Archive for the 'Windows Server 2008 R2' Category

Migrating away (up!) from SBS2008 – licensing alerts

Published 24 February 2010 EBS 2008 , Microsoft , SBS 2008 , Windows Server 2008 R2 Leave a Comment
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Recently replied to an old EBS2008 TAP friend and good mucker re: his plans to migrate away from EBS2008 and thought this post might help someone out there…

I’ll start by saying – no we haven’t done this with EBS!

But concur I’d be cautious on licensing.  We did something similar with our own production environment with that other license limited server product.. SBS2008.

With SBS2008 upgrading the domain/forest, and schema to R2 didn’t appear to be an issue but transferring the FSMO roles was.  SBS was soon (e.g. 24hrs) sending alerts stating “The FSMO role does not comply with the license policy“ – I’m pretty sure eventually seizing them back!!??!!

e.g.

-----Original Message-----
From: SBSMonAcct@thefullcircle.com [mailto:SBSMonAcct@thefullcircle.com]
Sent: 10 December 2009 19:37
To: +sysadmin
Subject: Windows Small Business Server 2008: Critical Event Notification

An alert was detected on your network. Further investigation into the issue is recommended.

Computer: SBSSRV01
Date/Time generated: 10/12/2009 15:50:24
Title: The FSMO role does not comply with the license policy
Source: License Compliance service
Description:
The FSMO Role Check detected a condition in your environment that is out of compliance with the licensing policy. The Management Server must hold the primary domain controller and domain naming master Active Directory roles. Please move the Active Directory roles to the Management Server now.

 

I found very little info on this last year, and in between adding R2 DC’s, Exchange 2010 (fun with mail routing), and adding SCE2010 Beta then RC into the network we ended up leaving the virtualised SBS2008 box in play – other priorities (customers!) have been more important.

Somewhat useless with helping find the cause – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd443466%28WS.10%29.aspx

very little info on it too -

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=The+FSMO+role+does+not+comply+with+the+license+policy&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=&fp=b432878984070c8a

Hope this helps, if just a little!

Training – Updating Your Windows Server 2008 Technology Specialist Skills to R2

Published 9 December 2009 Microsoft , Training , Virtualisation , Windows Server 2008 R2 Leave a Comment
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This week I have another couple of days out of the office (or our clients office) for yet more Microsoft Partner training - 2 days of updating your Technology Specialist skills Windows Server 2008 R2.

Updating Your Windows Server 2008 Technology Specialist Skills to R2

This course is so hot off the press that the materials were only delivered last Thursday… e.g. buggy labs – fun to fix! ;-) , no course DVD cut as yet, and a speaker that doesn’t know the materials, and fortunately doesn’t need too… as it’s being delivered by  Andy Mallone (www.quality-training.co.uk/blog/ & http://www.divedeeperevents.com/)

Andy is an MVP in Windows Server, has been an MCT for 15 years (had a 4-digit MCP id), is a speaker at various events inc. just back from TechEd delivering , and will be in Redmond in 2 months time as an external member of the Windows 8 product team… likely to be the first x64 only client OS from Microsoft.

Global Knowledge use the strap line ‘Experts teaching Experts’ – they have nailed it on this one. :-)

Anyway, on to the course (Top tips as usual at the end..):

Activity name: 44CO149 – Updating Your Windows Server 2008 Technology Specialist Skills to R2

Facility: Global Knowledge, London, 83 Baker Street, W1U 6AG

Who: Andy Mallone (www.quality-training.co.uk/blog/)
MVP Windows Server, MCT for 15 years, speaker at various events inc. just back from TechEd, and will be in Redmond in 2 months time as an external member of the Windows 8 product team!

Andy Malone has a deep and broad understanding so far beyond the subject (and that your average instructor) that allowed him to easily fill in the gaps in the somewhat lacking and already outdated course materials.  The result was ‘quality training’ that has made a real difference to our long term understanding and ability to work with Windows 7 and the supporting technologies.

Activity Link (URL): https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/SYS_Login.aspx?lang=en-gb&RU=https%3A//training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx%3FActivityId%3D549434%26UserMode%3D0

Activity description: 44CO149 – Updating Your Windows Server 2008 Technology Specialist Skills to R2

Summary:

This two day intensive course is aimed at fast tracking Windows Server Technical Specialists and IT professionals onto the new technology of Windows Server 2008 R2. This course will also provide enough knowledge and skills for Partners to pass the new WS08R2 exam, due out later this year.

Prerequisites:

Students who attend this 2-day ILT should have the following prerequisite knowledge:
• Possess core Windows Server 2008 Technology Specialist skills.

• Familiarity and experience with batch scripting or another scripting language.

• Experience with Windows deployment technologies and implementation.

• Experience with Windows networking technologies and implementation.

• Experience with Active Directory technologies and implementation.

• Experience with Windows Server 2008 server virtualization technologies and implementation.

• Experience with Windows Server 2008 Web application server technologies and implementation.

Objectives:

Students who attend this 2-day ILT should have the following prerequisite knowledge:
• Possess core Windows Server 2008 Technology Specialist skills.

• Familiarity and experience with batch scripting or another scripting language.

• Experience with Windows deployment technologies and implementation.

• Experience with Windows networking technologies and implementation.

• Experience with Active Directory technologies and implementation.

• Experience with Windows Server 2008 server virtualization technologies and implementation.

• Experience with Windows Server 2008 Web application server technologies and implementation.

