Hyper-V Cluster Resources For Upgrading The Nodes to Win2K8 R2 SP1

We have not made any attempts to upgrade any of our existing Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 RTM failover clusters with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 yet.

Here are some resources that outline some of the good, bad, and ugly:

• Working Hard in IT Blog: Upgrading a Hyper-V R2 Cluster to Windows 2008 R2 SP1
• This is an excellent step-by-step blog post.
• Microsoft KB 2531907: Validate SCSI Device Vital Product Data (VPD) test fails after you install Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
• A caveat for the Cluster Validation Wizard after SP1 is applied.
• Microsoft Forums: Hyper-V Cluster issues after applying Win2008 R2 SP1 on a 3 node Cluster!
• Ramazan Can Blog: Hyper-V Failover Cluster-Step-by-Step Guide Rolling Upgrade SP1
• Another good step-by-step guide.
• Hyper-V Blog by Hans Vredevoort: What if Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 fails?
• Do a rolling SP1 install on one node at a time.
• Microsoft TechNet: Hyper-V Update List for Windows Server 2008 R2
• Microsoft Support (Search): kbclustering

With the above in mind we will run the Service Pack on one node at a time making sure to have a good backup of each VM prior to beginning the process.

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Office 2010 Service Pack 1 Is Released

The Microsoft Office Blog post:

• Microsoft Office Blog: Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1 Availability

The post has a nice grid with links to all of the various Office 2010 SP1 downloads:

Some helpful links:

• Microsoft Downloads: Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Office 2010 (KB2460049) 32-bit Edition
• Microsoft Downloads: Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Foundation 2010 (KB2460058)
• Microsoft KB 2460058: Description of SharePoint Foundation 2010 SP1
• Microsoft KB 2532126: Known issues when you install Office 2010 SP1 and SharePoint 2010 SP1

Note that the Office 2010 SP1 download weighs in at 361MB.

Once we have the download we will extract its contents:

• Microsoft KB 912203: Description of the command-line switches that are supported by a software installation package, an update package, or a hotfix package that was created by using Microsoft Self-Extractor
1. C:\Temp>officesuite2010sp1_x86 /extract:C:\Temp\Office2010SP1_x86
2. 
3. 

We then place the extracted files into the Updates folder of our Office 2010 Group Policy based distribution points. Any new installation would be up to date.

Note that we will not be distributing the service pack files to clients as of yet. We will test the service pack prior to releasing it for general use.

Hat Tip: Susan Bradley

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

SBS 2011 Backup Error: Add Destination Drive Failure – Cannot Configure Backup Schedule

We went to add a destination drive to one of our newly migrated to SBS 2011 servers.

When we ran the wizard after plugging in the new backup drive we ended up with the wizard coughing up a generic failure message: Cannot Configure Backup Schedule.

We opened C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Logs\SBCW.log in NotePad to find:

[6572] 110627.121259.4347: Storage: Terminating error in Set-WBPolicy: System.Exception:
The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect ---> Microsoft.SnapIns.Backup.UI.Proxy.BlockLevelBackupException: IBlbEngine::ModifyTemplate failed due to error: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect, (0x8007007b)..

We searched on that error and came up with:

• Microsoft TechNet Forums: Dreaded "Cannot Configure Backup Schedule" on SBS 2011

That in turn led us to this Microsoft KB:

• Microsoft KB 2009365: Error message when you try to add an additional disk to a scheduled backup: "The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect"

We are presented with three options:

1. Attach the original backup destination.
• In this case we only have one drive dock so no go.
2. Remove the original backup destination altogether.
• Live disk for rotation so no go on this one.
3. Manually add the new disk using WBAdmin.
1. This was it.

