Contents

1. S2D Micro-Cluster from Thomas-Krenn ................................................................. 3|

2. Building a Hyper-Converged Solution..................................................................... 4|

3. Azure Stack HCI - the Microsoft-certified solutions for Storage Spaces Direct ....... 7|

4. Micro-Node-Cluster from Thomas-Krenn as Azure Stack HCI certified solution ... 10|

5. What about the redundancy in such a compact 2-node solution? ....................... 10|

6. Setting up the Thomas-Krenn S2D micro-cluster.................................................. 12|

7. Configuration of Nested Resiliency and creation of Volumes ............................... 17|

8. Manage the Thomas-Krenn Micro Node Cluster via Windows Admin Center ..... 20|

Installation of the Windows Admin Center........................................................... 21|

Addition of the Thomas-Krenn S2D micro-cluster ................................................ 23|

Installation of the Thomas-Krenn-Extension for the S2D Micro-Cluster ............... 23|

Manage the S2D Micro-Cluster via the Windows

Admin Center and the Thomas-Krenn-Extension ................................................. 25|

1. S2D Micro-Cluster from Thomas-Krenn
The S2D Micro-Cluster from Thomas-Krenn is a highly
available 2-node system that offers amazing
performance with a very compact form factor. Despite
the compact form factor, the system is fully redundant
so that even the failure of a complete node can be
compensated. The S2D micro-cluster system is based on
powerful hardware that has been fully certified by
Thomas-Krenn. Fully certified means that Thomas-Krenn
has the Azure Stack HCI certification for the S2D micro-
cluster. Azure Stack HCI is Microsoft's certification
program for solutions based on Windows Server 2019
and Storage Spaces Direct (S2D). The extensive and
standardized certification test for Azure Stack HCI
certification ensures that the certified solution meets all
of Microsoft's quality criteria. Windows Server 2019
Datacenter is used as the software stack, so the powerful
features of Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) and Hyper-V are
available. Through the use of Windows Server 2019
Datacenter, there are unlimited virtual Windows Server
usage rights on the nodes of the S2D Micro-Cluster.
thomas-krenn.com | 3
Not only Windows Server 2019, but also any previous
Windows Server version may be used in the virtual
machines (VMs) - Windows Server also includes a
downgrade right to any previous version in the OEM
versions.
The new Windows Admin Center from Microsoft is used
to manage the S2D Micro-Cluster. And here Thomas-
Krenn.AG has a very special highlight to offer!
Thomas-Krenn.AG is the first manufacturer from
Germany to offer an extension for Microsoft's Windows
Admin Center in order to be able to manage the
hardware of the S2D micro-cluster in addition to the
pure operating system components.

2. Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2019
Datacenter for setting up a Hyper-Converged Solution
Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) is included in Windows
Server 2016 Datacenter and Windows Server 2019
Datacenter. The S2D micro-cluster from Thomas-Krenn
is based on Windows Server 2019 Datacenter and is also
certified for the use of this version. In addition, the
licenses are already included with the purchase of the 2-
node system. Industry standard servers with locally and
directly connected drives are used for S2D in order to set
up a high-availability, high-performance and scalable
software-defined storage system. The cost is a fraction
of the cost of a typical SAN system.
Illustration : Scalability of S2D clusters (source: docs.microsoft.com)
In this whitepaper we will focus on Thomas-Krenn's S2D
micro-cluster with two nodes. As you can see in the
figure above, S2D is extensively scalable and therefore
also suitable for very large workloads and storage
capacities. If your requirements are higher than those
that can be realized with the S2D Micro-Cluster, Thomas-
Krenn.AG can also offer you larger and more scalable
server solutions for Storage Spaces Direct.
thomas-krenn.com | 4
By using industry standard servers, the latest
technologies such as powerful new CPUs, fast network
cards with 100 Gbit/s port speed and more, NVMe SSDs
and persistent memory can be implemented very quickly
after market launch.
S2D offers powerful caching and tiering algorithms to
optimize the performance of Storage Spaces Direct.
Storage Spaces Direct can be configured with at least
two servers - a maximum of 16 nodes are supported in
an S2D cluster.
Storage Spaces Direct can be flash-only or hybrid, i.e.
operated with a combination of flash drives and
traditional hard drives. The S2D micro-cluster solution
relies on a combination of SSD drives and hard drives -
very good performance values can be achieved with
cost-optimized capacity at the same time. The SSD drives
in the S2D micro-cluster are automatically used as a
cache.

