Statera Infrastructure Blog

Microsoft Offers iSCSI Target as a Free Download

2011-04-04T18:21:00.003-06:00

Microsoft is making it's iSCSI Target Software for Windows Server 2008 R2 a free download! Now you can create shared storage for production or test deployments of Hyper-V servers to have Live Migration and High Availability without the need to deploy a NAS or SAN in your envirornment. Read more about it here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2011/04/04/free-microsoft-iscsi-target.aspx

Random thoughts on a Sunday night

2011-03-27T20:27:00.004-06:00

Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) was in Vegas this past week and while I did not attend, Statera was represented by three of our employees learning what is new in the management space. I will work to get one or more of them to make a more detailed post here. But for me one of the announcements was big, SCVMM 2008 R2 Sp1 was released. This provides support for Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX via VMM, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/cc793138.aspx. One thing to mention with this is the download listed is a full SP1 integrated download, not just SP1 but the entire VMM 2008 R2 with SP1. I have already updated in my lab and while the download is large, the upgrade from 2008 R2 goes rather quickly.

Much more news from MMS was around the entire vNext products. This is where I run into a grey area and hope my teammates will elaborate more! SCCM 2010 Beta 2 was released, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ff657840.aspx

Windows Phone 7 News - I am a little disappointed how Microsoft has been handling the update process for the phone! I still love my Samsung Focus and the platform but the fact that updates that have been promised and even committed to by Balmer are yet to flow out! An apologize from the head of the team helps and I hope that by acknowledging the frustration from the users it helps get the update released to those of us that have adopted the platform; read more about it here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ff657840.aspx

Office 365 - Microsoft is pushing Office 365, and I am with them. This new Online platform is basically night and day compared to the current BPOS platform. Statera is a strong partner with Microsoft in the Cloud arena and as such we are being offered numerous opportunities to work with and assist clients who are wanting to move to Office 365. We are in two programs, one is the next wave of Beta for Office 365 and we were assigned numerous clients to help facilitate their beta program in Office 365. The second is a program where we can nominate larger customers for a full "production" beta of Exchange online within Office 365. Both are going well and I am looking forward to working with these clients to show them the value and functionality of Office 365.

Side Note - My Men's NCAA bracket is completely dead! Do not have a single team left alive in the final 4! Guessing there are many of you out there in the same position.

Good Night!

BPOS and Office 365 going to get free Blackberry service

2011-03-16T14:36:00.002-06:00

Microsoft came out today announcing that the Blackberry Enterprise Service provided with thier Exchange Online services will now be at no charge. This is a big deal as up until now it cost companies $10 per month per user to enable them to sync their Blackberry device with Exchange online.

Windows Phone 7

2011-03-07T20:36:00.002-07:00

So I have had the Samsung Focus from AT&T since the US launch on November 8, 2010. I went to a launch party at the Microsoft Store in Lone Tree, Co that day and bought by phone. Overall I love it! I like the ability to control my start screen with applications and contacts I use frequently. So after 5 full months tomorrow what do I think are the hits and misses? read on and find out.
Hits:
Customizable start screen:
This is one great feature I think over the iPhone. Able to pin applications and contacts I use regularly to my start screen. I have my calendar, various email accounts, my family contacts and a few applications on my start screen. I also have the Gaming hub, Picture Hub, Music Hub (Zune pass member) as well as a few other on the start screen. Live Tiles makes this great, especially for new emails and weather info!.

Likes:
Applications:
As of this post the Marketplace has over 9000 apps! I have the Weather.com app pinned to my start screen for updates as well as Seesmic for Twitter and Chatter.com feeds. I also have a couple apps for my four year old daughter to quickly access (and she can easily find everything on my phone as well). ScoreMobile is also pinned as I am a big sports fan (would love to see Live Tile updates for my favorite teams!)
I also love the gaming features with WP7, XBox live integration is great and have grown my gaming points with XBox live integrated games.

