I should also point out
that yeah, you have full intellisense as well.
So these were both highly requested features
from user voice.
So we can now even remote into client PCs.
This is also a brand new feature in Honolulu.
I'll head up here, instead of server manager,
you can see we have computer management.
And in fact I'm gonna go here.
And just like I did before,
I could simply add a computer by typing in the name.
Or in this case I'm also gonna go ahead
and import a client name to import as well.
And in fact, here's a client system I can manage as well.
And I can click on it. I can connect to it.
And you can see, I still have a rich set of features.
I can see an overview of the system,
certificates, devices, events, firewall configuration,
and so much more.
- [Matt] And you made it look easy.
- [Jeff] Yes.
- And it's great to see RDP support
on the new PowerShell integration in Honolulu.
And it opens up a lot more management capability
beyond just the common user interfaces.
And, better still, it looks a lot faster than last time.
- Yes.
So we saw PowerShell and Honolulu
performing commands against Windows machines.
And when we think cross-platform,
the new PowerShell core really delivers
against the promise of managing any server
from just about any device.
So a few months back, we announced PowerShell
support for Linux.
And now PowerShell version six is generally available
for common distros.
Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, OpenSUSE, Fedora,
and even beyond Linux, we can run it on Mac OS.
We even have a docker container packaged up
with PowerShell core.
You can get to all of these packages on GitHub.
As well as community supported packages.
In fact, over 50% of the updates and changes
in PowerShell V six, came from the community.
- Awesome stuff.
And PowerShell, just like Honolulu,
can be used remotely so, as long as I have network access
I'm good to go?
So on premises and in Asia?
- That's right.
In both cases, the tools just need to be able
to broker a connection to the resource
and the server can be in the cloud or in your data center.
Now for resources in Azure you can even
use CloudShell with PowerShell to manage resources
right from your browser.
- Can we take a look?
- Absolutely.
On this system, I've enabled the open SSH preview.
And we've installed PowerShell Core 6.0.
In visual studio code, you can toggle the version
of PowerShell in the lower right hand corner
to use PowerShell six.
And we can now SSH into Windows or Linux environments.
Now here I am in VS code.
So I'm gonna start a session against a Windows
and a Linux session.
You can see their IP addresses here.
And in fact, I'm gonna run this invoke command
against both machines.
So the first thing I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna select these three lines.
And I'm gonna click run selection or click F8.
Now I'm prompted for passwords here.
And I'm gonna type in the password for my Linux system.
And now for my Windows system.
And now once I've logged into these both,
I can run the invoke command.
And what I'm gonna do is I wanna highlight
the fact that I'm running both of these processes
mixed process, and I can actually get a listing
of both of these simultaneously.
So, I'm gonna now run these mixed processes.
And I'm gonna run the selection again.
And in fact you're seeing a complete list
of all of the processes interspersed between,
again both Windows and Linux systems simultaneously
in the same view.
Now let's do the same thing.
And this time I'm gonna filter it
so that I see for example just the mixed processes
starting with the letter S.
So again, I'm gonna select this.
I'm gonna highlight. Right click.
Go to run selection or F8.
And now you can see I have just a listing
of all of the process that start with the letter S.
So think about what you're seeing here.
We have a unified connection into Windows and Linux.
We ran the same PowerShell Cmdlets
to both platforms.
And the result was the output from both Windows and Linux
in one unified console.
So we can now use SSH now for Windows and Linux platform,
allowing true cross-platform PowerShell remoting.
And the great thing is that I don't need
the complexity to switch contexts.
And if I'm already proficient in PowerShell with Windows
I'm basically ready to start managing Linux as well.
So now if I close that connection and remove it
into a Windows machine, I can run the same Cmdlets
and use the same syntax there as well via SSH.
- This is phenomenal,
especially for heterogenous environments.
And we're seeing the ability to easily manage
from different sources and targets
with command lines and GUIs,
but going back to Honolulu for a minute,
in the past we used things like the remote server
of the admin tools or RSAT,
that tightly coupled the Windows client
and the Windows Server version.
Is this still the case?
- No. Honolulu is much more flexible,
providing you the ability to install on Windows 10,
or onto a jump box.
So you can manage Windows Server 2016
all the way back to Windows server 2012 with a browser.
- Awesome. Now, earlier you mentioned
that Honolulu is extensible.
So does that mean we can see more things coming?
- Yes. Honolulu was built with extensibility at its core.
Each of the tools you see
are actually plug-ins to Honolulu.
And right now we're currently working with our partners
of a private preview of the Honolulu SDK,
and we're working to deliver
a public preview of the SDK soon.
For example, we have some hardware partners
that are working with us around plug-ins
for special hardware like support
for things like VMCs and more.
- Awesome. That will be cool.
So lots of great updates and more on the way.
Now if you wanna get started with Honolulu
and PowerShell core, where should I get started?
- Well you can download the installer
for Project Honolulu at the link shown.
And keep checking back to Windows Server insiders
for updates to when the Honolulu SDK preview release is.
If you wanna access PowerShell core,
you can grab the installers from GitHub
at the link shown.
- Awesome, thanks Jeff.
These tools are definitely gonna come in handy
for most of us admins out there which is great.
And that's all the time we have for this show.
But of course, keep checking back to Microsoft mechanics
for the latest tech updates.
See you soon.
(electronic music)