Illustration : Cache and Capacity Drives with Storage Spaces Direct (source: docs.microsoft.com)
The advantages are obvious when you look at the
performance values in relation to the costs of the
different drive types. With a classic hard drive,
sequential data transfer rates of 150 MB/s are possible.
With random access, such an HDD achieves 150 IOs per
second and that at comparatively low costs per gigabyte
of storage space. An SSD offers a possible sequential
throughput of 600 MB/s - that means it has four times
the performance of a classic rotating hard drive. It gets
interesting with the IOs. An SSD enables up to 60,000 IOs
per second - it is up to 400 times the performance of a
hard disk. Especially with many parallel accesses, such as
is the case with virtualization, IO performance plays a
major role. However, the higher performance of the SSD
has its price per gigabyte of storage space. Since Storage
Spaces Direct in the S2D Micro Cluster uses the SSD
drives as a cache, the workload benefits from the
performance values of these drives. A sequential
workload is created to move the data from the cache to
thomas-krenn.com | 5
the capacity level. The framework conditions of the
traditional hard disk - namely a good throughput for
sequential write and read operations - are thus optimally
used. Microsoft recommends planning at least 10% of
the capacity on the capacity level (corresponds to the
capacity of the hard disks in the S2D Micro-Cluster) as
cache. In the S2D micro-cluster from Thomas-Krenn.AG,
this has already been taken into account in the
configuration variants offered. Thomas-Krenn has also
taken into account the other requirements for the drives
for the S2D Micro-Cluster in the configurations offered
and put them together optimally. In addition to the
minimum requirement of 10% cache capacity compared
to the usable storage capacity, the flash drives must also
meet minimum service life requirements. Microsoft
specifies a Drive-Writes per Day value of at least 3 (3
DWPD) for the cache drives.

Storage Spaces Direct as a technology offers the option
of using HDDs and SSDs as well as NVMe drives and the
new Persistent Memory (PMEM). This enables even
higher performance values, but also at higher costs. The
S2D Micro-Cluster of Thomas-Krenn.AG is on the
Use of SSDs and HDDs optimized - if you want to use
NVMe drives or PMEM, Thomas-Krenn.AG also offers
rack servers for Storage Spaces Direct, which can provide
all storage technologies supported by S2D - hybrid and
flash-only.
thomas-krenn.com | 6
The term “cache” is often associated with volatile
memory. With Storage Spaces Direct, non-volatile data
center flash drives are used as cache, which even have
additional buffering for their internal cache. This means
that there is no loss of data in the drive's cache either. In
addition, at least two cache drives are built into each
server. In this way, the server can continue to work with
the remaining cache drive even if one cache drive fails.

Illustration: 2-way mirror at Storage Spaces Direct

The picture above shows a 2-way mirror. The figure

shows very nicely that the data redundancy is created
across servers. Should a server fail completely, all data
including the cache data are still available on the
remaining server.

If a cache drive fails in one of the servers, all hard drives

in this server are assigned to the remaining cache drive
and the server continues to work in the S2D cluster.

3. Azure Stack HCI - the Microsoft-certified solutions for
Storage Spaces Direct
A careful selection of the hardware components is
required to use Storage Spaces Direct. There are special
requirements for connecting the HDDs, SSDs and NVMe
drives to the server. Through the clever selection of
network cards, the performance can be increased
considerably and of course the components not only
Illustration : S2D micro-cluster from Thomas-Krenn.AG in the Windows Server Catalog
thomas-krenn.com | 7
have to be individually certified, but also function
perfectly in combination. Microsoft defines the
hardware requirements very precisely. All components
must be Windows Server 2019 certified and they should
be listed in the Windows Server Catalog with the
Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) certification.

However, the SDDC certification is a certification of the
individual components such as server, NIC, HBA etc. The
SDDC certification does not guarantee that the individual
certified components will work together in every
Illustration : Azure, Azure Stack and Azure Stack HCI (https://www.microsoft.com/hci)
What exactly does Azure Stack HCI mean and how is it
related to Microsoft Azure? Microsoft Azure is
Microsoft's public cloud service. Extensive IAAS and
PAAS projects can be implemented in the global
Microsoft Azure data centers. Microsoft Azure Stack is
the solution for customers who want to ensure the full
compatibility of their services with Microsoft Azure,
whereby the workload can be carried out in a customer's
own data center. A so-called Azure Stack Scale Unit
consists of at least four servers with infrastructure.
Microsoft Azure Stack is used as an appliance on the
Delivered to customers, i.e. direct access by the
customer e.g. on the Windows desktop or the Windows
console of the Windows Server node of the Azure Stack
Scale Unit is not possible. The power of the web-based
Azure/Azure Stack portal is available for this. Technically,
Windows Server runs on the nodes of an Azure Stack
Scale Unit with Storage Spaces Direct.
thomas-krenn.com | 8
constellation. That is why Microsoft has certified the
entire solution. Azure Stack HCI is Microsoft's
certification program for solutions for the use of Storage
Spaces Direct on Windows Server 2019.
Azure Stack HCI is the certified solution for Storage
Spaces Direct. Many of the requirements for certification
are identical for Azure Stack and Azure Stack HCI. For
Azure Stack HCI certification, the server manufacturer
must configure at least two of its server nodes with
Windows Server 2019 and Storage Spaces Direct and
subject them to a standardized stress and quality test
lasting several days. Extensive tests of functionality and
performance are carried out. A wide variety of error and
failure scenarios are also simulated. If these tests have
been carried out successfully, a listing of the system in
the Azure Stack HCI Catalog can be requested from
Microsoft. Thomas-Krenn.AG has certified different
configurations, which can be seen in the following
illustration.