The how-to from the KB:

1. Run the following command from an elevated command prompt to determine the Disk Identifier of the new disk:
        wbadmin get disks
2. Based on the output, locate the disk that will be added to the scheduled backup. Make a note of the Disk Identifier. The output will resemble the following:
   Disk name: xxxxxxxxxxx
   Disk number: x
   Disk identifier: {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}
   Total space: xxx.xx GB
   Used space : xxx.xx GB
3. Run the following command to add the new disk to the Scheduled backup.  Use the Disk Identifier from the previous step as the "AddTarget" parameter.
   WBADMIN ENABLE BACKUP -addtarget:{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}
   
4. When you receive the following prompt, type Y for Yes.

"Do you want to enable scheduled backups with the above settings?"

Now, there were a few more prompts after point 4 that we said Yes to.

Of course the new disk now had the Windows Server Backup label so we changed that using Disk Management. But, the status under the Backup tab in the SBS Console still showed the WSB label.

For now, we have that additional disk in the rotation with our first backup to it successful:

We will keep this backup rotation short and introduce another drive at the end of the week so we can bring this one back to the shop and do a test restore. We have not yet needed to restore a backup from a destination that was incorporated into a backup routine via this method as of yet.

We _always_ want to know if a backup is good for a full bare metal restore. The only way to know is to actually restore it! :)

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Promise VTrak– RAID Migration Time To Add Two 300GB 15K SAS Drives To Existing Disk Array

The Promise VTrak E610sD unit that we have been using for our IMS and Intel Server System based Hyper-V failover clustering had eight (8) 300GB 15K Seagate SAS drives configured in one Disk Array.

We added two more 300GB 15K Seagate SAS drives to the VTrak unit to test how a live RAID Migration would impact overall performance of the unit.

Event 42: DA_0 – June 24, 2011 1335Hours – RAID migration has started.

We had the VMs on the cluster shut down initially to bring all disk activity as close to zero MB/Second as possible.

When we went through the RAID Migration steps we made a point of preserving the VM’s LUN RAID 10 configuration as it wanted to change the configuration to RAID 1E.

Once we clicked Next, Submit, and Confirmed that we wanted the RAID Array Migration to run we saw the following:

That 0% sat there _for a long time_.

Meanwhile, with the VMs shut down we saw:

Based on that 28MB/Second number we figured that the RAID Array Migration process was going to take a while.

Well, it most certainly did:

Event 46: DA_0 – June 25, 2011 1159Hours – RAID migration has completed.

The process took around 22.5 Hours!

Now, we did fire up the four VMs running on the Hyper-V cluster not long after the above performance graphs snip was taken. So, we had SBS, SQL with LoB, and two Windows 7 desktop VMs running in production mode while the migration was happening.

We did some performance testing in the LoB as we had already been running some baseline performance tests for the cluster setting and saw very little if any impact on its performance.

The LoB is SQL, IIS, and .NET intensive.

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Excel – Security Warning: Automatic update of links has been disabled [Fix]

Okay, so not quite a fix. But, we have a number of different Excel spreadsheets that we use to build our system, solution, and proposal quotes structures with the lot of them tying in to each other.

Somewhere along the line while editing one of them the following error started to appear an a leaf workbook (Trunk = full proposal, Branch = hardware, software, or labour, Leaf = Individual components/servers/etc.):

Security Warning: Automatic update of links has been disabled. Enable Content

Okay, so how do we find these links?

A quick search turned up the following methodology:

1. Highlight all sheets by CTRL+Clicking on them.
2. CTRL+F to bring up Find
3. Click the Options button.
4. Change Within to: Workbook
5. Look in: Formulas
6. Find What: [
7. Click the Find All button.
• 

Ah, now it becomes clear as to what happened to bring about the error. An errant copy and paste.

Now that we know where the problem is, we can fix it and no longer receive the warning for this particular leaf workbook.

Hat Tip: Excel Hints: Find (and Delete) External Links

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Office Live 365 – We Are Now Online

Okay, so five minutes after hitting the post button in Windows Live Writer our SharePoint site came online.

• MPECS Inc. Blog: Office 365 Beta – Go Live Time Here

Now that DNS has had a chance to propagate for our new domain we are trying to get our Outlook connected.

