Disaster Recovery - Hosted Server
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@scottalanmiller How do the Azure VMs connect to each site? VPN to each site? or does each site VPN into the Azure instance or what?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
@thecreativeone91 Cisco...Dear god no.
Dell? Yes I've seen their warranty guys in action but still, for a service as simple as active directory and DNS, can we still not use hosted services as a redundant backup?
If it is JUST the services, why not run them in the cloud full time? That's what we do. We have AD and DNS out on Azure. So we can fail with application level failover and no one would notice.
how does licensing working for that?
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I imagine you use Pertino to do the connection between the different clients with ADconnect?
What if you were to do it without Pertino?@Dashrender said:
how does licensing working for that?
As far as I can tell, Azure says you do not need to buy CALS, you pay for it with their hosting package. So the per hour fee you pay covers the server license along with hardware/bandwidth.
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What if you could keep the Azure VM off as a disaster box, power it on, restore from backup, would be much cheaper long term if you only paid for Azure storage rather than have it on 24/7 then if a disaster does strike you can use it.
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@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
Easy, Do 4 hr or less on site service contract (both dell and cisco do 2 & 4 hr).
The have baremetal backups.This only promised that they will be at your door in 2 or 4 hours.. not fixed in that timeframe!
That's what the six hour "fix" agreement is for. That's the best one.
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@dafyre said:
@scottalanmiller How do the Azure VMs connect to each site? VPN to each site? or does each site VPN into the Azure instance or what?
VPN. For us, it's Pertino. But you can use anything that you want.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
@thecreativeone91 Cisco...Dear god no.
Dell? Yes I've seen their warranty guys in action but still, for a service as simple as active directory and DNS, can we still not use hosted services as a redundant backup?
If it is JUST the services, why not run them in the cloud full time? That's what we do. We have AD and DNS out on Azure. So we can fail with application level failover and no one would notice.
how does licensing working for that?
Same as anything else. Server license is provided by the hosting agreement. You provide your CALs.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
As far as I can tell, Azure says you do not need to buy CALS, you pay for it with their hosting package. So the per hour fee you pay covers the server license along with hardware/bandwidth.
Is that true? Unlimited CALs as long as you use all Azure? What about if you have some on site machines? What if you are a 400K person company, have millions of dollars per year in CAL costs, but have ONE Azure instance, just big enough to fire up Windows. Are all of your CALs suddenly free?
Doesn't seem possible.
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@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
Easy, Do 4 hr or less on site service contract (both dell and cisco do 2 & 4 hr).
The have baremetal backups.This only promised that they will be at your door in 2 or 4 hours.. not fixed in that timeframe!
True. Especially with Dell. With Cisco SmartNet OnSite if you have either servers or networking devices you can have them backed up to the cloud (as well as local) and Cisco will just have someone their with a replacement unit in 2hrs and will reload the config from backups.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
What if you could keep the Azure VM off as a disaster box, power it on, restore from backup, would be much cheaper long term if you only paid for Azure storage rather than have it on 24/7 then if a disaster does strike you can use it.
Can you? Yes. How much will you save? Some. Is it worth it? I doubt it. I'd put this as getting pretty close to silly in terms of cost savings versus value. It this was a different workload, there could be benefits. But we are talking about AD that works just as well from Azure as on site and works BY FAR The best when kept in sync. If you keep the VM running, you get transparent failover 100% of the time. And you get to test it every day and know that things work.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
As far as I can tell, Azure says you do not need to buy CALS, you pay for it with their hosting package. So the per hour fee you pay covers the server license along with hardware/bandwidth.
I've never seen that before. You need CALS not matter where the server is located.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
As far as I can tell, Azure says you do not need to buy CALS, you pay for it with their hosting package. So the per hour fee you pay covers the server license along with hardware/bandwidth.
I've never seen that before. You need CALS not matter where the server is located.
I have a feeling that you do not need CALs "when accessing the Azure instances." That makes sense. They don't inform you of any additional licensing needs and by not doing so, they are implicitly licensing you what you have paid for. It's not like buying a server where someone has to agree to the usage rights. And this makes sense because of the way that capacity works.
