Virtualization

Cloud Computing Part3

I had to comment more on this as I was ready a article about a cell company that had theirservers go down and now all those users had lost data and their contacts. As you have probably figured by now I am not sold on the whole Cloud Computing Scenario. This is another example of what if this happens to you business being out in the cloud. Can you safely put your lifes hand out there and depend on someone else to make sure you don’t lose your data. It is one thing to lose you Cell contacts and whatever data was hosted on this but what would you do if this happened to your businesses data. I am sure that the cell users thought their data was protected also.

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

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

Windows 7 and Virtual PC and XP Mode Beta Part 2

Well I didn’t find a program that don’t run on Vista or Win7 but I did install Connectwise within the XP Mode Beta and then launched the shortcut off my Start Menu and had the application run on my Win7 laptop seamlessly with no problems. I like the idea of how this works and the possibilities it opens up for customers and IT alike. This all ties in with the Windows 2008 R2 and how they are integrating or getting TS and HyperV to play nicely together and complement each other with the Published Desktop Pool and other options.

Til later just Roger

Windows 7 and Virtual PC and XP Mode Beta

Have you downloaded the Virtual PC and XP Mode Beta yet? Well now that the big weekend is winding down and my family got done with everything they thought I needed to do because I had been gone all week. I have time to play with this and I like what I see so far. Basically the premises is that if you have a program that will not run on Vista or Windows 7 but XP you can install the program onto the XP Virtual and the application will be published to the start menu of the the Windows 7 machine and run as part of the desktop on the Windows 7 machine. So far so good as I got this setup and will be finding a application that has issues running on a Vista machine and will see how it works. More to come

Til later just Roger

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Published Apps and Virtual Desktops P4

Takes note to self don’t be so self involved in projects and take time to write posts as you go here. That way not so much to spew in one sitting. Yea right as if that will happen. Mean while back at the ranch

Ok had everything configure like I thought it should be now and still not seeing my workstations in the RemoteApps Web Page or in the Programs list on my Windows 7 laptop. That is a cool feature of Windows 7 where you just point to a URL and it brings in your Published Apps and Desktop Pool. You configure this by going into Control Panel on your Windows 7 computer and then clicking on the RemoteApps and Desktop piece in there. So I logged into the Web Access and noticed that under configuration that it was still referring to Localhost so I changed this to my Connection Brokers Internal NetBios name and saved it and boom there was my Desktop Pool now showing in the Web Access. COOL!!!!!! Sorry moment of excitment there but I then went to my Windows 7 machine and went into the RemoteApps piece and hit update and bam there it was there also. Double dang COOL!!!!!!!!!! now I am cooking. Clicked on the piece and logged in and waited for the Virtual Desktop to spin up and start and waited and waited. Double Dang now what is happening so I went back to the document and read it again and found on the workstations I had to set a registry key for the remote connection to be made to it. Bingo did that and now they launch. WHEW!!!! finally I have it all functional. Another note to self read all doc don’t skim. There was more than that to this but I hate to type also so my words of wisdom is get the document and follow along that helps a lot.

Til later just Roger

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Published Apps and Virtual Desktops P3

Well momentary pause for head banging here as what did I do now to break the stuff. Time to read and I went searching and finally found a document called Deploying RemoteApp and Desktop connection Step by Step guide from MS. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2F5B9705-BC09-466E-882B-7227CBB39183&displaylang=en This helped, you can not install the Remote Desktop Connection broker on the same server as the Remote Desktop Session and Remote Desktop Virtualization Service and Remote Desktop Web.

So I spun up a Virtual Server in our HyperV Environment and installed 2008 R2 RC on it and installed the Broker and Remote Desktop Session Service for Redirection  on this server. I uninstalled the Broker from my host machine for the Remote App and Web Access and TS Gateway and the Virtualization service. Followed the document for setting up the broker and away I went the pieces I broke came back online and worked correctly now. Duh…… Takes note to self maybe read next time but then again where is the fun in that.

