Product Review: Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3 2.5” Drive Enclosure with ISO Mount Capability A+

As a system builder any tool that can make our life easier is very welcome.

Enter the Zalman ZM-VE300 2.5” Enclosure that we dropped an 80GB X25-M Intel SSD into:

The unit can run as an externally attached hard disk, an externally attached optical drive, or both.

As a test we copied a number of our key ISO files into the _ISO folder that we created on the newly formatted SSD. We then tried to thumb our way through the menu to mount an ISO to present to the OS that the enclosure was connected to with no joy.

• Zalman Support: Firmware Download Page for ZM-VE300

As of this writing the firmware available for download was R831.

Once we updated the firmware we were able to see the ISO files via the thumb wheel based menu.

While we keep the download names from Microsoft’s MVLS and TechNet sites the same so that there is no confusion once copied to the Zalman it is a good idea to rename them to make menu navigation easier to work through.

We set the ZM-VE300 in Optical Drive Mode only and mounted the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 ISO. We then detached the drive from the workstation where we had copied the ISOs from.

Once we plugged the unit into the Intel Server System R1304BTLSHBN 1U we were going to test boot it on the ISO was no longer mounted.

So, we mounted the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 ISO again and proceeded to boot the server. We hit F6 for Boot Menu, chose the Zalman, and were greeted with the Windows Server installation environment shortly thereafter.

We will continue to test the Zalman on other system builds that we do to see if we run into any issues especially on the desktop side of things, but for now this enclosure looks like a sure winner to replacing many of the USB flash drives that we have picked up over the last few years (OCZ ATV Turbo and now Kingston DTR500 series).

BTW, we also formatted the drive NTFS and set it to Active so that we can boot from the hard drive if there was need to.

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.

Belkin 7 Port USB 2.0 Ultra Slim Hub – Great for Charging and Multiple USB Devices

Trying to find a device to charge more than one device at a time can be challenging at best.

This is especially true if one has an iPad as it requires a little over 2 Amps in order for it to charge.

When looking for a charger with USB ports or any other device that has USB ports on it the current that the power brick/adapter provides as well as the current that can be delivered at each USB port is important.

While in Las Vegas this last week setting up a network for The Mob Museum it became readily apparent that there was a need for more USB ports but also some additional power to keep everything running and/or charged.

Enter in the Belkin Ultra Slim 7 port USB hub (F4U039).

The adapter supplies 3.5A-3.8A of current to the USB hub. So, there is certainly enough current to work with most devices.

We had an external 500GB 7200 RPM Seagate drive in a NexStar 2.5” enclosure via eSATA plus USB for power, the Toshiba 13” USB monitor, and then occasionally the HTC HD7 hooked in with no power supply issues.

Another advantage to the hub is that it is quite small. So there is no sacrifice in desk space other than the mess of cables that are a part of this kind of portable setup.

With no iPad or iPhone in our repertoire it is obviously not possible for us to test this out yet. We will see about doing so when on-site where many of our clients have these devices available for a test.

In our opinion having one of these with the laptop or Ultrabook is definitely a great idea.

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.

Setting Remote PC Access Permissions for users in SBS 2011 Essentials

There certainly are some differences between the two SBS versions.

To give users permissions for PC access via the Remote Web Access portal we need to check the PCs in the user’s properties:

The only items to be found under the PC’s properties has to do with the client backup feature.

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

And now for something completely different: A Geek CPU moment.

Mmmm … Dual Intel Hex Core Goodness:

This is a Dell R510 2U with dual Intel Xeon E5645 hex core CPUs and 96GB of RAM to run a new American client’s virtualized SBS 2011, RDS, SQL, and other server systems.

With this setup we can run a full 4 vCPUs in our VMs with no worries about performance issues. And so far the setup has been humming along.

We had a major choke with the iDRAC 6 Enterprise that locked us out of the IP KVM Console _and_ the local console. We hit the power button and the server eventually gracefully powered down, pulled the plug, and everything came back good. So, we changed the “Don’t show console activity” setting back to BOTH to allow the local console and the iDRAC IP KVM console to show the same thing . . . just in case.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming! ;)

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

Fonality–Setting up Windows Server/SBS DHCP After the Fact

We ran the SBS 2011 install via Answer File for this new network setup that we are working on.

They already had a peer to peer setup in place with SonicWall devices serving DHCP and acting as edge.

Two Fonality servers were set up in redundant mode.

So, prior to running the SBS OS install we deleted the SonicWall DHCP subnet scope to make sure we had SBS based DHCP this morning.

Well, no go.