People Hub:
Love that I can combined many different contacts from various email and Facebook into a single entry. This is nice to consolidate my friends and not see multiple entries for the same person. Also the Facebook integration is great, get a quick glance to see the latest info from my friends. Looking forward to Twitter integration with the People Hub.

Email:
Love that I can have multiple Exchange Activesync accounts configured on the phone. As I am a consultant and do numerous Exchange projects I found myself wiping my work email and then configuring the clients test account with my phone during each engagement. Now I just add an account to my phone to test without affecting my work account. I actually have 3 ActiveSync accounts configured right now, my primary work email, my Microsoft.com VTSP account and my Beta Office 365 account.

Overall:
Great phone and love that I can customize the start screen and all the applications that are available for the phone.

Needs:
Cut and Paste - didn't think I would miss this but have and can't wait for the update that will include this.
Email Conversation View - got use to this with Outlook 2010 and really want it to be on my phone as well
SMS Text integration with Outlook 2010 - again didn't think I needed this but while on Outlook 2010 and Mobile 6.5 got use to it and liked the ability to create and reply to SMS messages from Outlook 2010
Marketplace Search Improvements - hate that a search in the marketplace returns songs and apps, would like to search just for apps or music; think this is coming in the next update
Camera Settings - hate that the camera settings revert to the default each time I launch it. Read that this is a feature because of the quick camera feature, which is cool, but should be a setting to allow my custom camera settings to become the default.

Overall a great platform and with the Microsoft/Nokia partnership and the CDMA phones coming online it will only grow. I think Microsoft is in it for the long haul and I fully support the platform and evangelize it any opportunity I can. Talked to a few co-workers who have switched to WP& and they love it as well! Just need to convince people to try it and it will grow!

Still Here!

2011-03-07T20:09:00.002-07:00

I have neglected posting to this blog for several months! Reasons for it are many but mostly due to being extremely busy at work, a good thing for a consultant, and some laziness.
So I am making a point to add an entry to this blog at least once a week!

So what has happened in this void that has had no posts? a lot:
1. Got my Windows Phone 7 Samsung Focus, Loving it!
2. Went to the Lync 2010 Ignite training
3. Went to the Office 365 Ignite training
4. Was named the Director of the year for Statera!
5. Began the Beta for Office 365
6. Assisted with the upgrade of OCS 2007 R2 to Lync 2010 for Statera
7. Hours and hours of consulting for our clients

I want to make this a very informative location for all things Infrastructure related, will do my best!

Windows Phone 7 In-Depth Review

2010-10-20T18:40:00.003-06:00

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

2010-09-14T10:04:00.002-06:00

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

2010-09-01T14:43:00.003-06:00

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

2010-08-31T16:08:00.004-06:00

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

2010-08-30T23:17:00.003-06:00

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

2010-08-30T19:41:00.004-06:00

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!

2010-08-25T10:22:00.002-06:00

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

2010-08-25T09:46:00.002-06:00

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

2010-08-25T07:45:00.001-06:00

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

2010-04-19T13:11:00.002-06:00

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

2010-03-25T08:50:00.000-06:00

Grab this badge here!

SP1 announced for Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7

2010-03-18T10:40:00.003-06:00

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

2010-02-27T19:04:00.004-07:00

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

2010-02-17T19:35:00.003-07:00

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

2010-02-15T15:45:00.002-07:00

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

2010-02-14T21:55:00.003-07:00

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

2010-02-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

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

2010-01-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

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

2010-01-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

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

2010-01-18T23:27:00.000-07:00

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

2010-01-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

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

2010-01-10T22:43:00.000-07:00

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

2010-01-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

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

2010-01-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

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/##

Statera + Microsoft + The Cloud

2009-12-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

Find out about our Cloud computing options, http://www.statera.com/services/Pages/OnlineServicesSolutions.aspx