When I installed the Virtualization service it also will add HyperV but I had already configured and installed HyperV so I was good there and on the server so I installed 2 Windows 7 workstations into the HyperV on the TS Gateway, RemoteApps and Virtualization Server. One was a 32 bit machine and one was a 64 bit machine. I installed Office 2007 and the Live Communicator 2007 R2 onto the machines. These will be going into the Desktop Pool as they call this and the workstations all have to have the same software on them as this basically runs in a Pool as they say you might not login to the same machine each time.

Til Later Just Roger

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Published Apps and Virtual Desktops P2

OK got my server up and running and went through the normal drill and got the settings configured on the server for networking and name and domain joined and all of that fun stuff to numerous to mention but I am sure you all know the drill. But I thought ok what am I going to do for sure here you know maybe get a plan of attack or is this just dive in and go. Thought for a moment and just dove in and went and I first decided to add Remote Desktop Services(Terminal Services) they had me for a minute as I was looking for the Terminal Services option then remembered MS had renamed this to Remote Desktop Services.

So I select RDS and oh my more options now what. I had to select from Remote Desktop Session Host, Remote Desktop Virtualization Host, Remote Desktop Licensing, Remote Desktop Connection Broker, Remote Desktop Gateway, Remote Desktop Web Access. So I picked everything except for the Licensing. Bad move but more on that later this was a test so who carried at that point until I fully understood how things works and what I really wanted. The install went pretty quick of the services and the normal rebooting proceeded and when the server came to the desktop I went to configuring the TS Gateway and adding Apps for the Remote Apps everything I have normally done on a regular 2008 server for these functions. Talked to Randy and got a SSL Cert for the Gateway and published it up with ISA and testing proceeded and things worked as expected. So I thought now what is this Virtual stuff so started to read and found I could setup and publish a Virtual workstation. Cool so I followed the documentation on the server to do this and all of a sudden nothing workie anymore and I could only connect by the /admin switch to the server. What the heck did I do now.

Til later just Roger

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Published Apps and Virtual Desktops P1

I know I haven’t posted much lately as I have as my wife’s says been ignoring her even and diving into the Windows 2008 Server R2 RC and Windows 7 RC and getting lost into whatever world I go to when I get something new to learn. Hmmm wonder what she means by that.

But anyways as I mentioned earlier I had upgraded my Vista Laptop to Windows 7 RC and it has been rock solid and has been responding faster than the Vista did. Or it could be from the sleep deprivation of all I have done the last week and I am running slower.

I talked with our Internal Network Admin and said hey Randy you know that spare blade we have? Can I use that for the 2008 R2 RC Server as I have some ideas for it. We have a existing 2008 Server TS Gateway in use and I wanted to give the Windows 2008 Server R2 RC a spin. But he had no problems with it so away I went.

The install is pretty straight forward just like 2008 Server but they have made some visual changes by adding some pretties to the screens graphics wise but installed pretty much the same. I was installing Windows 2008 Server R2 RC on a HP BL 465c Dual QC 36 Gig of RAM  and this is running on our HP c3000 Enclosure. More to come

Til later just Roger

Windows 2008 Server with HyperV and NIC Teaming Part 3

As we get ready to roll this out live I rebuilt the Host servers and had no trouble with Blade1 and the networking and the switches probably because a was there when I did this. So OK I got Blade1 going and the Virtual Servers redid and ready for the live prime time. No biggie I will just redo Blade2 and set things up like the other one. Things was going fine until I got to the point of getting the SAN NICs in the Vlan and trunked. Things was fine but I didn’t realize one little detail. When you trunk your NIC’s in the switch that is what you see the trunk name not the Ports. I fought this and fought this not realizing what was going on and finally had to have Jason come back just to tell me oh yea you got to Pick the Trunk name and add that to the Vlan. Duh!!! Ok see previous post and the line about “KISS” Keep it Simple Stupid.

Til later just Roger