Creating a Fixed VHD in Windows 7 and a ShadowProtect P2V

We have a VHD creation process running in the Windows 7 Disk Management console:

The above VHD is being created on a network share hosted by one of our Hyper-V servers (2008 R2). It will be a 160GB fixed VHD that will host the Windows 7 machine’s OS once ShadowProtect is finished.

While that process is running ShadowProtect is taking an image of the Windows 7 machine as it will be P2Vd onto the above Hyper-V host.

This image is running to a 2008 R2 file server.

The machine is a Core i7-875K with a pair of 80GB Intel X25-M SSDs running in RAID 0 and is soon to be retired.

We will use our P2V Hyper-V Integration Services (previous blog post) step to get rid of the RAID signature and enable IS in the OS. Then, we will use our Hardware Independent Restore (previous blog post) steps to clean out any left-over devices from the physical machine.

We find out of all products available to us, including Microsoft’s own Disk2VHD too, that ShadowProtect gives us the most reliable method of moving a physical machine into a virtual setting or taking a VM and restoring it to hardware.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Repeat after me: SATA does not belong in servers.

One of the very last servers we deployed with SATA drives had yet another failure in it.

There is a new Intel R2208GZ4GC 2U server in place with eight 600GB 10K SAS drives configured in a RAID 6 array already installed and waiting for tax season to slow down for them (they are an accounting firm).

Our client recently moved to a new location with the servers now located in a dedicated room in the basement. The little A/C unit in that room was a leftover from the previous occupant that we were not too sure about.

Well, the hot spare in this server, an Intel Server System SR1560SFHS with three 750GB Seagate ES series SATA drives, died about four months ago. Since the system was slated for replacement we left the remaining two in a RAID 1 array alone.

Well, that ended this morning with one of the drives in the pair having gone full stop. This was probably due to the fact that the temp in the room upon arrival this afternoon was close to 90F.

Someone had fired up the A/C unit without realizing that the hose that puts the heat outside was not connected to the back of the unit. Thus all of the heat it was trying to pull out plus its own heat yielded a very high temperature in that room.

Once the hose was affixed to the back of the unit the temperature started to come down.

So, here we are writing this blog post at 2216Hrs on a Wednesday evening after having logged in to check on the progress of the array rebuild and the above was what we saw.

The RAID controller is an Intel RAID Controller SRCSASRB with battery backup.

SATA does not belong in a server when it comes to spindled hard drives. This experience with the blind failure and the dismal rebuild times, during off hours no less, are definitely a part of it.

SAS/SCSI was designed and engineered to run in server environments. SATA was not.

The firmware tweaks that the hard drive vendors have introduced, along with the pretty much failed NCQ effort, to try and mimic a SAS setup within the SATA controller do not come close to the performance, longevity, and stability that SAS drives offer.

By the way, this goes for NearLine SAS drives as well. These drive types are SATA internals with SAS electronics slapped on to the external of the drive. There is a very good reason why the drives are called "NearLine". :)

The cost on 2.5" 10K SAS drives in 300GB and 600GB sizes have come down quite a bit in the last year. The 900GB 10K SAS drives are still relatively expensive per Gigabyte but provide an opportunity for a large aggregate of storage when needed.

Another way to look at it is this: How many RMA efforts have gone in to server setups with SATA drives in them? Compare that with the servers that have SAS setups. In our case, where we have lots of servers deployed, there is virtually no comparison. Over time the SAS drives have completely trumped the SATA drives in all aspects.

Even with 24x7x365 by 4 hour response times most vendors require time wasted on the phone prior to initiating that on-site visit to replace the failed drive. This time is expensive and to some extent a waste.

Oh, and one more thing: If going with parity in an array go RAID 6 with at least eight 10K spindles and make sure the RAID controller has either flash backed cache or a battery backup.

Storage is almost always the weakest point in a server both for hardware failures and I/O bottlenecks. Kill both. Use a wide array of eight spindles or more and make sure the drives 10K SAS.

The risk when using SATA is just not worth the "savings" IMNSHO (in my not so humble opinion).

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

The “Right” Client and Our Business

Fellow MVP Cris Hanna pointed to the following article:

•  Inc.com: 8 Customers You Should Avoid

It took us almost 5 years to be able to start being choosy about the work we took on and the client relationships we wanted to build.

In that first five years we had to learn _a lot_ of lessons from the school of hard knocks.

Everything from a long standing and ongoing client not paying for work they signed off on to folks that expected a whole lot of work for no pay.

Then there was the scope creep on big projects where the original job, say a migration, then included a bunch of Line of Business application upgrades and migrations . . . and were not in the original proposal/agreement but, “since you’re already here . . . “

One of the more difficult lessons was in communication. That is communicating with the client about ongoing scheduling, jobs, and other task needs.

A really bad habit to break is to _not_ communicate with a client we have an appointment with that we are running late or even that we may need to reschedule.

In this day and age where we are facing pressures from all sides to cut and run we need to be extra mindful of the one gem in the rough we have in SMB: The face-to-face contact and relationship with our client contacts.

• Be a man, or woman, of our word.
• Need to make a change? Communicate first.
• Use the tools at hand.
• Outlook calendar invites, ticketing system if you use it, and keep lots of notes!
• Phone is best. Texting seems to be a close second.
• Be legit, stay legit, and deal with folks that operate above board.
• This is especially true for software licensing.
• Be personable.
• When on-site reach out, say hello to everyone, and especially ask them how their day and tech are doing!
• Operate on principle.
• Create a project scope and a set of terms & conditions.
• Stand by them.
• Add-on charge _everything_ not included in the original scope.