Illustration : Azure Stack HCI solutions from Thomas-Krenn AG
(https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/azure-stack-hci-catalog?Hardware-partners=Thomas-Krenn.AG)
If you as a customer plan to use Storage Spaces Direct,
the urgent recommendation is to use an Azure Stack HCI
certified solution. This is the only way to ensure that the
manufacturer has verified the system in productive
operation. As a customer, you can therefore assume that
the configuration of Storage Spaces Direct will be
successful. With an Azure Stack HCI certified solution,
thomas-krenn.com | 9
however, the installation is carried out by the customer.
You also have full access to the Windows components of
the servers used. Thomas-Krenn.AG also optionally
offers you a complete installation of S2D on the Azure
Stack HCI certified systems.

4. Micro-Node-Cluster from Thomas-Krenn as Azure Stack HCI
certified solution
As described in the previous section, the S2D micro-
cluster systems from Thomas-Krenn.AG are fully Azure
Stack HCI certified. ThomasKrenn.AG clearly
distinguishes itself from providers who only use SDDC-
certified components. Microsoft writes the following on
its website:
„For production, Microsoft recommends purchasing a
validated hardware/software solution from our
partners, which include deployment tools and
procedures. These solutions are designed, assembled,
and validated against our reference architecture to
5. What about the redundancy in such a compact 2-node
solution?
Storage Spaces Direct offers different resiliency options
for the volumes in Storage Spaces Direct. In an S2D
cluster with three or more nodes, the 3-way mirroring
can be configured. When using 3-way mirroring, two
complete servers can fail without data loss. Dual parity is
also available from four servers in the S2D cluster. Even
when using dual parity, two independent, simultaneous
errors can occur without data loss occurring. Dual parity
offers higher storage efficiency, but requires additional
CPU power for the parity calculation. So-called multi-
resiliency volumes can be created through the
combination of 3-way mirror and dual parity.
thomas-krenn.com | 10
ensure compatibility and reliability, so you get up and
running quickly. For Windows Server 2019 solutions, visit
the Azure Stack HCI solutions website” (Source:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-
server/storage/storage-spaces/storagespaces-direct-
hardware-requirements)
The right solution for the planned workload can be
selected via the Azure Stack HCI Catalog:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/cloudplatform/azure-stack-hci-
catalog?Hardwarepartners=Thomas-Krenn.AG
With S2D under Windows Server 2016, there was only
two-way mirroring as a resiliency option for 2-node S2D
clusters. One or more hard drives or cache drives in a
server were allowed to fail without data loss or
downtime. The failure of a complete server could also be
compensated. However, two simultaneous and
independent errors led to downtime. In the event of a
failure of just one hard drive in a server, another hard
drive could not fail at the same time on the other server.
In this point in particular, Microsoft has greatly improved
S2D in Windows Server 2019 for 2-node solutions.
Thanks to the new nested resiliency, two independent
simultaneous errors can occur without the risk of
downtime or data loss.

As the figure above shows, hard drives can fail
simultaneously in both servers with configured nested
resiliency without data loss occurring. The failure of a
complete server and a further hard drive in the
remaining server can now be compensated. In the two
Illustration: Nested two-way Mirror (source: docs.microsoft.com)
When creating volumes in the Storage Spaces Direct
Pool, the capacity of the volume is divided into so-called
slabs. A slab is 256 MB in size. For each slab, a defined
number of copies is created based on the defined
redundancy level, which are distributed over the so-
called fault domains. If e.g. If a volume with 2-way
mirroring is configured for S2D with two servers, then
exactly one copy is created on the other server for each
thomas-krenn.com | 11
scenarios shown in the previous figure, all volumes that
have been configured with nested resiliency remain
online and the workload can therefore continue to run.
slab that was created. With the nested two-way mirror,
a copy is created on the local server on a different disk
for each slab that is generated. In addition, a copy of the
slab is created on the second server, which has a further
copy on another disc on this second server. There are
ultimately a total of four copies for each slab. Ultimately,
this also means that when volumes are configured with
nested-twoway mirror, only 25% of the available
capacity can be used for data storage. The so-called
footprint of a volume is four times its usable capacity.

