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

SBS 2011 Standard: Install Error 0x80300001 - "Windows cannot be installed to Disk 0 Partition 1" OR "Cannot find a System Partition"

There was one other error that came up depending on if we SHFT+F10 to get to the command prompt and try formatting using DiskPart.

Internet searches came up with swapping optical disks between the Windows installer disk and the driver disk but we had everything including the Answer File (this was a migration run attempt in a lab setting) on a bootable USB flash drive.

After fighting with it for an hour we brought in another known good bootable USB flash drive that had the SBS 2011 Standard install files on it and low and behold the process worked!

Meh ... Very frustrating to run through all of that troubleshooting only to find out that the ISO we pulled the files from was bad.

So, the second step in troubleshooting any Windows OS install error in WinPE is to download a new ISO, format a flash drive as bootable using DiskPart, and copy the SBS files over.

• Blog Post: Windows Vista - Using the DiskPart Command to Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive
• Note, for SBS files use NTFS for the file system since the WIM file is over 4GB in size.

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

Move the Symantec SEM5.db file to another partition

We have an SBS 2008 Standard setup that’s getting really tight on the system drive.

We’ve pretty much moved everything and anything we can off of the system partition to keep space as free as possible.

One of the last pieces to be moved is the SEM5.db file that runs around 2GB or more.

To move that file we followed these instructions:

1. Go to services.msc
2. Stop the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager Service
3. Stop the Symantec Embedded Database Service
4. Go to \Program Files\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager\db and cut the sem5.db file and paste it to the new drive
5. Click Start
6. Click run
7. Type regedit
8. Go to HKey_Local_Machine\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\ASANYs\Parameters\ click on the Parameters option in the right hand side column and change the path of the sem5.db database file to the new location as New Drive:\Folder name
• Our folder:
9. Restart the Symantec Embedded Database Service from services.msc
• NOTE: We were able to log on to the SEP Management Console once we had both services started at this point.
10. Go to Administrative Tools
11. Click on Data Sources (ODBC)
12. Click on System DSN tab
13. Click on Configure button
14. Highlight the database tab and replace the path for the sem5.db file and ensure connectivity by clicking on Test Connection
15. Go to Management Server configuration Wizard and perform the server reconfiguration

That freed up over 2GB of storage space which at this point for this particular SBS is _a lot_ of space to be had! :)

• Symantec Forums: Move SEM5.db for SEP 11

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

How to Acquire an SMBKitchen Project Subscription

We’ve received a number of questions about the subscription for the SMBKitchen Project.

First, the subscription cost is $180 for the _calendar_ year. That cost is broken down over twelve months. So, subscribe in January and the cost is distributed across the 12 months. Subscribe this month and the January through April payments will be required. From there the cost will be distributed over the remaining months at $15/Month.

The fee covers all content on the site, live author’s chats where our subscribers get Q&A time with us, freedom to ask the authors questions on subscription content, and so much more.

The sign-up process is as follows:

1. Click into the SMBKitchen Project site.
2. Click the Sign up for a subscription link.
3. Click the Register button.
• 
4. Put your name, e-mail address, and password to access the site in.
• 
5. An activation e-mail will be sent to that address. Please confirm.
6. Log on to the site.
• 
7. Click the Payments button.
• 
8. Click the Make a Purchase button.
• 
9. Click the Subscription button.
• 
10. Change the Subscription option to 1.
• 
• Scroll down a bit to see the option to purchase additional months up front.
• 
11. Click the Check out with PayPal button.
1. From there the routine is straight forward.

A Welcome Letter, and Article Summary, and an Invitation to the next SMBKitchen Project event will arrive in your Inbox shortly after that.

Each category will have a number of articles, how to videos, author chats, and other content for you to access.

Our goal with this project is to give current IT solution providers the best possible tool set to provide on-premises and hybrid on-premises/Cloud solutions that can be delivered today and tomorrow.

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

SMBKitchen Project: Author's Chat on now!

SMBKitchen Project subscribers our Author's Chat is just starting! Check your e-mail for the link.

As an FYI, part of the SMBKitchen Project subscription is access to us authors on a monthly basis via Lync and also via the Third Tier ticketing system.