Having an established set of terms & conditions is one thing.

Abiding by them and following through on them are two _very_ important aspects of the business relationship. By doing so, we place the expectation ball in the prospect’s/client’s court of being honest and forthright in their communications and negotiations with us and ours with them.

By not following through on our commitments, and holding them to theirs, we place ourselves in a very awkward position where precedent gets set that the prospect/”client” may indeed be free to take advantage of us.

This is a very dangerous precedent to set.

The same is true for time spent on _any_ client related need. Any and all time must be billed for and tracked with a full set of notes. But, most importantly, the client _must_ approve that work in writing ahead of time.

Yes, on-the-fly this may be difficult to be had, but again this is where communication abilities come in to play.

An e-mail simply stating that we hit a snag and that extra time will be needed can be fired off from a Smart Phone in a matter of seconds. If the contact approves of it verbally confirm that by e-mailing them back with a “Thanks for your approval” note.

Keep a paper trail. Keep an e-mail trail. Keep all documentation and notes related to any and every project small or large. Get a scanner that can do scan to PDF with OCR so that any font text can be read into that PDF and be searchable later on.

Scan all handwritten content in and set it into a client’s folder called NOTEs or ticketing system.

In the end if a question about what we have done ever comes up then we have something to fall back on including any and all communication with the client/contact.

We also use SNIP in Windows to take snippets of all of the situations we are working with.

In the end keeping the above approach to running our IT business protects both our clients and us.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Signs of the Times: IBM PartnerWorld Withdraws the Registered Reseller Program

We went through the grief of getting registered with IBM as we had a proposal that required Tier 1 with IBM fitting the bill better than Dell.

With the recent rumblings that IBM is looking to sell their System X (Intel x86 line) product group possibly to Lenovo the above announcement makes some sense.

Though, given how difficult the whole partner process was to get signed up and registered in the first place maybe enrolment was really low to begin with.

In the end, our Tier 1 hardware needs can be more than met by Dell so long as it is backed up by the 24x7x365 by 4 hour on-site response warranty with no “Phone Support” clause. :P

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Intel Announces the End-Of-Life for the Intel Modular Server Platform

Bummer ...

• Intel Product Change Notification: 112168-00: IMS Compute and Chassis (link to PDF)

Wow, we had a good run with the IMS platform.

It was the platform we build our first Hyper-V failover cluster on.

It was the platform where we learned what VLANs do, Trunking means, and how to configure centralized storage for shared access.

We have done _a lot_ of testing on this platform, Hyper-V cluster deploys, and so much more. We have had the fortune to have been in touch with folks from all around the world that reached out to us for assistance with their IMS questions.

We do see some neat changes coming down the pipe including a new Intel Storage System JBOD2224S2DP platform that is perfect for Windows Server 2012 Storage Spaces and VHDX delivered via SMBv3 to Hyper-V Failover Cluster setups. The new Intel Server System R1208JP4OC 1U single socket unit looks to be a perfect fit for entry level nodes with the ability to tie in two SAS HBAs for redundancy.

So, time to move on with our individual node configurations utilizing Promise, IBM, and now we are even looking at Dell MD3220 smart storage as an option.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Hyper-V: Defragment the “Drive” in a Guest OS?

This post is as a result of a discussion on the SMB Virtualization Yahoo Group.

The article is in the TechNet Wiki:

• TechNet Wiki: Hyper-V: Defragmentation

Bryan’s response about whether to defragment the guest starts with it being relative to personal preference.

Indeed, we have a very specific reason set for _not_ defragmenting within a guest OS.

Why not?

For most VHD/VHDX deploys there has been an underlying disk subsystem set up. Sometimes on a RAID array hosting 4, 6, 8, 16, or more disks. Sometimes on a SAN or DAS with 16+ disks.

Now, we set up a _fixed_ VHD/VHDX file in the first place so as to limit file fragmentation at the host storage level (whether local, SAN, or DAS).

Some folks prefer to allocate dynamically expanding VHD/VHDX files however over time in larger storage situations defragmentation can indeed have an impact on storage throughput/IOPs.

Disk access is not the same for a guest OS. Running a defragment routine within the guest OS does not improve Read/Write access for a set of spinning platters as it could have back when.

In fact, running a defragmentation routine within the guest OS may only serve to load down the disk subsystem with unnecessary I/O for no real gains.

Back in the day we did indeed test disk setups for our NT Server deploys and found that over time a system partition integrated swap file caused disk access times to increase and overall throughput to degrade.

When we started to deploy our servers with a dedicated swap file partition with a defined swap file on that partition the server’s disk performance over time remained relatively robust.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Android, Apple, and Windows Ad = Funny . . . and a bit of snow!

This is our wonderful Spring weather in North Central Alberta this morning:

We’ve had a wet and heavy snow falling for quite a while now. It made for some interesting driving into town this morning. :)

Fellow SBS MVP Dave Nickason posted this to a list this morning and it’s hilarious!

Don’t fight. Switch to the Nokia Lumia 920 Windows 8 Phone

The video is very well done and quite funny to boot!

Happy Monday everyone. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

QuickBooks 2013 and Flash – Install the Database Setup on a Server And . . .

We get Flash!

We're not 100% sure where exactly Flash is required when it comes to the Database Manager for Intuit's QuickBooks.

But, it's not a really happy thing to be installing Flash on a server. :(

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer