Windows Phone 7 In-Depth Review

Great in-depth review of Just launch (well in Europe, us in the US must wait until November 8th) of Windows Phone 7! http://www.winsupersite.com/mobile/wp7.asp

I can't wait until I can get my hands on a Samsung Focus! Went to the Microsoft Store in the Park Meadows Mall here in south Denver and found out they will be opening early on the 8th for an event and I plan on being there at opening time to get a phone!

Microsoft Office Communications Server platform rename

Microsoft has re-branded OCS to become Microsoft Lync with the next release, the Release Candidate version is available for download, http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=29366ba5-498f-4d21-bc3e-0b4e8ba58fb1

From the Brief Description on the download page:
"
Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software delivers streamlined communications including software-powered VoIP, presence, enterprise IM, web conferencing, and A/V conferencing. You can implement these capabilities alongside your existing telephony infrastructure, while retaining rich operational control.
"

Windows Phone 7 has reach RTM Status

Can't wait to get my hands on a Windows Phone 7 device. The stuff I am seeing about the interface and applications being designed for it look awesome! Full Zune Integration as well as XBox Live and Facebook integration!

Read about the RTM announcement here: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archive/2010/09/01/windows-phone-7-released-to-manufacturing.aspx

Now I need AT&T and the device manufactures to get the devices out to the public!

SharePoint 2010 and proper NIC teaming

Hi All,

I just wanted to write a quick gotcha I ran into when installing SharePoint 2010 (or any application that relies on DNS, for that matter) onto a server with multiple NICs. Proper teaming is crucial because, if the NICs aren't teamed, they will individually report themselves to DNS as the local machine's host name, an example being, each NIC on a server will report itself as MACHINE.DOMAIN.LOCAL. Not a real problem if the application references resources by IP instead of host name, but, if the application references everything by host name, you're in for a real headache, in terms of troubleshooting. If the computer I am using to connect to MACHINE.DOMAIN.LOCAL from has MACHINE's IP as 10.1.1.1 and the 2nd NIC reports to DNS as 10.1.1.2, my IP query fails, not good for an application that relies on constant communication to SQL. Set up NIC teaming before installing applications that rely on AD DNS and you'll save yourself LOTS of trouble.

Duane

Hyper-V versus VMware my take on a few topics

A colleague and I were "Discussing" the differences between Hyper-V and VMware Server Virtualization. I think we all know that both Microsoft and VMware have big marketing departments and both are working overtime to to promote their products.

This discussion started based on an blast email I sent about Hyper-V taking over at CH2M Hill to my company.
My Colleague found an article that he sent me that talks about how VMware feels that Microsoft is miss-informing information regarding the features of Hyper-V compared to Vsphere/ESX, http://blogs.vmware.com/virtualreality/2010/03/hyper-v-passes-microsofts-checkmarks-exam-isnt-that-always-the-case.html
I read the post and then responded with the below email to him around my experiences and information about the posts information: (Items in red below are taken from the above mentioned post)

Unlike vSphere, for example, Hyper-V R2 does not provide VM restart prioritization, which means that there is no easy way for admins to make sure that critical VMs are being restarted first. Incidentally, the lack of VM restart prioritization is one the reasons why Burton Group stated that Hyper-V R2 is not an enterprise production-ready solution
This is miss-information, You can control the priority of VMs restart by the delayed start setting. You would set a longer start time for VMs that are not a priority and set the start time for high priority VMs to zero. Read this about this debate, http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/080910-vmware-microsoft-disaster-recovery.html?fsrc=netflash-rss

In addition because Hyper-V R2 lacks memory overcommit (a feature that is totally missing from Microsoft’s checklist), it can restart VMs only if the failover server has enough spare memory capacity to accommodate the VMs of the failed host.
This above statement about Memory overcommit is very comical as it is widely been reported on as a “Big Win for VMware” since Hyper-V entered the market. Before Hyper-V entered and even with Hyper-V in the field VMware has said that Memory overcommit is not recommended or supported for production environments. With Server 2008 R2 SP1 Microsoft is implementing Dynamic Memory, this is not memory overcommit but memory over-allocation. Microsoft has implemented a system whereas the host OS Hyper-V server communicates with the Guest OS VM to determine the memory needs of the guest and then allocates more memory to the guest. This is configured at the admin level by giving the guest a minimum (start up) memory and a maximum memory threshold; so I can configure a Guest to start with 512MB of memory and a maximum of 4GB of memory depending of need. This is fully supported in a production environment. What this enables is admins to configure guest to utilize physical host memory dynamically based on need, but still will not exceed the physical memory available to the host. Configuration also allows priority for this to be set per Guest.

