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April 22, 2009

Hyper-V Unleashed

If you're interested in learning more about what Hyper-V brings to the table, and whether or not it's ready for prime-time, make sure to check out Hyper-V Unleashed – a free Web Seminar from WindowsITPro.

The event will be on July 21st, and I'll be presenting the 'Hyper-V In Depth' session. Registration is free, and there are some great goodies/freebies available for registrants – in addition, of course, to the content.

Here's a recap of the Agenda:

11:00 a.m.

Hyper-V In-Depth

This session would provide detailed information about Hyper-V. We will begin with the Hyper-V architecture and a discussion of the differences in the Hyper-V role and Hyper-V Server 2008 standalone edition. We also would cover storage and networking options; installing and managing Hyper-V on Server 2008 and Server Core; and advanced topics such as offline VHD access, backup and recovery, high availability options, and management.
12:30 p.m.

Partner Technical Presentations

1:45 p.m.

VMware ESX vs. Microsoft Hyper-V

This session would compare ESX server and Hyper-V, showing the differences between their architectures. We would look at the different features and management interfaces and compare the performance of the two products. In addition, we would look at the more advanced enterprise management capabilities offered by VI3 and SCVMM.
3:00 p.m.

Highly Available Hyper-V

This session would present the different high-availability features offered by Hyper-V. We would cover setting Failover Clustering at both the Hyper-V server and guest level and provide an overview of Live Migration, discussing how Live Migration works and then showing how to set up and use Live Migration with Hyper-V and Server 2008 R2

Posted on April 22, 2009 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 18, 2008

An Open Letter to SSD Manufacturers

Dear SSD Manufacturers,

No seriously. Go ahead. Just do it.

Start making your gnarly SSD drives in 3.5-inch form factors.

It will make it easier for real IT wonks to take you more seriously.

It will also make it tons easier to mount SSD drives in non-laptops.

That larger form-factor will also likely give us enough extra GBs that we won't be able to look the other way any longer.

--Mike

P.S. Toshiba, I'm talking to you - cuz you've got the speed where I want it, and the GBs are great. But do I REALLY have to buy conversion brackets?

Posted on December 18, 2008 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 04, 2007

Disable Shutdown Event Tracking in Longhorn

I'm sure it makes sense in plenty of enterprisey environments. But I'm not a big fan of seeing the following every time I want to shut down or restart my server or one of my VMs:

setnag

Accordingly, I typically just drop to DOS and run >shutdown /f /r /t 1 to force a reboot or what not. (Especially since if FORCES any non-responding apps to shut down and what not.)

That said, I sometimes like being able to use the menu... and don't want to be nagged with dev machines/VMs.

The process for turning this Shutdown Event Tracker in Longhorn/2008 is really similar to what you'd do with a Server 2003 instance - just that the options are in slightly different spots.

1). Start > Run > and then type in "gpedit.msc" (minus the quotes) and hit enter.
2) In the Local Group Policy Editor, Expand to the Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System node.
3) In the right-pane, scroll down a ways to the bottom of the listing of templates, and then double-click on the Display Shutdown Event Tracker entry as shown below, and set it to disabled.

destroynag

Voila... no more nag screens.

Posted on December 04, 2007 | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

November 06, 2007

VMware Web Management and IIS7 on Windows Server 2008

As I pointed out in a previous post, I wasn't able to find any love on teh intarwebs about how to get the VMware Web Management Interface to work on Windows Longhorn Server/IIS7.

Then I remembered: One of the cool things about IIS7 on Windows Server 2008 is that it provides you with the ability to 'emulate' IIS6's metabase and scripting interfaces.

So, I just made sure to install those components using the

Having installed VMware Server already on Win2k8, I knew that it crashed and burned (unsurprisingly) while trying to create the web site that would be used to allow HTTP management (over ports 8222 and 8333) of VMs and such.

So I added the IIS 6 Management compatability components:

iis6compat

And then proceeded with the install normally.

And, that did it. By giving VMware Server a suitable set of scripting interfaces to manage IIS and create a new site, everything worked flawlessly. (Of course, I had to go into the firewall and open up traffic on 8222, and 8333 for HTTP and HTTPs (as well as for port 902 for authorization/normal VMware traffic).)