Step 1 – Get that info in:

Step 2 – Authenticate:

Step 3 – We are connected:

Step 4 – Outlook wants to restart:

Step 5 – Outlook shows the mailbox:

Now, let’s test to see just how the system will handle spam:

• E-mail: PhilipElder@hostedmpecs.ca

With the above address being integrated into my Outlook, please feel free to e-mail me there however with Microsoft announcing that the O365 service is going live in a few days there is no guarantee on how long this beta based mailbox stays alive.

We will not pay for this service as we are already properly licensed in-house and utilize OWN’s Hosted Exchange for our client’s needs as well as our own.

So, let’s see just how long this lasts! :)

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Phone 7 – Terms of Use

Derek Knight pointed out an article that draws attention to certain aspects of Google’s Terms & Conditions for the use of an Android based phone:

• Business Technology Law Blog: You Have No Privacy On Mobile Devices. Get Used To It.

Essentially, both Apple and Google are quite aggressive about how they go about collecting, storing, and using data on any mobile device that is on their platform.

Since we carry a Windows Phone 7 device, we went back to the Terms Of Use that Microsoft has on the phone:

• Microsoft: Windows Phone Terms Of Use
• Microsoft: Windows Phone Privacy Policy

In the TOU note Point 9 that indicate data is collected, but

In order to operate and provide the service, we collect certain information about you. We use and protect that information as described in the Microsoft Online Privacy Statement, http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=74170. In particular, we may access or disclose information about you, including the content of your communications, in order to: (a) comply with the law or respond to lawful requests or legal process; (b) protect the rights or property of Microsoft or our customers, including the enforcement of our agreements or policies governing your use of the service; or (c) act on a good faith belief that such access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, customers or the public.

The service is a private computer network that Microsoft operates for the benefit of itself and its customers. Microsoft retains the right to block or otherwise prevent delivery of any type of email or other communication to or from the service as part of our efforts to protect the service, protect our customers or stop you from breaching this contract. The technology or other means we use may hinder or break your use of the service.

In order to provide you the service, we may collect certain information about service performance, your machine and your service use. We may automatically upload this information from your machine. This data will not be used to personally identify you. You may read about this information collection in more detail in the privacy statement at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=74170.

Personal information collected through the service may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Microsoft or its affiliates, subsidiaries or agents maintain facilities. By using the service, you consent to any such transfer of information outside of your country. Microsoft abides by the safe harbor framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use and retention of data from the European Union.

In the Privacy Policy we find:

Uses of Information

Additional Details

• We use the information we collect to provide the services you request. Our services may include the display of personalized content and advertising.
• We use your information to inform you of other products or services offered by Microsoft and its affiliates, and to send you relevant survey invitations related to Microsoft services.
• We do not sell, rent, or lease our customer lists to third parties. In order to help provide our services, we occasionally provide information to other companies that work on our behalf.

For the most part, the Microsoft TOU and Privacy Policy are standard fair across many types of services providers.

It is _always_ a good idea to read the Terms & Conditions of any services provider. When we discover terms that are very invasive such as the Google and Apple terms we need to evaluate the risks versus benefits very carefully.

And, as always for us Canadians, the Patriot Act is something to be aware of on behalf of our clients when it comes time to discuss putting data in the Cloud.

Hat Tip: Derek Knight

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Office 365 Beta – Go Live Time Here

We signed up for the Office 365 Beta a while back but never heard back from the program until very recently.

Well, after receiving the sign-up e-mail we went about creating a new domain and a new LiveID for this project. We have seen situations where existing LiveIDs used for multiple services can get mixed up or have that LiveID’s connection to other than Office 365 services broken.

So, we are in!

We are going to add our new domain:

We need to wait until the newly registered domain and DNS setup hits the Internet before we can go any further. Once we do have everything lined up we will publish the e-mail address(es) here to make sure we get _lots_ of traffic! :)

Creating a user:

We will utilize the E3 plan to gain access to all of the O365 features that we can.

And, now that our domain has come online:

And, here we are about an hour later this is our new domain e-mail found in my Inbox:

The reply back to the mailbox has not arrived yet, but that may because ExchangeDefender has not picked up the new MX record for the domain.

