This made me shed a single tear...

From the CentOS 6.4 release notes:

4. Major changes

• Microsoft Hyper-V drivers have been added to allow CentOS to be more efficient as a Virtual Machine when installed on Microsoft Hyper-V server. 

Joyous Day!

The Greatest Toy KIT in the Universe!

I have been watching Jaimie of the Giant Robot Project fame build a giant robot by hand using scrapped parts for almost 7 years.  He is now crowd funding on Kickstarter to sell his toy based on his giant robot as a kit!

Check out Jaimie build his robot: http://www.youtube.com/user/JMEMantzel

Support him putting educational toys in the hands of children: http://kck.st/12BVJ8x

MVA: Windows Server 2012 r2 Jump Start - My Notes and Takeaway

Just finished the live broadcast of Windows Server 2012 r2 at the Microsoft Virtual Academy with Rick Claus and Corey Hynes.  This was another excellent presentation from these guys split over two long days.  I tried to type notes as fast as I could but these don't do the presentation justice.  This is an ugly dump of my notes and if I find any inaccuracies I will correct them.  Sadly I missed the section on Storage, I will get caught up on it once the broadcast is published, and I will update these notes.

Server 2012 r2

• Server 2012 user cals will work on server 2012 r2
• Can’t in place migrate from 2012 to 2012 r2
• Can’t in place migrate from 2012 r2 preview to 2012 r2 RTM
• 2012 r2 Std = 2 free VM’s

Virtualization

• VHDX = 64TB max size
• Can live migrate vm’s from 2012 host to 2012 r2 host, but not the reverse
• VM’s support direct attached nic teaming
• Gen 2 virtual machine:
• Hot add cd/dvd-rom drive
• Boot from UEFI firmware
• Faster to install and boot because of VM Bus
• Enhanced session mode:
• Can copy and paste with RDP between host and guests
• Can convert VHD to VHDX
• VHDX can grow and shrink while the vhdx stays online.
• VM metrics, live graphs of cpu, memory, disk IOPS, of VM’s
• Live snapshotting of Linux VM’s, can backup live linux VM’s
• Right click -> Clone a live VM
• Move the VHD location of a live VM to a different spot with no downtime
• A VHDX located on shared storage can be mounted to multiple VM’s natively
• Cluster aware updating, pushes WSUS updates at different times so VM’s don’t get bogged down
• Replicate VM’s without a domain by using certificate based authentication, Kerberos not required.
• Automatic VM activation using a generic key, as long as host is activated, the VM’s will be too.

Networking

• Software defined networking, use policies for network configuration instead of hitting hosts and VM’e one at a time.
• IP payloading with GRE, allows two networks w/ same subnet address to talk to each other, without NATing
• Use powershell to edit smart switch configurations
• One tool/command can edit nic ports on server and ports on the switch
• SMB multichannel, loads can be split to multiple nics on different networks
• RSS – receive side scaling allows network cpu processing to spread across all cores.
• Live networking monitoring of vm’s at the host level
• Ping has been replaced by ps commandlet: Test-NetConnection
• Alias= tnc
• Ping port: tnc 192.168.1.1 rdp
• tnc alone will test internet connection of pc/server

Management

• Using powershell with OMI and SMI-S standards you can modify third party switches or storage devices.
• Connect directly to iDRAC from VMM or powershell
• Check out the Microsoft Script Center for powershell scripts
• Powershell in a web browser. http://servername.local/pswa
• Has session saving
• Use powershell to create tasks/jobs, custom triggers
• Multiple levels of server desktop environment
• “Desktop experience” with metro apps
• Full server with metro gui
• Server core with management graphic shell
• Server core
• Server core can be updated to gui with a simple restart
• RSAT does not require a domain, can manage workgroup servers
• Use powershell to pipe role installs to multiple servers
• Desired state configuration:
• Powershell commands to tell servers what configurations/roles are needed
• Use MOF file as template for system settings, roll out to multiple servers at once.
• Domain not required
• Windows Server Essentials is a role now, can be installed to any server
• Comes with the pretty SBS stuff
• Comes with RWW