Illustration : Nested mirror-accelerated Parity (source: docs.microsoft.com)
With nested mirror-accelerated parity, part of the
capacity is created as a two-way mirror when the volume
is created. The rest of the capacity is configured as parity
(comparable to RAID5). All slabs of this combined
volume are also mirrored on the second server. In this
configuration, the data is first written from the cache to
the first storage level, which is configured as a mirror.
The advantage of the mirror level is that hardly any
additional CPU load is generated. Within the capacity
level, S2D can migrate the data from the mirror tier to
the parity tier. With this migration, however, the parity
has to be calculated, which leads to an additional CPU
load. The higher storage efficiency of the nested mirror-
6. Setting up the Thomas-Krenn S2D micro-cluster
So far, the initial setup was only possible via PowerShell,
but Microsoft is constantly developing the Windows
Admin Center. The preview version of the new Cluster
Creation Tool comes with an installation wizard that
enables Storage Spaces Direct to be installed in a
particularly short time.
A configuration of Storage Spaces Direct via the Windows
Admin Center is currently not offered. The
administration of an existing Storage Spaces Direct
thomas-krenn.com | 12
accelerated parity must therefore be weighed against
the higher CPU load.
In most cases, the recommendation will go in the
direction of the nested two-way mirror, since drives with
higher capacities are typically less expensive than the
computing power required for parity calculation.
It should be noted that the nested resiliency for S2D in
Windows Server 2019 can only be used for 2-node S2D
configurations.
Cluster from Thomas-Krenn is described in the following
section. This section describes the basic configuration of
a Thomas-Krenn S2D Micro-Cluster.
The recommendation, however, would be to use the
installation service offered by Thomas-Krenn for the
initial configuration. The configuration is carried out by a
specialist with extensive know-how in the area of
Storage Spaces Direct.

After installing Windows Server 2019 Datacenter on both nodes, the following roles and
features must be installed:
• Hyper-V
• Failover Clustering
The Datacenter Bridging feature is optional, as iWARP is
used for SMB traffic in Thomas-Krenn's S2D Micro-
Cluster.
After installing Hyper-V and Failover Clustering, all
available Windows updates should be installed and all
required reboots should be performed. Both nodes of
the S2D Micro-Node Cluster must be included in a
common domain. This can be the existing Active
Directory domain of the company if it is running at least
the Active Directory functional mode "Windows Server
2008". Alternatively, Thomas-Krenn offers an additional
Illustration : Test selection in the cluster validation
After the nodes have been validated, the Windows
cluster can be configured. As part of the cluster
configuration, a DNS name for the cluster and an IP
address must be specified. It should be noted that the IP
address of the cluster can only be configured in the
subnet for which a standard gateway is entered on the
physical interfaces of the nodes.
thomas-krenn.com | 13
infrastructure server that can be used for such tasks. It is
also possible to operate the domain controller on the
nodes of the S2D micro-cluster itself.
First, a Windows cluster is configured with the two
servers of the S2D micro-cluster. The next steps are
carried out in the Failover Cluster Manager.
Alternatively, all of the actions described can also be
carried out using PowerShell. Before the cluster can be
configured, the future cluster nodes must be validated.
The cluster validation is started via the Failover Cluster
Manager. After adding the cluster nodes to the cluster
validation assistant, make sure that the requirements for
Storage Spaces Direct are also checked - this option must
be selected manually.
After the Windows cluster has been successfully
configured, a ‘Witness’ must be configured.

In the case of an error, the Windows Cluster is about
being able to form a majority in order to avoid so-called
split-brain situations. In order to form the majority of the
votes described, each cluster node has one vote.
Illustration: Votes in the two-node cluster (source: docs.microsoft.com)
Should a node in the two-node cluster fail, the remaining
node checks whether it can reach the witness. If the
witness can be reached, the remaining node and the
witness have two of a total of three votes and can thus
form a majority of the votes. The remaining server would
handle the entire workload in the cluster.
Provision is also made for the scenario in which one of the
two nodes should only be isolated on the network side. If
this scenario occurs, both server nodes would try to reach
the witness. The node isolated on the network side will
not reach the witness - this node has one of a total of three
votes and therefore cannot form a majority. All workload
on this isolated server would automatically end. When
this happens can be configured using the appropriate
parameters in PowerShell. When the second server
If the node reaches the witness, he can form a majority
with the witness (two out of three votes). In this scenario,
all clustered roles and services (the VMs in the Hyper-V
cluster) would be started on the second server node.
Depending on the configured values, this happens either
immediately or after a certain waiting time.
If the two server nodes cannot reach each other and
neither of the server nodes can reach the witness, all
clustered services are terminated on both cluster nodes.
Three simultaneous errors cannot be compensated for in
the two-node cluster.
thomas-krenn.com | 14
The witness also has a voice. So there are a total of three
votes in the two-node cluster.
It is often said that a witness is only needed in an even-
numbered cluster. However, this is not correct. A witness
should also be configured in a cluster with an odd number
of nodes. Using the so-called dynamic quorum, the cluster
can or may not give the witness a vote as required. In the
case of a 3-node cluster with configured witnesses, the
witness has no vote during normal operations. If a node
fails, the witness is given a vote so that the cluster can
compensate for the failure of another node.
The term "quorum" is often confused or confused with the
witness.
“Quorum” means “majority”. As described above, the
cluster is always about forming a majority (the quorum);
the majority is formed from the votes of the cluster nodes
and the vote of the witness.
In earlier Windows versions the concept of majority
formation in the cluster was different from the one
described above - before Windows Server 2008 there was
a quorum disk, which was solely responsible for forming
the majority. This has changed since Windows Server 2008
and behaves as described above.
The witness can be configured using PowerShell or the
Failover Cluster Manager. The wizard for configuring the
“Cluster Quorum Settings” can be configured in the
Failover Cluster Manager by right-clicking on the name of
the cluster and selecting the “Configure Cluster Quorum
Settings” option.
As iSCSI or Fiber-Channel targets are no longer allowed to
be used on the cluster nodes after the activation of S2D,
the data carrier witness is no longer a possible option.

