Topics Introduction General Discussion That's a wrap! Introduction

Overview

On October 17, 2017, the Microsoft Tech Community hosted a Windows Server Management (Project Honolulu) AMA. The live hour of Q&A provided members the opportunity to ask questions and voice feedback with the product team. We hope you join us live next time! For future discussions on this topic, please visit the new Project Honolulu space in the tech community.

Resources

Project Honolulu Technical Preview Download

Project Honolulu feedback via UserVoice

Project Honolulu documentation

Project Honolulu bite-size videos

Project Honolulu sessions at Ignite 2017

Project Honolulu team blog on TechNet

Project Honolulu on Twitter

Project Honolulu space in the tech community

Topics

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  Introduction
  
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  General Discussion
  
• 
  That's a wrap!
  

Introduction

Welcome to the Windows Server Management (Project Honolulu) Ask Microsoft Anything! View the list of introductions in this thread.

General Discussion

Q: Are you evaluating a possibility of having role based tools? For example, if I want to allow a user to only see the Events or a role like a reporting role where the user could see all the tool, but not change anything (like able to see all the services state but not change anything). (thread)

A: This is something we are looking into! We are watching our User Voice forum closely for feature requests, please submit and vote for the features that are most important to you.

Q: What is an optimal number of servers managed by Honolulu? (thread)

A: In its current state, the gateway is optimized for less than a few hundred server connections. We're looking into scalability scenarios for larger environments.

Q: I work in a company that don't use clustering yet. In this case I don't see much advantages in use Honolulu to manage all my servers with Windows Server 2016. But I think: If Honolulu could manage all roles and features as the same centralized way Honolulu does with other MMCs? It would be great! For example: Manage all my AD DC untrusted domains, as the same way I do with Active DIrectory Users and Computers and with Group Policy Management, but in a centralized way. I manage many untrusted domains every day, accessing many different servers. (thread)

A: We can't tackle them all at the same time, so that's why we need your input on UserVoice to help us prioritize which ones to add first.

Q: We are using SCEP on our servers, wouldn't it be possible to add a tool to launch scan remotely (full scan or partial), view its configuration (folder/process exception etc...)? (thread)

A: If the programs have a remote API that could be called, then technically yes, but that is not something we are currently working on. We also have a SDK for people to build their own extensions (right now you have to be in the TAP program), so it might also be something you could light up as well.

Q: Will there ever be the option to email out reports and perhaps do reports on a schedule? For me mostly like a Hyper-V health report and I guess one for S2D would be good also. Perhaps you could also have a server health check report that would list missing updates etc. (thread)

A: Honolulu is primarily focused on connecting to and managing a single server or cluster. Reporting would require additional infrastructure for monitoring, persistent storage, etc. which would make Honolulu more complex to set up and configure. We believe OMS and other 3rd party solutions that focus on monitoring/reporting are better suited for these scenarios and we're thinking about how we can integrate Honolulu into these solutions.

Q: Are you planning something to be able to see (and maybe install) the available updates distributed through SCCM and not from Windows Update? (thread)

A: We're looking to support WSUS first. For SCCM, please ensure it's captured on UserVoice.

Q: Wouldn't it be possible to add a tool to act on the CCM client of a machine? (refreshing machine policies, launching inventories, etc..) (thread)

A: Yes, I think it would be "technically possible", but it's not currently on our radar / feature requests. If you'd like to see it, the best place to add this would be UserVoice. We're pulling our future features from the response from everyone there.

Q: Using Honolulu without domain is a little bit tough for beginner user (like configure trusted client.) If that kind of configuration is easier, it's better for SMB user. If users can configure from SCONFIG or something, Honolulu should be much easier for users. (thread)

A: Thanks, we'll continue to look for ways to simplify the user experience.

Q: Were the questions that were asked in this AMA what was expected, example feature requests and so on? (thread)

A: We are using this AMA to hear what questions the community has about Project Honolulu - feature requests, deployment, usage, or otherwise. We'll continue tracking feature requests though our UserVoice page.

Q: What is the recommended sizing for a Gateway Server? (thread)

A: Our expectation is that it will depend on how many admins are simultaneously using the gateway. In most cases, the minimum system requirements are fairly low.

Q: Any plans to add integration with SCUP so that we can manage our third-party updates without having to RDP to our server? (thread)

A: For future planning, we are looking closely at feedback in our User Voice forum. Please submit new feature requests or vote for existing ones.

Q: Any thought to providing a way for Honolulu to report on the data it gathers?  For example, perhaps Honolulu could have a search function under Registry, Files, etc. on all servers I'm managing.  Maybe all servers with CPU usage above 80%, etc. All of this could be retrieved via PoSh directly, but Honolulu would save folks a lot of time (and patience). (thread)

A: We've thought about scenarios like this a lot and I agree there's a lot of value in it. However, querying 100s or 1000s of servers doesn't scale and starts to require additional infrastructure for monitoring/caching and then Honolulu starts to become complex to setup and configure. For now, we're focusing on single server/cluster management and looking into integrating with other solutions like OMS that have richer monitoring/filtering capabilities.

Q: Is there a way to generate/view the Windows update log with Honolulu now that it moved to a new way of generating this log? (thread)

A: If it's about the log file under %windir%\Windowsupdate.log, we currently don't have plan to parse/view it directly. But adding a link to download it sounds like straight forward.

Q: How can we use Honolulu to manage servers in multiple domains? (thread)

A: If you configure your Honolulu gateway machine to have access to multiple domains, it should be able to manage servers in those domains.

Q2: Would we be able to create Domain groups as such?