We had the SBS is Installed Successfully green check mark but no system had an IP address.

Checking in the SBS Native Tools console we saw that DHCP had no scope.

We ran the Internet Address Wizard and:

The SBS wizard found a DHCP server at the Fonality’s primary server IP. We logged into the admin site with no DHCP Server options anywhere to be found.

In the end we needed to call them to have them log in via their own backend management and turn the DHCP services off for both the primary and secondary servers.

Moral of the story: If there are any third party devices and/or services in place before, or coming in afterwards, verify with the vendors whether anything in them will conflict with a Windows Domain/DNS/DHCP setup and have their “This is how you set things up on a Windows Domain/DNS/DHCP based network” documentation at hand.

The Fonality and other systems on this particular network require DHCP scope options along with custom DNS Forwarders for the phone “domain” among other things.

Got coffee? ;)

UPDATE: Fonality’s Support Site for DHCP and DNS setup on a Windows Network

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

Dell Open Manage Download Link and Default Admin Username and Password

We are trying to download the most up to date version of Dell’s Open Manage Server Admin product:

• Best Possible Link: Dell Server Drivers and Downloads page

When we click on the link for the download: OM-SrvAdmin-Dell-Web-WIN-6.5.0-2247_A01.exe (151MB) we get:

We try both HTTP and File Transfer Manager and both fail.

After asking some fellow MVPs and our client contacting their Dell rep we came up with:

• USA: Dell FTP Site
• ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/secure/sysman/
• EXE files here.
• Dell General FTP Site
• ftp://ftp.dell.com/secure/sysman/
• EXE and ISO files

NOTE: The default username and password for the Dell Open Manage product is the username and password used to log onto the server.

Hat Tip: Fellow MVP Merv Porter

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

Stuck at Configuring Windows updates – Do not turn off your computer. Try This First Before Anything Else

Lately when setting up a new server or updating a production server that has been up for a few months we have been seeing the following:

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

Configuring Windows updates
32% complete
Do not turn off your computer.

What we have discovered is that after waiting five minutes we can CTRL+ALT+DLT and the log on screen will show up. Sometimes it may take 10, 20, or even 30 minutes or more before we see the log on screen but it does eventually come up.

For whatever reason though the server can be left all to itself in the above state and stay there until we hit the keys.

This is our first step now before running into the update recovery steps that may be required if this does not work.

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

First Look at Dell’s iDRAC 6 Enterprise – Full KVM Over IP

We are working with a new Dell R510 2U server that will be used as a host for a virtualized SBS 2011, Remote Desktop Services, SQL, and other services.

We first log into the iDRAC console via the server’s POST sequence at the console. We have initially set up the iDRAC to pull an IP from the local DHCP server until we are ready to set it up with a public IP and DNS A record.

We then set up the username and password for the iDRAC.

Once done we rebooted the system and verified that it was pulling an IP from DHCP which it was. In our Web browser we were greeted with:

Once we were logged in we were able to view all of the

When we tried to launch the KVM over IP console we received the following:

As many ways as we tried we could not get the native ActiveX to work so we flipped the setting over to Java:

We were then good to go with the Java version spooling up:

Note that the file is transferring to the local client via HTTPS.

Once the transfer was complete we had console access to the newly powered up server:

We were then good to go with flattening the default RAID 5 arrays that Dell dropped onto the H700 RAID controller to set up our RAID 10 array and run with 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

Some thoughts on a Hyper-V Mini-Cluster

While working on a FreeBSD grid system many years ago we came across the following that we used as a model for our own designs:

• Mini-ITX.com: The “Mini-Cluster”

Mr. Gardner built a beautiful machine from the ground up.

The project we were working on at the time was scrapped due to a number of external factors.

However, the knowledge we gained in trying to create a grid based on FreeBSD helped to gain a grasp on how we were to go about building a Hyper-V cluster a number of years back when documentation was sadly lacking.

And that brings us to the point of this blog post:

Intel’s new Intel Server Board S1200KP in Mini-ITX form factor.

• Intel Support: Intel Server Board S1200KP
• Intel Product Site: Intel Server Board S1200KP

And, while searching for a quality image of the board we hit this gem:

• DV Industrial Computer LTD: DC91 19” Rackmount Cluster/16 Nodes

That is a really neat looking box and fits right in with some of the directions we were looking at. One catch though is that the box is made in the Ukraine! :(

It looks as though they really ran the gamut as far as the setup for a Mini-ITX based solution. Management and redundancy is built right in. Kewl!

In the end we may look at a low power cluster configuration for folks wanting some redundancy at an ultra-low entry price point. How that materializes is yet to be seen.

