AZ-800 Administering Windows Server Hybrid Core Infrastructure Exam

Eager to master hybrid server management? Discover how to administer Windows Server Hybrid Core Infrastructure on Azure, setting your path towards the Microsoft Certified: Azure Hybrid Infrastructure Administrator Associate certification!

Intermediate

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Intermediate

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Track Readiness

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Implement Azure Machine Configuration

Manage Windows Servers and workloads by using Azure services

Deploy and Monitor Desired State Configuration

Authoring and Importing DSC Configurations

Desired State Configuration (DSC) is a PowerShell platform that lets you define and enforce how a computer should be configured. You write these definitions, called configurations, in PowerShell scripts. For example, a script can declare that a specific Windows feature, like IIS, must be present on a server. To use these configurations in Azure, you import them into a service called Azure Automation State Configuration. This is done using a PowerShell command that points to your script file and publishes it to your Automation Account.

Assigning Configurations to Nodes

Once a configuration is imported, it must be compiled into a ready-to-use format called a node configuration. This compilation job is started within Azure Automation. Next, you need to register your target machines, which can be Azure VMs or on-premises Windows Servers, as managed nodes with the Automation service. Finally, you assign the specific compiled node configuration to each registered node. This tells the Automation service which configuration that specific machine should follow.

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A five-step horizontal process flow showing how a PowerShell DSC configuration is authored, imported into Azure Automation, compiled, assigned to a managed node, and then monitored for compliance and drift remediation.

Monitoring Compliance and Remediating Drift

After a configuration is assigned, the DSC agent on the managed node regularly checks its own settings against the desired state defined in the configuration. You can control how often this check happens and what the node should do if it finds a difference, or drift. The node can automatically correct the drift to match the desired state, or it can just report the issue. You monitor this process by retrieving compliance reports from the Automation service for each node. For broader enforcement, you can integrate with Azure Policy to automatically report on and remediate configuration drift across many machines at once, ensuring your hybrid Windows Server environment stays consistent.

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Install the Azure Connected Machine Agent to support Azure Arc Deploy Azure services using VM extensions on non-Azure machines

AZ-800 Administering Windows Server Hybrid Core Infrastructure Exam

Implement Azure Machine Configuration

Deploy and Monitor Desired State Configuration

Authoring and Importing DSC Configurations

Assigning Configurations to Nodes

Azure DSC Deployment Workflow

Monitoring Compliance and Remediating Drift

Deploy and Monitor Desired State Configuration

Authoring and Importing DSC Configurations

Assigning Configurations to Nodes

Monitoring Compliance and Remediating Drift