A2: I'm a little unclear what you mean by "create Domain groups". If you mean creating AD Organizational Units from Honolulu, that feature is not currently in our plans. If you are referring to being able to view your server connections grouped by Domain, this is a feature we're looking into.

Q: This has already been brought up in UserVoice. Any insight into the teams current feeling on this request? This is something that I think will really elevate Honolulu and allow many of us to leverage its already awesome capabilities into our own existing systems. (thread)

A: We are actively building an SDK for extending Honolulu, if you join our Server TAP program you can gain access to the early version.  We are very interested in how developers want to extend and interact with Honolulu, including API's.  Please continue using our User Voice forum, to submit and vote for features that you are passionate about!

 

Q: Is it possible to have a demonstration of the project Honolulu? (thread)

A: We actually recorded a couple of demos. Also, our Ignite recordings.

Q: What about the "multi point" reports? At the moment, one can see the state of one server at a time only. (thread)

A: Currently, multi-machine monitoring is out of scope, but we are starting to look into future integration with other solutions like OMS for reporting.

Q: Is it possible for Honolulu to integrate on SCOM or OMS in the future? (thread)

A: We are currently looking into integration with OMS. We're also interested in integration with SCOM in the future but are not currently investigating that feature.

Q: If I am not mistaken, you will add features to the project like RDP etc. How are you planning the distribution of these updates? Through WSUS? Through an internal update mechanism? (thread)

A: With Honolulu currently in Technical Preview the final update mechanism is still TBD, but the next update will come in the form of a MSI to be downloaded.

Q: I understand that Project Honolulu does not currently replicate the following RSAT tools: AD Directory Administrative Center, AD Domains and Trusts, AD Module for Windows PowerShell, AD Site and Services, AD Users and Computers, ADSI Edit, Cluster Aware Updating, Component Services, DFS Management, DHCP, DNS, Failover Cluster Manager, File Server Resource Manager, Group Policy Management, iSCSI initiator, Network Load Balancing Manager. Do you know when it will be available? (thread)

A: For future feature planning, we are looking closely at feedback in our User Voice forum. The more votes a feature gets, the sooner we start looking into it! You can submit new feature requests or vote for existing ones.

Q: Honolulu is great but needs to download an out-box tool. Do you have any plan to ship as OS in-box tool? Our support team may be reluctant to support out-box tool. Do you provide any support like premiere support? (thread)

A: At this time, shipping separately from the OS allows us to update more frequently. We currently don't have plans to ship in-box, but this could change in the future. When Honolulu GAs sometime next year, it will be licensed as part of Windows Server even though it’s a separate download, and it will be officially supported in a way that is consistent with other Microsoft technologies that are licensed with the OS or with an OS supplemental EULA (such as RSAT).

Q: What is the list to be done for integrations and what is the priority of getting them implemented? (thread)

A: For future planning, we are looking closely at feedback in our UserVoice forum. Please submit new feature requests or vote for existing ones.

Q: How long has Project Honolulu been in development so far? (thread)

A: Our first release (it was internal) was in December last year. 

Q: Can we expect more details about local accounts? The enable\disable status and the possibility to change it? (thread)

A: Do you mean managing local accounts via Local Users and Groups? We are actively watching our User Voice forum for new feature requests, you can submit or vote for features here.

Q: Currently HCI for LTSC (RS1) looks disabled. When will it be available? And as feedback, I would like MS to publish the chart which feature supported by RS3 only (like ...  feature is RS3 only). (thread)

A: The HCI UI in Honolulu relies on new functionality built into Windows Server that is only available on recent Insider builds. Making the HCI UI work for RS1 requires backporting this functionality to RS1 which we are actively looking into, but don't have an ETA yet.

Q: We have tested the use of LAPS in Honolulu and yes it works as intended but our AD administrators are not happy with the way it has to be configured (delegation on the DCs). Wouldn't it be better to use a domain service account to run the Honolulu service and allow this service to read the LAPS attribute, so it wouldn't be necessary to delegate rights? (thread)

A: We understand the concern and we’re looking into different options to support LAPS.

Q: I'm using Honolulu in a S2D cluster today to monitoring the Hyper-V hosts and VM. Will Honolulu support Server 2016? Or do I need to upgrade to 1709 to be able to connect to the cluster? (thread)

A: If you are running a hyper-converged cluster and want to manage both HYPER-V and S2D, you currently need to be running a recent Windows Server Insider build. We are looking into supporting WS2016 RS1, but this is not currently supported.  For now, you can add the cluster as a "Failover Cluster Connection" and manage HYPER-V.

Q: Edge, Chrome, and possibly Safari are the browsers to run Honolulu, and IE is no longer being developed for, but since IE is still the only browser out of the box on Server SKUs, is there any thought on possibly letting Honolulu run via IE11? (thread)

A: At this time, we are unable to support IE11 because of its lack of modern JavaScript support.

Q: I always get an error when I try to download an SCCM log file. I guess it is, because the file is always being written on. Will Project Honolulu provide direct access to file so that we can view live changes for log files? (thread)

A: Thanks for bringing this to our attention - we'll look into this.

Q: Any ETA on when IIS will be integrated to Project Honolulu? (thread)

A: For future planning, we are looking closely at feedback in our User Voice forum. Please submit new feature requests or vote for existing one. For IIS, we already have a feature request so you can up vote here.

Q: How long has Project Honolulu been in development so far? (thread)

A: Our first release (it was internal) was in December last year. 

That’s a wrap!
Thank you for joining for this fun hour! We hope you'll continue to ask questions and share your feedback. For future discussions on this topic, please visit the new Project Honolulu space in the tech community.

See you next time!