After a minor problem with a keepass file last week I was locked out of a Dell Equallogic Unit. Fortunately the solution is not that complex, although you will need the assistance of Equallogic Support.
Step 1. Connect to the Equallogic using a serial console cable. By using a terminal program (hyperterm, putty) you will get a logon prompt.
Step 2. Call your local Dell/Equallogic support desk. Be sure to have the service tag or serial number available.
Step 3. When asked for a username please enter "recoverpassword". The unit will sent a response that includes the firmware version and a 4 digit number. Give this info to the support desk employee.
Step 4. Your support desk employee will do his magic and give you a 4 digit number. Enter it and… Voila. You are admin again on your Equallogic box.
Step 5. Change your password. Using the CLI: Account select grpadmin, passwd, <new password>
November 7, 2010
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Posted by Erik den Burger
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Last week Microsoft announced some interesting additions to their Azure platform. As a Windows infrastructure Consultant I didn't make use of the Azure platform but I think this will change soon. The two additions to Azure that I'm most interested in are the Azure virtual network and the Azure Compute VM Role.
To start with the last, the VM Role will allow you to run a Windows 2008R2 machine 'in the cloud'. The VHD of this machine is created using an on-premise Windows server machine and then uploaded to Azure. As soon as it is uploaded, the VM can be run on demand. Although this is really nice by itself it will be even better when used in combination with another new addition to the Azure platform, Azure connect.
Azure Connect will enable you to setup a secure IP-level network connection between your Azure environment and your on-premise resources. By extending your network to the azure cloud in a safe and secure manner you will extend your Datacenter to the cloud.
These two additions will make azure a platform you can use to temporary get computing power when needed, and even think about moving a lot of your local resources into the cloud. It will give you more options and a lot of flexibility when designing your IT Infrastructure.
November 6, 2010
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Posted by Erik den Burger
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Hyper-V
When you deploy multiple virtual RDSH Servers on a Hyper-C cluster you want in most cases some control in the placement of these servers. If you have a two-server RDS Farm you don't want those two nodes to be running on the same Hyper-V Node.
Now it is possible to define anti-affinity for clustergroups. You can create an anti-affinity object called NLBCLuster1 and try to prevent running both RDSH server on the same Hyper-V node by running the following commands:
Cluster.exe group "RDSH01" /prop AntiAffinityClassNames="NLBCluster1"
Cluster.exe group "RDSH02" /prop AntiAffinityClassNames="NLBCluster1"
The anti-affinity can be overridden in some cases where a cluster with reduced capacity needs to keep the VM's running.
September 10, 2010
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Posted by Erik den Burger
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Hyper-V
After doing some tests with dynamic on my Home lab I ran into a problem that suddenly the performance of the parent partition was well below normal. So after some troubleshooting I figured out that my VM's were using too much memory. Normally I would just stop one of the VM's and reduce the amount of memory to that VM. But after installing SP1 this fix didn't give me the desired results. I soon found out that the dynamic memory feature was the cause. There just wasn't enough memory available for all VM's I had running.
Normally Hyper-V will calculate a parent partition reserve but this calculation is done assuming you are not running anything else on your parent partition. Off course this is best practice in any production system but on my home lab I was running other software on my parent partition.
Fortunately Microsoft has a registry key (HKLM\software\microsoft\windows nt\currentversion\virtualization\memoryreserve, a DWORD) that will let you tweak the parent partition memory reserve. Now I can reserve more memory for my parent partition and keep the software running. Downside is that I have less memory available for my VM's. But off course dynamic memory isn't a magic tool that will give you more memory, it just will use the memory more efficiently.
September 9, 2010
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Posted by Erik den Burger
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Tags:
Performance · Hyper-V
One of the big improvements in windows 2008R2 regarding the performance of networking in a Hyper-V environment is the implementation of Virtual Machines Queues (VMQ). VMQ uses hardware packet filtering to deliver packet data from the external network to your virtual servers directly and doing so, reduces the overhead of routing packets between the management OS and virtual servers.
To make us of VMQ you should be running Windows 2008R2, the physical NIC should support VMQ (or VMDq as Intel calls it) and your virtual machines should be running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008R2 or Windows 2008/Vista with the windows 2008R2 Integration Services installed. Older versions cannot make us of VMQ.
Most Intel 10Gig NIC do support VMDq. In the gigabit range you should go for an Intel ET, ET2, EF or VT Based card. Other vendors have announced they will support VMQ in the near future, at this moment I'm not aware of any vendor, other than Intel that has support for VMQ.
When VMQ is enabled a dedicated queue is established on the physical NIC for each virtual NIC that has requested a queue. Because queues are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis it would be a bad idea to enable VMQ for all your VM's. So identify your heavy traffic VM's and enable VMQ for those VM's only. Because VMQ works primary to improve receive side performance, providing the VM's that receive the most packets will benefit most from enabling VMQ.
