The HCI Lab provides a plain HCI lab environment on Azure in reasonable preparation time and cost.
- An HCI lab environment with Azure Local (former Azure Stack HCI) or Windows Server 2025/2022 on a single Azure virtual machine in about 30 minutes minimum.
- Just a plain environment, so you can try many workloads and features to start from the clean environment by yourself. Also, you can customize it to your own needs easily.
- You can choose an operating system from the selectable HCI node's operating systems to use deploy your HCI lab environment.
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Open Azure portal from the following Deploy to Azure to deploy your HCI lab environment. To keep this page, open it as a new tab (Ctrl + Click).
The differences between "UI languages at deployment" are just the UI language difference in Azure portal when deployment. The template and the deployed lab environment are the same with either.
UI language at deployment Deploy to Azure English Japanese (日本語) -
Fill out required fields in the Basics tab on Azure portal. Other fields in the rest tabs can leave with default values. Click Review + create to start deployment.
The deployment will be complete in about 30 minutes if the deployment starts with default values.
If the deployment failed, try deploying again that will resolving the issue in most cases. If not, please create an issue, it will help HCI Lab quality improvement.
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After completing the deployment, you need to allow Remote Desktop access to your lab host Azure VM from your local machine. It can be by enabling JIT VM access or adding an inbound security rule in the Network Security Group. The recommended way is using JIT VM access.
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Connect to your lab host Azure VM using your favorite Remote Desktop client. To connect, use the credentials that you specified at deployment.
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The HCI cluster is ready for you. Let's access your HCI cluster via Windows Admin Center from Windows Admin Center icon on the desktop with HCI\Administrator account and the password that you specified at deployment (the same password as the lab host Azure VM). Also, you can access your entire HCI lab environment from the other icons on the desktop.
Learn more about the HCI lab in the HCI Lab tour.
| Operating system | Description | HCI Lab |
|---|---|---|
| Azure Local, version 23H2 | The latest generally available version of Azure Local (former Azure Stack HCI). | Available |
| Azure Stack HCI, version 22H2 | The previous generally available version of Azure Stack HCI. | Available |
| Azure Stack HCI, version 21H2 | You can still use this OS to deploy your HCI lab environment by HCI Lab. However, this version of Azure Stack HCI reached the end of service on November 14, 2023. | Selectable. Not tested. |
| Azure Stack HCI, version 20H2 | You can still use this OS to deploy your HCI lab environment by HCI Lab. However, this version of Azure Stack HCI reached the end of service on December 13, 2022. | Selectable. Not tested. |
| Windows Server 2025 Datacenter Evaluation (Desktop Experience) | Windows Server 2025 Datacenter with the standard graphical user interface. | Available |
| Windows Server 2022 Datacenter Evaluation (Desktop Experience) | Windows Server 2022 Datacenter with the standard graphical user interface. | Available |
Copyright (c) 2022-present Takeshi Katano. All rights reserved. This software is released under the MIT License.
Disclaimer: The codes stored herein are my own personal codes and do not related my employer's any way.