• Support for USB monitoring of UPS / USB Backup Disks pass through.
• Built-in support for existing AD authentication, no special ‘root’ passwords for individual ESX hosts.
• Group Policy Support.
• Time based power management policy for Hyper-V hosts. (Low power after hours).
• FREE Hyper-V R2 version of 2008 server. Downloadable direct from Microsoft.
• Host updates can be done using existing WSUS server.

Keeping all this in mind, I still see VMWare vSphere as the king of the data centre. I just think (similar to Terminal Services and CITRIX) Microsoft will catch up over the next few years.

My notes from the sessions are here:

Limits are:
64GB per VM
SMP VMs up to 4 Cores
Cluster support for HA & Live migration

R2 supports
===========
Live Migration
High Availability
Hot Add/ Remove virtual Storage

SConfig.exe for management

Free Hyper-V server 2008 R2

PSHyper-V (free PowerShell tools)
Extended Page Tables for Intel & AMD is Nested Page Tables or Rapid Virtualisation Indexes
VHD Maximum size is 2TB.

Possible to deploy a .VHD file to boot host server.
A VHD Differencing disk must exist on the same partition.
Create fixed size VHD on hosts.
Non-boot VHD are not auto-mounted.
Bit-locker disabled and hibernation disabled.

Dynamic Memory Architecture can adjust ram allocated to hosts.
Complicated as it fools guests OS with hiding unallocated RAM on Windows 03-08R2 in kernel
Avoid Dynamic Memory Allocation on NUMA style processors.

IPD = Infrastructure Planning & Design
Map Guests to Hosts – Reserve 20% resources on a VM Host
Works with Discovery of VMware servers

Cluster Shared Volumes – Used to share a single NTFS volume between separate hosts.
Hyper-V supports Core Parking

NetFT driver governs traffic data on network.
Hyper-V with shared storage uses NetFT to request file creates on the NTFS NameSpace Owner.
Future read/writes are made directly to shared storage.

CSV’s are not required to run shared storage.

Must Support SCSI v3 & Persistent Reservations Support

During a failure of the network. Each node writes to the Quorum disk two things every 3 seconds. I am alive file and copy of configuration.
When no record from active host – second node takes control of quorum and resources. If this fails then it sends a BUS reset.
When starting it tries to connect to other hosts on the private network first, then secondly on the public network. If fails then goes into dormant state.

cluster.exe used for managing cluster services

The default interface for live migration is the second lowest network.
The iSCSI network should be disabled for Cluster and Live migration

Recommend 5 interfaces on servers:
- Host Management
- VM Switch
- Live Migration
- Cluster Heartbeat
- iSCSI

SCVMM can manage ESX (If running VI3 and NOTE VSPHERE), Virtual Server or Hyper-V.
Can separate services onto different hosts
Can handle about 100 physical hosts or 200 guests on self-contained installation.
Can manage hosts in an untrusted network or DMZ,
All management to SCVMM done through PowerShell. GUI & web management apps run through PowerShell host.

Hyper-V Cannot handle more than 1 live migration simultaneously.

Need to install the SCVMM Management pack for SCOM to pass usage and rules
ProTip’s are able to improve visibility of issues or errors
SCVMM and SCOM can run on the same server.

SCOM will discover services to manage.
Need to Install SCOM Console on SCVMM console to make PowerShell applets available
Need to install SQL MP and IIS MP for SCOM to allow integrated management
Run setup for SCVMM on Operations Manager and select to configure SCOM for SCVMM integration

PRO Graph for alerts are based on 5 day average and not alert value of average on previous 3 queries

Cluster Shared Volumes cannot be used for SAN migrations of Virtual Machines

Enable Maintenance Mode command on Hyper-V Host (Disable-VMHost) -MoveWithinCluster is Live Migration
Disable Maintenance Mode command is Enable-VMHost

SCDPM is Data Protection Manager – used to backup block level images to disk and tape.
For non VM-aware guest, the host will halt all transactions for the gust VM VHD and run the snapshot pausing all connections and connectivity.
For VM-Aware snapshots, host continues running but performance will be impacted.
DPM will only run 1 concurrent backup on each CSV volume
TechNet article to force backup of CSV volumes sequentially.

Rule of thumb is 1TB snapshot in 1min.

Dynamic Infrastructure Toolkit is used to manage requests for additional hardware and software in large organisations.
DITK bolds onto SCOM and SCVMM

Current Most cost effective:
Intel Quad Core
2-4GB /pre Core
(10GBit iSCSI = 3-7000K IOPS, 8GB FC 5-9000K IOPS, SATA Disk 100 IOPS, SAS Disk 150 IOPS, FC Disk 200 IOPS)
Networking is
On-board 1GB/e for Host Management
On-board 1GB/e for heartbeat
1x 4 Port 1GB/e PCIe for
Live migration
iSCSI
Teamed VMGuest network

Offline service tool can be used to slipstream patches into golden master VM’s.
SCVMM cannot extend the VHD file size or NTFS partition within.

