Hi there, after almost 3 month of no blog posts at all i’ll take the release of Azure Stack Preview as a new opportunity to post again 🙂
For those of you who were pretty exited to get their hands on the new Azure Stack and test it in your own lab, without a big server sitting in the rack to be used for the POC. Here is how you can deploy it on a low end workstation with 32GB of RAM.
My Setup:
- Intel i5 2500 3,3GHz
- 32GB RAM
- 1 512 GB SSD as OS Disk
- 3 x 2TB HDD
You can find a complete installation walkthrough here.
A download link for Azure Stack can be found here.
After you have booted from the VHDX and could start the deplyoment we need to mount MicrosoftAzureStackPOC.vhdx which can be found under the install location for the Azure POC ..\Microsoft Azure Stack POC and change 2 files in it.
So mount the VHDX and browse to the first file ..\AzureStackInstaller\PoCDeployment\Invoke-AzureStackDeploymentPrecheck.ps1 and open it in ISE and look for this function.
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function CheckRam { Write-Verbose "Check RAM." $mem = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_ComputerSystem $totalMemoryInGB = [Math]::Round($mem.TotalPhysicalMemory / (1024 * 1024 * 1024)) if ($totalMemoryInGB -lt 64) { throw "Check system memory requirement failed. At least 64GB physical memory is required." } } |
Change the $totalMemoryInGB variable from 64 to 32, save the file and close it. It should look like this afterwards.
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function CheckRam { Write-Verbose "Check RAM." $mem = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_ComputerSystem $totalMemoryInGB = [Math]::Round($mem.TotalPhysicalMemory / (1024 * 1024 * 1024)) if ($totalMemoryInGB -lt 32) { throw "Check system memory requirement failed. At least 64GB physical memory is required." } } |
now open the second file in ISE ..\AzureStackInstaller\PoCFabricInstaller\PoCFabricSettings.xml and search for “MaxRAM” you fill find the settings for the first VM “ADVM”.
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<Name>ADVM</Name> <Cmd>CreateVM.ps1</Cmd> <CleanupCmd>DeleteVM.ps1</CleanupCmd> <Dependency>EnableRemotePS</Dependency> <Dependency>EnableVFP</Dependency> <Dependency>CopyVhdx_Local</Dependency> <Retry>5</Retry> <Weight>400</Weight> <Timeout>3400</Timeout> <Parameters> <Name>ADVM</Name> <VMPath>{[FindFreeDisk]:Path}</VMPath> <ProcessorCount>4</ProcessorCount> <RAM>3</RAM> <MinRAM>2</MinRAM> <MaxRAM>4</MaxRAM> |
We need to change these 4 settings for every machine
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<ProcessorCount>4</ProcessorCount> <RAM>3</RAM> <MinRAM>2</MinRAM> <MaxRAM>4</MaxRAM> |
Here is what i set
| VM | ProcessorCount | RAM | MinRAM | MaxRAM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ADVM | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| BGVM | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| NATVM | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| NCVM | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| MUXVM | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| SQLVM | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| PortalVM | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| ACSVM | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| XRPVM | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| ClientVM | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
After you changed the .XMLsave it, close it and unmount the VHDX.
Now you are all set to deploy Azure Stack on your server.
Have fun!
Cheers Philipp
What are the performances of azure stack on such a configuration? Isn’t it too slow? Could it be used as dev platform without having to much slowlyness and waiting times?
I think it is fast enough to do some basic stuff. If you want to deploy complex multi tiered stuff I guess you need some more RAM. Depends on what you want to do in the end. like always… more is always better. 😉
I left you a comment on Facebook as well but I thought I’d elaborate here a bit more.
I had already found the code to change the RAM requirement from 128G (it must have changed after you posted this blog) but I hadn’t found the xml settings file so thanks for that. But, I am getting an error. As I mentioned on Facebook, I posted the error on the Microsoft Azure Stack forum but, after waiting 2 weeks for a response, I figured I have to look elsewhere. The error I am getting is:
Start-PocFabricInstallerTasks : POCFabricInstaller failed because the
following tasks failed: InstallFeature
At C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\AzureStack\Deployment\RunAzureStackDeploymentTask.p
s1:158 char:19
+ … $result = & “Start-$moduleName`Tasks” -StatusUpdatedCallback {
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Write-Error], WriteErrorExcep
tion
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WriteErrorExceptio
n,Start-PocFabricInstallerTasks
Have you seen this before? A few other people have posted the same error on the forum but I haven’t seen any work-arounds posted.
Thanks
Bert
Hi Bert, I think it would be easier to do this again from scratch if you hadn’t already. Also check in that ps1 what it is referring to and maybe figure out what is going wrong there :
C:ProgramDataMicrosoftAzureStackDeploymentRunAzureStackDeploymentTask.p
s1: at line 158 char:19
Seems there is a problem with the Start-FabricInstallerTasks step..
I wrote this with the first release of AzureStack preview so this may have changed from then until now. I don’t have a deployed version running right now so I cannot check what has changed.
Cheers Philipp
Unfortunately, I am still at “scratch”. Since the deployment is failing, I really don’t have anything other than the boot vhd running.
Thanks for the response, though, Philipp. I was getting frustrated with Microsoft’s lack of response so I decided to look elsewhere so I do appreciate your help.
Bert
Microsoft is not supporting this configuration they have been “marketing” the requirements beforehand 😉 I don’t think they will reply to those posts n the forum 🙂 but nevertheless try more scratching 😉 remove the boot VHD from the boot manager (in the installed OS and not the VHDX boot one) and follow my instruction again. Maybe you mistyped something or forget a step. Good luck