To enable VMQ for a Virtual Machine, you first need to enable VMQ for a physical NIC. After you have enabled it you can enable VMQ on the Hyper-V Server. Finally you need to configure the virtual NIC of your virtual machine to use VMQ.
These steps will be covered in Part 2. In part 3 we will fine tune VMQ a bit more and see some results of VMQ in action. All I can say at this moment that VMQ is well worth having on your Hyper-V implementations.
August 25, 2010
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Posted by Erik den Burger
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Yesterday I tried to enable end-user recovery on my DPM2010 server in my testlab when I was presented the following message:
"Active Directory could not be configured because the Active Directory domain could not be found. Make sure that the domainname is properly constructed. The following example shows a properly constructed domain name: city.corp.company.com"
That's strange. I knew I entered the correct AD name; I checked the network setting, especially the DNS settings but everything was looking OK. So a quick search on the internet (technet is your friend), I discovered the enhanced security of the windows 2008 domain controllers was causing this. The solution was simple. You just need to run the DPMADSchemaExtension.exe tool from a DC instead of running it on the DPM Server.
After doing so I was able to configure the end-user recovery for my DPM 2010 Test.
August 6, 2010
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Posted by Erik den Burger
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Hyper-V · Windows Infrastructure
This weekend I got this message from Dell:
Not the first time Equallogic has troubles with their firmware....
Dear Customer,
Do Not Install Dell EqualLogic PS Series Firmware Versions 5.0.0 or 5.0.1
According to Dell’s records, you have recently downloaded v5.0.0 or v5.0.1 of the Dell EqualLogicTM firmware. Dell has become aware of potential issues with the installation and operation of these versions of the firmware. Under certain conditions, any or all of the following might occur:
• Volumes might not come online properly immediately after the install.
• Replication might not occur properly.
• VMware V4.1 Zero offload performance might be affected.
If you have not yet installed the V5.0.0 or V5.0.1 firmware updates, Dell recommends that you do not install at this time. Dell is working to resolve these issues in future releases.
If you have either of these firmware updates installed and are experiencing any issues with your
array(s), please contact your local Dell EqualLogicTM technical support team for assistance.
Sincerely,
Dell EqualLogic
July, 2010
August 2, 2010
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Posted by Erik den Burger
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Today I got a call when I was working at the office. It was a nice woman, lets call her Marjolein, that would like to give me an offer I couldn't refuse. She started her call by telling her name and her company and that she was a headhunter and she was asked by another company to give me a call. As I'm currently working for Wortell and I don't want to change jobs I interrupted her and asked where she got my phone number. She got my name from her large network of people and called the reception.
I told her kindly that I'm not looking for another job at this moment as I am happy working for Wortell. She replied that it wasn't her intention to steal people from other companies but she thought I would be interested in another job. So I was clear and said I wasn't happy with their way of doing business and that I thought she was indeed stealing people from a company. I said that if I would like to get another job I wouldn't need the assistance of a headhunter in general and in particular her company. I would think she would get the message at this point but now she has even the guts to ask me for my private mobile telephone number. Off course I kindly refused to give het my number which made her sound really disappointed. After the call I informed the reception about this phone call. It looks like she called half of our company already. A memo has been sent to all reception desk workers not to handle her calls anymore.
I do get a lot of emails from several headhunters all the time. Most of them 'know' me from linked-in. And most of them have a very good offer, a golden opportunity or something like that. I've never used a headhunter and I will probably never do so. Why use a headhunter, they only make money in selling people and making false promises.
August 2, 2010
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Posted by Erik den Burger
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11 Comments
Tags:
Hyper-V · Windows Infrastructure
During the World Partner Conference Microsoft announced the public beta of Service Pack 1 for Windows 2008R2 and Windows 7. Actually this release was supposed to be available in a couple of weeks so the announcement surprised me. The final version is supposed to be out somewhere next year but now the beta is out earlier than expected, who knows?
Besides fixing bugs SP1 introduces two new exciting technologies.
Dynamic memory gives Hyper-V admins a pool available memory on a physical host and dynamically distribute the memory to any virtual guest running on that host. An interesting concept that will make Hyper-V even more flexible to use.
RemoteFX will enhance the MS Desktop virtualization. It will deliver a better user experience for users of desktop virtualization solutions (RDS, VDI). It will allow users to use full motion video, 3D-Applications and rich Silverlight content. And because the power of the server is being utilized these experiences will be available to a wide array of devices. Another feature that will be welcomed by a lot is the ability to forward USB ports of the local client to the virtual machine just like you are using client based printers now.
As you see, a lot of new technologies that will provide new opportunities. So go out and download SP1 here.
July 12, 2010
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Posted by Erik den Burger
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0 Comments
Tags:
Windows Infrastructure
This is my first blogpost from my brand new iPad. Not sure if this toy will help me in my professional life but that's what I'm gonna find out. I'll keep you posted.
June 25, 2010
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Posted by Erik den Burger
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0 Comments
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