November, 2008

Deploying Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) on Windows Server 2008 by Command-Line Only

If you are lazy (I’m very lazy ) you probably will want to create a script to deploy Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) on Windows Server 2008.
As a source for this scrip I really recommend to take a look on the following article: “Deploying CCR on Windows Server 2008 by Command-Line Only“

VMware ESX Server 3.5 Update 3

• What’s New
• Prior Releases of VMware Infrastructure 3
• Before You Begin
• Installation and Upgrade
• Patches Contained in this Release
• Resolved Issues
• Known Issues
• Using Language Packs on the ESX Server Host

Note: In many public documents, VMware ESX Server 3.5 is now known as VMware ESX Server 3.5 and VMware ESX Server 3i version 3.5 as VMware ESXi 3.5. These release notes continue to use the previous convention to match the product interfaces and documentation. A future release will update the product names.

What’s New

The following information provides highlights of some of the enhancements available in this release of VMware Infrastructure 3:

Note: Not all combinations of VirtualCenter and ESX Server versions are supported and not all of these highlighted features are available unless you are using VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 3 with ESX Server 3.5 Update 3. See the ESX Server, VirtualCenter, and Virtual Infrastructure Client Compatibility Matrixes for more information on compatibility.

New features and supported IO devices:

• Increase in vCPU per Core Limit — The limit on vCPUs per core has been raised from 8 (or 11 for VDI workloads) to 20. This change only raises the supported limit but does not include any additional performance optimizations. Raising the limit allows users more flexibility to configure systems based on specific workloads and to get the most advantage from increasingly faster processors. The achievable number of vCPUs per core will depend on the workload and specifics of the hardware. It is expected that most deployments will remain within the previous range of 8-11 vCPUs per core. For more information, see VI3 Performance Best Practices and Benchmarking Guidelines.
• HP BL495c support — This release adds support for the HP Blade Server BL495c with all Virtual Connect and IO Options allowing 1 or 10Gb connection to the network (upstream) and 1Gb connections only to the servers (downstream).
• Newly Supported NICs —  This release adds support for the following NICs:
  • Broadcom 5716 1Gb
  • Broadcom  57710 10Gb Adapters
  • Broadcom 57711 10Gb Adapters at 1Gb speed only

  Note: iSCSI/TOE hardware offloads available with these adapters are not supported by VMware with ESX 3.5.

• Newly Supported SATA Controllers— This release adds support for the following SATA controllers:
  • Broadcom HT1000 (supported in native SATA mode only with SATA hard drives and Solid State Disk devices)
  • Intel ICH-7 (supported in IDE/ATA mode only with SATA CD/DVD drives)

  Note: Storing VMFS data stores on drives connected to these controllers is not supported

• Newly Supported Guest Operating Systems — Support for the following Guest Operating Systems have been added by VMware during the ESX 3.5 Update 3 release cycle:
  • Solaris 10 U5
  • Ubuntu 8.04.1
  • RHEL 4.7
• Internal SAS networked storage controllers — This release adds experimental support for Intel Modular Server MFSYS25 SAS Storage Control Modules (SCMs). For known issues with this platforms and workaround see SAS Link and Port Failovers with the Intel Modular Server Running Update 3 and Later Versions of ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 (KB 1007394).
• Interrupt Coalescing (IC) for Qlogic 4Gb FC HBAs — Introduced in this release, the feature reduces CPU utilization (and CPU cost per IO) and improves throughput of IO intensive workloads by generating a single interrupt for a burst of Fibre Channel frames, when received in a short period of time, rather than interrupting the CPU each time a frame is received. The feature is enabled by default.
• Experimental Support for the VMDK Recovery Tool — This release adds support for the VMDK Recovery tool, a script intended to help customers to recover VMFS/vmdk data stores from accidental deletion of VMFS/vmdk data store or physical disk corruption. For more information, see VMDK Recovery Tool (ESX 3.5 Update 3) ( KB 1007243).
• Small Footprint CIM Broker —  Updated SFCB to version 1.3.0
• IBM SAN Volume Controller — SVC is now supported with Fixed Multipathing Policy as well as MRU Multipathing Policy.