Top tips & links picked up during the course…

- Using VHD’s created in disk management for storage whatever you need, whereever you need it, appearing as local storage (disk, volume, etc.) - helping towards the goal of ’elastic enterprise solutions’ & cloud computing

Demo on how to use a VHD to support native OS boot for Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 – more at Keith Combes excellent blahg at http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/05/22/dual-boot-from-vhd-using-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx

- AD Administration Center… the shape of AD admin to come..?
(an R2 RSAT feature..)

- Technologies you need to embrace to succeed in this industry in the next few years… Virtualisation, Cloud, IPv6

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MinWin

- http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730985.aspx

- Encryption types, data at rest (e.g. encrypting on the disk with bitlocker) vs. data in transit (e.g. encryption on the network with IPsec)

- MSAT (Microsoft Security Assessment Toolkit) – is gold!

-

Hyper-V Server R2 build on ProLiant hardware step-by-step

Published 7 December 2009 Hyper-V , Microsoft , Virtualisation , Windows Server 2008 R2 Leave a Comment
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This is a step-by-step guide to installing Windows Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 on HP ProLiant hardware and is written with reference to my server core commands post back in April 2008 – in fact this should have been written at least 6 months ago so apologies if you’ve only just found this now.

Before you start, go to your vendor’s (in this case HP) support site to check for latest downloads), namely firmware, drivers, and system management software.

For my development box, the cheap and cherful HP ProLiant ML110 (not really a ProLiant as in 3xx series upwards that take SmartStart) this means going to:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=3577715&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3577708&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=4064
(at last R2 drivers! :-) , but also suppliemented by Windows Server 2008 x64 drivers at:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=3577715&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3577708&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=4024

Matrox Video Driver for HP ProLiant 100-series Servers 5.96.6.6
10 Apr 2008
HP Embedded G5 SATA RAID Controller Driver for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x64 Editions 1.5.17020.0
11 Aug 2008
HP NC-Series Broadcom 1Gb Driver for Windows Server 2008 x64 Editions 12.2.2.1
10 Nov 2009
HP NC-Series Intel E1E Driver for Windows Server 2008 R2 9.13.12.0
18 Aug 2009

 

  1. H/W config – unplug all but onboard NIC
  2. Boot from Hyper-V Server R2 installation media
  3. Language selection
  4. Regional Settings (Language, Time & Currency, Keyboard)
  5. Accept license terms
  6. Chose Custom installation
  7. Where do you want to install Windows?
    Select Load Driver to load h/w specific raid/disk drivers
    (For ML110 G5 PoC this is ‘G5 SATA RAID Driver 1.5.17’ from a USB key)
  8. Where do you want to install Windows?
    Delete any existing partitions so the target disk is all ‘Unallocated Space’
    Drive options (advance), New, Size is 32768 + 100 (32868 MB)
    (WS2008 R2 will create a partition called ‘System Reserved of 100MB), the remainder will become your target/intended size partition (32GB)
    Create a partition in the unallocated space and format it so the disk drives are contiguous
    Select the 32GB partition and select Next to start installation (Copying Windows files, etc.)
  9. The system will restart during installation (approximately 20mins from copying), and after c.30 mins the console screen will report ‘preparing the system for first time use’ before prompting ‘The user’s password must be changed before logging on the first time.’
  10. Install vendor specific hardware drivers
    1. Video drivers (ML110 G5 – Matrox G200e v.5.96.006)
    2. Network drivers (HP NC-Series Broadcom 1Gb Driver for Windows Server 2008 x64 Editions v12.2.2.1, HP NC-Series Intel E1E Driver for Windows Server 2008 R2)
  11. Hyper-V Configuration (sconfig.exe, formerly hvconfig.exe)
    1. Domain/Workgroup
      Workgroup: leave as WORKGROUP as domain join later
    2. Computer Name: HVNODEnn
      (DO NOT restart, resume Initial Configuration tasks)
    3. Add Local Administrator
      (add any local service accounts, etc.)
    4. Add Features
      Use script (sc-enableSNMP.cmd, sc-enableBackup.cmd) to add:
      SNMP Services (pre-req for most vendor systems management  tools)
      Windows Server Backup Features
    5. Configure Networking:
      Use script (sc-renameNICs.cmd) to rename adapters per:
      Local Area Connection – Onboard
      Local Area Connection – DualPort #1
      Local Area Connection – DualPort #2Assign static addresses per local site IP addressing allocation / standards
      Plug in any additional NICs e.g. iSCSI SAN, additional switches, etc.
    6. Configure Remote Management
      Enable all features (MMC RM, PS)
      (DO NOT restart, resume Initial Configuration tasks – Network Settings)
    7. Remote Desktop
      (E)nable with option 2) Allow clients running any version of Remote Desktop
      (needs review in production)
    8. Windows Update Settings (leave as manual)
    9. Download and install updates
      Search for (A)ll updates, select (A)ll updates
      (DO NOT restart, resume Configuration tasks – domain join)
    10. Change Domain/Workgroup membership
      Join (D)omain – yourdomain.local
      (domain\administrative account)
      RESTART THE COMPUTER
    11. Logon as domain administrator and resume configuration
    12. Complete ‘Configure Remote Management’ (enable SM RM)
    13. Failover Clustering Feature – Enable
    14. Configure Microsoft iSCSI (start iscsicpl.exe)
      Agree to starting iSCSI services automatically
      Quick Connect (IP address of iSCSI Target)
      Connect the Quorum volume first, then configure Volumes and Devices (auto-configure)
      Configure as drive letter Q: in Disk Management then make offline
      Connect other Shared Storage volumes
  12. Server Manager (Connect to another computer…)  – configuration task
    1. SNMP Service Configuration (Configuration, Services, SNMP Service)
      Agent Contact: IT sysadmin – sysadmin@fqdn.com
      Agent Location: Test Lab, Rack, Site, Country
      Agent Service: enable all services
      Security: Add community names
        READ ONLY: snmp_read
        READ WRITE:  snmp_read_write
      Restart the service
    2. Disk Management
      Change CD-ROM 0 to drive letter F
      Create ‘New Simple Volume’ for D: Data, 64K Allocation unit size
      (Convert to Dynamic Disk..?)
  13. Hyper-V Configuration
    1. Hyper-V Server Settings (set paths to D:\Hyper-V\)
    2. Hyper-V Network Manager – add External ‘Virtual Network – External’