Born to tinker. ;)

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.

Less for More?

We are going to pick on Tim Hortons a little here.

If it were not for the fact that those two cans were sitting side-by-side on the same shelf and that something was being put on them we would have remained oblivious to the fact that there was a distinct size difference between them.

In fact, we would have gone on happily paying more (increase was ~$2.00 per tin for that coffee) without even paying close attention to the size reduction _during_ that increase.

So, we have a smaller tin that we are paying more for.

Now, given the fact that Tim Hortons coffee is a staple in our day-to-day diet we will not be jumping ship anytime soon.

However, it will give us cause for pause in that we may look at alternatives a little more closely such as some of the so-called Fair Trade coffees. We have a bag of Columbian and a bag of Zambian (iirc the African country’s name and spelling right) coffee that is very rich in flavour.

Technology

When it comes to technology we pay particular attention to all of the various product manufacturers and their products.

We are always particularly mindful of the following:

• Is there a good compatibility list for the manufacturer’s products?
• No one can beat Intel’s Server Configurator for server building.
• Does the manufacturer have good post-sales support?
• Is there an 800 number, or even direct dial, to talk to real people that _know_ the product?
• Some manufacturers obfuscate the whole process with their voice prompts after calling in.
• Is the RMA process simple or a rat’s nest to get through?
• Ever try to RMA an Asus product? We gave up.
• Kingston and Crucial both are fantastic to deal with.
• Intel has an Advanced Warranty Replacement program that is second to none.
• Does the product have good documentation?
• Most manufacturers fall short in this category as hard as some of them try.

In all of the products we work with we also need to keep in mind that the more time we waste on shoddy post-sales support with manufacturers that it costs us big-time. That in turn costs our clients in lost production time if things go down.

Some of you from Canada may remember IPC and Bondwell PCs back when. Their systems were hundreds of dollars less than the competing Tier 1 or our own quality component built systems.

The IT business owner I was working with decided to dive right into them. In the end it cost us a huge amount in lost time replacing cheap flaky components that it became readily apparent that IPC and Bondwell PCs were not the way to go.

Because of this experience we here at MPECS Inc. have not delved into any entry-level or consumer grade components and systems. It is our preference to stick with the higher end Chevy/VW and Cadillac/BMW series of systems, servers, and software products.

Though, the following video aught to make clear where our preference lies for both the solutions we deliver and the automobile product we prefer. :)

Cadillac CTS-V Supercharged

And, just in case there is _any_ ambiguity:

My favourite Cadillac Commercial of all time!

BTW, just like the Linux versus Windows, Hyper-V versus VMWare, AMD versus Intel, and so on one can get quite “religious” about one’s preference in finer automobiles. ;)

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 Phone 7 Update to 7.10.8107.79 Now Here

After plugging the HD7 in the following window came up:

The keyboard issue has been seen off and on over the last month. The voicemail issue was indicated as being fixed with the last update so we shall see if it happens this time around.

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.

Server Core–How to Properly Move the Swap File

We have posted on this subject before though the pieces of the puzzle were a bit incoherent due to the comments providing the proper methodology and eventually a link to Sander Berkouwer’s blog post with up to date information.

• MPECS Inc. Blog: Server Core - From Scratch to Hyper-V Production
• MPECS Inc. Blog: Server Core - Move that Swap/Page File - WMI Error Code = 0x80041017

As is indicated in the second blog post’s comments we find the following methodology:

1. Create the dedicated partition after the OS partition using DiskPart.
• We install Server Core to a 50GB partition and FULL to a 75GB partition.
• We use RAM * 2.5 as a rule.
• For larger GB where only the Hyper-V Role is running then RAM * 1.
• We assign the letter S:
2. wmic computersystem where name=”MyCoreServer” set AutomaticManagedPagefile=False
3. wmic.exe pagefileset create name="S:\pagefile.sys"
4. wmic.exe pagefileset where name="S:\\pagefile.sys" set InitialSize=12288,MaximumSize=32768
• Note the double slash in the file path.
5. wmic.exe pagefileset where name="C:\\pagefile.sys" delete
6. shutdown –r –t 0 –f

As per Sander we can check the registry for the settings as well:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Some additional reading:

• Sander Berkouwer’s Blog: Page files in Server Core
• Sander’s blog has been a constant source of _great_ information for all things Server Core and Hyper-V among others.
• Sander Berkouwer’s Twitter Feed
• Microsoft Support: KB979386: You receive an error message after you put the page file on another drive other than the drive C in a guest operating system.
• A VM’s Swap File cannot be placed on a VHD that is attached to the VM via Hyper-V SCSI bus.