Rocky Mountain Tech Tr-Fecta

2009-12-17T08:40:00.000-07:00

Registration is now open for the one day FREE Tech Tri-Fecta to be help at Metro State College in Denver. Check it out here: http://rmtechtrifecta.pbworks.com/

Microsoft Hyper-V Technet Resource Page

2009-12-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

Good source for Technical Information and Resouces around Hyper-V,
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/dd565807.aspx

Exchange 2010 Info

2009-12-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

Couple good announcements about Exchange 2010:
Blackberry Enterprise Server support for Exchange 2010,
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/12/09/453486.aspx

Exchange 2010 Rollup 1 has been released,
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/12/09/453485.aspx

Exchange 2010 goes RTM!

2009-11-09T09:50:00.001-07:00

It is official, hot off the presses Exchange 2010 goes live!
see the full announcement here from the MS Exchange Team: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/11/09/453096.aspx

Server 2008 R2 Support coming for Exchange 2007

2009-11-04T14:11:00.001-07:00

See the announcement here: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/11/04/453026.aspx

Zune HD

2009-11-01T22:11:00.000-07:00

My wife and daughter got me a Zune HD for my birthday. Been playing with it this weekend and loving it! First portable device to have HD Radio on it and has a great feature while listening to the radio to "tag" a song you like and then buy it from the Zune Marketplace.
The browser is good, must have wireless connectivity but in this day and age not to hard to find a hotspot. Only has about 10 apps, all free, mostly games but a calculator and MSN Weather app, all free. Hopefully the application selection approves!
The touch interface was very easy to learn and is easy to use. Another great feature is it works just fine with my car FM transmitter that the wife got me last year for my Zune 4GB! I have created a new playlist for my daughter so while we drive around she can listen to her favorite songs, mostly Pink! And now with HD Radio on the Zune HD I can get HD stations in my car without an upgrade to my car radio.

Running Admin Tools from a non-domain joined computer

2009-10-29T20:27:00.000-06:00

As a consultant I find myself at client sites and working from my Statera laptop that I do not join to the clients domain. So usually my only option for running admin tools is to remote into a server and run the tools from there, not too bad. Tried running with the runas command and it never worked, even though I usually have domain admin credentials in the clients domain, get an error. So a friend of mine posted a link to this blog post, http://www.jameskovacs.com/blog/TIPHowToRunProgramsAsADomainUserFromANondomainComputer.aspx
here the author talks about running SQL tools in a similar situation to me. So I tried it out for a few other admin tools and yes, it works great. The trick if you didn't already follow the link is to use the /netonly switch in the runas command line argument:
runas /netonly /user:domain\username "Path to admin tool"
works like a charm and plan to use it more at client locations. I am also toying with the idea of creating a Powershell application to automate this, if I get it going will post it as well.

SCVMM 2008 R2 Problem with P2V from Dell Physical Server

2009-10-17T20:29:00.001-06:00

Had a client that I upgraded to 2008 R2 Hyper-V and SCVMM 2008 R2. When they tried to P2V Dell Physical servers they received BSOD or errors on the Install Integration Services step. We tried over and over and could not successfully P2V the server. We then tested to see if a new VM build had any problems with installing Integration Services, worked perfectly. So we ended up getting Microsoft Premier Support involved. After several tests and trials later the problem was solved; the problem dealt with the physical server being build with the Dell OpenManage startup CD. Seems this method of build set a registry key that conflicts with the Integration Services install. The key in question is:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Wdf01000\Group] = Base
changing the key to "WdfLoadGroup" and rebooting the VM allowed the Integration Services to install successfully.

Exchange 2010 Code Complete

2009-10-08T10:36:00.000-06:00

The MSExchange Team guys are reporting that the Exchange 2010 Code is complete and is on schedule for RTM in early November.