Microsoft tech•ed Europe 2009, Berlin, 12 November 2009

Published 12 November 2009 Data Protection Manager , Exchange 2010 , Hyper-V , IPv6 , Microsoft , Networking , SharePoint , System Center , Systems Management , Tech , Training , Virtualisation , Windows 7 , Windows Server 2008 R2 Leave a Comment
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Slighty shabby and a late start to Thursday following the Windows Server 2008 R2 EAP dinner followed by the 1E TechEd party – a heavy night! 

For the dinner, the UK team chose a fabulous Italian restaurant called Bacco (www.bacco.de/english/restaurant/restaurant.html) which I’d definately go back to and hosted a great evening… many thanks to Stuart, Gareth, Neil, Alex, etc. from Microsoft UK. 

We were also joined by Allen Stewart & Rajesh Dave from corp.  Allen is Principal PM for Windows Server and Raj is a PM for Windows Hyper-V.  Both very interesting & incredibly knowledgable guys with deep understanding across a wide range of topics (and not just Microsoft!).
I pestered them for info on Hyper-V thin provisioning of memory and whilst they couldn’t confirm anything as we all said ‘we live in hope!’ ;-) 

…as for the  night, I’d been invited to the 1E TechEd Europe party at Spindler & Klatt www.spindlerklatt.de - an uuber trendy restaurant/club in East Berlin frequented by the likes of Angelina, Clooney, and now Cook! 

What a great party and many many thanks to the team at 1E (www.1e.com).  Did I mention I was the 4th member of the business in the founding year?  (yes I probably did & several times.. lots to drunk! ;-) ) We went our separate ways in 1999, oh for a slice of that now… anyway, moving on! 

Seriously though hats off to Samir, Mark, and Phil – they have built a company that knows how to throw a great party (regarded as the best at TechEd), and a team of very bright, talented people who have a lot of respect for the company and its founders. 

Ouch my head is pounding!  time to go to sessions, starting with… 

ITS211 Keeping Your CIO Happy: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SLA Scorecarding with Operations Manager 2007 and SQL Server 2008

Gordon McKenna & Sean Roberts speaking at TechEd
Presenters: Gordon McKenna, Sean Roberts, www.inframon.com
Thu 11/12 | 10:45-12:00 | London 2 – Hall 7-1b
Learn how you can create CIO level SLA scorecards in SharePoint Server 2007 for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 using some of the new features in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services and to create Executive SLA views of your Operational Environment. The session looks at why these types of views are important to many companies, what impact this can have on your business, and what simple steps you can take to achieve very effective, high-level executive views of everything from performance and availability of your key LOB services and applications, whether important SLAs and KPIs are being achieved and whether your IT department is meeting the day-to-day needs of your business. The key demos in this session take you through the steps you need to implement effective business scorecarding in SharePoint Server 2007 using key metrics collected in the Operations Manager 2007 Datawarehouse based on “real-world” experiences gained from the field. After attending this presentation you will have a good insight into how CIO Scorecards can help you add value to your Operations Manager deployments, helping you to show real value to your executives.
Tip – to remove parameter data from Ops Mgr reports imported into a SharePoint webpart, suffix the url with &rc:Parameters=collapsed
Cracking session from Gordon & Sean on how to try and keep your CIO happy (if that’s possible! ;-) )
blog Daniel Savage

Service Level dashboard – free solution accelerator dashboard on Microsoft 

SVR401 & 402 DirectAccess Technical Drilldown, Part 1 of 2: IPv6 and Transition Technologies + Part 2 of 2: Putting It All Together

John Cradock presents DirectAccess Technical Drilldown, Part 1 of 2: IPv6 and Transition Technologies 