Illustration: Options for witness configuration in Windows Server 2019
For S2D clusters, the recommended option would be the
File Share Witness. Such a FileShare witness must be
configured on an SMB3 target. Alternatively, it would
also be possible to have a witness via Microsoft Azure. It
is completely new in Windows Server 2019 to display the
witness via a USB stick released in the network - this
option can only be configured via PowerShell.
After setting up the Windows Cluster and configuring the
File Share Witness, it is advisable to check the disks that
are planned for use for Storage Spaces Direct.
Illustration : Physical Disks in the Server Manager
thomas-krenn.com | 15
The USB stick is not provided by one of the server nodes,
but by a central device in the network, e.g. a router with a
USB port.
The following figure shows the configuration in the
Failover Cluster Manager with a file share witness on a
Windows server target in the network.
This is e.g. possible in the Server Manager under "Server
Manager\File and Storage Services\Volumes\Storage
Pools". Select “Primordial” for the respective node to see
the disks for this server under “Physical Disks”.

In the Azure Stack HCI certified S2D MicroCluster systems,
the disk layout always corresponds to that shown above -
the capacities of the drives can, however, vary. The
smallest SSD in the system is for the operating system -
this is already installed there. The two larger SSDs are used
as cache drives after the configuration of S2D. The four
hard disks (HDD) form the capacity storage tier after the
S2D has been configured. If the configuration shows fewer
drives, it should be checked that all drives are correctly
connected to the server. If a drive with an unknown Media
Type is listed, this indicates a problem with the firmware.
Illustration: Enable-ClusterS2D in der PowerShell ISE
"Enable-ClusterS2D" activates Storage Spaces Direct and
configures the storage pool for S2D. The S2D pool
contains all disks that are suitable for S2D - with the
exception of the OS disks. In addition, the storage tiers
are created automatically. After completing the
Illustration : Disks claimed summary in Enable-ClusterS2D Log
thomas-krenn.com | 16
Since the S2D micro-cluster of Thomas-Krenn.AG has
passed the extensive Azure Stack HCI certification, it can
be assumed that no problems will arise in this direction.
After the drives have been checked on both servers, the
S2D can be configured. A PowerShell session with
administrative rights is required for this. I recommend
starting the PowerShell ISE with administrative rights.
automatic configuration, it is essential to take a look at
the specified log file. It is important that no errors are
listed there and that the number and type of discs are
correct.

The number of disks in the S2D Micro-Cluster must
correspond to the above list, the "Friendly Names" may
differ, as there are different configurations of the S2D
Micro-Cluster with different capacities. Two drives per
server are listed as "Disks used for cache -> True" and
four of the drives as "Disks used for cache -> False",
which means that these four drives are used for the
capacity storage level.
Illustration : Disks in the S2D pool in the Server Manager
It is important that there is only one pool with Storage
Spaces Direct! No further storage pools may be created
in the S2D cluster! All disks that are used for S2D must
7. Configuration of Nested Resiliency and creation of Volumes
In the 2-node S2D cluster, only two-way mirroring was
available under Windows Server 2016. With Windows
Server 2019 there is a new Nested-Resiliency options.
Using Nested Resiliency, two independent and
simultaneous errors can occur without data loss or
downtime occurring. E.g. one hard disk fails in each of
the two servers at the same time. Even if a complete
server fails, an additional hard disk may fail on the
remaining server. It should be noted, however, that
thomas-krenn.com | 17
A check of the disks in the Server Manager under "Server
Manager\File and Storage Services\Volumes\Storage
Pools" shows a comparable result when the storage pool
"S2D on CLUSTERNAME" is selected.
be in the one central storage pool. The capacities are
divided up using volumes.
Several volumes with different resiliency options can be
created - more on this in the following sections.
two-way mirroring is also active as standard in Windows
Server 2019. The nested resiliency currently has to be
configured manually.
First of all, the currently available storage tiers should
be queried via PowerShell and the Get-StorageTier
command.