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.

Thomson Reuters PPC Reference Library Network Install Documentation

The links within the PPC Reference Library installer are broken so we were not able to figure out what we needed to do to install the product for network use.

A search turned up the following support page we need to get to.

• PPC’s Reference Library CD/DVD Support Page

The resulting page:

We can then click on the Installation Instructions link near the bottom left of the page. We tried to create a link in this post for that one but there is some sort of Session ID associated with it so things break.

After clicking on that link:

Again the links are associated with a Session ID so no quick way to the PDF documents.

After going through the documentation it was not 100% clear as far as how to get things going.

But, we ran through the process installing to a network share and then running the network client install via that share afterwards on all client systems with no problems.

Note that there are some installation codes required for the install.

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.

Backups Should Be Bare Metal and/or Virtually Test Restored Right?

We provide a service to all of our clients for a fixed monthly fee where we rotate their backups for them every two weeks for local clients or FedEx the backup drives back and forth.

Every quarter we do a full bare metal or virtualized restore of their backup. A _FULL_ restore of their server or servers onto our own systems. We are then assured that the backup technology being used is working as it should.

For image based backups like StorageCraft or Acronis products is very important to note, “Garbage in, Garbage out”.

We do this so that we know the following:

1. The backups are good.
2. We will not be stressed about the backups if things do blow up.
3. The backups are good.
4. The client will not be _as_ stressed about their data and getting their business up and running after a catastrophe.
5. Their backups are known good.

The above service and mantra comes via many years of experience with that experience containing some extremely bizarre failures in that time. This blog accounts some of them in more recent years.

Disaster Recovery Planning

Disaster Recovery Planning should be one of the conversation steps for new clients and a semi-frequent nag for existing clients that have not studied and implemented a disaster recovery plan for their business.

The “It won’t happen to me” attitude does not wash . . . at least not in our experience.

One of the most amazing presentations I have ever sat through was with Jeff Middleton of SBS Migration sharing his experiences trying to decision make and get ready for the oncoming Hurricane Katrina to a group of us on one of his visits.

Up here we may not face hurricanes but we certainly do have enough to consider:

1. Break-in with servers removed.
2. Disgruntled employee data destruction.
3. Weather related disasters.
4. Power related equipment failures.
5. Fire.

Cloud Vendors and Data Preservation

Now, it seems that larger Cloud vendors are finding out the hard way that backups need to be fully test restored in order to certify their validity:

• Own Web Now: MPECS Inc. Blog: ExchangeDefender E-Mail Outage – Our Client E-mail and Some Thoughts
• Tieto: The Channel Register: Flash drive meltdown fingered in Swedish IT blackout
• Tieto: The Register: Titsup [sic] EMC VNX kit unleashes 5 days of chaos in Sweden - Crashed Tieto system took down bank, pharmacy, schools' website
• The Alaskan Government: ZDNet: Alaska revenue dept. lost two backups of taxpayer data
• Summary: Technician wiped out hard drives, backup drives and backup tapes were unreadable. After $200,000 in recovering records from paper originals, new procedures are in place

Obviously we are talking about a scale way beyond a single USB drive or High-Rely unit with a few Terabytes or 10 worth of data backing up a few standalone or clustered servers.

However, we believe that it goes without saying that at some point, preferably sooner than later, a Cloud Services Company, a larger Enterprise, or an SME/SMB company would schedule and go through a full restore of their backups to verify that things would work when needed.

With the advent of mainframe style computing, what we are now calling Cloud Computing or Cloud Services, there is a particular need to pay attention to all Cloud vendor’s SLA with particular attention on who is responsible for the data.

• Microsoft O365 SLA
• No clear mention of data rights and responsibilities.
• Own Web Now SLA
• Backups and Archives - Customer is solely responsible for all data on their servers, mailboxes, databases and other storage mediums. While Own Web Now Corp provides means and mechanisms for customers to perform backups, customers are responsible for establishing policies, monitoring backups, data restoration, and retention intervals. Customers data is customers responsibility, under no circumstance shall Own Web Now Corp provide drives or other media nor send them to a data retrieval facility.
• Google Apps SLA
• No mention of client/customer data.
• Google Apps for Business (Online Agreement)
• No mention of client/customer data.

In the end, where nothing is explicit in any agreements, the wording uses legalese, or the wording is just all-around vague it is up to us to provide a solution that protects the client’s data integrity.

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.

Try Filling an Air Swimmer–Helium is in Short Supply?

