1 00:00:00,005 --> 00:00:02,008 - [Narrator] Windows Admin Center is a comprehensive 2 00:00:02,008 --> 00:00:05,005 monitoring and maintenance tool that can connect 3 00:00:05,005 --> 00:00:08,008 §to on-premises servers, clients, clusters, 4 00:00:08,008 --> 00:00:11,003 and Azure virtual machines. 5 00:00:11,003 --> 00:00:12,004 Within a Windows server, 6 00:00:12,004 --> 00:00:14,009 you can just go down to the start button 7 00:00:14,009 --> 00:00:20,001 and click on that, choose all apps 8 00:00:20,001 --> 00:00:22,004 and you can see that Windows Admin Center, 9 00:00:22,004 --> 00:00:25,003 the installation tool is already built in 10 00:00:25,003 --> 00:00:29,006 to the start menu in Windows Server 2025. 11 00:00:29,006 --> 00:00:31,009 If you're not a Windows Server 2025, you can go ahead 12 00:00:31,009 --> 00:00:34,008 and download it from microsoft.com. 13 00:00:34,008 --> 00:00:39,000 So I'll click on Windows Admin Center setup, 14 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:40,007 and a new wizard shows up. 15 00:00:40,007 --> 00:00:44,009 I'm going to click next and you can see 16 00:00:44,009 --> 00:00:47,001 it's going to download everything it needs 17 00:00:47,001 --> 00:00:49,005 in order to get started. 18 00:00:49,005 --> 00:00:51,004 You can install this on any Windows server 19 00:00:51,004 --> 00:00:54,005 or Windows 10 or 11 client. 20 00:00:54,005 --> 00:00:56,005 Now I don't recommend you install it on any server 21 00:00:56,005 --> 00:00:58,007 that's running internet information services 22 00:00:58,007 --> 00:01:00,002 as a web server host 23 00:01:00,002 --> 00:01:03,004 because then you'll have an issue with the ports 24 00:01:03,004 --> 00:01:07,006 because this particular program likes to use Port 443, 25 00:01:07,006 --> 00:01:10,002 although you can change it if you'd like to. 26 00:01:10,002 --> 00:01:14,004 And web servers also like to use that for SSL connectivity. 27 00:01:14,004 --> 00:01:16,005 We can also install a public certificate 28 00:01:16,005 --> 00:01:19,000 and connect to this from outside 29 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:20,008 of our local area network if we'd like 30 00:01:20,008 --> 00:01:23,002 by Port Forwarding 443 31 00:01:23,002 --> 00:01:25,000 or whatever port you're using 32 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,008 into the Windows Admin Center server, 33 00:01:28,008 --> 00:01:30,009 the latest installer's bin downloaded, 34 00:01:30,009 --> 00:01:33,002 so I can go ahead and click install 35 00:01:33,002 --> 00:01:36,009 and it will install Windows Admin Center on the server. 36 00:01:36,009 --> 00:01:39,003 While we're waiting, I'm going to go ahead 37 00:01:39,003 --> 00:01:40,004 and join this Windows 11 computer 38 00:01:40,004 --> 00:01:42,008 into the active directory domain. 39 00:01:42,008 --> 00:01:46,007 First, I need to set up the IP address settings 40 00:01:46,007 --> 00:01:48,003 to be able to make sure 41 00:01:48,003 --> 00:01:51,004 that it's pointing the DNS to .150, 42 00:01:51,004 --> 00:01:54,009 otherwise I won't be able to communicate with the domain. 43 00:01:54,009 --> 00:01:58,001 And here you can see that the DNS server is set to 150. 44 00:01:58,001 --> 00:02:01,004 If not, you can click edit and make that change. 45 00:02:01,004 --> 00:02:05,004 Once that's done, you can click on System and inside System, 46 00:02:05,004 --> 00:02:09,006 we can go to about, just like we did on File Server one 47 00:02:09,006 --> 00:02:14,004 and then join this computer to the domain the same way. 48 00:02:14,004 --> 00:02:15,005 I'll click on Domain 49 00:02:15,005 --> 00:02:19,006 or Work Group, click on change, 50 00:02:19,006 --> 00:02:23,009 and type in the name of the domain 51 00:02:23,009 --> 00:02:34,003 and I'll get prompted for the username and password 52 00:02:34,003 --> 00:02:36,002 and I'm welcomed into the domain. 53 00:02:36,002 --> 00:02:37,005 Of course, I'll have to restart, 54 00:02:37,005 --> 00:02:38,009 but before I do that, 55 00:02:38,009 --> 00:02:42,003 in order to be added into Windows Admin Center 56 00:02:42,003 --> 00:02:44,006 and to be properly monitored, I'm going to need 57 00:02:44,006 --> 00:02:47,000 to go into the firewall. 58 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:48,003 So I'm going to go to Firewall 59 00:02:48,003 --> 00:02:54,008 and choose Windows Defender Firewall. 60 00:02:54,008 --> 00:02:59,000 I'll click on Inbound Rules 61 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:03,008 and I want to go to the WMI rule. 62 00:03:03,008 --> 00:03:07,002 That's Windows Management Instrumentation 63 00:03:07,002 --> 00:03:10,000 and I want to make sure that it's enabled. 64 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:12,002 So I'll just go ahead and select 65 00:03:12,002 --> 00:03:16,002 all these different ones and choose Enable. 66 00:03:16,002 --> 00:03:19,004 And I also want to go down to the Windows remote management 67 00:03:19,004 --> 00:03:23,008 as well and enable all those, 68 00:03:23,008 --> 00:03:28,005 that will allow us to remotely manage any particular device. 69 00:03:28,005 --> 00:03:29,007 And it could be a server as well. 70 00:03:29,007 --> 00:03:31,005 If you can't connect to any servers, 71 00:03:31,005 --> 00:03:33,007 just by going into Windows Admin center 72 00:03:33,007 --> 00:03:36,000 and adding in that client 73 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:38,001 or server that you'd like to add in. 74 00:03:38,001 --> 00:03:40,009 Now that that's done, I can go ahead and close this 75 00:03:40,009 --> 00:03:45,008 and I can restart my client computer 76 00:03:45,008 --> 00:03:49,001 and it'll be joined to the domain 77 00:03:49,001 --> 00:03:54,001 and I'm back on my server installing Windows Admin Center. 78 00:03:54,001 --> 00:03:59,003 I'll accept the terms, click next. 79 00:03:59,003 --> 00:04:03,001 It is going to create and use a self sign certificate. 80 00:04:03,001 --> 00:04:04,004 Now you're going to get a warning 81 00:04:04,004 --> 00:04:08,002 or an error when you open up your browser the first time 82 00:04:08,002 --> 00:04:09,001 to go into this 83 00:04:09,001 --> 00:04:11,004 because it's not using a trusted certificate, 84 00:04:11,004 --> 00:04:12,008 but that's okay. 85 00:04:12,008 --> 00:04:13,009 Everything will still work 86 00:04:13,009 --> 00:04:17,000 and you can add a trusted certificate later on. 87 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:19,007 I'm going to choose the express setup 88 00:04:19,007 --> 00:04:25,004 and click next, generate a new self-signed certificate. 89 00:04:25,004 --> 00:04:29,007 I'll update automatically from Microsoft 90 00:04:29,007 --> 00:04:31,009 and choose install. 91 00:04:31,009 --> 00:04:33,009 Once it's done, a new shortcut 92 00:04:33,009 --> 00:04:35,006 to Windows Admin Center will show up. 93 00:04:35,006 --> 00:04:38,009 You click on that and log in. 94 00:04:38,009 --> 00:04:42,000 Installation completed, and I'm going to go ahead and start it. 95 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:45,009 It's going to open using the default web browser 96 00:04:45,009 --> 00:04:47,007 and you can also see the shortcut 97 00:04:47,007 --> 00:04:50,004 that's on the desktop as well. 98 00:04:50,004 --> 00:04:52,005 Here's the warning I mentioned earlier 99 00:04:52,005 --> 00:04:55,008 because it's not a trusted certificate, 100 00:04:55,008 --> 00:04:57,009 so it'll just tell it to continue on. 101 00:04:57,009 --> 00:05:02,001 And now log in to Windows admin center 102 00:05:02,001 --> 00:05:04,002 and I'll click to sign in. 103 00:05:04,002 --> 00:05:06,006 And when it launches, it's going to go ahead 104 00:05:06,006 --> 00:05:09,007 and add in the server that you're logged into. 105 00:05:09,007 --> 00:05:11,009 In this case, I'm in File Server one. 106 00:05:11,009 --> 00:05:13,005 It also says this is the Gateway. 