This checkmark is funny to say the least. If you don’t know what the word “quick” means in Microsoft’s marketing jargon (and believe me I have heard illuminating translations of the term from Microsoft’s own employees), you’d think that Microsoft has a fast Storage VMotion (possibly faster than VMware’s). The reality is that even just talking about Storage VMotion in Hyper-V’s case doesn’t make sense, because Microsoft’s Quick Storage Migration, just like Quick Migration for VMs, cannot migrate VM virtual disks without downtime. VMware Storage VMotion, on the other hand, can migrate virtual disks without any application downtime.
Not sure what they mean, in the R2 version with Clustered Share Volumes, I have implemented many instances of Live Migrations that do not cause any downtime or interruption for a Guest/VM migration from one host to another.

As Microsoft TechNet shows, SCOM is a very complex product that consumes a considerable amount of servers and databases that – opposite to what Microsoft wants people to believe – are neither free nor included in the cost of SMSD licenses
it is true that SCOM is a paid product and requires additional server resources to implement but this is not required for Live Migrations. Plus implementing SCOM in an environment allows a company to not just monitor the virtual environment but all physical servers as well. Single pane of glass for all monitoring regardless of the server hardware solution.

Hyper-V pushes out VMWare at fortune 500 company

Hyper-V gaining momentum all the time. Here is an article talking about CH2M Hill decision to move from VMWare ESX to Microsoft Hyper-V Virtualization platform, major decision point being a cost savings of over three million dollars over the next three to five years.
the article is located here:
http://www.thevarguy.com/2010/08/27/fortune-500-firm-leaving-vmware-for-microsoft-hyper-v/

Exchange 2010 SP1 is now available!

Very cool improvements for Exchange 2010 in the SP1 release
Read about the enhancements here:
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2010/04/07/454533.aspx

You can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=50b32685-4356-49cc-8b37-d9c9d4ea3f5b&displaylang=en

Hyper-V Change DVD ISO Image from within VM

Was directed to this post by a good friend; the author has created a tool that allows a user to change the ISO image for the DVD from within the VM/Guest. Have not had a chance to play with this yet but looks very cool!

http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons/archive/2010/08/23/guest-tools-for-hyper-v-change-your-dvd-from-within-the-guest.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20SimonsSqlServerStuff%20(SimonS%20SQL%20Server%20Stuff)

Hyper-V R2 Rollup Patch released

A rollup patch for Hyper-V R2 has been released that fixes three different issues, http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-US;2264080

PowerShell help with Bing Visual Search

Microsoft announced today that you can now use Bing Visual Search for information on PowerShell cmdlets. Check it out, looks pretty cool, http://www.bing.com/visualsearch?g=powershell_cmdlets&FORM=Z9GE48##

Microsoft Scripting Games

Grab this badge here!

SP1 announced for Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7

SP1 plans have been released for Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2010/03/18/announcing-windows-server-2008-r2-and-windows-7-service-pack-1.aspx

Two big features that will be included primarily benefit Hyper-V; Dynamic memory and RemoteFX. RemoteFX allows VMs to have richer content and visual experience.
Dynamic memory has been requested since Hyper-V first launched. Microsoft talks about that with Dynamic Memory companies can get for VDI workstations on Hyper-V hosts.

Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta Exchange 2010 Presentation

Today was the Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta at the Auraria campus in downtown Denver. I did a presentation on Exchange 2010, I thought it went well. I only had eight attendees in my session, would have like more but felt everyone attending took some good information from the presentation. I want to thank those eight people for attending, hopefully you had fun and learned something, and please do not hesitate to contact me with any followup questions or need additional information at sean dot mcneill at statera dot com. If you would not mind I would also appreciate you email me any feedback you had about the session, both content and my presentation, thanks.
I promised the attendees I would post the slide deck here, but when I said that I was unaware that blogger does not allow any file upload. I have already sent the presentation to Statera.com's webmaster to get it posted there and once completed I will post the link on this blog.

Update: Got my presentation uploaded and it can be accessed here, http://www.statera.com/Documents/MicrosoftExchange2010Overview.pptx

Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Intel Xeon 5500 Series Processor Problem

