Last year, Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Admin Center (WAC) v2110. WAC has long been an important element of IT management simplicity, bringing together multiple consoles in a modern, simple, integrated, and secure remote-management experience. WAC enables managing Windows Server instances anywhere, including physical systems or virtual machines on any hypervisor or running in any cloud.
The Dell PowerStore Manager extension for Windows Admin Center provides tools to manage hosts, host groups, volumes, and volume groups for servers and clusters that are connected to Windows Admin Center only. The focus of the extension functions is on Windows hosts and clusters currently managed in Windows Admin Center. The extension filters out storage objects that are not related to Windows servers and clusters which are not managed by Windows Admin Center.
The Dell PowerStore Manager extension (plug-in) for Windows Admin Center integrates with server and cluster management tools in Windows Admin Center to deliver unified and seamless, end-to-end monitoring, management, and troubleshooting. The Dell PowerStore Manager extension leverages platform security, identity and management capabilities. Windows administrators who prefer to perform storage management from the same tool used for managing servers are the target users for the Dell PowerStore Manager extension for Windows Admin Center. Once the relevant connections (Windows servers and clusters, and PowerStore appliances) are added to Windows Admin Center, the PowerStore Manager extension discovers the PowerStore appliance and reports all the relevant information in the Overview page for the PowerStore appliance.
When the Hosts and Hosts Groups tool is selected and the associated landing page appears, only the Windows servers or clusters managed by Windows Admin Center should be reported on the associated page.
● Filter rule for server being reported as host:
○ The initiators on the host must be a subset of the initiators associated with the server. In other words, the host cannot contain initiators that are not associated with the server.
● Filter rule for cluster being reported as host group:
○ The hosts part of the host group must only be associated with a single server part of the cluster. In other words, the non-empty initiators should be a subset of initiators that belong to a server of the cluster.
When the Volumes tool is selected and the associated landing page appears, only volumes that are mapped to the Windows servers or clusters managed by Windows Admin Center will be reported.
Volumes should not be mapped to any host or cluster that are not managed by Windows Admin Center. When the Volume groups tool is selected and the associated landing page appears, only volumes groups containing volumes that are mapped to the Windows servers or clusters managed by Windows Admin Center will be reported. If there is a single volume in the volume group that is not managed by Windows Admin Center, that volume group will not be reported.
Environment and system requirements
The Dell PowerStore Manager for Windows Admin Center is delivered as a solution extension and has the following environment and system requirements:
•Minimum version of Windows Admin Center is build 2110 1.3.2111.01001
•Minimum version of PowerStore OS is version 2.0
•Supports PowerStore OS version 2.1
Installation considerations
The Dell PowerStore Manager extension is packaged as a NuGet package for Windows Admin Center. Windows Admin Center shows extensions that are available from the specified NuGet feed. By default, Windows Admin Center points to the Microsoft official NuGet feed which hosts extensions published by Microsoft and other developers.
The Dell PowerStore Manager extension package can be installed through one of the following means:
● From within Windows Admin Center in the list of Available extensions
● By using a local feed for sites that are without Internet access
The package can be downloaded from the following sites:
- Dell EMC Online Support ( https://dell.com/support)
https://dev.azure.com/WindowsAdminCenter/Windows%20Admin%20Center%20Feed/_packaging?_a=feed&feed=WAC
You can check the PowerStore Manager for Windows Admin Center User Guide for detailed install and uninstall instructions.
It’s good to keep in mind that Dell Technologies has gone a step further to simplify monitoring and management of Dell PowerStore using this WAC extension, allowing Windows administrators who prefer to perform storage management from the same tool used for managing servers, direct visibility into storage-level inventory and information to help monitor, manage, and troubleshoot Dell PowerStore clusters right in Windows Admin Center.
A guest post by Tomer Eitan
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