Running VMware Server on Windows Server 2008 RC0 - x64
Sadly, I couldn't get VMware server to run on the x64 version of RC0.

During the x32 installation, I got a prompt telling me that some unsigned drivers were detected - should I let them through? I let them on.

With the installation on x64 Windows Server 2008, there was no such warning/prompt. And I simply couldn't log into VMware's Web Interface or via the normal console - as I kept being told that the server "actively refused" the connection. Checking out all of the VMware services on my box, I could see that the Auth Service wasn't running. Starting it just resulted in errors. Happily in the Security Log I could see audit failures at roughly the same time:

Code integrity determined that the image hash of a file is not valid. The file could be corrupt due to unauthorized modification or the invalid hash could indicate a potential disk device error.

That's a spiffy error, and it also listed the file in question: vmx86.sys - the same file/component that the VMware Authentication service depended upon.

I tried supressing those warnings/issues by using bcdedit /SET nointegritychecks ON, but there was no love (even after a reboot).

So.. that's when I decided to bail and just switch to Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (to take advantage of my 8GB of RAM). Maybe by the time Longhorn RTMs there will be a good work-around, or someone else will figure out how to pull it off, but I wasted about 2 hours on it and decided that enough was enough...

Posted on November 06, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 05, 2007

Google-hosed?

We all know what a googlewhack is, and that they're increasingly hard to find.

But what happens when you turn to Google for an answer to a problem that you're working on (say... trying to get VMware's Web Management Interface to work in IIS7), and the third entry in the list of results is a link to your own site/blog?

Only, you know you don't have the answers - otherwise you wouldn't be looking on Google. Sadly, at that point, I think you're hosed. And you know it. Hence, googlehosed. Maybe the 'rule' for being googlehosed should be that you know you're google-hosed when you see one of your own entries/posts on the first page of results - especially if it's BEFORE you start scrolling?

Sadly, however, this happens to me more often than I would like. I just never expected it for something as simple as getting the VMware web admin portal working in IIS7...  

Posted on November 05, 2007 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

For the Record..

For the record, just let me state that I _really_ like Windows Sever 2008. It's shaping up to be the best server OS that I've seen. I'm glad that MS is taking the time to 'fully bake it' before unleashing it on the world. (Unlike the other, crappy, OS that they recently released that wasn't fully baked - but which shall remain nameless. *wink*)

I also love that it installs in about 10 minutes on newer hardware, and 100% just works with ALL of my hardware (in x64) right out of the gate - including my RAID Controllers.

I also love how well the new TCP/IP stack just screams (when talking with other machines on the same stack). In this case, a screenshot is worth the rest of my words (note the speed/throughput):

win2k8_stack

Posted on November 05, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 09, 2007

Mikey's other new Rig

Gaming Rig Recap
A while back I posted about my new gaming rig.

Quite a few people have actually asked me how that turned out and I'm happy to say that it has been the single best computer purchase that I've ever made. I've never, ever, been happier with a box.

Other boxes/systems have been great - but nothing has been as fun as it was to research, buy, build, and then use my gaming rig. That, and the thing is an absolute beast. I used to spend a lot of time looking at task manager to see what was chewing up CPU and disk. With my new box I barely know how to use task manager anymore.

But the best thing is that it gives me much better flexibility in terms of upgrades and such than I ever could have swung from the likes of Dell or HP - at a fraction of the price.

Mikey needs a new box
Another box that I've been VERY happy with for the past year and a half (or so) has been my Dell PowerEdge SC1420. I got it as a refurb from Dell and got a killer deal on it. (A few weeks after I bought it I could have easily sold 2 GB of the RAM that came with it to cover the entire cost of the box - and still had 2 GB of RAM left.)

But I'm going to be doing a couple of projects with Microsoft's new Viridian Hypervisor shortly - and will need some serious power for virtualization. My PowerEdge could have handled the load pretty easily - with both of its hyper-threaded Xeon 3.0s. But those Xeon's didn't support Intel Virtualization Technology (or Intel VT), so I decided to swing for a new server.

Given my past success with NewEgg (I just can't describe how much I love them - they consistently have the cheapest prices and actually ship my stuff within a day or so every time), I decided that I'd build my own box again. (Though I'm cannibalizing the upgraded video-card from my PowerEdge.)