Presenter: John Craddock (www.xtseminars.co.uk)
Thu 11/12 | 13:30-14:45 | Helsinki – Hall 7-2a
Take a sprinkling of Windows 7, add Windows Server 2008 R2, IPv6 and IPsec and you have a solution that will allow direct access to your corporate network without the need for VPNs. Come to these demo-rich sessions and learn how to integrate DirectAccess into your environment. In Part 1 learn about IPv6 addressing, host configuration and transitioning technologies including 6to4, ISATAP, Teredo and IPHTTPS. Through a series of demos learn how to build an IPv6 Network and interoperate with IPv4 networks and hosts. In Part 2 we add the details of IPSec, and components that are only available with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to build the DirectAccess infrastructure. Learn how to control access to corporate resources and manage Internet connected PCs through group policy. Part 1 is highly recommended as a prerequisite for Part 2.
John Craddock is an extremely talented AD/identity expert, and deeply technical across many other fields – in this case IPv6 & DA.
I was also lucky enough to have a drink with John and my old Microsoft PSS chum Paul Duffy on Monday night at the cleverly named hotel ‘Berlin Berlin’.
John is a genuine international industry expert and a thoroughly nice bloke with it!   Paul, another ‘genie-I’ went on to become PM for Office Communicator and knows a thing or ten about OCS amongst other subjects to a deep level.  This probably explains why these two know each other!
Anyway, back to the session plus my own notes, links, etc.
Gems & Tips
- be careful, not all apps will be compatible – test!
- to be native will likely mean new network gear, is new network layer (layer 2 unchanged)
- hex is back!  use of double colon notation, but can only be used once per address
- cannot mix with ipV4 mask bit notation
- host derived with mac address which has privacy issues, Win7 & R2 generate random based on interface, can be disabled (revert to mac based) with netsh interface ipv6 set global randomizeidentifiers=disabled
- route print -6 will show IPv6 route table
- ::1 is IPv6 loopback
- if you have a registered IPv4 address then you automatically have an IPv6 address on the 6to4 network
6to4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6to4 states 6to4 performs three functions:
  1. Assigns a block of IPv6 address space to any host or network that has a global IPv4 address.
  2. Encapsulates IPv6 packets inside IPv4 packets for transmission over an IPv4 network using 6in4.
  3. Routes traffic between 6to4 and “native” IPv6 networks.

- you need to manually unblock ISATAP entry in DNS which can be done via the registry or command line, e.g. 

C:\>dnscmd /config /globalqueryblocklist wpad 

Registry property globalqueryblocklist successfully reset.
Command completed successfully. 

ISATAP is a huge subject in it’s own right, the Intra-site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol Deployment Guide is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0f3a8868-e337-43d1-b271-b8c8702344cd&displaylang=en 

Putting it all together..

- Check tunnel endpoint authentication using ‘klist’ to list Kerberos data
- Use NRTP to direct DNS queries to a specific server for a particular names space (view using ‘netsh namespace show effectivepolicy’)
- PKI needs to be right as certificates are the foundations
- you must publish the revocation list
- NLS (Nework Location Server) is just a https website accessible from the DA server, e.g. nls.corp.example.com
- if it doesn’t work, it could be a couple of days troubleshooting! 

If you’re thinking of setting this up in a virtual lab, I also took note from Allen Stewart’s blog at http://blogs.technet.com/wincat/

…if you’re planning to virtualize your lab environment on Hyper-V, you should ensure you’re using Legacy Network Adapters for the child partition where you’re running the DAS. Using the default synthetic NICs is OK for all the other resources in the test lab, but for the DAS itself, it’s important to have both the Internet and Corpnet NICs as legacy ones, to ensure proper passing of traffic between both sides of the DAS. If you use the default synthetic adapters, you may end up in a situation where traffic doesn’t properly flow from the outside to the inside, even though all your IPsec, 6to4, Teredo, and IP-HTTPS settings are correct. Basically, you’ll be in a situation where connectivity will fail at a basic level, with you not even being to successfully ping the internal DNS server using its ISATAP address.If you’ve already built your lab on Hyper-V using the synthetic adapters, the fix is pretty simple. Just replace them with legacy ones, reconfigure the IP addressing as specified in the guide and rerun the DirectAccess wizard, again supplying all the information specified in the guide. After doing so, all your traffic should flow properly.

- Thanks Allen!

DAT312 All You Needed to Know about Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering

Presenter: Gopal Ashok
Thu 11/12 | 17:00-18:15 | London 3 – Hall 7-1b
There are major architectural changes in SQL Server 2008 for failover cluster setup and management, geared towards increased reliability and high-availability. To learn all the benefits and changes, attend this session for a comprehensive overview direct from the product development group. We cover SQL Server 2008 failover clustering setup, underlying Windows Server cluster and how SQL Server uses it, what’s new in SQL Server 2008 for failover clustering, differences from previous versions of SQL Server and future directions. This includes details of SQL Server 2008 failover clustering setup operations together with demos to illustrate the new setup.

- new features
- applications need retry mechanisms built in to provide seamless failover
- no longer have to take down the cluster to upgrade, supports rolling upgrades 

Want to deploy stretched clusters?  lots do.  As in separate geo-redundant clusters, not separate nodes e.g. 

Stretched SQL Clusters or the doodles of an artist?

Stretched SQL Clusters or the doodles of an artist?

- sql 2008 failover clustering install breaks on windows server 2008 R2 and needs to be slipstreamed with SP1 (If only we knew this last weekend!)
(slipstreaming is incorporating patches into the installation media to effect a higher level of install base over RTM – Microsoft tend to do this but not always quickly!)
see http://blogs.msdn.com/psssql/archive/2009/03/17/how-to-fix-your-sql-server-2008-setup-before-you-run-setup-part-ii.aspx for more info
- during upgrades to a 2-node cluster there will be a period of time when you are exposed to node failure, and must not have a failover attempt for fear of corruption.  removing the node from the cluster owners will stop premature attempted failover. 