107 00:05:13,005 --> 00:05:16,005 So basically what that means is I can log into 108 00:05:16,005 --> 00:05:19,002 this particular server's website 109 00:05:19,002 --> 00:05:22,001 and from there, I can bounce to many other servers 110 00:05:22,001 --> 00:05:24,003 and clients as well. 111 00:05:24,003 --> 00:05:28,009 So now I'm going to add in another server, 112 00:05:28,009 --> 00:05:31,007 but we also have the option to add in Windows PCs, 113 00:05:31,007 --> 00:05:34,007 Azure virtual machines and server clusters. 114 00:05:34,007 --> 00:05:37,001 So if you've installed Failover Cluster Manager 115 00:05:37,001 --> 00:05:40,002 and configured it, or you'd like to create a new one here, 116 00:05:40,002 --> 00:05:41,009 you need to have at least a couple 117 00:05:41,009 --> 00:05:44,009 of different servers called server nodes 118 00:05:44,009 --> 00:05:48,000 as well as shared storage to be able to create the cluster. 119 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:51,000 And that creates highly available applications. 120 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:52,009 Also, take a look in the upper right hand corner, 121 00:05:52,009 --> 00:05:54,007 it's updating extensions. 122 00:05:54,007 --> 00:05:56,004 Extensions are just the ability 123 00:05:56,004 --> 00:05:59,001 to add in additional services roles 124 00:05:59,001 --> 00:06:00,009 and features that have been installed 125 00:06:00,009 --> 00:06:03,004 into the servers that you're adding in. 126 00:06:03,004 --> 00:06:07,000 So for instance, if you have DNS installed on a server, 127 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:08,002 then you can go ahead 128 00:06:08,002 --> 00:06:11,005 and add the DNS extension to be able to manage it. 129 00:06:11,005 --> 00:06:14,005 I'm going to click on adding a server, 130 00:06:14,005 --> 00:06:17,008 and then on the right hand side you're going to see the prompt 131 00:06:17,008 --> 00:06:23,004 for the server name I'm going to add in DC2, 132 00:06:23,004 --> 00:06:27,003 it's going to search for it, it found the server. 133 00:06:27,003 --> 00:06:29,005 You can also import a list if you have a lot 134 00:06:29,005 --> 00:06:31,004 of different servers and clients to add in, 135 00:06:31,004 --> 00:06:32,009 or just search active directory 136 00:06:32,009 --> 00:06:36,002 if you can't find it any other way. 137 00:06:36,002 --> 00:06:39,005 So I'll click add 138 00:06:39,005 --> 00:06:41,000 and we also got a message about it 139 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:46,006 adding the updated extension so I can click okay on that. 140 00:06:46,006 --> 00:06:51,002 And now we can see both DC2 and file server one. 141 00:06:51,002 --> 00:06:55,001 From file server one, I'm going to click on DC2, 142 00:06:55,001 --> 00:06:57,004 it's going to connect 143 00:06:57,004 --> 00:06:59,007 and it's going to show me a lot of different tools. 144 00:06:59,007 --> 00:07:01,007 So if I'm already linked into Azure, 145 00:07:01,007 --> 00:07:04,009 it's going to show me some Azure utilities 146 00:07:04,009 --> 00:07:08,001 such as Azure backup, file sync, things like that. 147 00:07:08,001 --> 00:07:11,000 But if I'm not connected into Azure, then I can go ahead 148 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:13,008 and manage some of these other utilities 149 00:07:13,008 --> 00:07:17,002 to help maintain and monitor my server. 150 00:07:17,002 --> 00:07:20,001 For instance, let's go down to Performance Monitor. 151 00:07:20,001 --> 00:07:22,004 So from File Server one, I can see 152 00:07:22,004 --> 00:07:27,002 how DC2 is doing in many different areas. 153 00:07:27,002 --> 00:07:30,002 I'm going to choose to add a counter. 154 00:07:30,002 --> 00:07:36,003 So I've got lots of different options here. 155 00:07:36,003 --> 00:07:38,009 Once everything loads up, you can click on Object 156 00:07:38,009 --> 00:07:40,005 and there's all these different counters 157 00:07:40,005 --> 00:07:43,001 that I can check on. 158 00:07:43,001 --> 00:07:45,005 I'm going to scroll down 159 00:07:45,005 --> 00:07:50,009 just to show you all the different ones. 160 00:07:50,009 --> 00:07:55,008 And I'm going to choose the processor. 