rodney.buike « The Lazyadmin.com

Hyper-V R3 Storage Improvements

Windows Server 8 brings with it Hyper-V R3. Within R3 there are quite a few new features and two specific to storage that I know a lot of people are looking forward too. The first one I have been asked about hundreds of times and it is finally available in Windows 8 Hyper-V, virtual fibre channel HBAs. You can now connect a Hyper-V R3 virtual machine to a fibre channel SAN.

The virtual FC HBA does have a few requirements:

A server running Windows Server 8 with Hyper-V role installed.
The server requires a Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) with a driver that supports Virtual Fibre Channel. See this list for your options
A virtual machine configured to use a virtual Fibre Channel adapter
The VM OS must be Windows 2008, 2008 R2 or Windows Server 8
Note you cannot boot from a virtual FC LUN

Windows Server 8 also brings a new disk

Continue reading Hyper-V R3 Storage Improvements

Windows Server 8–File Sharing

So Windows Server 8 is out in beta now and there are a lot of new features and functionality. We’ll be covering them off over the next few weeks starting with some small but signifigant changes in regards to file services.

First up is Dynamic Access Control which provides for a more flexible and granular control over data classification, access policies, audit policies and RMS. Windows Server 8 support for modeling the effective access to a file/folder along with:

Support for multiple auditing policies
Automatic classification mechanisms for file servers to allow administrators to easily customize automatic classification
Access Denied Remediation to support any file type launched from explorer

More importantly is support for SMB level encryption. Currently SMB traffic is not encrypted and if you need it to be you must deploy IPSec and is all or nothing. With SMB encryption it can be enabled per server

Continue reading Windows Server 8–File Sharing

Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts

So you’ve downloaded Windows 8 and played around with it only to find out that it is pretty touch centric and you don’t have a touch screen. Have no fear this list of keyboard shortcuts should help until that unicorn like Windows 8 tablet arrives.

Desktop Mode – Most of these are Windows 7 shortcuts but also work in Windows 8

CTRL + ESC – Toggles between the Windows desktop environment and the new Start screen.
WINKEY + number – Launch the a shortcut in the Windows taskbar. So WINKEY + 1 would launch the first app in the taskbar
WINKEY + B – Select the tray notification area
WINKEY + C – Display Charms
WINKEY + D – Show Desktop
WINKEY + E – Launch Windows Explorer in Computer view
WINKEY + F – Search Files using Windows Search pane
WINKEY + I – Display Settings pane for Windows Desktop
WINKEY + L – Lock PC and
Continue reading Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts

Service Manager AV Exclusions

Microsoft has a great wiki that outlines all the AV exclusions required for all the different Enterprise products you may have deployed in your organization. It covers everything from AD to SQL, Failover Cluster Service to IIS, ISA and more. You can find the Windows Anti Virus Exclusions list here.

Also included in the list is the System Center suite of products, with the exception of Service Manager. While I am sure Microsoft will get around to updating the wiki you can use the list of files, folders and processes below to create an exclusion list for Service Manager.

Service Manager Folders

The following folder should be excluded from real time AV scanning…

%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft System Center\Service Manager 2010\Health Service State\*

Service Manager Processes

The following processes should be excluded from real time AV scanning…

%programfiles%\Microsoft System Center\Service Manager 2010\HealthService.exe
%programfiles%\Microsoft System Center\Service Manager 2010\MonitoringHost.exe
%programfiles%\Microsoft System Center\Service Manager 2010\Microsoft.Mom.Sdk.ServiceHost.exe
%programfiles%\Microsoft System Center\Service Manager 2010\Microsoft.Mom.ConfigServiceHost.exe

RunAs Radio – Rodney Buike Virtualizes His Desktop!

While at TechDays in Toronto, Richard talks to Rodney Buike about virtualizing desktops. Rodney digs into how Citrix’s XenDesktop can let you use Windows 7 applications on your iPad! The conversation also explores the use of application virtualization to minimize storage use and simplify software updates, as well as an approach to using desktop virtualization to keep older workstations up and running for longer. VDI is coming of age, and Rodney digs into how to get things done.