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/10/08/452775.aspx

Exchange 2010

2009-09-26T11:37:00.000-06:00

I attended the Microsoft Launch for Windows 7, Server 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010 here in Denver this week. My company http://www.statera.com/ was actually a sponsor and I worked our table for awhile. In the afternoon I was able to attend a couple sessions on Exchange 2010 with Harold Wong.
The first session was about Exchange 2010 high availability. One of the biggest changes in 2010 is the removal of Storage Groups, now you only deal with Databases. And with databases you can create Database Access Groups (DAG). A DAG consists of Databases and Mailbox servers for replication. Was is improved from Exchange 2007 is the fact that a database can be easily replicated to up to 16 mailbox servers. Also databases can be staggered to be active on multiple mailbox servers. You can have database one active on mailbox server 1, database 2 active on mailbox server 2 with each mailbox server having a replicated copy of the non-active database. This basically allows you to have an Active-Active cluster. Allowing an organization to utilize all mailbox servers for active user connections.
Another huge feature is the fact that you can now have the HUB and CAS role on a mailbox server that is participating in a DAG. in Exchange 2007 if you clustered the mailbox role you could not place any other roles on that server. Now a small to medium size company can have complete redundancy with only two servers running MB, HUB and CAS roles.

The Second session was about Archiving in Exchange 2010. Microsoft now offers Archiving naively in 2010, but it is a light implementation. The problem I see, as Harold pointed out, is the fact that the archive mailbox for a user's mailbox is located in the same database as the user mailbox. This configuration really kinda defeats one of the primary reasons to archive, move the archived mail off the primary mailbox server and storage and move to secondary storage. Harold stated that Microsoft is working on a fix to allow the archived mailbox to be setup on another database, this would probably be in a service pack for 2010. Another missing piece is a tool to automatically move messages and items from local PST files to the archive location. With the release a user would need to manually do this step.

More to come on Exchange 2010!

Server 2008 R2 Core Edition

2009-09-23T10:13:00.001-06:00

Couple really helpful features were added to Server 2008 R2 Core, sconfig and iscscicpl.
sconfig comes from the Hyper-V Server 2008 free download, it is a nice configuration utility that handles many of the initial setup tasks needed for the server. Having these in a nice easy to use group makes the initial IP, naming, domain membership as well as remote access available very nice.
iscscicpl is the GUI iSCSI initiator interface that was available only in Server 2008 full install editions. This now makes connecting and configuring iSCSI SAN storage a breeze.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V

2009-09-10T21:37:00.000-06:00

I have already done a couple upgrades of Hyper-V from R1 to R2 and must say that Microsoft has taken a huge leap in their data center virtualization offering! I think most everyone who follows virtualization knows about the BIG improvement, LIVE MIGRATIONS. But Live Migrations are not the only new feature/enhancement with the R2 Hyper-V release. One of the small features that might not get a lot of notice but I really appreciate is a check mark on the Virtaul switch that allows you to turn off administrative access on a physical NIC when connected to a virtual switch. This to me not only reinforces the best practice to have a separate, dedicated NIC for admin access to the host computer but really cleans up the Network Interface connections on a host computer. With R1 each time you created a Virtual Switch a "duplicate" Network Interface was created and without proper naming (side note: ran into this at a client sight, they did not properly name the Network Interfaces and it made troubleshooting and administration a nightmare) would result is numerous Network interfaces only differentiated buy a number appended to the end of the standard name. Now check the check box does not create this second Network Interface, nice work Microsoft.

Another cool feature, and what actually enables Live Migrations, is Clustered Shared Volumes. Along with allowing for multiple hosts to access a single LUN at the same time, it eliminates the requirement for creating and individual LUN for each virtual machine. This provides for better utilization of shared storage space. Now you can create a single large LUN and present it to all hosts in the cluster and place multiple VMs within this LUN separated by simple folders.

More to come!