Further Microsoft resources.. (will add others also) 

      SQL Server ® 2008 Failover Clustering White Paper: http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2009/07/08/sql-server-2008-failover-clustering.aspx 

      Recommended  Books Online  Doc Refresh #7 (May, 2009), or later: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms130214.aspx 

      Failover Clusters – Getting Started: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189134.aspx 

      Rolling upgrade process and best practice: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191295.aspx 

      Maintaining a Failover Cluster: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178061.aspx 

      Setup command line usage: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms144259.aspx 

      Configuration.ini file usage: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd239405.aspx 

Microsoft tech•ed Europe 2009, Berlin, 11 November 2009

Published 11 November 2009 Data Protection Manager , Exchange 2010 , Hyper-V , Microsoft , SharePoint , System Center , Systems Management , Tech , Training , Virtualisation , Windows 7 , Windows Server 2008 R2 Leave a Comment
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A daily update from Microsoft tech•ed Europe 2009, Berlin, 8-13 November 2009

Not the best day for me in terms of TechEd objectives (i.e. attending learning sessions, etc.) with the first post of the day saying ‘decisions decisions… for sessions just 09:00-10:15′ as struggled to choose between:

DAT302 Top 10 Best Practices for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services
or
MGT11-IS Get Virtualized with Microsoft System Center Essentials!
or
OFS322 Overview of Social Computing in SharePoint 2010
or
SVR207 Windows Server 2008 R2 File Classification Infrastructure: Managing your file data more effectively.
or
SVR319 Multi-Site Clustering with Windows Server 2008 R2

Ended up doing none of the above, but did have a productive breakfast meeting with Stuart Leddy, UK Windows Server Product Marketing Manager.  Stuart has been heading up the Windows Server 2008 R2 UK EAP activities that we have been involved in with Ascom Network Testing (http://blog.thefullcircle.com/2009/11/05/the-full-circle-secures-ascom-network-testing-for-windows-server-2008-r2-early-adopter-program/)

The day turned into going from one full session to the next, and walking back and forth for what seemed like miles in between!
my TechEd tip for the day - for popular sessions get there 10 minutes before they start!

Eventually did get into a 1st choice session I wanted at 12:20…

MGT03-DEMO Introduction to Microsoft System Center Essentials 2010

Presenters: Ravikiran Chintalapudi, David Mills, Eamon O’Reilly, Jeremy Winter
 
Come see the new customer-driven enhancements and fully integrated virtual management capabilities in the next release of Microsoft’s unified IT Management solution for medium-sized businesses, System Center Essentials 2010!
 
- great product, can manage 50 servers and 200 clients
 
 

SVR307 Security Best Practices for Hyper-V and Server Virtualisation

Jeff Woolsey, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Virtualization
http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/

Virtualisation is one of the hottest topics in IT today and security is a top priory for IT staff. In this session we cover security best practices for Hyper-V and introduce the Hyper-V Security Guide. This guide is Microsoft’s reference for hardening servers running Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V enabled.

- Use of BitLocker
- AV scanning of offline VHD images… stale/dormant VMs that get reintroduced to the corporate network then can wreak havoc to new vulnerability exploits.  first product to do this is McAfee VirusScan Enterprise for Offline Virtual Images (rolls off the toungue!)
- AV configuration… added benefit of passthrough disks – host AV will scan these disks.  install AV on the guests!
- VHD performance, 2nd most popular VM workload in Microsoft is SQL! fixed disk performance is now on par with raw/real disk!  but remember spindles still count!
- Dynamic VHDs are now up to 15x faster with R2 – still a 10-15% performance hit over fixed, and the risk of disk over commit
- Multipath I/O (MPIO) in R2 & Win7 is soo much easier with iSCSI Quick Connect
- Advanced Storage Capabilities… storage dedupe and replication, if it is block based it will work
Hyper-V Networking – don’t forget the parent is a VM too!  the Hypervisor slides in beneath the O/S once enabled.  More NICs the better, min 2, min 3 with iSCSI
Jumbo Frames… Significant performance increases, but the infrastructure must support it.  also needs to be end-to-end.  confirm test with ping host -l 4000 -f – if you get a response you have jumbo frames
Virtual Machine Queues - Hyper-V R2 supports processing offloading to newer network adaptors (Intel, Broadcom, etc.), most benefit with 10Gb/E
- more tips… turn off screen savers in guests, in Windows Server 2003 create using 2-way to ensure MP HAL

more of a best practise and walkthrough of some basic tasks like not forgetting to install Intergration Component, good session and great blogger (not me – Jeff! ;-) )

 

DAT301 Building and Implementing a High Availability Strategy for Your Enterprise

Presenter: Gopal Ashok
Wed 11/11 | 17:30-18:45 | London 3 – Hall 7-1b
Every business has mission-critical applications running on Microsoft SQL Server that require maximum uptime. Some application data is more critical than others and requires strict guarantees with regard to data loss. Depending on the application requirements and IT constraints, the availability strategy and corresponding technology choices will vary. As an architect, DBA, or IT admin it is important to develop the right HA strategy and corresponding solution which meets the availability requirement and at the same time provides the cost benefit for your organisation. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Always On Technologies provide a full range of options to minimise downtime and maintain appropriate levels of application availability. Come to this session to learn how to develop a comprehensive HA solution using the Always On technologies. The session walks you through the various technologies and features, providing a cost-benefit analysis and comparison, talks about the key decision points to consider when choosing a technology, and showcases real-world examples of how these technologies are currently used to provide a High Availability solution for various customer environments around the world.