161 00:07:55,008 --> 00:08:01,003 I'm going to choose to select all processors, 162 00:08:01,003 --> 00:08:03,003 and now I can choose the counter type. 163 00:08:03,003 --> 00:08:05,009 So underneath each one of these objects 164 00:08:05,009 --> 00:08:07,003 are various different counters. 165 00:08:07,003 --> 00:08:09,007 Now you don't necessarily want to have all of them 166 00:08:09,007 --> 00:08:12,004 just because it could end up taking a long time 167 00:08:12,004 --> 00:08:14,005 to get all that information to load up, 168 00:08:14,005 --> 00:08:17,003 but you can choose whichever ones make the most sense. 169 00:08:17,003 --> 00:08:20,001 So for instance, I'm going to choose interrupt time 170 00:08:20,001 --> 00:08:24,002 as well as privilege time, 171 00:08:24,002 --> 00:08:25,009 and I can choose the type of graph. 172 00:08:25,009 --> 00:08:28,006 So right now we're looking at a report. 173 00:08:28,006 --> 00:08:32,004 So it's not quite as interesting sometimes as say, 174 00:08:32,004 --> 00:08:35,005 looking at a line a max, a heat map, 175 00:08:35,005 --> 00:08:37,005 but you're not going to see all the different options 176 00:08:37,005 --> 00:08:39,005 in every instance. 177 00:08:39,005 --> 00:08:41,001 There's lots more things on the left hand side 178 00:08:41,001 --> 00:08:43,008 that we can click on in order to find out 179 00:08:43,008 --> 00:08:46,006 about what's going on with our server. 180 00:08:46,006 --> 00:08:49,003 For instance, we can click on processes 181 00:08:49,003 --> 00:08:51,004 and it shows all the different processes 182 00:08:51,004 --> 00:08:54,006 running on the server very similar to services, 183 00:08:54,006 --> 00:08:56,003 although services is another option 184 00:08:56,003 --> 00:08:58,007 that you see on the lower left hand side. 185 00:08:58,007 --> 00:09:01,005 So this tells us how much CPU is being used, 186 00:09:01,005 --> 00:09:04,002 the status, the description, things like that. 187 00:09:04,002 --> 00:09:07,004 And you can click on any one of these as well. 188 00:09:07,004 --> 00:09:10,001 And you can see more information at the bottom. 189 00:09:10,001 --> 00:09:15,007 If we go to the top and choose settings, 190 00:09:15,007 --> 00:09:18,000 one of the more important areas here is extensions, 191 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:20,002 as I had mentioned earlier. 192 00:09:20,002 --> 00:09:22,003 And you can see the available extensions 193 00:09:22,003 --> 00:09:26,001 as well as ones that are already installed. 194 00:09:26,001 --> 00:09:28,004 So you can pick any one of these that are available, 195 00:09:28,004 --> 00:09:30,007 highlight them and click install. 196 00:09:30,007 --> 00:09:33,007 And then it will show up on the left hand side 197 00:09:33,007 --> 00:09:38,002 after you go back into the main area. 198 00:09:38,002 --> 00:09:42,006 So it's refreshing after installing that application 199 00:09:42,006 --> 00:09:43,009 and any new extensions 200 00:09:43,009 --> 00:09:46,004 that we might have added will show up on the left hand side. 201 00:09:46,004 --> 00:09:49,006 I'm going to go back to Windows Admin center 202 00:09:49,006 --> 00:09:54,009 at the homepage and I'm going to add in client one. 203 00:09:54,009 --> 00:09:57,009 So I'm going to choose Windows PCs. 204 00:09:57,009 --> 00:10:01,003 I'll add in client one. 205 00:10:01,003 --> 00:10:04,005 And now you can see it's added client one as well. 206 00:10:04,005 --> 00:10:07,005 Just like we added DC two and file server one. 207 00:10:07,005 --> 00:10:11,000 So you can add clients and servers as needed. 208 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:13,004 Windows Admin Center is an evolving application 209 00:10:13,004 --> 00:10:16,005 from Microsoft to monitor and maintain servers 210 00:10:16,005 --> 00:10:21,000 and clients in a Windows and Azure Cloud environment.