One blip so far:

When we head into the Domain properties page we see:

Okay, we jumped into the help resources and ended up here:

• Office 365 Jump Start (13): SharePoint Online Administration

So far, nothing seems to be coming up for SharePoint:

We went in and created a service ticket at 1400Hrs:

The setup was brought online around 1320 Hours. 40 minutes should be more than enough time for the service to be provisioned.

1411 Hours: Still no ticket:

Well, that’s about all the time we have for this today folks! :|

We may need to go in after the fact and set up a domain for SharePoint as mentioned earlier. But, we should get the out of the box SharePoint site once provisioned. That has not happened as of yet.

For now our hands are tied.

OWN 1 –  O365 0

At least with OWN support we get a response when we open a support ticket after a short period of time. Chalk one up for OWN.

UPDATE 14:28 Hours: The SharePoint site just came up. Go figure.

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

WordPress Compromised – Time To Verify Things

With the number of folks using WordPress as their blogging platform, the news that the WordPress site has been compromised will be of great concern.

• WordPress Blog: Passwords Reset

The date of the above post is June 21, 2011. What was not mentioned in the above post is a timeline for the compromise.

Hopefully the WordPress folks make that information available to help users figure out if they downloaded any content with malicious code in it.

Affected content:

• WordPress: AddThis
• WordPress: WPtouch
• WordPress: W3 Total Cache

Hat Tip: Derek Knight

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Outlook Error – Cannot open your default e-mail folders. You must connect to Microsoft Exchange with the current profile . . .

We ran the gamut of trying to figure out the following error:

Microsoft Outlook

Cannot open your default e-mail folders. You must connect to Microsoft Exchange with the current profile before you can synchronize your folders with your Outlook data file (.ost).

And:

Microsoft Outlook

Cannot open your default e-mail folders. The file C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Microsoft\Outlook\UserEmail@Domain.ca – First.ost is not an Outlook data file (.ost).

We tried everything from recreating her Outlook Profile, removing the OST file just in case it was corrupted, a number of combinations including the aforementioned steps along with others, and finally flattening her local profile and starting fresh.

It was not until we signed into a desktop OS VM with the user’s credentials after they mentioned that Outlook threw the same error for them when signing into a spare laptop that it became apparent that we were dealing with a server problem.

There was no clue that the problem was with SBS 2003 and Exchange 2003 because no other users were complaining about a Disconnected Outlook.

After combing through the logs on the SBS 2003 server we turned up the following:

Event ID: 9646 MSExchangeIS

Mapi session “/o=DOMAIN/ou=first administrative group/cn=Recipients/cn=Username” exceeded the maximum of 32 objects of type “session”.

Searching for this error brought us to the following KB article:

• Microsoft Knowledgebase KB842022: Event ID 9646 is logged in the application event log of your Exchange Server 2003 computer when a client opens many MAPI sessions

We needed to add the following registry key and restart the Information Store on the problematic server:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ParametersSystem

3. If the Maximum Allowed Sessions Per User entry does not exist, do the following:
   1. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
   2. Type Maximum Allowed Sessions Per User as the entry name, and then press ENTER.
4. Right-click the Maximum Allowed Sessions Per User entry, and then click Modify.
5. Click Decimal, type the value that you want to set in the Value data box, and then click OK.
1. We used the value of 128.
6. Exit Registry Editor.
7. Click Start, click Run, type services.msc in the Open box, and then click OK.
8. Click the MSExchange Information Store service, and then click Restart Service.

We confirmed that the Information Store restarted properly and our stores were mounted. We then started Outlook on the user’s system and were finally greeted with their mailbox!

Note that the user was using OWA when the problem started so it did not become apparent that the problem was on the server until _well_ into this troubleshooting process.

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Intuit QuickBooks 2011 – Some Really _Neat_ Features

Keeping in mind that we have had our fair share of issues with QuickBooks (Blog Label) in the past, this post is actually quite refreshing.