In the two-node cluster under Windows Server 2019, the output looks like this:
Illustration: List of default storage tiers in the S2D micro-cluster
In the two-node S2D cluster under Windows Server
2019, two storage tiers are automatically created -
"Capacity" and "MirrorOnHDD".
Under Windows Server 2016 there was only one storage
level with the name "Capacity" in the two-node S2D
cluster. Under Windows Server 2019, Microsoft has
switched to specifying the resiliency type and the drive
type in the name of the storage tier. This improves the
clarity. "MirrorOnHDD" means that there is a storage
level with two-way mirror on the hard drives. The SSDs
are used entirely as a cache and are therefore not part
of the capacity level. The "Capacity" storage level was
created for downward compatibility. This means that the
two storage tiers in the screenshot above offer identical
resiliency and use the same physical storage.
Illustration: Creation of the new storage level for nested two-way mirror
thomas-krenn.com | 18
In the case of S2D clusters with more than two nodes,
there are additional storage tiers that are not considered
here.
As described in the chapter on the redundancy options
in the 2-node cluster, it is recommended to select the
nested two-way mirror. With the nested two-way
mirror, a two-way mirror is created locally and again
across the server. The footprint of a volume is four times
the usable capacity of the volume, but the advantages of
double redundancy with simultaneously lower load on
the CPU outweigh this. In order to be able to use the
nested two-way mirror, a new storage tier must first be
created. This is done via PowerShell, as shown in the
screenshot below.
 thomas-krenn.com | 19

For an easier transfer to the PowerShell ISE, the syntax for creating the new memory level is reproduced here in
full:

# Create Storage Tier for Nested Mirror

New-StorageTier -StoragePoolFriendlyName S2D* -FriendlyName NestedMirror `
-ResiliencySettingName Mirror -MediaType HDD -NumberOfDataCopies 4

The value “4” for “NumberOfDataCopies” means that a

local copy and two copies are created on the second
server for each slab. Hard disks may fail on both servers
at the same time, and if one server fails or is serviced,
one hard disk may fail in the remaining server.

The result after querying Get-StorageTier now looks like this:

Illustration: Storage tiers after creating the additional storage level for nested two-way mirror.

Volumes can now be created with the new version 1904 of the Windows Admin Center, volumes
ResiliencyLevel nested two-way mirror. The following with nested resiliency can be managed, but not created.
chapter describes the administration of the S2D Micro- PowerShell must therefore be used to create volumes
Cluster with the Windows Admin Center. In the current with nested resiliency.
 thomas-krenn.com | 20

The following command creates a new volume with the name "Volume01" and nested two-
way mirror as the resiliency level:

Illustration : PowerShell ISE to create a new volume

The following is the syntax for creating a new volume with a nested two-way mirror so that it can be copied and
pasted directly:
New-Volume -StoragePoolFriendlyName S2D* -FriendlyName Volume01 `
-StorageTierFriendlyNames NestedMirror -StorageTierSizes 1000GB

Microsoft recommends creating an integer multiple of volumes for each S2D cluster node. Two or four volumes should
therefore be created in the 2-node S2D cluster. Although all nodes can always read and write access to all volumes,
the aforementioned configuration in the 2-node cluster leads to better possible performance than with one or three
volumes.

The syntax for creating another volume is the same as the previous one - only a different name is selected as the
volume label:
New-Volume -StoragePoolFriendlyName S2D* -FriendlyName Volume02 `
-StorageTierFriendlyNames NestedMirror -StorageTierSizes 1000GB

The values for "StorageTierSizes" (corresponds to the capacity of the volume that is being created) must be adapted
to the respective existing capacities and the existing requirements.

8. Manage the Thomas-Krenn Micro Node Cluster

via Windows Admin Center
Windows Admin Center is the new, web-based
administration interface for Windows Server, which is
offered free of charge by Microsoft. The Windows Admin
Center is typically based on a management or
Infrastructure server installed and accessed via a
compatible web browser. Such an infrastructure server
is offered by Thomas-Krenn as part of the S2D Micro-
Cluster ordering process. Alternatively, the Windows
Admin Center can also be installed on a Windows 10
client PC from version 1803. The Windows Admin Center
page is then called up via the local web browser on the
Windows 10 client PC.
In this section we are working with the current Windows
Admin Center version 1904 and the extension specially
developed for the S2D Micro Cluster.
 thomas-krenn.com | 21

Installation of the Windows Admin Center

The Windows Admin Center can be downloaded free of charge from Microsoft under the following link:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-
center/understand/windows-admin-center

Installation on a management server is recommended. In
the following steps it is assumed that the Windows
Admin Center is installed on a virtual or physical
Windows Server 2019, which is used as a management
server. As described above, there are further installation
options for the Windows Admin Center, which are
described in detail at Microsoft:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-
server/manage/windows-admin-center/deploy/install
After downloading the Windows Admin Center, it can be
installed on the planned management server. The option
“Allow Windows Admin Center to change the settings of
this computer's trusted hosts” should be selected. If this
checkbox is not activated, each server that is to be
managed via the Windows Admin Center must be added
manually to the list of trusted hosts.