During the chat we do some presenting on new content in the SMBKitchen Project knowledgebase and a Q&A session.

Please use the full Lync client as the Web client does not pick up audio properly at this time.

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

Office 365’s New Wave 15 Management Portal

We received notice that our hosted domain was upgraded earlier in the week.

It is important to note that any company looking to Office 365 for their hosted service provider needs to keep in mind that change-control is completely out of their, the customer’s, hands.

Let’s take a quick peak at the new administration centres for the features we regularly use:

• The new Office 365 Admin Center

There is some reporting available under the current health column with links to INCIDENT IDs however they seem to be protected behind the service’s Microsoft ID logon. So, we will perhaps hold-off publishing the histories found in those reports until we are sure that we can.

Suffice it to say SharePoint Online and Exchange Online have had issues this month. :)

The Exchange admin center is pretty much the same as the one we find in our own Exchange 2013 deploys:

• Exchange admin center

In the EAC we have the ability to finely tune our O365 Exchange experience right down to individual SPAM settings. This is even before we venture into PowerShell for Office 365!

And finally, the SharePoint Admin Center:

The service has most certainly taken a huge step forward . . . in feature set but also in complexity for management.

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

SMBKitchen: Installing Hyper-V on Windows 8, Configuring Networking, and VM Setup Video Posted

I’m happy to announce that my first How-To video has been posted to our SMBKitchen Project knowledgebase.

I demonstrate the following process:

1. Setting up the partition configuration.
2. Setting up Intel NIC Teaming for a dual NIC motherboard.
• Windows Client does not have NIC teaming built-in as does Server.
3. Installing the Hyper-V Windows Feature.
4. Configuring Hyper-V networking with a private and public virtual switch set.
5. Configuring Hyper-V configuration and VHD file storage locations.
6. Setting up a Hyper-V based lab environment.
1. VM: Set up Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 as a router
1. Private and Public vSwitches bound.
2. RRAS configured in NAT mode.
2. VM: Set up Windows Server 2012 Standard as a DC.
1. Proper network setup for DNS, DHCP, AD, and more.
2. Forward Lookup Zones for the Domain and Active Directory zones.
3. Reverse Lookup Zone settings for AD.

There are a significant number of helpful pointers throughout the video that will give you a _very_ good idea of how we set up and deploy Hyper-V but also do a greenfield Windows Server Stack deployment for a new client.

The video is about 43 minutes in length.

Please do check it out! SMBKitchen Project

The small subscription fee helps to justify the time to do these types of How-To efforts. :)

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

CCH Taxprep T1, SMBKitchen Project, and Third Tier

Things have been moving along at a great pace!

With tax season upon us we had a crazy number of calls over corrupted Print Formats in CCH Taxprep T1 2012 v1. Somehow during the conversion process from the previous year’s Print Formats things got mangled and we were running our feet off trying to keep up.

We ended up needing to rebuild the Print Formats and get them hooked into the HP LaserJet printer setups that we have for them. Most of our accounting firm clients use multiple Print Format files with custom configurations depending on the forms being printed. Some get duplex printed to save paper while others are simplex printed such as the invoice and title page.

Once those and a few other small bugs in the accounting applications were settled down things have been relatively stable for us with ongoing systems, cluster, and end user needs.

Amy Babinchak of Third Tier extended an invitation to me to step into the Third Tier fold a little while back. Monique and I discussed my involvement with TT and the time commitments required along with an idea of what to expect in the way of trouble tickets and figured it would be a good fit.

Now, we do get support requests via the blog every once in a while, and via other forums I participate in but for the most part things are MPECS and contract client focused. Well, that’s not too challenging if you know what I mean! ;)

I’m very happy to report that the trouble tickets that I have been a part of over the last week or two have indeed been challenging, successful, and very rewarding. The folks we get to serve in TT have been second to none and the TT Team is phenomenal.

Joining Third Tier was indeed a great decision. :)

Now, the SMBKitchen Project content is soon to be updated with quite a few items. One is a just finished video walkthrough of setting up Hyper-V on a Windows 8 client machine, installing two VMs, one a Server 2012 DC and the other a Server 2008 R2 router, along with the requisite steps.