Canadians: Use Live Search, win a 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer SE

In addition to continuously updating Live Search and trying to get developers on board with new features, Microsoft is also promoting Live Search via various deals and giveaways. The latest is Big Ticket Search, and surprisingly it’s only for Canadians. Every search on the site gives you a chance to win a prize (1,488 total prizes):

Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 2.0 Released

Microsoft announced the availability of the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 2.0. Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 2.0, now with support for Hyper-V technology. Go here to get this new Solution Accelerator: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501231.aspx

With the availability of Hyper-VT technology, Microsoft is boosting the adoption of virtualization by providing a very robust and fast virtualization platform managed by Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. However, the challenge of keeping the virtual machine client operating system up to date remains. Virtual machines that are left offline for extended periods of time do not automatically receive operating system, antivirus, or application updates that would keep them compliant with current IT policy.The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 2.0 provides a way to automate the process of updating virtual machines running on virtual servers and Hyper-V with the latest operating system updates….

Continue At Source: TheSystemAdministrator.com

Operations Manager 2007 R2 Beta Now Available!

The System Center Operations Manager team is excited to announce the availability of the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Beta, which is ready for you to download through Microsoft Connect today!

Continue at Source: blogs.technet.com

Update Rollup 5 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (KB953467)

Update Rollup 5 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) resolves issues that were found in Exchange Server 2007 SP1 since the software was released. This update rollup is highly recommended for all Exchange Server 2007 SP1 customers.

For a list of changes that are included in this update rollup, see KB953467. Download at source: www.microsoft.com

Microsoft Web Platform Installer (RC)

Few days ago Microsoft has released a Microsoft Web Platform Installer (RC).
The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple tool that installs Microsoft’s entire Web Platform, including IIS7, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. Using the Web Platform Installer’s user interface, you can choose to install either specific products or the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer. The Web PI also helps keep your products up to date by always offering the latest additions to the Web Platform.

New Updates! Now supporting Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, Web PI makes it easy to install and stay up-to-date with the Microsoft Web Platform. This updated release lets you install ASP.NET MVC, Visual Studio Tools for Silverlight, and much more!

Download at Source: http://www.microsoft.com/

November 2008 Windows Update for Windows Home Server

This update improves the interaction between home computers running Windows Vista and a Windows Home Server-based system when copying files or folders that are larger in size than the free space available on the first (or primary) hard drive to a Shared Folder.  Additionally, this update resolves certain issues which can happen when restoring files and folders from Windows Home Server, such as the opening of a Home Computer Backup sometimes stalling at 79% complete.  The update also improves the search functionality when using remote access.

Full Knowledge Base article at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957825

How to Convert Windows Server 2008 to a Workstation

Few last months I’ve been using Windows 2008 Server as a main OS on my laptop. It’s so stable ,… Nothing will move me back to Windows XP or Vista, but to “convert” Windows Server 2008 to a Workstation is necessary to do few changes :).

One of the best (IMHO) explanations about “How to convert your Windows Server 2008 to a Workstation” could be found on http://win2k8.msfn.org

Outlook Web Access (OWA) on Apache in DMZ ;)

Using Apache 2 with Outlook Web Access (OWA) it’s very easy. This solution is even working when Apache installed on Windows XP and this solution can save a lot of money :), not necessary to buy Windows Server, additional Exchange Server licence or ISA Server. First, we need to enable some useful modules:

proxy
headers

Now, we need to edit / create a VirtualHost section (or use Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts. conf, remember to make following changes inside httpd-vhosts. conf ):

ProxyPreserveHost On
</VirtualHost>

NOTE: If you are using Apache on Windows, remember to make changes accordingly.