Illustration: Configuration of the trusted Hosts in the Windows Admin Center setup

The settings for secure communication are another important step in the
Windows Admin Center setup.
Illustration: Settings for Certificates in the Windows Admin Center setup
The recommendation is to use an SSL certificate
installed on the computer. This certificate can come
from an internal or external trustworthy certification
authority. The certificate must be installed in advance
via the certificate management on the computer on
which the Windows Admin Center is installed. A self-
signed SSL certificate can be created as part of the setup
for test purposes. The self-signed certificate created by
Illustration: Access URL in Windows Admin Center setup
thomas-krenn.com | 22
the setup has a term of 60 days. The certificate used by
the Windows Admin Center can be exchanged in the
Control Panel in the "Software" area by calling up the
change setup for the Windows Admin Center.
After the installation of the Windows Admin Center is
complete, the setup displays the URL via which the
Windows Admin Center website can be accessed.
 thomas-krenn.com | 23

Addition of the Thomas-Krenn S2D micro-cluster

After opening the Windows Admin Center website for Clicking the “+” on the Windows Admin Center start
the first time, the Thomas-Krenn S2D Micro-Cluster page starts the wizard for adding new connections.
must be added in order to be able to manage it.

Illustration: Windows Admin Center start page in the web browser

"Hyperconverged cluster" must be selected on the specified. In addition, it is recommended to select the
right side of the screen. In addition, the DNS name of option "Also add servers in the cluster" to add the two
the S2D micro-cluster in the domain network must be S2D micro-cluster nodes to the list of connections.

After successful addition, both the S2D Micro-Cluster itself and the two server nodes are displayed in the
Connections list.

Installation of the Thomas-Krenn-Extension for the S2D Micro-

Cluster
One of the many highlights of the S2D micro-cluster to the basic functionalities of the Windows Admin
developed by Thomas-Krenn.AG is the unique Center, extended functions can be used specifically for
extension for the Windows Admin Center. In addition the S2D micro-cluster.

Illustration: Access to the settings of the Windows Admin Center
To install the Thomas-Krenn extension for the Windows
Admin Center to manage the S2D Micro-Cluster, the
Windows Admin Center settings page is opened via the
gear icon on the Windows Admin Center page. All
Illustration: Selection and installation of the Thomas-Krenn-Extension for the S2D Micro-Node Cluster
The Thomas-Krenn.AG extension is selected for
installation. Clicking on "Install" will automatically
install it. If you accidentally click on "Installed
Extensions", a list of the already installed extensions
thomas-krenn.com | 24
officially available extensions for the Windows Admin
Center are displayed under "Extensions". The list of
extensions is published by Microsoft. The Thomas Krenn
extension can also be found in the list and can be
installed at no additional cost.
will be displayed. In this case, you can easily switch
back to “Available extensions” in order to install the
Thomas-Krenn.AG extension.
 thomas-krenn.com | 25

Manage the S2D Micro-Cluster via the Windows

Admin Center and the Thomas-Krenn-Extension
To manage the S2D Micro-Cluster from Thomas- following illustration, this is done by clicking on
Krenn.AG via the Windows Admin Center, it can simply "mncluster01.mhdemolab.de"
be clicked on in the "All connections" list. In the

Illustration: Access to the S2D Micro-Node Cluster via the Windows Admin Center

Initially opened "Dashboard" view of the Hyper-Converged Cluster Manager.

Illustration: Windows Admin Center Dashboard view for the S2D Micro-Node Cluster
Information on current alerts is displayed there. There is
also an overview of the servers, physical drives, virtual
machines and volumes. In the lower area of the previous
screenshot, the performance values for CPU usage and
memory usage are shown.
By clicking on “Drives” in the list of tools, the overview
page of the drives is opened first. The following
illustration shows a 2-node S2D micro-node cluster with
a total of 12 drives.
 thomas-krenn.com | 26

Illustration: List of drives for the S2D Micro-Cluster data availability, since a corresponding redundancy was
configured when the volumes were created (the failure
There are no alerts in the previous illustration. However,
of further hard disks or a complete server also has no
warnings and critical states would also be displayed on
effect on data availability, as the volumes confi gured
this page if there were problems with the drives. The with the Nested Two-Way Mirror in one of the previous
information in the “Capacity” area is interesting. You can
steps). Since only 3 TB were occupied by volumes on the
read there how much of the physical memory is occupied
failed hard drive, full redundancy can be restored with
by volumes - this view does not show the occupancy of
the three remaining drives and their reserve capacity of
the volumes themselves. On the right-hand side of the 1 TB each. And since this is done via a so-called parallel
“Capacity” bar there is a hatched area - referred to as
rebuild, this is also done very quickly.
“Reserve” in the legend - in the above case with 7.28 TB.
It is very important to properly understand and properly It is very important to understand that keeping reserve
account for the reserve capacity in Storage Spaces capacity free is a recommendation. The storage space is
Direct. Storage Spaces Direct does not recognize hot not blocked by the system as a fixed reserve. The display
spare drives. By definition, a hot spare drive is a drive of the reserve capacity in the Windows Admin Center
which “steps in” if another drive fails in order to restore helps to keep this reserve free when creating volumes. If
full redundancy. A good quality in itself, but quite no reserve is required for a local and parallel rebuild, this
inefficient. Because the hot spare drive must be kept can also be used to create volumes - which is not
permanently available and cannot be used for the recommended, however!
productive workload. Storage Spaces Direct, on the
other hand, has a more efficient approach. All drives in
the S2D pool are actively used. In order to be able to
restore full redundancy in the event of a drive failure, it
is possible to keep a certain reserve area free for rebuild
activities on all drives. This can be illustrated very well
with the following calculation example: With a
configuration with two S2D micro-node cluster nodes
and four capacity drives with 4 TB each per server, a
reserve of approx. 4 TB would be created per server,
which corresponds to 1 TB per hard disk (in In this
simplified view, it is assumed that the usable capacity of
a 4 TB hard drive is actually 4 TB). If one of these hard
disks should fail, this has no effect on the operation and
 thomas-krenn.com | 27