We delayed migrating our own QB 2007 company file to any new version of QuickBooks (QB) due to the number of times we would be migrating our own network (SBS 2003 –> SBS v7 NDA bits –> SBS 2011 RTM) as well as due to the need to rebuild all of our custom forms for invoices, purchase orders, sales orders, and others _each migration_.

We finally broke down and ran through the backend setup on our SBS 2011 RTM VM making all of the necessary firewall exceptions (Previous Blog Post).

We then installed QB 2011 on a Windows 7 VM that we use for management and ran through the QB 2007 to QB 2011 database upgrade locally on that VM. That process went through without any issues that we can see (our bookkeeper and accountants will have the final say on that).

We moved the database over to the SBS 2011 server share and opened the database in Multi-User mode with no issues too while still logged in.

We then installed QB 2011 Premiere on our Remote Desktop Services server to test its RDS and RemoteApp compatibility. To our pleasant surprise QB 2011 came up without issue while logged onto an RDS session as a Standard User. While logged in with an admin account IE’s restricted mode would cause QB to choke.

So, we published QB 2011 Premiere via the RemoteApp manager and created an RDP file for connecting via our RD Gateway and another RDP file for internal users.

QB 2011 is RD RemoteApp Friendly

We are happy to report that our QB 2011 is running via RemoteApp both internally and via our RD Gateway without a problem:

• QuickBooks 2011 Premiere Taskbar RemoteApp Icon

The process of customizing our forms was not too painful using the built-in Layout Designer.

One of the neat things with the new QB GUI though is the ability to change the Invoice or PO input GUI columns around to make them larger or smaller:

Invoice entry before:

Invoice entry after:

Note the increase in the width of the Item column. What this means is that we can actually _see_ the part number as QB always appends a prefix indicating the location of the part number (we have yet to discover that this feature can be turned off).

Now that we have had a chance to use the software, overall we are quite impressed with its responsiveness and the major GUI improvements.

Barring any issues with the books themselves, we are happy with the changes in the software and our own user experience.

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

SBS 2003 to SBS 2011 Migration Prep Tool Error – Managed Recipient Policies Mailbox Manager Enabled

While running the Migration Prep Tool on the source SBS 2003 we hit the following error:

Scan the source server for problems

Managed Recipient policies

The Mailbox Manager setting is enabled for one or more recipient policies. As a result, the recipient policies will not be upgraded if you migrated to Windows SBS 2011 Standard and Exchange Server 2010.

So, we open up the Exchange System Manager under the Advanced node of the SBS 2003 Console and we see:

We have two policies created to handle the ISP’s e-mail domains for the users.

Both policies have the Mailbox Manager Settings tab:

Now, in this case neither ISP domains are being used anymore so we can safely delete both.

However, if the recipient policies were indeed in use then we would copy out the filter settings for applying each policy along with its place in the policy order before deleting and recreating them without the Mailbox Manager setting.

Once the offending recipient policies were taken care of:

Note: A System State and full ShadowProtect backup were run prior to running the source Migration Prep Tool.

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

SBS 2003 To SBS 2011 Backup – Run A System State Backup

Before starting any changes on the source SBS 2003 server it is _absolutely critical_ to take a full backup (we use ShadowProtect) and a System State backup:

Note the time it took to run the System State backup shown above: 2 min, 3 sec. With a couple of minutes to get the backup configuration steps done this will be one of the best 5 minutes spent in the entire migration process _if things fail catastrophically_ and there is a need to step back.

That check mark should never be checked if a proper full server backup and a System State backup has not been taken.

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

HP P2V – Make Sure to Stop and Disable HP Services

The SBS and SQL servers we restored to our newly created 2 node Hyper-V cluster were originally installed on HP hardware.

Once the P2V process using the native Windows Server Backup to restore to Hyper-V completed the restore process automatically rebooted the VMs.

One of the first things we noticed was that that vCPUs were running at a constant 100%. The Task Manager Processes tab showed a series of HP/CPQ services causing the problem.

So, we went in and disabled all of the services then shut them down.