The mailbox migration had me stumped as the Domino 5 was not hosting several of the required roles PLUS Lotus notes version 6 to 7 must be installed on the server for the import to work.

As we were doing a single import of all users mailboxes and not planning on running the two systems in parallel, the toolbox gives the ability to import mail items directly from the domino NSF files. There are a few gotcha’s but read on for the steps I followed to import the user mailboxes:

Step 1. Download/ obtain the Lotus Notes v6 or v7 client. (Note that you will need to register for this)

Step 2. Install Lotus Notes on the SBS/ Exchange server.

Step 3. Install the Microsoft Transporter Suite – download.

Step 4. Create all user accounts & mailboxes with the necessary mailbox configuration.

Step 5. Grant the necessary Exchange permissions to the AD migration user account.
‘Get-ClientAccessServer | select name,distinguishedname | fl’ (Will give the CAS Server Distingued Name)
‘Add-ADPermission –Identity <CAS Server Distingued Name> -User <userDN> -ExtendedRights ms-Exch-EPI-Impersonation’

Step 6. Copy a current user <mailbox>.NSF from the Domino server to a temporary storage location.

Step 7. Open the ‘Microsoft Transporter Suite for Domino’ and navigate to ‘Toolbox’

Step 8. Run the Migrate Notes Mail Archive wizard.

Step 9. Select the NSF file and enter the mail domain. (eg. DOMINOSRV/CONTOSO/MAIL domain will be ‘MAIL’ domain which appears to be case sensitive.) Select the existing user account and mailbox for the import and click Next.

If  the process runs and errors on the import naming the Junk Email folder, simply log into this user mailbox and delete the duplicate Junk Mail folder that uses a standard folder icon.

Step 10. Have test import user compare the contents of the Outlook and Notes mailboxes.

The final import can be done using the same procedure and if necessary it is possible in the import wizard to select item dates for import.

In our experience we found:

• Not all future appointments were migrated correctly.
• Recurring appointments are imported with the wrong time zone and could not be modified.
• Recurring appointments have end dates specified to finish recurrence on date of migration.
• Contact databases have to be imported separately.
• Corrupt items skipped are shown in the wizard log and can be copied and pasted using Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V.

I will update this article if I find any other useful information post-migration.

1. Backup C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\Officescan\PCCSRV\Private\AuthorStore\TrendAuthDef.xml

2. Open the C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\Officescan\PCCSRV\Private\AuthorStore\TrendAuthDef.xml file in edition.

3. Replace the Root information at the bottom of the file as shown below:

<AppUsers Maxsid=”2″>

        <AppUser Domain=”" Email=”" Fullname=”Administrator account created during installation” Sid=”S-1-9-1-2″ Pwd=”!CRYPT!523F7DC2E525044E2800FCDEA7E5D78B70C0A4165387060525E3EE66D5D2D2F460EA361E712B5F871FD473C7A6C” WinUser=”0″ Enabled=”true”/></AppUsers>

Note: Replace only the portion for the root. If there are other accounts showing please do not delete them.

4. Restart the OfficeScan Master Service.

5. Log in as root and use “trendmicro” as the password.

6. Change the root password to something more secure by going to Administration > User Accounts.

7. Click on the root account to type in the new password.

Problem Solvered :-)

You might run into a probelm seeing how the %date% output includes / characters.

Useful little command is %date:/=-% so that the output is “day-month-year” not “day/month/year”

After using Outlook 2010 beta for the past 6 months, I definitely recommend upgrading. Just like with Windows 7, when you are forced to use an older version of Outlook you really miss all the new shortcuts and features.

I now think that is a little short sighted. As with pre-avatar 3D a lot of movies were recorded in two dimensions and then using computers had the foreground and background forced to one of several 3D panes with some special effects rendered into 3D. Since watching Avatar I have seen both Alice in Wonderland & Clash of the Titans but by both was left disappointed with a slight headache to boot.

Neither of these films was recorded in 3D but had the depth “bolted on” in post-production and you can see the difference. Until studios record the entire movie in 3D, they just won’t get the same effect as avatar had and they risk putting the population off stereoscopic viewing.

While not officially supported by Microsoft, there is an excellent modification that The Missing Remote has published. A simple batch file installs a different DLL for Terminal services that allows the console to remain logged on while up to 2 other users log into a separate RDP session.

Now I can do any management and monitoring or changes necessary without having to submit a “TV-Outage Request”. :-D Very cool.

Remember - Reduce, Re-use & Recycle!!!

Now you can modify the memory and processor, log files, etc.