August, 2009

SCVMM 2008 R2 and HyperV Clustering

In my last post you seen I was working on a project involving Windows 2008 R2 Server and HyperV Failover Clustering. I had some Physical Machines that I needed to do a P2V on and thought why not try the new SCVMM 2008 R2 that has just released. SO I got that downloaded and installed on one of my servers and when I added the 2 HyperV Servers it recognized right away that it was in a Cluster and set this up accordingly. I then clicked on the move the P2V wizard and away we went. It seen I was moving it into a Cluster and wanted to know if I want to make it high available and I selected sure. But the bottom line is if you are not using this now you should be really checking this out as it is a great tool to use to move your physical machines to the Virtual World. The rest of the time you can use your Failover Cluster Manager to manage your Virtual Servers.

Til Later just Roger

Windows Server 2008 R2 HyperV Clustering

I have a on going project bringing in 12 new servers and a c7000 HP Blade Enclosure and a MSA 2012i going on right now and one of the interesting things I have done is to setup 2 Windows 2008 R2 HyperV Servers connecting to a HP MSA 2012i iSCSI Storage device and using the new HyperV Clustering in the Failover Clustering piece of 2008 R2. This is my first attempt at Failover Clustering of any kind and it has been pretty simple actually. It was some trial and error with getting the connection presented to the servers off the MSA but it was a matter of the Lun numbers. I was trying to present the LUN to each server with the same ID. I found that is I add a different ID for each one on the different connections it works then. There is a good article out on how to set this up and here it is. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732181(WS.10).aspx#BKMK_Connect

 Til Later just Roger

SBS 2008 Error

I was updating my SBS 2008 Server with Exchange 2007 Sp1 Update 8 and had to stop in the middle of the update because the power was going out in my house. Well I ended up with the Red X when I would open up OWA. OK now what I thought and that was to just reapply the Update 8. OK easier said that done because every-time I tried to run that update I would get a error that I did not have access to update a certain file and the install would stop. I right click on the file and there was no option to run as Administrator. OK I thought a minute and opened up the Command Prompt in the run As Administrator Mode and then change to the directory the file was in and ran it from there. This worked on the installing of the file simple enough just one of those things that didn’t need to be over thought which we all do at times.

Till later just Roger

Windows 2008 R2 ADPrep Problem

I was working on a Windows 2008 DC and getting it ready to Prep the domain for a Windows 2008 R2 DC. I wasn’t on-site so I had no access to the a DVD Drive but I had the iso downloaded. I extracted the files and copied the Adprep folder over to my Windows 2008 32bit DC well when I ran adprep /forestprep I got the warning wrong version of OS 32bit versus 64 bit. OK now what to do as there is no 32bit version of Windows 2008 R2 RTM. I went over my possibilities and went back and looked at the apdrep folder a little closer and what I found as there is a adprep32.exe in the folder so I ran this on my Windows 2008 32bit DC and away Prepping the forest and domain went. I now could bring in my Windows 2008 R2 DC to the domain.

Til Later just Roger

Cloud Computing Part 2

I was reading a article on Cloud Computing and how they had a account get hacked. Now that is a warm and fuzzy feeling but there is more to it than just security and if it is right for you and it got me to thinking about this some more so I did some more digging and I came away with some more thoughts on this. I know everyone is saying that it will be the next best thing better than sliced bread but there was also MSs Bob and the MS OS called ME I think it was suppose to be there with that also. IBM has OS 2 and others.

There is more to it than that and if you are actually thinking of doing Cloud Computing do you due diligence and see if it will work for you and if you are willing to take the inherit security risks and other items that goes with it. Lets look at some of the things you should think about before heading out and jumping on the band wagon and see if this is the Ride you want to be on or not.

Your Data where will it reside? It could be anywhere from here in the States or scattered across the world. Ok that is not so bad you should have access to it but what happens if the company hosting the Data goes out of business what about your data then? We are not in the best of times at the moment. Do you get it back or are you up the river without a paddle. How many Companies can survive with out their Data. Also if your data is in another country and what about privacy laws? Do they have to follow the same laws you do where you are at? Probably not anywhere close to what we have to follow.