I have a number of documents in the works. One on sizing a Hyper-V solution tailored to a client’s specific needs and the other a two part document introducing a client and their needs in part 1 and a full-on RFP response proposal in part 2 that we presented to the prospect. This particular proposal is one of the best documents I’ve ever done so I look forward to sharing it.

With our regular client needs, now Third Tier’s needs, SMBKitchen work being done, and ultimately my taking a hardline on spending time with my family things are very brisk.

Posting to the blog over the next while may be a bit spotty due to demands on time here but we will do our best to keep the relevant posts flowing!

Thanks for reading and for your support over the years! :D

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

Synnex Canada Responds and Makes Things Right After an Error

Recently, we went through our first DOA HP LaserJet business series printer in what seems like years!

We spent a few hours troubleshooting with HP support walking through everything from firmware updates, firmware recoveries, to recovery-mode firmware wipe and reloads.

Nothing worked to get the printer to recognize the 1500 sheet tray that we added to the unit.

So, HP Support ticket ID in hand we called in to our supplier, had the printer set as DOA, and provided the printer’s serial number to our Synnex Customer Service contact.

Needless to say, through a series of errors made on Synnex’s end we ended up spending a _lot_ of time working through the resulting mess over a series of months.

We put out a couple of Tweets to let the powers that be at Synnex know that our frustration levels were reaching critical mass.

• MPECSInc Tweet: You are about to lose a customer, us, over a Synnex RMA screw up that Canada is trying to back charge me $630 on.
• MPECSInc Tweet: Yeah, what a waste of JessieB's and my time. We spent HOURS getting through the mess. Damage Control needed.

After the first Tweet Mary Ellen Grom approached us almost immediately by phone.

Long story short, we went through a mind-bending RMA process with Ingram Micro Canada a number of years ago and needless to say we leave them to the very last for any distribution orders we need to place.

Synnex Canada came very close.

We are very happy to announce that not only has the mess been straightened out but Synnex took extra steps to make sure we were happy given the amount of time we spent on the problem.

This situation and its resolution demonstrates very clearly to us why a very substantial part of our distribution purchases have been made through Synnex Canada over the history of our company.

The Synnex Sales Team that is assigned to us has always been very responsive whether by phone, e-mail, or notes on an order placed.

Our Synnex Microsoft licensing contacts have been consistently better than any of the other distributor’s contacts hands-down.

Most certainly we are _not_ the biggest fish in the sea. However, in this day and age when we all face business pressures from all sides every customer/client relationship needs extra special attention. And, when we make an error the restitution to our customer/client should be worth something to them.

Thank you to Mary Ellen and the Synnex folks that reached out to us to straighten things out and make things right. :)

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 Wired Ethernet Drivers Download Links

Intel has a page for us to land on to find an Intel PROSet driver without having to dig through the Download Centre first.

• Intel Network Connectivity: Drivers and Software for Intel Gigabit and PRO/1000 Gigabit Server Adapters

As of this writing the various download links take us to Intel PROSet version 18.1 for the various Windows flavours.

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

Exchange 2013 OWA Comparison: RTM to CU1

We are happy to report that after walking through all of the troubleshooting steps we needed to that Exchange 2013 CU1 installed successfully on one of our Exchange 2013 RTM greenfield deploys.

Note that there were 18 steps to the whole process _after_ completing the AD prep steps and installing the required components on Server 2012.

This is a shot of Exchange 2013 RTM OWA:

This is a shot of Exchange 2013 CU1 OWA:

We now have the SPAMfighter folder listed.

One thing we noticed is that OWA loaded a _lot_ faster on the new platform than it used to on RTM.

As always, _test_ updates in a lab setting before wondering out and running them on production systems.

We had a System State and a full ShadowProtect backup of this particular setup before we jumped in as a just-in-case.

Given that some of the RTM bugs were critical at this site we jumped into CU1 right away on a production system.

So far, we can report that things are back to normal. So far . . .

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

Might want to hold off on Exchange 2013 CU1

We ran into a hiccup with applying CU1 in the "Prerequisite" stage. We backed off with essentially no changes made, at least the routine did not jump into running the actual update and this morning we have no mail flow.

In the mean time, things are not working. :(

The above is OWA and mail flow is not coming in or going out.

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