Exchange 2007 SP2 has been released

2009-08-25T13:37:00.000-06:00

Read more about this new service pack for Exchange 2007 here:
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/08/25/452095.aspx

NT 4 Upgrade troubles

2009-08-05T10:52:00.000-06:00

So last night ran into several problems trying to upgrade a newly created NT 4 Server that was promoted to the PDC role to Server 2003. Some if the issues I believe can be attributed to the age of the hardware we used, but needed, to get NT 4 installed in the first place (driver availability). Some of the problems might be attributed to the software media being used to first install NT 4 server and then the first attempted OEM 2003 CD (seems an OEM "repair" 2003 CD will not allow an upgrade, only a fresh install)
So today I worked on getting a NT 4 Server build in Hyper-V, it was a bit of a challenge and via some Internet searches with configuration tweeks I was able to get it done. Below is a list of settings for installing NT 4 server on Hyper-V:
1. Use an ISO image of the NT4 Server, not the actual CD (kept getting blue screen for inaccessible boot device)
2. Be sure to only use 1 CPU and select the "Limit CPU Functionality" check mark
3. Change the boot order to have the IDE Drive first and CDRom second
4. Remove the default Network Adapter and choose the Legacy Network Adapter
5. Make sure the VHD size is no more than 4GB

I know that some of this might seem easy, but working with an old OS like NT 4 is a challenge and hopefully these tips will help someone else out in the future (but really hope you actually don't ever need NT 4 again)

Also there is no Integration Services for NT 4 so be prepared for work with keyboard shortcuts if working on a RDP session to SCVMM or the Hyper-V server.

Interesting client project

2009-08-04T14:35:00.000-06:00

Been working at a client here in Colorado to upgrade them from a Windows NT 4 domain to 2008 Active Directory and Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2007. Yes you read that right! The fun part is neither can be done in one move, both require going to 2003 levels first then to the final desired levels. This is a pretty small shop, about 100 users so it is not that bad, but working with NT 4 and Exchange 5.5 has made me really appreciate the new OS and Exchange versions.

Tonight is one of the big moves, upgrading a newly installed NT 4 BDC to PDC then upgrading the OS to 2003. Hopefully this goes pretty smooth. Over the next few days I will then be installing Exchange 2003 and migrating mailboxes to get to a much more stable and supportable environment. After this week it should be pretty easy to get to 2008 AD and Exchange 2007.

Wish me luck!

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 have gone RTM

2009-07-22T16:21:00.000-06:00

Microsoft announcing on several blogs that both new OS's have gone RTM!

Statera Client CIO Video

2009-07-14T20:48:00.000-06:00

A few post back I posted about a client case study for Exchange 2007 and Hyper-V virtualization implementation. Well we know have a video up with the CIO talking about Statera and the companies experiences working with us on this project and others. Check it out here, http://www.statera.com/customers/default.htm

VMWare Core Tax

2009-06-29T08:10:00.000-06:00

The guys over at Windows Virtualization Team Blog have a very interesting post about VMWare vs Hyper-V licensing and a "VMWare Core Tax" once processors begin shipping with more than 6 cores per processor. This is a compelling argument when you look at costs for virtualization.

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/06/28/Beware-the-VMware-Core-Tax-and-More.aspx

Exchange 2010 Call Answering Rules

2009-06-23T07:37:00.000-06:00

The guys over at the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog have a great entry talking about new functionality in Unified Messaging for Exchange 2010, Call Answering Rules. Check it out here, http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/06/22/451667.aspx

Power Consumption Comparison for Exchange 2007, PHysical vs Virtual

2009-06-19T19:27:00.000-06:00

The guys over at the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog have a post talking about power consumption for an Exchange 2007 environment comparing Physical versus Virtual. Good information: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/06/19/451650.aspx

Microsoft Partner Evidence Program (PEP)

2009-06-19T18:42:00.000-06:00

We, Statera, have been nominated and approved for the Microsoft Partner Evidence Program (PEP) for 2010 products. I know it includes SharePoint and Office 2010 and am trying to find out if it also covers Exchange 2010, Exchange being the one I am most interested in. This is a big deal, we get the bits in about a week so we can start learning these new technologies and also assist clients with pre-RC installs.
We have already had preliminary talks with one of our best clients about implementing SharePoint 2010 in this program!

