Week 2 of The Hagrid Awards goes to Carsten Rachfahl — a one-person Hyper-V and Azure Local broadcast network, and MVP since 2010.
This week’s Hagrid goes to Carsten Rachfahl.
Carsten has been a pillar of the hybrid community for over a decade — a blog, a YouTube channel, the German Microsoft Virtualisierungs Podcast, and the Hyper-V Amigos. A one-person Azure Local and Hyper-V broadcast network. MVP since 2010.
Week 1 of The Hagrid Awards goes to Darryl van der Peijl — the connective tissue of the Azure Local community.
This week’s Hagrid goes to Darryl van der Peijl.
If you run anything Azure Local, you already know Darryl. He runs the community Azure Local Slack and the monthly Azure Local Insider newsletter — the connective tissue of this community, where people share what’s new, what’s broken, and what’s next. He’s a 12x Microsoft MVP and CTO at Splitbrain. He’s also the brains behind the Hybrid Platform Conference — a one-day Azure Local & hybrid cloud event in Amsterdam (Sept 28, 2026 at Hotel Casa), with a free virtual edition to follow.
A weekly, public thank-you to the people building and sharing in the Azure Local, Hyper-V, and Azure Arc community.
If you’ve met me at an event, you already know the beard. And you probably know that somewhere along the way, people in this community started calling me Hagrid. I’ve leaned into it — a big, bearded guy who loves keeping things running on the ground and in the cloud. Honestly, it fits. Hagrid was the Keeper of Keys and Grounds, and that’s basically what we all do in hybrid: keep one foot on-prem and one foot in Azure.
Azure Arc, ASR, Defender, and the Services You Don't Need Azure Local For
“But what about all the cloud stuff Azure Local gets?”
It’s the first objection every decision-maker raises when you propose traditional Hyper-V over Azure Local. Azure Local comes with AKS, Azure Virtual Desktop, Azure Portal VM management, Azure Monitor, Azure Update Manager, Defender for Cloud , all integrated. How do you compete with that on standalone Hyper-V?
The answer: you don’t need Azure Local to get most of those services. Azure Arc brings much of the same Azure management plane to your existing Hyper-V infrastructure , selectively, incrementally, and without taking on the Azure Local platform fee just to reach the Azure control plane. You pick the services that add value. You skip the ones that don’t. You keep control over where the monthly bill starts.
Azure Local vs. Traditional SAN Clustering vs. Storage Spaces Direct
In modern Windows infrastructure, there are multiple strategies for building highly available clusters. This content, originally published as a blog, was adapted into a presentation for a session at MMS MOA 2025, To Windows Server or Not: The Clustering Question, where the PowerPoint version is available. The session compares three key solutions side-by-side: Azure Local (Azure Stack HCI), Windows Server Failover Clustering with External Storage (traditional 3-tier architecture using SAN/NAS), and Windows Server Failover Clustering with Storage Spaces Direct (S2D). We explore the technical architecture of each, their pros and cons, and strategic considerations. Key factors like cost, scalability, performance, hardware needs, manageability, cloud integration, licensing, and best-fit use cases are analyzed with comparison tables for clarity. A dedicated section on demo scenarios is included to showcase strengths and differences in a lab environment. Finally, we provide a decision framework to guide choosing the right approach based on an organization’s needs.
Securely connecting to Azure Arc-enabled servers using RDP over SSH
With Azure Arc-enabled servers, many of us are already familiar with the ability to establish SSH connections to these machines. If this is news to you, here’s something exciting: you can SSH into Windows machines that have been onboarded to Azure Arc! Now, I can imagine security professionals having a moment of concern—yes, you read that right: SSH access to Windows machines onboarded with Azure Arc is possible.
Here’s an even bigger revelation: this applies not only to on-premises machines but also to Azure Arc-enabled servers running on other cloud platforms like AWS and GCP. However, before panic sets in, let me assure you that this functionality is secure and well-architected for safe usage. (Although I’ll admit, I’m not the security expert breaking out in a cold sweat right now!)
Connecting AWS resources to Azure for centralized management and governance
They say peanut butter and chocolate are better together, but have you ever heard anyone say AWS and Azure are better together? How about having a centralized solution to manage both your AWS and Azure resources seamlessly?
Well, I have something exciting to share. It’s not chocolate and peanut butter, but it will definitely make managing resources across a multicloud environment much easier. Let me introduce you to the Multicloud Connector enabled by Azure Arc.
Drinking the Microsoft and VMware Kool-aid with Azure Arc
I drink the Microsoft Kool-aid and have for many years. What you may not know is years ago, many years ago, I use to drink the Vmware Kool-aid and would attend VMUGs and was certified for VMware. This was about the version 4 days when vSphere was fairly new and there wasn’t much more to Vmware than vCenter and ESXi servers. I jumped ship to the dark side, mainly because I started working with SMS 2003 and Configuration manager 2007 after a little bit of time working with Altiris Deployment Server and Notification Server. Yes, I am that old. This was pre-Symantec days of Altiris as well. However, Symantec bought them and I also got certified as something or something with Symantec. I forget, but I still have an awesome chess set from Symantec with all the piece being a server rack or something in a data center except for the pawns, they are old CRT monitors.
The 12 Days of Azure Arc-Mas: A Festive Journey Through Azure's Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Capabilities
I counted down to the end of the year, and was excited to bring you a special gift: “The 12 Days of Azure Arc-Mas.” This series was inspired by the classic carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” with a tech twist that celebrates the gifts Azure Arc delivers to IT professionals each day. This was a fun series that was very high level. Depending on my response I may dig deeper into sections later this year.
On the twelfth day of Arc-mas, our Azure journey culminates in a grand celebration of achievements. Azure Arc has played a pivotal role in transforming how organizations manage their hybrid and multi-cloud environments, and today, we share these triumphs.
On the twelfth day of Arc-mas, our Azure journey culminates in a grand celebration of achievements. Azure Arc has played a pivotal role in transforming how organizations manage their hybrid and multi-cloud environments, and today, we share these triumphs.
Azure Arc’s story is one of innovation, efficiency, and operational excellence. As we celebrate the victories of the past, we are excited to share the real-world impacts and success stories that have been made possible through this powerful tool.