So I have been helping our internal IT implement Hyper-V to consolidate our server infrastructure. We implemented a two node Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V cluster on Dell R710 servers. Everything was going pretty good until this past Sunday. Our IT Manager converted the second of two SQL Servers to be a VM using SCVMM 2008 R2 P2V process. The conversion went pretty good. On Monday, all our consultants are required to submit their timesheet for the previous week, and custom application developed and located on SharePoint. This puts a little bit of a load on the Front End and SQL backend servers in the morning as everyone is trying to submit thier timesheets and our internal workers are pulling reports and getting invoices ready to be sent out (Need to get paid for the great work we all do!)
Well this Monday became challenging as now the entire SharePoint Environment plus, Exchange, and several other servers are hosted VMs on the cluster. The challenge came from the fact that our Hyper-V Host servers began to crash and reboot, failing the cluster and all VMs running on them. Initially it appeared to be a network problem. So we decided to move the last SQL box converted to a dedicated VSwitch and Physical NIC (We have a three NIC team setup to a single VSwitch for all of the VMs on both Hosts) This one done thinking that the network errors we were seeing on the Hosts were caused by the newly added SQL server. This did not solve the problem. We also saw some storage issues and reviewed everything to ensure that it was sound (Fiber Attached Storage on the Hosts; most VMs OS Drive is provided a couple Clustered Shared Volumes, CSV, thru the fiber connections with thier data drives utilizing Pass-Thru disks).
So with the problem still being sporadic we looked to VMM and removed the cluster from VMM and rebooted the Hosts separately to check things out. This seemed to solve the problem a bit (Tuesday no issues) . Today we had crashes again, our IT Manager walked thru the crash dumps with a fine tune comb and found the culprit: 0x00000101 - CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT error message. Didn't take him long to find this KB article documenting the problem, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975530
There is a know issue with Intel Xeon 5500 Nehalem Processors. The problem happens sporadically so initial identification of the problem is a little tough. Their is a hotfix for this as well as some work around documented in the KB article.
This problem is only with the new Nehalem processors and Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V role installed. The problem is documented by Intel as well here: http://www.intel.com/assets/pdf/specupdate/321324.pdf

Hope this information helps. Would be very interested to see who else has experienced this problem.

Microsoft Road Show Event this week

I posted yesterday about a Road Show Event sponsored by Microsoft and would let you know if registration was still available. Sadly it is not, the event is full.

If you are already registered and attend please look for me and say hello. I will be presenting with Mark Matthews in one of the first sessions.

Microsoft RoadShow Event in Denver

I have been asked by Microsoft to participate in a RoadShow Event in Denver this Thursday. Will be speaking with Mark Matthews on Infrastructure optimization. Doing some prep work this weekend going over the slide deck to prepare myself for the event. Should be a good presentation. I will check to see if customers can still register to attend I will post it here!

Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta

The schedule, speaker and session information has now been posted to the website. If you are in the area I encourage you to come down for some free training on February 27th at Metro State College, more info can be found here: http://rmtechtrifecta.pbworks.com/

Shameless Plug

So I am big time now....at least I think so. Statera release a press release about me presenting at the Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta, http://www.statera.com/news/Pages/Statera%27s%20Sean%20McNeill%20to%20Present%20at%20Rocky%20Mountain%20Tech%20TRI-Fecta%20Event.aspx

Windows Server 2008 Core Network Bind tool

I have done numerous Server 2008 Core installations, primarily to be the hosts for Hyper-V Virtualization. R2 made some great improvements in manageability as it relates to the Core platform, namely the SCONFIG command and the ability to have the GUI iSCSI initiator tool by running iscsicpl.
Well a new tool to help with Network Adapter bindings has just been released. I have used a previous version of this tool and it was helpful. Want to see what this one has. This functionality is really needed! http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/nvspbind
Thank You KeithMange

Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta 2010

I know I have already blogged about this but now it is personal. I will be presenting 2 sessions at the event, below is a quick synopsis of what I will be speaking on. Please if you are in the Denver area or want to come to Denver for a great ski weekend and get some training sign up here, http://rmtechtrifecta.pbworks.com/

My sessions:

Exchange 2010
Come learn what Exchange 2010 has to offer for Administrators and end-users. Exchange 2010 is the latest messaging server system from Microsoft, many improvements have been made to this system. Administrators can take advantage of the new Database Availability Group (DAG) function to provide a highly available and fault tolerant system for their environment. Great improvements in administration and replication have been made to Exchange 2010 and this session will explore and explain the new functionality. End users will benefit from the new highly available system and the integration with Outlook 2010. This session is geared towards administrators familiar with Exchange 200x with an emphasis on the improvements to Exchange 2007.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Active Directory
This session will detail the changes to Active Directory in Server 2008 R2. One of the biggest new features in Active Directory Directory Services (AD DS) is the AD Recycle Bin which allows an administrator to quickly recover a deleted object from AD DS. Powershell now naively supports Active Directory as well and will be discussed. We will also cover the changes made to AD DS in Server 2008. This session will also go over Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) and Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS).

Outlook 2003 and Exchange 2010

At my current client I am doing an Exchange 2010 deployment into an environment that has Office/Outlook 2003 as the primary client. Ran into a few gotchas with this scenario.