What about Regulatory Compliance? You are responsible for this no matter where you data is at but will the people hosting the data. Will the Cloud Service Provider follow these rules or refuse? If they refuse I am sure I would be trusting that Provider with my data NOT. What about the people Administratingyour data what kind of hiring process have they been through? Anyone could setup a hosting site and say they have the service even the bad guys and it makes you think don’t it.

Ok what about your data it is sitting out there somewhere in the big wild world and there is other data from others sitting on the same servers how do you know it is isolated or someway segregated by itself and won’t get mixed in with the others some how.

What about disaster recovery if the Provider has problems? You would hope it would be spread or replicated to multiple locations but what if it is not or they say it is but in all actuality it is not. There is a lot of things to think about on this to make you decision on to Cloud or not the Cloud. Everyone and their dog has a opinion on this and myself I have opinions but we will see how this plays out.

Til later just Roger

HP c7000 and Updating the iLO firmware.

I am i the process of rolling out a HP c7000 Blade Enclosure with 12 new Servers and migrating old machines to new Blades and into the HyperV World and a MSA 2012i for Backups and Virtuals. One thing I ran into was I had the secondary OA have a Firmware mismatch with the Primary and I could not get it to Sync with the Primary OA. So I downloaded the latest Firmware for the Enclosure and checked the notes on it and it required iLo firmware 1.78 from HP. I checked all the servers and none of them had 1.78 now what do I do as 10 of the Blades are not running and have no OS on them. The 2 that I have running I did those updates and then went to searching.

What I found was you can use the OA Command line to update your Firmware on your Blades with them shutoff. So I had a little ftp server I turned on and dropped the iLo2_178.bin file into the site and then opened a command prompt and telneted into the Primary OA and ran this command.

Update iLo 1 ftp://servername or ip address/iLo2_178.bin  hit enter and away it went. Just as easy as that it updated the firmware and I didn’t have to turn the machines on and install a OS. The number 1 after Update iLo is the Blade you are wanting to update or if you want to do the whole EnclosureBlades you would put All instead of the Blade number.  Or you do 2 and then 3 and you get the picture.  Ftp and HTTP and a Tftp server will also do the trick for presenting the Firmware to the Blade.

Til Later just Roger

Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 RTM Upgrade.

Ok the title is misleading because the offical line is that you can not upgrade from Windows 7 RC to the RTM which is true kind of. I know if you call in with problems you would probably have a hard time getting support if you did that. But for those of you really wanting to try this if you do pop in your DVD and see what you get. You will get a error that this won’t happen Format and reload like a good little worker bee.

But for those of you who like to push and really have a hard time taking no you can’t do that for a answer the answer is with a little hack you can make the Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 RTM work. My favorite network Admin Randy found this little hack you do and things will go. I did the same thing with a Windows 2003 Server to SBS 2003 Server upgrade when I accidently ran the wrong version of  CD on the Source machine Prepping the Forest and Domain and had the wrong AD Version. That was a matter of editing the ini file that does the version check. Same thing here.

Copy your Windows 7 TRM install DVD over to a folder on your Drives and then go into Sources and Edit the cversion.ini and change the MinClient value to 7000. Also note that you can only upgrade to the Windows 7 RTM as that is what the RC installed. So if you are feeling like taking a chance here you go knock yourself out but if it causes problems you are on your own. That is why I have a backup of my original Vista machine before I upgraded to Windows 7 RC and now upgraded my laptop to the RTM. It worked for me and it worked for Randy but there is always that time that it won’t.

Til Later just Roger

I know bad again

Well it has been a while since I last posted but as a person stated in their blog about why that haven’t posted in a while “Life gets in the way once in a while” Which is true for me between work and going through the 20000 details of what we are going to do in our new addition here at home and vacations and all that fun stuff. OK maybe not 20000 but it sure seems like it. I have a lot to blog about on things I have run into lately so more on that coming soon.

Til later just Roger