Case Study for Hyper-V and Exchange 2007

2009-06-19T11:23:00.000-06:00

Check out this case study for a project I completed implementing Hyper-V with Exchange 2007. The client liked Hyper-V so much with Exchange 2007 that they then had me assist with a new Hyper-V cluster for consolidating other servers.
http://www.statera.com/customers/cases/CoBizVirtualizationCS060309.pdf

Statera Releases a CRM to SharePoint Cloud Integration Engine

2009-06-18T08:37:00.000-06:00

Just recently, Statera went into a Beta phase for their an integration engine called Stratus (http://stratus.statera.com). It’s a really cool idea/product which integrates Microsoft CRM Online with SharePoint Online completely via Microsoft’s Azure Services platform (which means everything is running in the Cloud). Some of the capabilities Stratus provides include:

· CRM users can provision SharePoint sites for Account, Opportunity and Case records, allowing them to store documents in a location where they are easier to collaborate on and in an environment where non-sales employees may be more familiar with
· CRM users can upload documents while in CRM and they are stored directly in SharePoint
· CRM users can view associated SharePoint document libraries and their contents and pull up documents without ever leaving CRM
· SharePoint users can navigate to SharePoint sites that are associated with CRM Account, Opportunity or Case records and access uploaded documents, CRM contacts, CRM activities as well as some other general CRM information
· SharePoint users can create new contacts or activities via the associated SharePoint site that are in turn stored in CRM
· SharePoint users can save CRM contacts directly into their Outlook contacts folder with the click of the mouse

The product also works with the on-premise versions of SharePoint and CRM or any combination of Online and On-premise (e.g. CRM Online and SharePoint on-premise), though the on-premise activation is not yet available.

There are some other cool ideas that will be coming out with in the future. For more information, check out the video or sign up to use the platform at http://stratus.statera.com – it only takes a few minutes to sign up and usage is free!

Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Hyper-V

2009-06-17T15:27:00.001-06:00

Good post from the Microsoft Virtualization Team blog about applying SP2 to Windows Server 2008 running the Hyper-V role and what is needed from a host and guest VM perspective.

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/06/17/Re_3A00_-Windows-Server-2008-SP2-Hyper_2D00_V.aspx

Scripting Games 2009

2009-06-08T01:13:00.000-06:00

The Scripting Guys over at Microsoft are getting ready to kick-off Scripting games 2009! This is a great way to learn and expand scripting knowledge! I have been a scripting junkie for several years, first with VBScript and now mainly with PowerShell. I encourage any and all script monkeys to check this it out!:
http://blogs.technet.com/heyscriptingguy/archive/tags/2009+Summer+Scripting+Games/default.aspx

Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 RTM Date

2009-06-02T20:39:00.000-06:00

Several sites have reported that Windows 7 will RTM on October 22nd, and now from the Windows Server Team Blog, Windows Server 2008 R2 will also RTM at the same time!

http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2009/06/02/windows-server-2008-r2-rtm-and-general-availability.aspx

Server 2008 Core and Hyper-V Cluster lessons learned

2009-05-01T19:57:00.000-06:00

Part 1 Install and Networking

Server 2008 Core and Hyper-V clustering is the way to go. I will not say it is the easy way, but once you get everything running it works very smooth.

Plan out your environment! Hyper-V does not allow you to over-allocate memory so you must plan to ensure that your Hyper-V cluster can sustain a loss of one of the hosts. Best plan is to plan your cluster for a full load minus one host. This way you can ensure that a loss of a host due to hardware failure or planned maintenance you VMs will still function properly.
Shared storage is also very important, without it you don't have clustering or failover. The most recent deployment I worked on we utilized a NetApp filer and accessed the storage using iSCSI.