Listen to the 30 minute podcast here…

Live Migration NIC Binding

In a typical Hyper-V R2 cluster built on Microsoft’s best practices will have 6-8 NICs depending on the SAN type (iSCSI or FC) including:

Management Network
VM Network
VM Network
CSV Network
Live Migration Network
Cluster Heartbeat Network
iSCSI MPIO (or FC adapter)
iSCSI MPIO (or FC adapter)

One common issue that comes up in this scenario is failed Live Migrations, Quick Migrations will work but live ones will not. When you attempt a Live Migration and it fails due to “A cluster network is not available for this operation” it is caused by improper NIC Binding Order on the Hyper-V Hosts. When this happens two events are created in the Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V High Availability\Admin event log on the destination server. Look for EventID 21126 and 21111

Event Log 1

Event Log 2

Your first thought will be to check that all the cluster resources are online and you will find they are. When this happens you need

Continue reading Live Migration NIC Binding

Common P2V Conversion Errors

I recently completed a project converting a clients production network of 70+ servers to virtual machines for a lab environment. SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1 was used to perform a physical to virtual conversion of all the physical servers. While the large majority converted without any issues at all there were a few errors encountered along the way that were easy to fix.

VSS Writer did not respond within the expected time interval – Error 13243

This was an interesting error that came up twice and both times the fix was the same. While the error looks like an issue with VSS it is actually a profile issue. When I attempted to log on to the server to investigate the VSS issue the logon would fail with a User Profile Could Not Load error. I’ve seen this before on desktop PCs when the user

Continue reading Common P2V Conversion Errors

Sharing ISOs in SCVMM Library

When you are deploying new VMs with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 you have the option to mount an ISO image to install the OS from. When you do this the default behaviour is to copy the ISO file from the library to the location where the VM is being created. This causes two things to happen, first you have to copy the ISO over the network and second you end up losing that storage space as the ISO remains in the VM file location.

SCVMM allows you the option to share the ISO rather than copying it. While the data in the ISO still gets copied over the network during the install, the ISO isn’t saved to the VM file location and in the long run this will save you some space.

To implement this you need to configure some

Continue reading Sharing ISOs in SCVMM Library

P2V Conversions with SCVMM

System Center Vitrual Machine Manager 2008 R2 provides the capability to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine. You have two options to complete this task, online and offline.

For most physical machines in your environment an online P2V conversion will work. During an online conversion the source machine remains online and responding to requests. With an online P2V, VSS takes a snapshot of the system and that snapshot is converted to a VM. There are a few times when an online P2V is not recommeneded or available including:

Legacy OS – Windows 2000 SP4 and earlier cannot be converted online. In order to P2V a legacy OS you must use the offline feature.
Domain Controllers – Microsoft does not recommend or support online P2V of domain controllers
Losing Data – Since VSS takes a snapshot any changes to the system or data will not be part of the converted VM. Consider offline P2V for
Continue reading P2V Conversions with SCVMM

Using Pro Tips in SCVMM 2008 R2

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and Operations Manager 2007 R2 can be integrated to provide reporting and a feature called Performance Resource Optimization (PRO). Using PRO, Operations Manager will pass alerts raised in relation to the virtualization hosts and/or VM(s) to the Virtual Machine Manager console through something called a Pro Tip.

Pro Tips

Implementing PRO and reporting is pretty straight forward but before you start add the SCVMM Service Account to the SCOM Advanced Operators role as it will require permissions to SCOM. Once complete insert the SCVMM install media into your SCOM server and run the SCVMM Setup.

Pro Tips 1

Select Configure Operations Manager. You will need to provide some basic information including the SCVMM servername, service account credentials and the tool will install the SCVMM Management Console on the server as well as importing the SCVMM 2008 R2 management packs.

(Note: You will have

Continue reading Using Pro Tips in SCVMM 2008 R2