The first time we saw one of these videos we put getting one of the Air Swimmers on our To Get list.

Air Swimmers Are Kewl!

We just picked one up this week and low and behold we found out that Helium which cannot be synthesized is in short supply around the world (Bing Search)!

We ended up calling around to the various party stores and party rental places see if we could find some helium to fill up the balloon portion of the Air Swimmer with mixed results.

Apparently no one sells the standalone bottles of helium anymore. We can “rent” a bottle to fill it up and then some but the cost for that was quite expensive.

A gentlemen took the time to fill me in on all aspects of helium and the struggles the party industry has with obtaining it from The Balloon Gang here in Edmonton (Yelp page). He gave us a price to fill up the Air Swimmer that was pretty reasonable.

Since he took the time to explain things we will make sure to support his store when it comes time to fill up the Air Swimmer.

It makes us wonder whether our grandchildren will have the chance to get helium filled balloons for their birthday?

Or perhaps we will see Hydrogen making a comeback? Probably not given its volatile nature.

Another option may be to make a Chinese Lantern and light it outside to watch it float upwards.

For now we will make the trip to The Balloon Gang to fill up the Air Swimmer. :)

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

Hyper-V RemoteFX: What CPU Supports SLAT (EPT VT-x)?

Intel has a White Paper here that talks about Second Level Address Translation (SLAT or EPT in Intel Lingo) here:

• Intel Virtualization Technology: Enabling Intel Virtualization Technology Features and Benefits.

Searching around for more information on the what/where/how to figure out whether we were looking at the right settings in the BIOS we found the following:

• Intel Software Forums: Nehalem always implies EPT support?

The answer from David Ott of Intel is that the VT-x BIOS setting is the one that enables EPT/SLAT. In some cases only one Intel VT setting may be shown in the server’s BIOS. It may or may not show that EPT was supported after the fact.

When we do an Intel Ark Compare of the following Intel Xeon CPUs we see that they do indeed show VT-x as being supported:

\/

So, ultimately it is up to server manufacturers that tailor their BIOS settings to allow us to enable or disable the various Intel Virtualization Technologies.

In our experience Intel makes sure to reveal _all_ of the relevant BIOS settings on their server boards that we can purchase standalone or in Intel Server Systems.

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.

TechNet Partner Forums: Hyper-V Failover Cluster Network Recommendations

This is a post on the TechNet Forums:

• TechNet Forums: Hyper-V Failover Cluster Network Recommendations

A direct copy and paste from the forum post with emphasis added by us:

Thanks for your post. I'm Lamb from Microsoft Partner support team.

From your description, you need an official recommendation of how we design the Hyper-v Cluster Networks. If I misunderstand it, please correct me.

First, I'd like to answer your question:

Q: "whether or not Microsoft still recommends a dedicated heartbeat / cluster network"

A: Yes, we recommend. But the requirement is removed.

Simply speaking, it is just an option.

Client access does not interfere with heartbeat, etc. Heartbeat can be running on either network ,where clients can access.

The suggestions below should help you more.

If you have more questions, please feel free to post back.

More suggestions:

1. I think that this article should solve your problem in the post, perfectly:

Hyper-V : How many network cards do I need?
http://blogs.technet.com/b/gavinmcshera/archive/2011/03/27/3416313.aspx

2. To understand how heartbeart co-works with client-access, I think that you need to read the following article.

This article tells you how to decide how we use a Network in a cluster.

Modify Network Settings for a Failover Cluster
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725775.aspx

3. And, each network has a priority/metric.

Normally, this metric is decided by cluster itself.

And, for CSV&Live-migration, you can decide which network to use.

For CSV:
Designating a Preferred Network for Cluster Shared Volumes Communication
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff182335(WS.10).aspx

For live-migration:
search for "To configure a cluster network for live migration" in:
Hyper-V: Using Live Migration with Cluster Shared Volumes in Windows Server 2008 R2
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd446679(WS.10).aspx

4. And, we can manually change the metric, according to this article:

Configuring Network Prioritization on a Failover Cluster
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2011/06/17/10176338.aspx

---

Best regards,
Lamb Shu
Partner Online Technical Community
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We hope you get value from our new forums platform! Tell us what you think:
http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/partnerfdbk/threads
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

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.

Hyper-V Failover Cluster: A Big Picture View Of How It Works

This post is from a post just made on the TechNet Forums: Shared LUN between VM’s.