Microsoft tech•ed Europe 2009, Berlin, 9 November 2009

Published 9 November 2009 Exchange 2010 , Hyper-V , Microsoft , Systems Management , Tech , Training , Virtualisation , Windows 7 , Windows Server 2008 R2 Leave a Comment
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<if you are reading this the week of 9th November then apologies up front, its published but is really a working draft>

Microsoft TechEd Europe 2009, Berlin 8-13th November, 2009

So this week I’m a TechEd & Berlin virgin, although I guess I’m not alone as there are over 7200 people from 104 countries attending this event! (ignore the later picture, it’s out of date before it was taken).

MD of German MS Business

www.citymosiac.de – Berlin Social Media project to mark 20yrs since collapse of the Berlin Wall

Stephen Elop, President, Microsoft Business Division
you can’t save your way to success, simply cost cutting not the answer
do more with less has become “with less, do more” – the new efficiency
UK govnt. Embracing cloud computing to increase efficiencies

Customer evidence from Statoil (Petter Wersland), NASDAQ OMX (Carl-Magnus Hallberg), Chester Zoo (Phil Morris)

Statoil – Exchange 2010 TAP, reduced storage by 60% but increased mailbox size 40-fold!
Identity & access & the cloud – complexities need to be addressed.

NASDAQ – latency issues due to disperse geography with low-long bandwidth, use of Win7 & Branch-cache.  Emphasis on IT & technology alignment with business projects, close to the strategy of the business.

Chester Zoo – Virtualisation saved £11K in electricity alone, being a Zoo obvious green agenda alignment.  Chester Zoo installed 50km of fibre optics, and have wireless cameras throughout the complex, inc. In cages – IT manager has been attacked by monkeys.. (literally!)

Windows 7 had over 7m beta users
Win7 was the biggest pre-order product on amazon.co.uk, dethroning Harry Potter “Windows 7 is King””  (oh dear!)

Cloud Computing

Microsoft Online Services

Exchange Online – adopters inc. GSK, Aeon, etc,  often in conjunction with on premises Exchange

Exchange 2010 GA today, RTM launch

Julia White, Director, Exchange 2010 Product Team

Demoed a mailbox move whilst in use…. err? Is that new?  Didn’t show the client at the end of the move process… was there a prompt?

Exchange 2010 mail tips that advise the user of issues before they click send, e.g. incorrect distribution groups, Out of Office, etc.

Speech to text and vice-versa

Outlook Web Access now, Outlook Web App

Unified Messaging improvements, also integrated into OWA

Transport rules that can apply actions to email types regardless of sender choices (or lack of – e.g. adding DRM to certain types of email)

DRM working across access types (mobile, browser… demo used FireFox)

Multi-mailbox search capabilities

Forester claim a complete ROI on Exchange 2010 deployment in 6 months!
Various ForeFront launches announced today

 

IT Infrastructure

Apparently (allegedly) 70% of the world’s servers are running Windows

-          Windows Server 2008 R2 stats – 460,000 downloads thus far

Robert Whabe, Corporate VP, Microsoft Server & Tools Business

Evolution of the Datacenter – green IT, virtualisation moving to private then public cloud

BranchCache reduced MS Mexico sales office bandwidth by 90%

SCOM/OpsMgr Dashboard demo showing KPI & summarised

Jeff Wettlaufer, Technical PM, System Center
Bunch of redelivered stuff around SCVMM e.g. PRO, Live Migration, power mgmt, etc.

 

Devlopers! Developers! Devlopers!

An auditorium for over 7000

Many signs pointing to TechEd, but where is it?!?!

F'F'F'Five degrees in Berlin

The Full Circle secures Ascom Network Testing for Windows Server 2008 R2 Early Adopter Program

Published 5 November 2009 Hyper-V , Microsoft , Tech , Virtualisation , Windows Server 2008 R2 Leave a Comment
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The Full Circle (www.thefullcircle.com) has been working with Microsoft Virtualisation technologies since before they were Microsoft Virtualisation technologies… (think back to Virtual PC from Connectix ;-) ).

More recently and formally, we have been working with Microsoft Hyper-V since the v1 Rapid Deployment Program (RDP) in spring 2008.  We attended various RDP Bootcamp training and used pre-release/beta versions of Hyper-V extensively to accelerate testing and migration for our Microsoft Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) Technology Adoption Program (TAP) customer, Newman Martin and Buchan – read more at http://reubenjcook.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/windows-essential-business-server-2008-launch/

For Hyper-V v2 we are a UK Early Adopter Program (EAP) partner for Windows Server 2008 R2, with a focus on virtualisation, specifically Hyper-V with failover clustering.  We’ve been working with various builds and flavours of Hyper-V v2 including the command line only and free Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, and also the full GUI versions available in the full Windows Server 2008 R2 product.

For an EAP, or TAP for that matter, you need a customer who’s willing to participate in deploying and testing early release software (Beta’s and Release Candidate builds) in a production environment, and then talk about it through press releases, case studies, etc. also known in Microsoft speak as ‘customer evidence’.
The benefits are many!  Microsoft gets real world deployments of their new product ahead of general release which helps with convincing the wider market that the technology is dependable and fit to deploy.  The customer gets to the latest technology for their business ahead of their competition, and often assistance/support such as sponsored consulting, licenses, etc.  The partner (us) gets supported training, technical assistance, and exposure to new products ahead of our competition, plus, of course, exposure in the market through PR & various co-marketing activities.