VDI

• RDS tools are in server manager and not stand alone administration tools
• Rdweb as a web portal for RDS
• Pooled vs Private remote desktops
• Pooled: uses differencing disk for saved state, can roll back state when you log off
• Private: individual vm
• Session shadowing
• User profile disks: Vhds can store personal data, then roll back a saved state, and the personal data will be saved.  
• User profile is a mount point to the vhd on a network share.  
• User profile folder will follow you from vm to vm.
• Hyper-v settings on master vm get rolled to the pooled vm’s
• Dynamically add/remove monitors for RDP sessions

In summary server 2012 r2 is ridiculous, I am very impressed.  Going from 2012 to 2012 r2 seems like a bigger upgrade than 2008 r2 to 2012.  MS is focused on making stuff easier, having the technology work for us.  Once the stream and the slides becomes available I will link them here.

Saving a Dell PE 2950 from the graveyard by turning it into an archive server

The Dell PE 2950 came with a Perc 5/i raid controller that supports up to 2 TB single disks.  It has 6 hot swap bays for a total of 12 TB, it does not support raid6 and a raid5 is not recommended with large disks.  A raid10 would bring the usable storage to 6 TB, much less than what we need.  After some research I decided to upgrade the Perc 5/i to a Perc h700 that can support 4 TB drives and a raid6, which will put us at ~16 TB usable.  This post is NOT instructions on how to install a PERC H700 in a Dell PE 2950, if you are going to do this you do so at your own risk, and wear an anti-static wrist strap!

The humble PERC 5/i and the area we are going to be working with: 

no battery :-(

SAS cables removed:

5/i removed:

Two screws hold the 5/i onto the caddy, the blue clip had to be removed:

The blue clip would not fit because of the heatsink on the h700.  Earthquakes are not an issue in this part of the country so it should be ok.  It fit into place firmly enough.  1GB of ram and a battery:

I had to buy Mini-SAS SFF-8087 to SFF-8484 cables, 18 inch was the shortest cable I could find and as you can see they are too long.  BE CAREFUL when routing these, take it slow and bend slowly.  The SAS-B (right side) on the backplane is gracefully bent because of the cd-rom drive is in the way:

This is a good sign, however disks 4&5 show up as 6&7.  Weird, but consistent with the research I have read:

Raid6 is preferred over raid5 nowadays, raid10 would be overkill for a static archive box:

We should be good: 

If you look carefully the lights on 4&5 (6&7 now) on the very right do not light up.  Once again weird, but consistent with what I have read:

14902GB C: drive? Can't because there is no UEFI on the Dell 2950:

After installing Server 2012 I formatted the storage space:

And here is what Dell OpenManager Server Administrator is saying about the disks:

Openmanage is showing disks 0-3 being members of 'connector 0' and disks 4-5 being members of 'connector 1':

Scheduling Robocopy, something I need to do WAY more of

Create a c:/scripts folder to house your robocopy bat script and create a backupfiles.bat inside of it.

This is an example of a robocopy line I use most often:

robocopy "C:\Source" "E:\Destination" /MIR /LOG:"C:\scripts\backupfileslog.txt"

Save this in your bat file.  The /MIR switch will mirror the source to the destination, copying the subfolders and purging stuff that no longer exists in the source.  The /LOG switch will output the job status to a file.

Launch taskschd.msc and under 'Task Scheduler Library' right click and Create Basic Task:

Give it a name and I usually schedule it daily early in the morning:

You are going to want to start a program and select your bat script:

Click finish and we need to make it so it runs when I am logged off the computer/server so right click on the job and click properties.  Under the General Tab select Run whether user is logged on or not:

Click OK and we are all set.  You can run the job now by right clicking on it and selecting Run.  Check your log file and you can see the status of the robocopy job:

This is a really easy way to make sure your important stuff gets backed up.  Robocopy doesn't do VSS so you can't copy locked files, for that look into Hobocopy: https://github.com/candera/hobocopy

Learn more about robocopy: http://ss64.com/nt/robocopy.html

Use Chrome's Speed Dial 2 for a better new tab page.

Get Speed Dial 2 in the chrome web store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/speed-dial-2/jpfpebmajhhopeonhlcgidhclcccjcik

Microsoft's Remote Connectivity Analyzer

They have a tool for everything:

https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com

I live in a tabbed world

Get Clover to add Chrome style tabs to Windows Explorer