Question

I am new to Hyper-V and have a question about a shared LUN between two VM's. I Have a LUN on a Dell SAN and I have granted access to it to a group of servers within the Dell Storage Manager. I can mount the volume on both VM's  but when I put data on the volume on one server the other server does not see the same data. Is this by design or am I doing something wrong? Can I not mount a shared LUN on two VM's at the same time so they both see the same data?

Our Answer

What you are trying to do is like trying to connect one physical hard drive to two different servers. This is not possible.

If you are looking to make that data redundant so that if one server fails the other keeps sharing it then you need a failover cluster.

In that case two physical machines are connected to the same storage and run Hyper-V in Failover Cluster mode. On top of Hyper-V will run what is called a Highly Available Virtual Machine with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 as an Operating System. That Virtual Machine would be set up to connect to the shared storage and deliver the shared folders to your network.

If Node 1 in the failover cluster fails then Node 2 takes over. If the VM was running on Node 1 at the time of the failure then the VM will behave just like a physical server would if the reset button was hit. The VM will transfer to Node 2 and boot the OS back up.

If the VM was already on Node 2 then things keep humming along while the problems with Node 1 are addressed.

If Node 1 fails and the shared storage is hosted on Node 1 all of the Reads/Writes to that storage get cached by the cluster until Node 2 takes the shared storage over. Once Node 2 takes over, this can take a few seconds, all of the Reads/Writes to that shared storage get done on the actual SAN.

Windows Server 8 looks like it may have a somewhat different approach to this dilemma but we have not approached it beyond building a standard Hyper-V Failover Cluster using 2 nodes and a DAS SAN on the Developer Preview currently available as of this writing.

Conclusion

We believe that a Hyper-V Failover Cluster is an excellent option for clients that are downtime conscious. We have done a number of SBS 2011 deploys on a 2 node failover cluster setup with our clients being quite satisfied with the performance and enhanced availability for their critical data and e-mail.

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.

RIM and Blackberry – It’s Death May Be Bad For Business

We have had our fair share of beefs with BlackBerry and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express (BESx) over the years.

When it works it works. But when it doesn’t it can be a real angry bear to deal with as OWN has recently demonstrated:

• OWN xDNOC Twitter Feed

While we have had our own issues with BESx 4 and 5 over the years, much of our experience was with clients that were local to their region. Meaning that most of our clients no matter where they were in the world did not do a lot of travelling.

Lately we have been working with a relatively new client that has offices in Canada and South East Asia as well as folks that travel to many parts of the world.

They all carry BlackBerry (BB) handsets and subscribe to their services.

In our discussions with our new client about BB and our experiences they acknowledged that indeed there can be some pain associated with the service but for the most part it just works.

However the principle reason that BB was so vital to their business was that their handsets worked _anywhere_ they went in the world to do business. RIM and BB are in _all_ of the foreign markets they travel to.

There is no need to figure out if the carrier has roaming agreements with carriers in the foreign markets. There is no need to figure out if the handset or handsets they need will work in each of the foreign markets that the users would be visiting.

BB just works no matter where they are (though they have had a few issues on this front lately), it is secure (relatively depending on which rumours we believe about governments, back doors and BB services – see point before this one), and every handset no matter where they are in the world can be managed from one point.

So, if Research in Motion does go belly up where will this leave all of the International Enterprises, Small to Medium Enterprises, and our SMB world travelling client?

Probably in a place both accounting and IT would not want to be in managing all of those foreign handsets and cell provider accounts, or huge roaming expenses.

Talk about a possible nightmare with a huge expense attached to it. :(

Given this newly found perspective: Go RIM!

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.

Symantec EndPoint Protection Manager Console Admin Password Reset

To reset a lost admin password for the Symantec EndPoint Protection Manager console we run the ResetPass.bat file found in:

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Symantec\Symantec EndPoint Manager\Tools

The PDF for the batch file:

In our attempts to initially figure out the password we locked the account out:

The default lockout period is 15 minutes.

• Symantec Community: Endpoint Protection Management Console credentials lost?
• Symantec Community: The Administrator Account is locked

Once the lockout event was released we were able to log on. Note that we were first prompted to change the password prior to getting into the SEP Console.

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.

Review: StarTech 4 Bay eSATA USB 3.0 to SATA Hard Drive Docking Station for iSCSI and Hyper-V VM Backups

We have been using the USB 3.0 only 4 bay docking station by StarTech with no issues to date as a backup media destination for our clustered and standalone VMs.

One of the issues we have run into in the past was with Vantec’s NexStar 3 eSATA/USB 2.0 enclosures where there was something about the way the enclosure’s internal management would cause Intel server board based servers to hang at POST on a warm boot.