Our EAP customer deployment was with Ascom Network Testing (formerly Argogroup – www.argogroup.com).  Ascom Network Testing is part of the Mobile Test Solutions business of the Swiss company Ascom (www.ascom.com), and is a global provider of mobile test & measurement solutions for some of the worlds largest mobile network operators (the likes of Verizon, T-Mobile, Orange, etc.). 
Specifically Ascom wanted to update and improve the backend server components of a product called Monitor Master.  Monitor Master is an end-to-end solution for measuring ‘User Experience’ and collates and presents measurement data from mobile services probes out in the field.  Monitor Master is a Business Intelligence (BI) platform with a data warehouse back-end running on Microsoft SQL Server.

The project was given the title ‘EPIC’ due to the scale of the larger deployments which can be several hundreds of Gigabytes of data.  The primary goals were to accelerate the quality and consistency of customer deployments of the Monitor Master server components.  This was achieved by defining and testing new reference architectures including O/S setup, database configuration, hardware platform architecture, and operational procedures to manage the environment.

Clearly Virtualisation can help accelerate almost any platform development project and due to the timings of the project, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V v2 was an obvious choice.  Soon into the project we came to realise that due to the performance and other benefits of Hyper-V v2 it could actually form part of the solution, not just a tool to help develop it! :-)

Our old mate, business associate & mentor (for all things PR & communications), John Dean (COO of www.showmethegolf.tv) helped us put together a short release that announced this exciting project, it went out to coincide with the global Windows Server 2008 R2 & Windows 7 launch events and is available online via PRWEB (http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2009/10/prweb3039184.htm), but also below for your enjoyment!:

PRESS RELEASE

The Full Circle Secures Client for Windows Server 2008 R2 EAP

Ascom Network Testing Enrolled as Early Adopter for Hyper-V Virtualisation

London, 15 October 2009 – The Full Circle, the Microsoft Gold Partner specialising in virtualisation and infrastructure deployments, announced today that it had secured Ascom Network Testing’s participation in the Windows Server 2008 R2 UK Early Adopter Program (EAP).

Ascom Network Testing is a global mobile data software systems provider. They offer test and measurement solutions to many of the world’s largest mobile network operators, including Verizon, Orange, and T-Mobile.

The EAP enables selected partners to take part in co-funded consulting engagements to drive product deployments prior to full launch. This gives partners and customers strategic advantage while enabling Microsoft to develop public references for their marketing efforts.

Reuben Cook, Founder, The Full Circle – “We are delighted that Ascom Network Testing will be part of the Windows Server 2008 R2 EAP. We are confident it will offer tremendous value as it will enable them to reap the benefits that the new technologies can deliver to the business well in advance of their competitors.  Windows Server 2008 R2 is planned for release October 22nd”

Kit Smithers, Chief Technical Officer, Ascom Network Testing Ltd – ”We immediately recognised the benefits of participating in the program. We have a particularly strong interest in the benefits of virtualisation and consolidation, and look forward to enjoying the performance and flexibility benefits that it will give us.”

Mike Peers, Channel Development Manager, Virtualisation, Microsoft – “The Full Circle have been an active partner on our Windows Server 2008 R2 Early Adoption Programme.  The programme is designed to help partners gain early experience deploying Hyper-V, whilst also benefitting customers in the early adoption of the technology.”

Cook concluded: “At first we saw Hyper-V as a component that could accelerate Ascom’s internal solution development process.  But it has quickly become apparent that Hyper-V could in itself become part of their client solution offering, due to the power, performance and stability it offers.  It has been a great success.”

Ends:  340 Words

Microsoft Partner Network 2009, Wembley Stadium, October 7th 2009

Published 7 October 2009 Exchange 2010 , Hyper-V , Microsoft , Tech , Windows 7 , Windows Server 2008 R2 Leave a Comment

Today attending the Microsoft Partner Network 2009 at Wembley!

What Microsoft had to say before the event…

Event Overview
Please join the Microsoft UK team and a number of our executives for our primary UK channel event, Microsoft Partner Network 2009.
Targeted at Partner executive level contacts and sales leads we want to provide you with insights into Microsoft’s current strategies, the direction of our business, a selection of the innovative technology we’re launching this year and how we hope to work with you, our Partners, to drive joint success.

It’s a big year as we transition the Microsoft Partner Programme to the Microsoft Partner Network and we want to take the time to ensure you are getting the most out of your relationship with Microsoft.

This event will take a fresh look at the market opportunities, highlight potential strategies to ensure you continue to be ready to meet customers’ needs, and are ready and able to exploit opportunities that arise.

Exploring Microsoft Technology – James Akrigg, UK & British! Microsoft Technology Specialist

SharePoint on the Internet
investors in people and Ferrari website is SharePoint!

The Windows Wiggle ;-)

Business value benefits of Windows 7…
Power saving via group policy
City of Miami claim $53 per desktop per year
Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2 – Direct Access… no more VPN!
Bitlocker to go – USB key encryption

R2 & Hyper-V – Live Migration, etc.

New version of SCE 2010 launched last week

UM demo with LCS, Exchange, Outlook to setup a conference call from a calendar item.

Live speech to text demo and it worked!

