Windows Admin Center (code-named Project Honolulu) is a web program released by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

on April 12, 2018 as an evolution of the

Windows Server Windows Server (formerly Windows NT Server) is a group of operating systems (OS) for servers that Microsoft has been developing since July 27, 1993. The first OS that was released for this platform was Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server. With the r ...

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

(GUI). Officially launched in public preview under the code name Project Honolulu at the

Microsoft Ignite Microsoft Ignite is an annual conference for developers and IT professionals hosted by Microsoft. It has taken place in several locations around the world. The first conference, then known as TechEd, happened in 1993 in Orlando, Florida, United S ...

2017 conference in

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

, Windows Admin Center is meant to be a GUI-focused replacement for the management of Windows servers, Windows server clusters and PCs. The idea behind the project was to simplify management of servers by placing a majority of frequently referenced tools that

system administrator A system administrator, or sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administrator seeks to ensu ...

s use in one place. The project left preview on April 12, 2018, and was named Windows Admin Center.

Features

A list of features that are offered from this web based administration tool are as follows, and expected to grow with the ability for plugins and 3rd party extensions: * Overview * Azure hybrid services * Azure Backup * Azure File Sync * Azure Monitor * Azure Security Center * Certificates * Devices * Events * Files *

Firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spre ...

* Installed apps * Local users & groups * Network *

PowerShell PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management program from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell (computing), shell and the associated scripting language. Initially a Windows component only, known as Windows PowerShell, it ...

* Processes *

Registry Registry may refer to: Computing * Container registry, an operating-system-level virtualization registry * Domain name registry, a database of top-level internet domain names * Local Internet registry * Metadata registry, information system for re ...

Remote Desktop In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely off of one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a ...

* Roles & features * Scheduled tasks *

Services Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a p ...

* Storage * Storage replica * Updates *

Virtual Machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardw ...

s * Virtual Switches * Settings In addition, Windows Admin Center also offers Hyper Converged Cluster Management. There are a few features like Storage Replica which do not have any alternative GUI at the moment and are still command line based. Presently, Windows Admin Center only supports

Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...

and

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...

Server Compatibility

While designed to manage

Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the sixth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the server version of Windows based on Windows 8 and succe ...

and later, Windows Admin Center can also manage

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

, albeit with fewer tools. In order to manage

or 2012 R2, the Windows Management Framework (WMF) version 5.1 or higher must be installed. Additionally,

Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2 is the fifth version of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft and released as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became General av ...

can be managed with the installation of Windows Management Framework version 5.1 or higher, albeit with limited functionality.

Client Compatibility and Installation

Windows Admin Center can be installed on

Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2016 is the eighth release of the Windows Server server operating system developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was developed concurrently with Windows 10 and is the successor to the Wind ...

, or later operating systems. Installing Windows Admin Center requires an ~80MB Microsoft Installer Package (MSI). The installer will ask for a port to serve the website on, as well as the ability to use or generate a self-signed SSL certificate. Once installed, Windows Admin Center can be accessible over the web, and servers can be managed upon their addition.

Simplified Management

Windows Admin Center was brought into existence because "IT admins have repeatedly told us that

is necessary but not sufficient, and that Windows Server ease-of-use is still largely dependent on GUI Tools for core scenarios and new capabilities." Windows Admin Center builds off of the

Microsoft Management Console Microsoft Management Console (MMC) is a component of Microsoft Windows that provides system administrators and advanced users an interface for configuring and monitoring the system. It was first introduced in 1998 with the Option Pack for Window ...

introduced in

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...

. It puts the most used management utilities (such as the Event Viewer, Roles and Features, Hyper-V management, Windows Firewall, and Registry editor) and puts them into a more user-friendly web-based application.

Footnotes

References

External Links

* {{URL, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/overview
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/support/release-history
Systems Management Server System administration Remote administration software Configuration management