1. Outlook 2003 with the default settings will not connect to a mailbox on Exchange 2010. This is because by default Exchange 2010 requires RPC Encryption between the client (Outlook) and the Exchange Server. Outlook 2003 does not have this enabled by default, Outlook 2007/2010 do have this enabled by default. You must choose the "more Settings" button when configuring an account in Outlook 2003 and select the Security tab to enable Encryption between Outlook and the Exchange Server. This can also be done via a GPO setting with Outlook 2003 provided you install the Office/Outlook 2003 ADM files and also modify the OutLK11.adm file to include the below Policy:
POLICY "Enable RPC Encryption"
KEYNAME Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\RPC
PART "Check to turn setting on; uncheck to turn setting off" CHECKBOX
VALUENAME EnableRPCEncrption
VALUEON Numeric 1
VALUEOFF Numeric 0
END PART
END POLICY

2. Outlook 2003 in Online mode is slow to update deleted items sometimes resulting in unknown error messages. This is because Exchange 2010 does not issue UDP notifications to Outlook 2003, it defaults to a 60 second polling cycle. This behavior is somewhat corrected with Update Rollup 1 for Exchange 2010 and a RegHack on the Exchange 2010 CAS servers. For a description of Update Rollup 1 and a download location go here, http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;976573
The RegHack is located and explained here, http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;2009942&sd=rss&spid=13965
I recommend setting ParametersSystem to 10000, as this is the minimum time (10 seconds) that Outlook 2003 will pole for updates from Exchange. It is to be noted that this change will result in an additional load on the Exchange 2010 server hosting the CAS role, plan accordingly.

The best way to alleviate this problem is to upgrade the Outlook clients to 2007 (and 2010 when available) versions. The fix for #2 above with only improve the problem, not completely solve it.

As always if you need any help with an Exchange deployment please do not hesitate to contact me directly at Sean dot McNeill at Statera dot com.

Exchange 2010 versus 2007

As a senior consultant with Statera I go out on sales calls and work with clients wanting to upgrade their messaging environment. Lately I have had to explain the difference and reasoning about going to Exchange 2010. Several prospective or current clients want to know why they should go to a relatively new technology in Exchange 2010 instead of Exchange 2007. I usually give the same speech and figured I would give the high points in this post:

1. DAG's (Database Availability Groups) this is probably the most compelling reason to go directly to 2010. DAG's offer the most straight forward and easiest way to invoke both High Availability and Disaster Recovery. DAG's combine and enhance the various replication options from Exchange 2007 (LCR, CCR, SCC and SCR) into a standard, easily administrated solution. Exchange 2010 removes Storage Groups from the Exchange vernacular and puts the Database as the main storage hierarchy. Another benefit of DAGs versus Mailbox clustering in Exchange 2oo7 is that now instead of a active passive scenario, you can now have an active active scenario with each node having active databases and cop0y databases; this allows for better utilization of server hardware.
2. Server reduction: Exchange 2010 allows an organization to placed the HUB and CAS roles on a server that is participating on a Mailbox DAG. Previously in Exchange 2007 if you had a clustered Mailbox server you could not place any other roles on the clustered servers. Exchange 2010 can reduce a simple high availability design for an organization from four server to two. In Exchange 2007 you would need to have two dedicated servers for a mailbox cluster and then another two servers to host the HUB and CAS roles. In Exchange 2010 you can have the same redundancy with only two servers, each one hosting the Mailbox, HUB and CAS roles.

There are also other benefits of Exchange 2010 is the reduction is IOPS for the databases has been calculated as much as 70% compared to Exchange 2007. Since the path to go from Exchange 200X to Exchange 2010 is the same, a company looking to move either to Exchange 2007 or 2010 is a big decision. If the company decides to go with 2007 a complete migration will require another complete migration in the future to migrate to 2010. My recommendation is to forgo the next migration and go directly to 2010. While 2010 supports installation on Server 2008 R2, Exchange 2007 does not. These two factors highlight that going directly to Exchange 2010 and Server 20087 R2 will result in a company being in a supported state from Microsoft for a longer duration than going with Exchange 2007 on Server 2008.

I do understand that some companies still are hesitant to run on the "Bleeding Edge" of technology. My answer to this is that Exchange 2010 is more of an R2 version of Exchange 2007 than a complete redesign of the Exchange platform as Exchange 2007 was compared to Exchange 2000/2003.

If you are contemplating this move please take the above information into effect and please do not hesitate to contact me at Sean dot McNeill at Statera dot com for more information.

Windows 7 Special folders

God Mode was just the beginning, check this article with background and more hidden gems in Windows 7, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10426627-56.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

God Mode in Windows 7

Cool new feature in Windows 7 to allow you to have access to all administration functions for Windows in one folder, God Mode. Read about how to enable it here: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2010/01/05/windows-7-god-mode/##