Windows phone announced yesterday

Microsoft Innovation – Andrew Herbert, MD MS Research Cambridge

MS Cambridge Labs…
F#
next version of xbox with vision technology for natural user interface

“create seamless experiences that combine the power of software across the Internet using any device”

More at Microsoft Research

UK Perspective – Gordon Frazer, GM Microsoft UK

“the biggest room in my house is the room for improvement!” ;-)

R&D $9.5B – long term, tenacious innovation

The Journey to Success – Andrew Akrigg
The tools are there – use them!
e.g.
Microsoft GearUp Toolkit

Product Lifecyle information (www link…)

Microsoft Pinpoint

Microsoft RSS feeds

Microsoft Partner Player (web link)

Doing more…
MVP program
sharing your code on codeplex

WS2008-R2 Add Roles Hyper-V cannot be installed..

Published 16 September 2009 Hyper-V , Microsoft , Windows Server 2008 R2 1 Comment
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When trying to automate the build/deployment of Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition (Full install) using scripts for adding roles and features beware using ”start /w ocsetup Microsoft-Hyper-V” as this may break your server from successfuly performing a Hyper-V install..

If you do use that script then something (quite a lot) happens and various components appear to be installed including a restart.  Don’t be fooled in thinking Hyper-V has installed as when checking, Hyper-V isn’t listed as an installed Role and the management tool is not installed…

Later attempts to use the Add Roles Wizard to add Hyper-V reports it cannot be installed, giving this error dialogue:

Hyper-V-cannot_install

The processor on this computer is not compatible with Hyper-V. To install this role, the processor must have a supported version of the hardware-assisted virtualization, and this feature must be turned on in the BIOS.

eek!  but my x64 bit server has hardware virtualisation support hasn’t it..?!?!?   of course the answer is yes, but this what you will see on a box that hasn’t.

After rebuilding my test platform I realised the fix to this was to revert the attempted Hyper-V scripted install by using:
start /w ocsetup Microsoft-Hyper-V /uninstall
Allow the Windows Optional Component Setup dialogue to restart when prompted

Hope this helps save you a rebuild!

IAMCP UK chapter meeting – 10th Sept. 2009

Published 10 September 2009 Microsoft , Tech , Windows 7 , Windows Server 2008 R2 Leave a Comment
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Today attended the International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners (IAMCP UK) UK chapter meeting hosted at Microsoft’s very swish London Victoria offices.

IAMCP U.K Chapter Meeting Agenda

Date:            Thursday, 10th September, 2009.
Location:       Microsoft, 100 Victoria St, London, SW1E 5JL.
Timings:        09:30 to 14:00 

Time Slot: Agenda Item: Presenter:
09:30 Arrival and registration

 

  
10:00 Introduction; IAMCP Overview and Updates Kelvin Kirby, Chairman, IAMCP UK Chapter
10:15 Overview of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Aileen Hannah & Gareth Hall, Microsoft
10:50 Windows® Azure™ Platform – What does it mean to me? Dan Scarfe, Chief Executive, Dot Net Solutions
11.15 BREAK

 

  
11.30 Surviving in the Current Market Conditions Darren Shirlaw, Shirlaws

 
12.15 An Overview of the UK Public Sector ICT Market Stephen Roberts, Principal Analyst, Kable
12:45 Voices for Innovation Update Donna Whitehead, VFI

 
12:55 Close & Wrap Up

 

  
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch and Networking Partners are encouraged to stay and network over lunch.

 Aileen Hannah – Launch Lead for Windows Client
  Windows 7E (EU version) – dropped, Win7 in EU will be full product
  “Microsoft are 100% confident that 98% of Vista apps will work on Win7” (not inc. Security s/w! ;-)
  Win7 DirectAccess – needs Windows Server 2008 R2 on back-end
  Win7 BranchCache – works with R2, but also will do P2P without R2
  Windows 7 Manageability
   Problem Recorder – automate screen grabs and email to support! J
   Troubleshooting Assistant
   MDOP costs $6 /seat /annum

brains and beauty... 2008 R2 & Windows 7 works better together ;-)

Gareth Hall – Windows Server Product Manager, UK
  “$3B of investment covered in 3 minutes!” ;-)
  Windows 7 & R2 is a combined sell – massive interest in both, ‘work better together’
  R2 upgrades do not require new CAL licensing, full version do
  Value of Windows Server practise – costs more, takes longer to implement… customer benefit? ;-)
  R2 Active Directory Recycle Bin – ever spent 3 weeks trying to recover a bad AD object delete?
  DirectAccess – takes  a lot of setting up, but is very compelling.  Already IPv6 then easy, who is!?
  (services opportunity)
 
Dan Scarfe – CEO, Dot Net Solutions: Windows Azure Platform – What does it mean to me?
   “.NET for the Data Center”
  Azure (www.azure.com/PartnerQuickstart) is made up of:
    Windows Azure (Compute, Storage, Management)
    SQL Azure (Relational data, Management)
    .NET Services (Connectivity, Access Control) EasyJet are trialling connectivity from mobile devices to check-in systems so your mobile device will register you for check-in whilst you are in the queue.
  Generation 4 data centers – Chicago, IL 700,000 sq.ft (16 football fields), 60 megawatts, Dublin, 303,000 sq.ft (8 football fields), 22.2 megawatts – more DC’s planned
   Containers full of servers, whole container is connected, cannot walk inside, if a server goes down it is marked as bad like a sector on a disk, eventually the whole container is swapped out best energy efficiency for data center technology in the world
  Same platform as MS Online offerings (Exchange, SharePoint, Dynamics)
  Azure app development is very easy for .NET developers
  Pricing – pay as you go, charges based on metering
  If going for a cloud based solutions you really are getting into bed with the vendor, it had better be the right one as bed hopping has serious ramifications!