But the moment you have onsight machines attached to Azure, you still need the CALs that you have always used, Azure doesn't cover that usage.
I'm not positive on this, but it makes business sense and is the only way that Azure is neither a loophole nor a financial windfall for large companies.
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That was easy. And I was correct...
Does a customer need Windows Server CALs to connect to a Windows Server image that is running in Azure Virtual Machines?
No. Windows Server CALs are not required for accessing Windows Server running in the Azure environment because the access rights are included in the per-minute charge for the Virtual Machines. Use of Windows Server on-premises (whether in a VHD or otherwise) requires obtaining a separate license and is subject to the normal licensing requirements for use of software on-premises.
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That's how we have always done it. We have CALs for our on premise systems and connecting to Azure doesn't give us extra use rights. But if we wanted to move to 100% Azure (which we are closing in on for production) then we could do away with CAL tracking as we are paying for capacity, not per user.
Think of Azure has having a third CAL type, the Capacity CAL.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
@thecreativeone91 Cisco...Dear god no.
Dell? Yes I've seen their warranty guys in action but still, for a service as simple as active directory and DNS, can we still not use hosted services as a redundant backup?
If it is JUST the services, why not run them in the cloud full time? That's what we do. We have AD and DNS out on Azure. So we can fail with application level failover and no one would notice.
how does licensing working for that?
Same as anything else. Server license is provided by the hosting agreement. You provide your CALs.
Oh that's right, Azure does have a licensing option for AD in their cloud.
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@Dashrender said:
Oh that's right, Azure does have a licensing option for AD in their cloud.
Well sort of, but not how people mean it when they say that. Azure allows you to have Windows on IaaS the same as every other cloud vendor has had for a decade. Amazon, Rackspace, IBM, etc. have always (nearly) had Windows IaaS and Windows means AD. So AD is available running on Windows on an IaaS cloud instance, if that is what you mean, and that's nothing new. Nor is this CAL setup, this is all long established.
There is no SaaS AD from any cloud, any vendor. That's disallowed by Microsoft and you just can't do it and that is what every asked about and means when they say that someone has AD on the cloud.
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@scottalanmiller said:
There is no SaaS AD from any cloud, any vendor. That's disallowed by Microsoft and you just can't do it and that is what every asked about and means when they say that someone has AD on the cloud.
Does that mean, if I spin up an Azure 2012R2 VM, I cannot install AD/DC services, then use that as my hosted domain controller? Slightly confused.
@thecreativeone91 said:
I've never seen that before. You need CALS not matter where the server is located.
I think I'd balk if MS said we needed to start doing CAL Tracking on Azure. Glad that's not the case.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@scottalanmiller said:
There is no SaaS AD from any cloud, any vendor. That's disallowed by Microsoft and you just can't do it and that is what every asked about and means when they say that someone has AD on the cloud.
Does that mean, if I spin up an Azure 2012R2 VM, I cannot install AD/DC services, then use that as my hosted domain controller? Slightly confused.
There is only one way that it could possibly work. You need CALs IF you have ANY Windows servers of your own. Azure is not a free pass to skip CALs. You have your own Windows servers already and you have your own CALs already. So you have no CAL worries.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
I think I'd balk if MS said we needed to start doing CAL Tracking on Azure. Glad that's not the case.
Why? How would you be affected? You have to CAL track now. What new effort would be involved?
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@scottalanmiller said:
There is only one way that it could possibly work.
Tell us more
@scottalanmiller said:
Why? How would you be affected? You have to CAL track now. What new effort would be involved?
Because if we're all going to move to hosted, then let's see if we can drop the back and forth of cal tracking and just focus on doing IT with these products.
@scottalanmiller said:
You need CALs IF you have ANY Windows servers of your own. Azure is not a free pass to skip CALs.
I know that, not implying that.
What I am trying to understand is how I can actually use Azure to do the AD, whether 100% Azure with no on site server OR a hybrid option.