Illustration : View detailed information on drives in the S2D Micro-Node Cluster

By clicking on "Inventory" a list with detailed information on the drives can be called up. These can be grouped
according to various criteria using the "Group" symbol on the right above the list. For example, using the servers, as
shown in the following screenshot.

Illustration : Grouping drives by server in Windows Admin Center

The list of drives shows detailed information such as
serial number, model, size, usage, used capacity and
status. The “inventory” view of the drives is particularly
important when it comes to identifying a failed drive.
The Thomas-Krenn-Extension for the Windows Admin
Center can provide even better support here. The
Thomas-Krenn-Extension is explained in more detail on
the following pages.
By selecting “Volumes” in the tools list, an overview of
the existing volumes is displayed. By clicking on
“Inventory”, detailed information on the volumes is
called up. The following screenshot shows the two
previously created volumes “Volume01” and
“Volume02” as well as the “ClusterPerformanceHistory”
volume.

Illustration: Access to volumes in the Windows Admin Center
The “ClusterPerformanceHistory” volume is created
automatically when Storage Spaces Direct is activated
and saves information on the individual S2D components
and the associated performance values. Thus e.g. In the
dashboard views of the Windows Admin Center, not only
the current activity, but also a history with a daily,
weekly or monthly resolution can be displayed. After a
click on e.g. “Volume01” shows detailed information.
The following screenshot shows the previously
configured resiliency as a nested two-way mirror. It
should be noted that this is displayed correctly in the
Windows Admin Center version 1904, but new volumes
with Nested Two-Way Mirror can only be created using
PowerShell, as already described in one of the previous
Illustration : Manage volumes in the Windows Admin Center
thomas-krenn.com | 28
paragraphs. When creating volumes via the Windows
Admin Center, it currently only allows two-way mirroring
to be set up in a 2-node cluster. Since the nested two-
way mirror has considerable advantages in terms of
redundancy, the current recommendation would be to
create volumes in a 2-node cluster with nested resiliency
using PowerShell.
The subsequent administration can then take place via
the Windows Admin Center.
The volume details page also shows the size and the
associated footprint. Here you can see very nicely that
with the nested two-way mirror, four times the usable

storage capacity is occupied by the volume due to the
double redundancy. Advanced options such as the
integrity checksum or data deduplication can also be
configured here. Data deduplication can also be
activated for volumes with the ReFS file system under
Windows Server 2019 if the data deduplication role
component is installed on all server nodes of the S2D
Micro-Cluster.
At the beginning of the section on Windows Admin
Center, the installation of the Thomas-Krenn Extension
for the S2D Micro-Cluster for the Windows Admin Center
was described. This extension now provides us with
Illustration: Thomas-Krenn-Extension for the S2D Micro-Nodes in the Windows Admin Center
The components shown are "active", which means, for
example, that the drives or the network connections can
be clicked to call up further information on the respective
thomas-krenn.com | 29
some great added value in the Windows Admin Center
for managing the S2D Micro-Cluster. After clicking on
“S2D Micro-Cluster” in the tools list of the
HyperConverged Management, an overview of the S2D
Micro-Cluster from Thomas-Krenn.AG is loaded. The
Windows Admin Center receives with a clear
representation of the S2D micro-cluster. The advantages
of the extension become immediately apparent - there
is not only a technical list of the components, but also a
graphic representation and visualization of the
components corresponding to the original system.
object. The active components can also change colour in
order to provide a visual alert if there is a problem with
one of the components.
 thomas-krenn.com | 30

Illustration: Cluster details in the Thomas Krenn Extension for the Windows Admin Center

If e.g. If the “Cluster” component is clicked, further
information on the cluster can be called up in the area
under the S2D Micro-Cluster nodes.
In the screenshot below, a network error was
simulated. The "Network" component is displayed in
red and since it is a simulated error with the network
interface of the server on the left side of the screen,
this is also displayed in red.

Illustration: Network with simulated error in the Thomas-Krenn-Extension for the Windows Admin Center

Drive errors and the failure of other system components Extension from Thomas-Krenn.AG makes the S2D
such as Fans are visualized in this way in order to Micro-Cluster an easy-to-manage and uniquely
simplify troubleshooting. The Windows Admin Center compact and powerful system.
thomas-krenn.com | 31