So, we decided to see if the eSATA/USB 3.0 combination dock by StarTech would do the same.

From StarTech’s site:

In our own internal testing and now client deployed setups we have passed a very large amount of data through these docks tied to a StarTech 2 Port PCI Express SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Controller Adapter Card (PEXUSB3S2) via Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard. So far we have had zero issues with the dock and the card the operating system, the Intel Server Systems and hardware, and Microsoft’s iSCSI Software Target v3.3.

The dock has an internal fan setup that draws fresh air in from the back and blows it up through the drive slots to help the drives stay cool. The dials shown below control the fan speed for each bank of two drives.

Having active cooling for the larger 2TB and 3TB drives is a big plus since they run quite hot.

NOTE: When using iSCSI or direct attached USB storage for the built-in SBS Backup it is a good idea to use Disk Management to set the volume of OFFLINE prior to disconnecting in the iSCSI Initiator console or Hyper-V SCSI bus management. The process of flipping the “drive” to Offline can actually take a few minutes so be patient.

UPDATE: StarTech’s site: 4 Bay eSATA USB 3.0 to SATA Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5/3.5 HDD (SATDOCK4U3E)

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.

Adobe Acrobat and Reader 10.1.2 Downloads Available

We avoid the Get Adobe Reader page due to unwanted extras like toolbars.

• FTP: Adobe Reader 10.1.2 download page (EXE file here)
• FTP: Adobe Acrobat 10.1.2 download page (MSP file here)

404 Tech Support has an excellent How-To for deploying Adobe MSI and MSP via Group Policy here:

• 404 Tech Support: How to Apply Patches (.msp) to Group Policy Deployed Software (.msi)

We deploy the initial product MSI via Group Policy. We will be investigating the above procedures to update both the source MSI but also to deploy the subsequent MSP patches.a

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.

A Quick Way to Find Server Up-Time in Server Core or Hyper-V Server

Open an elevated command prompt and:

1. systeminfo | find “System Boot Time:”

Our report:

C:\>systeminfo | find "System Boot Time:"
System Boot Time:          1/3/2012, 11:22:30 AM

Hat tip: Petri: Seven Simple Ways to Find Your Uptime in Windows Server 2008

Note that this command can be run on almost any Windows OS.

UPDATE: Thanks to vNiklas we have the following PowerShell command run via an elevated PowerShell session:

1. (get-date)-([System.Management.ManagementDateTimeconverter]::ToDateTime((Get-WmiObject win32_operatingsystem).lastbootuptime)) [Enter]

Our output:

PS C:\>  (get-date)-([System.Management.ManagementDateTimeconverter]::ToDateTime((Get-WmiObject win32_operatingsystem).lastbootuptime))

Days              : 6
Hours             : 4
Minutes           : 44
Seconds           : 31
Milliseconds      : 872
Ticks             : 5354718724344
TotalDays         : 6.19759111613889
TotalHours        : 148.742186787333
TotalMinutes      : 8924.53120724
TotalSeconds      : 535471.8724344
TotalMilliseconds : 535471872.4344

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.

VM Dynamic VHD Performance On Shared LUNs/Partitions

Many years back we did a lot of performance testing on NT4 and Windows Server 2000 on standalone SCSI and RAID based SCSI arrays for server swap file performance.

It was not uncommon for the swap file to get quite fragmented over time in our experience with no no utilities beyond very expensive third party ones that would help us get things back together.

We got into some very animated discussions with the lead technician out our number 1 client at the time because setting aside a partition for a dedicated swap file was _expensive_.

As a result of that experience we _always_ build all of our servers and high end workstations with a dedicated partition for the OS swap file and Adobe Scratch Files (sometimes with their own SSD).

We carried that experience into our current methodology for configuring the storage setup for a VM’s VHD(s).

Shared Storage and VHDs

When VHDs are going to be hosted on shared storage that will have a number VHDs we set up static VHDs using VHDTool. The VHD files remain contiguous thus avoiding performance degradation over time due to fragmentation that would be experienced with dynamic VHDs.

It is our preference to set up dedicated partitions/LUNs on shared storage for dynamic VHDs when they are required. This leaves room for expansion without concern for fragmentation.

We create dynamic VHDs where portability gives us the option to move the file around. For example we can copy 120GB instead of 1.5TB.

• Rule of thumb for Hyper-V Storage: Total Storage – 1GB = Available for VHD(s).

We have seen the behaviour where a Hyper-V VM or VMs go into Paused-Critical mode due to storage being full.

