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Modifying Azure Stack POC Install Constraints

Azure Stack’s specific hardware requirements, specifically RAM and Storage, may prevent one from being able to install on available kit.  This is a pretty well known “hack”, however this is enterprise IT so redundancy is a good thing. The constraints are pretty simple to modify for your particular situation.

Once again, we’ll start by mounting the MicrosoftAzureStackPOC.vhdx (I won’t bother covering how to do that).

All of the hardware constraints are enforced through functions in PocDeployment\Invoke-AzureStackDeploymentPrecheck.ps1.

If you look at line 62 within the function CheckDisks you will find a statement that looks like this:

[powershell]$physicalDisks = Get-PhysicalDisk | Where-Object { $_.CanPool -eq $true -and ($_.BusType -eq 'RAID' -or $_.BusType -eq 'SAS' -or $_.BusType -eq 'SATA') }[/powershell]

You can choose to add another allowed bus type e.g. ISCSI, or if you are really adventurous just remove the entire AND clause.

[powershell]$physicalDisks = Get-PhysicalDisk | Where-Object { $_.CanPool -eq $true -and ($_.BusType -eq 'RAID' -or $_.BusType -eq 'SAS' -or $_.BusType -eq 'SATA' -or $_.BusType -eq 'ISCSI') }[/powershell]

or

[powershell]$physicalDisks = Get-PhysicalDisk | Where-Object { $_.CanPool -eq $true}[/powershell]

 

To modify the RAM contraints look further down, and at line 98 with CheckRAM you will find a very simple test:

[powershell]</p> <p>if ($totalMemoryInGB -lt 96) {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; throw "Check system memory requirement failed. At least 96GB physical memory is required."<br>}</p> <p>[/powershell]

Modify the value as appropriate:

[powershell]</p> <p>if ($totalMemoryInGB -lt 64) {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; throw "Check system memory requirement failed. At least 64GB physical memory is required."<br>}</p> <p>[/powershell]

Unmount the VHD, and you are done.  It is worth reiterating that these constraints exist for a reason, and in adjusting or bypassing you should have appropriate expectations for performance and/or stability.

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