First off, Networking, here is a good guide for installing and configuring Server 2008 core, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753802.aspx, This covers the basic setup and configuration.
Next thing to learn and love is the NETSH command line tool for configuring network adapters in Server 2008 Core, http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q242468&ID=KB;EN-US;Q242468. This is an overall doc, but I have found the "help netsh cmd" to be very helpful.
So now you have the interfaces configured, you need to use hardware teaming to ensure you have fault-tolerance for the interfaces. Hyper-V does not provide fault-tolerance naively, you must use the vendor teaming software to create a team and then added the teamed interface to the Virtual Switch. Intel NIC teaming was pretty easy, once you install the teaming software it also installs numerous VBScripts for configuring the team(s). Broadcom was a bit more difficult, you must use a command line tool using the MAC addresses for the team members to configure the team(s). The way I learned these processes was to first build a Server 2008 full version and use these scripts and command line tools to configure the teams and the verify the settings useing the GUI.
For Storage access you cannot utilize teaming, you must use MultiPath. I found the Microsoft MultiPath to work very well and was easy to setup.

I cannot stress this enough, ensure you designate a interface for management and do not add this interface to a virtual switch. This will ensure you have proper access to the server as well as the server having proper access to the network and domain services.
Also naming/labeling the interfaces greatly assists with the configuration and troubleshooting. Make sure you rename the interfaces from the default "Local Area Connection XX" to a more descriptive name to identify them days, weeks and months down the road.

In the next part I will cover Hyper-V install and cluster setup.....stay tuned.

Big Week for Micrsoft OS

2009-05-01T19:45:00.001-06:00

This past week Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP2 was confirmed RTM, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd335036.aspx

Also Windows 7 RC was released to MSDN and TechNet subscribers (general availability on May 5th)
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/apr09/04-30Windows7RCPR.mspx

I am getting ready to install SP2 my dual boot laptop, Vista x64 is my primary workstation and I also have Server 2008 as a second boot for Hyper-V and a couple test workstations. Yes, soon after I will be installing the Windows 7 RC on Hyper-V.

I also want to get Server 2008 R2 installed, debating whether to upgrade my Server 2008 install on my laptop or go with a Hyper-V VM instead.

Changing Free/Busy Publication time to Public Folders in Outlook 2007

2009-04-28T10:00:00.000-06:00

My current client has a mix of Outlook versions and wanted to ensure that clients using pre-2007 Outlook could see free/busy information for 2007 client for 6 months. Well I looked and looked but could not find the setting to extend the publish time for free/busy in Outlook 2007. A co-worker finally found it for me, thought I would post this to help others out:

Standby Continuos Replication (SCR) in a Parent Child domain

2009-02-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

Ran into a problem configuring SCR here at a client, the client has an empty root domain with a child resource domain. Exchange is in the Child resource domain along with everything else. When I attempted to get configure SCR between two mailbox servers I got an error about SCR is not supported between servers in different domains. My first thought was to verify the machines were in the same domain and yes they are. I then tried the command from the target machine for the SCR (first time was from source) and got the same error.

I then went searching and found this:
http://blogs.technet.com/timmcmic/archive/2008/12/21/exchange-2007-sp1-ru5-error-regarding-replication-between-computers-in-different-domains-when-using-standby-continuous-replication-scr.aspx

Seems that Exchange 2007 SP1 Rollup 5 introduced this error and it was not fixed in Rollup 6 just released this month. The link has work some arounds for the problem and states it is schedule to be fixed in Rollup 7. Thanks to Tim McMichael for explaining this bug so I did not go crazy and start rebuilding or re-joining servers to domains.

Windows Server 2008 Core and iSCSI SAN configuration

2009-02-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

I am working at a client implementing Server 2008 Core cluster with Hyper-V. Had some interesting issues arrise during this implementation and I am still working on completing the project. Once completed I plan to document some of the gotchas and configurations I found during this project and document them here.

Stay tuned