Once we rebooted the VMs the HP services were no longer an issue.

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

2 Node SR1695GPRX2AC Hyper-V Cluster – Promise VTrak DAS I/O Bandwidth

We have a client’s SBS 2008 and SQL 2005/8 server being restored to our Hyper-V cluster running on our pilot two node Intel Server Systems connected to a Promise VTrak RAID Subsystem.

We already stood a Windows 7 Enterprise x64 desktop VM up on the cluster to test everything prior to running this restore.

The following are a couple of live performance graphs from the VTrak web GUI:

Once we have our client’s SBS and SQL up and running in the cluster we will install and run Passmark’s BurnInTest Pro on all of the VMs to stress the CPU, memory, and disk I/O subsystem.

We will then be able to get a idea of what kind of sustained I/O bandwidth the system can handle.

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

2 SR1695GPRX2AC Node Hyper-V Cluster SAS HBA Configuration Change

We have been going through various processes of gaining a stable Hyper-V failover cluster using two nodes directly connected to a Promise VTrak E Series RAID Subsystem. At the beginning of this process we started out by installing an Adaptec ASC 1045 Host Bus Adapter for the second path to the VTrak in each node.

While Adaptec’s support site for the version 5.0.1.0 of the driver indicated that it was WHQL signed we ended up having to approve the driver install and subsequently the Cluster Validation called out the driver as unsigned.

Besides that, we would get a “Disk Error” during post from the Adaptec whenever we were ready to bring the VTrak online with shared storage after doing a complete wipe and reload.

LSi 3442E-R SAS HBA

We just finished running the Cluster Validation Wizard with the LSi 3442E-R HBAs (LSI00167) installed and were greeted with success on the drivers:

When it comes to installing the LSi 3442E-R HBAs there are a few things that need to be done due to the fact that they have an on board RAID chip:

1. Cold boot the server.
2. CTRL+C to enter unified LSi SAS BIOS.
1. Boot Setting for both AXXSASIOMOD and LSi 3442E-R: BIOS ONLY
2. Save and Exit for each component’s BIOS setting.
3. Save and Exit for the unified SAS BIOS.
3. Reboot.
4. Set the Intel SR1695GPRX2AC server board BIOS boot disk order:
1. Intel AXXROMBSASMR = 0
2. 4GB OCZ ATV Turbo USB Flash Drive = 1
3. VTrak LUNs 0-XX = 2+
5. Save and reboot.
6. F6 to enter Boot Menu.
7. Boot to USB and begin RAID driver load and OS install.
• Partitioning:
• 55GB partition for the OS.
• 75GB Swap File
• Balance to local storage.

Besides the above, there is a tangible difference in the performance of each node with the LSi cards installed.

So, we will be installing the LSi 3442E-R (LSI00167) part into each node by default for our second SAS connection to the Promise VTrak. Note that this configuration requires a cable with an SFF-8470 to SFF-8088 connector on each end. A total of four cables is required.

And, at the end of cluster creation run number 3 we see:

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

2x SR1695GPRX2AC Hyper-V Node VTrak E310sD enabled Cluster Quote

This is our basic outline for the two node cluster configuration we have been working on:

The Promise VTrak E310sD RAID Subsystem with 12 drive bays:

And our Intel Server System SR1695GPRX2AC server node configuration:

1. 2x Intel Server System SR1695GPRX2AC servers.
2. 1x Promise VTrak E310sD outfitted with 12x 300GB 15K Seagate SAS drives.
1. Time to stand up the cluster on an existing domain.

Cost wise this configuration makes a lot of sense for clients that can be hit with thousands of dollars per hour for downtime during their peak season or anytime for that matter.

Whenever we have an opportunity to propose a Failover Cluster option where the Intel Modular Server is our primary we will fall back to a configuration like this to present as a second option.

Failover is an insurance policy. So, the better the insurance the higher the cost.

The Intel Modular Server platform provides a full level of redundancy and scalability where the 2 node standalone server configuration does not.

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

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.