So, we make sure that the sum total GB/TB of our static and/or dynamic VHDs stored on that LUN/Partition never exceed the total amount of storage available minus 1 Gigabyte.

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.

Our SBS 2011 Setup Guide Has Been Updated: v1.10.0

Our very comprehensive SBS 2011 Setup Guide has been updated with the following changes:

• Added the NIC Binding check step to make sure that networking is set up properly on an SBS server with multiple NICs built in.
• Added the SBS Blog caveat post for the need to run PSConfig after SharePoint Foundation updates.

As always, backup the server just after the OS install has been completed and then after each significant milestone in the server build.

• MPECS Inc. Blog: SBS 2011 Setup Guide v1.10.0

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

Slow Network Speeds with SBS 2008 and 2011: NIC Binding Order

Most server boxes today come with at least 2 NICs. In some cases they come with four or more! As a result we need to pay particular attention to how the networking structures are set up in the OS.
The following is a Snip of a production SBS 2008 server:

To get the Advanced Settings screen:

1. Start –> NCPA.CPL [Enter]
2. Hit the ALT key if the File menu is not seen.
3. Click Advanced.
4. Click Advanced Settings.

Note the order that the NIC bindings are shown in.
In this case, Local Area Connection 2 is the NIC that was not plugged in during the OS setup phase. Yet, the OS somehow managed to place that NIC at the top of the binding order.
What does that mean?
Network services run slower as the OS will poll the disabled NIC _first_ before the NIC that the services are actually connected to.
So, for any network that is experiencing any kind of slowness the following should be done in the troubleshooting process before touching any of the NIC driver settings or OS internal configuration:

1. Check the Switch!
   • Gigabit on _all_ ports please.
   • Make sure that switches with a higher port density have the internal backbone to handle all or most ports running at full duplex Gigabit.
2. Change the patch cable between the server and the switch.
   • Please.
3. Verify the binding order on the NICs.
   • If a change is needed note that the server would need to be rebooted!
   • In the case above:
     1. Move Local Area Connection 2 to the bottom of the list.
     2. Uncheck File and Printer Sharing on Local Area Connection 2.
     3. Uncheck Client for Microsoft Networks Local Area Connection 2.
4. Check the Provider Order tab
   • 
   • Place the Microsoft Windows Network at the top of the list since it is definitely the most accessed part of the server’s networking.

We helped out a fellow consultant that was working with a client that had a really slow ACCPACC problem. Reports were taking _a long time_ to run. After running through a series of tests we checked the binding order and sure enough the NICs were way out of order.
After a reboot things took a day or so to straighten out. But once they settled down the reports were running in a fraction of the time it took before the change.

• TechNet Library: Modify the protocol bindings and network provider order
• TechNet Library: Network Connections Best Practices
  • Note mention of the Provider Order recommendation near the bottom of this page.

UPDATE: Thanks to Michael’s pointer in the comments. The order change was missing the “2”!
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.

Some Small Business Server 2011 Essentials Resources

We are running through our first full production deployment of SBSe 2011.

It takes some getting used to as the install requires a router on the network that delivers an IP address via DHCP!

The TechNet site has a build wiki that has a lot of good information in it:

• TechNet SBS 2011 Essentials Build Document

We did not use any form of Answer File for this first run through. We used the Q&A to set things up.

Once we had the server’s desktop we were in for a couple of surprises based on the two questions asked by the setup wizard:

1. We chose an admin logon: Franklin Roosevelt
• User came up:
• Username: Admin
• User Logon: Franklin Roosevelt
2. We chose a Standard User: Douglas MacArthur
• User came up:
• Username: User
• User Logon: Douglas MacArthur

That was a bit of a surprise to us. So, going forward we will not put a space in the usernames and rename them after the fact so that the logon and username actually match.

Note that we can change the first and/or last name associated with the user in the SBS Console but we are not able to change the actual logon name.

So, we checked out what was in ADUC and sure enough we could change it there. But, when we brought up the properties in the SBS Dashboard (not Console) we saw:

Error

Cannot retrieve or change the user account information. If this problem persists, restart the server, and then try again.

So, we ran a few updates and let the server go.

And still we received the same error message. This means that anyone that gets married will require a new user ID and thus a recreation of their profile.

Back to the point of order:

We plan on installing DHCP on the SBSe 2011 server.

• Official SBS Blog: Running DHCP Server on SBS 2011 Essentials With a Static IP

As per the above blog post we will also stop and disable the Windows Server LAN Configuration service.

From there we will run through many of the steps found in our SBS 2011 Standard setup guide.

• MPECS Inc. Blog: SBS 2011 Setup Guide

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