Deploy Windows Admin Center with high availability

You can deploy Windows Admin Center in a failover cluster to provide high availability for your Windows Admin Center gateway service. The solution provided is an active-passive solution, where only one instance of Windows Admin Center is active. If one of the nodes in the cluster fails, Windows Admin Center gracefully fails over to another node, letting you continue managing the servers in your environment seamlessly.

Learn about other Windows Admin Center deployment options.

Prerequisites

• High-availability deployment script from Windows Admin Center HA Script zip file. Download the .zip file containing the script to your local machine and then copy the script as needed based on the guidance in this article.
• A failover cluster of 2 or more nodes running on Windows Server 2016 or later. Learn more about deploying a Failover Cluster.
• A cluster shared volume (CSV) for Windows Admin Center to store persistent data that can be accessed by all the nodes in the cluster. 10 GB is sufficient for your CSV.
• A certificate thumbprint from a certificate from a valid certificate authority (CA) with the private key installed on every node.

Install Windows Admin Center on a failover cluster

1. Copy the Deploy-GatewayV2Ha.ps1 script to a node in your cluster. Download or copy the Windows Admin Center .exe to the same node.
2. Connect to the node via RDP, navigate to the folder containing the script, and run the Deploy-GatewayV2Ha.ps1 script as administrator with the following parameters:
   • -clusterStorage: the local path of the Cluster Shared Volume to store Windows Admin Center data.
   • -clientAccessPoint: choose a name that you'll use to access Windows Admin Center. For example, if you run the script with the parameter -clientAccessPoint contosoWindowsAdminCenter, you access the Windows Admin Center service by visiting https://contosoWindowsAdminCenter.<domain>.com
   • -staticAddress: Optional. One or more static addresses for the cluster generic service.
   • -InstallerPath: The path for the Windows Admin Center .exe file.
   • -CertificateThumbprint: TLS certificate thumbprint present on every node.
   • -generateSslCert: Optional. If you don't want to provide a signed certificate, include this parameter flag to generate a self-signed certificate. The self-signed certificate expires in 60 days.
   • -HttpsPort: Optional. If you don't specify a port, the gateway service is deployed on port 443 (HTTPS). To use a different port, specify in this parameter. If you use a custom port besides 443, you'll access the Windows Admin Center by going to https://\<clientAccessPoint\>:<port>.

Example

$parameters = @{
  ClusterStorage = "C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\Gateway"
  ClientAccessPoint = gateway-ha
  StaticAddress = '10.0.0.50'
  InstallerPath = "C:\Installers\WindowsAdminCenter2511.exe"
  CertificateThumbprint = "0123456789ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF01234567"
}
Deploy-GatewayV2Ha @parameters

Update an existing high availability installation

Use the same Deploy-GatewayV2Ha.ps1 script to update your HA deployment, without losing your connection data.

Update to a new version of Windows Admin Center

When a new version of Windows Admin Center is released, run the Deploy-GatewayV2Ha.ps1 script again with the updated executable specified in the -InstallerPath parameter:

$parameters = @{
  ClusterStorage = "C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\Gateway"
  ClientAccessPoint = gateway-ha
  StaticAddress = '10.0.0.50'
  InstallerPath = "C:\Installers\WindowsAdminCenter2511new.exe"
  CertificateThumbprint = "0123456789ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF01234567"
}
Deploy-GatewayV2Ha @parameters

You may also update the certificate at the same time you update the Windows Admin Center platform with a new .exe file.

Update the certificate used by Windows Admin Center

You can update the certificate used by a HA deployment of Windows Admin Center at any time by using the -UpdateCertificate flag.

$parameters = @{
  UpdateCertificate = $true
  ClusterStorage = "C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\Gateway"
  ClientAccessPoint = gateway-ha
  CertificateThumbprint = "0123456789ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF01234567"
}
Deploy-GatewayV2Ha @parameters

Uninstall the high availability deployment

To uninstall the HA deployment of Windows Admin Center from your failover cluster, pass the -Uninstall parameter to the Deploy-GatewayV2Ha.ps1 script.

$parameters = @{
  Uninstall = $true
  ClusterStorage = "C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\Gateway"
  ClientAccessPoint = gateway-ha
}
Deploy-GatewayV2Ha @parameters

Troubleshooting

Logs are saved in the temp folder of the CSV. For example, C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\temp.

If needed, you can run diagnostics by passing the -CollectDiagnostics parameter. The following is an example of running the diagnostic collection for the last 24 hours on a cluster:

$parameters = @{
  CollectDiagnostics = $true
  ClusterStorage = "C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\Gateway"
  ClientAccessPoint = gateway-ha
  DiagnosticLookbackHours = 24
  DiagnosticsOutputPath = "C:\Temp\wac-ha-diag"
}
Deploy-GatewayV2Ha @parameters