The new box
My new 'server' should be here on Friday (the case will be here Thursday), and will give me:
- An Intel Core 2 Quad. At 2.4 GHz it's literally 2 of the cores I have in my gaming rig glued together. But I'll get Intel VT, and the price is hardly much more than what I paid for my Core 2 Duo just a few months ago. (When the 1333Mhz bus processors come down in price in a while I can upgrade - and since both of my machines use the same 775 LGA socket I'll be able to share the love each time I buy nicer procs.)
- 8 GB of RAM. That's right baby: 8 GB. Which means that I'll need to spring for a 64-bit OS - though I'm just going to use Windows Server 2008 for now since it's _so_much better than Windows Server 2003.
- A slightly wimpier MoBo. Unpacking all of my EVGA stuff with my last box really did my inner geek some insane good. (2x vid cards, and a big honkin' mobo... I was in heaven.) But with this box I hardly need any video capability at all (I'll just be cannibalizing the 64MB PCI card that I slapped into my PowerEdge), but I did need a fast/dependable Mobo with some decent SATA and upgrade support. The 650i chipset fit that bill nicely.
- Disk. 1 TB spread over 4 spindles. Yippee.
- The same spiffy power-supply-unit (PSU) that I got with my last box. I really don't need as much power/wattage as this piglet supplies, but just LOVE how efficient it is, how clean the power is, and how insanely cool the modular cabling is. So I spent a bit more than I really needed.
- A fairly spiffy case. I really didn't want to spend too much on this piglet, but needed some decent fans and some *cough*  eye-candy and blue lights. I'll probably add some more blue LEDs as well as a Cold Cathode Black Light like I've *cough* done for my gaming rig. (And I'll likely skin the cables for both boxes with UV reflective goodness as I've purchased the skinning and molex tools - but just haven't had the time to do yet.)
A406-1069-maina

If you're interested, I've made the wishlist available over on newegg. As with my last system though, the contents of the wishlist don't represent a complete machine - as you'd need a video card with this box if you were interested in a similar configuration. It also doesn't have an OS, though you can usually swing Windows Server Standard for less than $700 if you do some shopping.

Love 'em and Leave 'em
That, and anyone know anybody that wants a well-loved PowerEdge that's in great condition? It's got 2x Intel Xeon 3.0 GHz (at 800 Mhz FSB), an IDE SATA RAID controller, 4 GB of RAM, and around .5 TB of disk. It's in awesome condition.

I'll likely put it up for sale on Ebay here in a while to help recoup some of my upgrade costs.

Posted on October 09, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 07, 2007

Google's FUD on IIS being less Secure

Great article on the notion that Google tried to put forth recently that IIS might somehow be less secure than Apache.  (Which is total crap as IIS 6 is amazingly secure - which this article points out.)

Posted on June 07, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 23, 2007

Great Resource For Localhost Connection Issues

Fellow ASPInsider Steve Schofield (who will also be presenting the IIS Track in some cities with the Longhorn Server Roadshow), has assembled a killer list of things to check when it comes to Localhost connection issues.

Bookmark it - you know you'll need it.

Posted on March 23, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 14, 2007

Longhorn Server Roadshow

One of the great things about what I do is that I get to work from home. This winter I bought some indoor exercise equipment, so if it weren't for the fact that I take my girls to school (it's only 3 blocks away) every morning, I'm sure I'd probably not even leave the house most work-weeks. 

So I'm likely in for a shock once I hit the road for the "Get Ready for Windows Server Longhorn Roadshow".

I'll be presenting the IIS 7 track in the following cities on the following days:

April 17th - Anaheim
April 19th - Santa Clara

May 10th - Dallas
May 15th - Minneapolis
May 17th - Baltimore
May 22nd - Seattle
May 24th - Phoenix

The IIS 7 track consists of 3 sessions, and I'll be authoring the intro session covering the new architecture and configuration options. The other two presenters, Derek Hatchard, and Steve Schofield will author the other two sessions (IIS 7 in Action (mostly demos) and Managing IIS 7 Apps, respectively). But only one of us will be on hand in each of city to present all three sessions. 

I'm pumped about the Roadshow, and more particularly about IIS 7. It really does represent an evolutionary jump for IIS, and I'm confident it will change (for the better) how developers, admins, and companies handle, manage, and solidify their web workloads.

Posted on February 14, 2007 | | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

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