System Administration

2016-06-27T05:41:00.001-07:00

We have 3 Node cluster with ISCSI SAN Storage attached

Node1 Summary View

Physical sockets=2 , Physical CPU per socket= 1, Core Per CPU=4

So Total core:- 2x4=8 , Each core is 2.294Ghz

Total Computing power is :- 8x2.294 GHz=18.352 GHz

Here we have not enable HyperThreding so total logical Processors its showing is = 8 Logical processor

If we enable hyperthreding then we should get double of it i. e 8x2=16 Logical processors

but this will not increase total computing power because it is depend on your total core and not logical processors……….:)

Below figure shows that after enabling Hyperthreding in 2 sockets Node with 4 cores per sockets.

It showing 16 logical processors……………Grt

2 (sockets) x 4 (Cores per sockets) x 2 (Hyperthreding) = 16 logical Processors

But total compute capacity i.e. CPU Capacity is= 8 (total cores) X 2.393 GHz

Below is the Virtual machine running on 3 node cluster

Now here we have given 1 vCPU and 2 GB RAM to this Virtual machine and install Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition 64 Bit OS

In windows its showing Quad-Core AMD processor with 2.29 GHz and in task manager its showing 1 core of processor.

And my node is licenced with Enterprise licensed type its showing 6 cores per CPU

And with enterprise plus licensed type its gives 12 core per CPU and 8 way virtual SMP

Now when I tried to edit the Virtual processors and change it to MAX available value i.e. 8

Ohh wait from where this MAX Virtual processors value came from …. My license type doesn’t say anything about this then it must be the MAX total core in my node…… Yah that’s gr8 we found the link between vCPU and Physical core of the node.

Ok now I change the vCPU from 1 to MAX 8 and try to boot the Virtual machine………

Ohh no there is an error …….

It says that virtual machine has 8 virtual CPUs but host support only 4. Oh no, then I am not able to use 8 vCPU.

I went to check where the exact problem is? Is this the guest OS limitation or my host licence?

My guest OS is Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition which Supports Upto 8 CPU then it must be a problem with Host License ok let me check that as well.

Ok here is my license type Enterprise License with 2 physical CPUs and 1-6 Core per CPU

It looks good then what is the 4-Way virtual SMP ………

Here is the definition of SMP from VMware

“4-Way VMware Virtual SMP (symmetric multiprocessing). With the power of up to four physical processors available to each virtual machine”

Now we can conclude that 4-way SMP it the blocking point for us, so we can’t use more than 4 vCPU to any guest regardless of Guest OS type.

Let’s check by giving 5 vCPU to same guest………….

Yah same error

So I give 4 vCPU and started Virtual machine.

Ok I have one more server node of ESX having different license file.

Here its enterprise plus and 8 way SMP

And I checked here Virtual machine with windows 2008 R2 Ent. Edition having 8 vCPU

And in windows its showing 8 processors wow gr8.

From above figure we can see how memory has been allocated to Virtual machine

Starting from bottom 512 MB and 4 GB are the default memory Tab from Operating system, as guest os is windows 2008 so recommended is 4 GB.

Now third tab is “Maximum recommended for best performance” and it’s 32GB Ohh what is that?

Its MAX memory installed on Node... Remember we have 32GB physical memory installed on Node1.

Ok then what is the fourth Tab about 255 GB RAM…ok now we can get that this is the max memory supported by that Node as per our ESX license file ……256 GB max supported in Enterprise license

And for enterprise plus there is no RAM limitation.

2.294 GHz X 4 vCPU = 9.176 GHz total computing power allocated to Virtual Machine

CPU resource allocation

Share: - Low=1, Normal=2, High=4

So in above condition when Low share selected it allocating

Share Values
Setting	CPU share values	Memory share values
High	2000 shares per virtual CPU	20 shares per megabyte of configured virtual machine memory.
Normal	1000 shares per virtual CPU	10 shares per megabyte of configured virtual machine memory.
Low	500 shares per virtual CPU	5 shares per megabyte of configured virtual machine memory.

For example, an SMP virtual machine with two virtual CPUs and 1GB RAM with CPU and memory shares set to Normal has 2x1000=2000 shares of CPU and 10x1024=10240 shares of memory.

Note

Virtual machines with more than one virtual CPU are called SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) virtual machines. ESX/ESXi supports up to eight virtual CPUs per virtual machine. This is also called eight-way SMP support.

The relative priority represented by each share changes when a new virtual machine is powered on. This affects all virtual machines in the same resource pool. All of the virtual machines have the same number of VCPUs. Consider the following examples.

■	Two CPU-bound virtual machines run on a host with 8GHz of aggregate CPU capacity. Their CPU shares are set to Normal and get 4GHz each.
■	A third CPU-bound virtual machine is powered on. Its CPU shares value is set to High, which means it should have twice as many shares as the machines set to Normal. The new virtual machine receives 4GHz and the two other machines get only 2GHz each. The same result occurs if the user specifies a custom share value of 2000 for the third virtual machine.

How to Back Up and Restore NTFS and Share Permissions

2013-11-08T14:05:00.000-08:00

ackup and Restore of Share Permissions

To backup share permissions, export the Shares registry key.

Open Regedit to the following location:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Shares
Right-click the Shares registry key and select Export. Give it a file name such as shareperms.reg.

When you want to restore the permissions, double-click shareperms.reg to import it back into the registry.

Use the Reg tool to backup the registry key from the command line:

reg export HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Shares shareperms.reg

If you need to restore it at some point, just run:

reg import shareperms.reg

Backup and Restore of NTFS Permissions

Use this command to backup NTFS permissions:

icacls d:\data /save ntfsperms.txt /t /c

The /T switch allows it to get subfolder permissions too. The /C switch allows it to continue even if errors are encountered (although errors will still be displayed).

Use this command to restore them:

icacls d:\ /restore ntfsperms.txt

Note that in the command to save the permissions, I specified the target folder D:\Data, but when I restored them, I specified just D:\ as the target. Icacls is a little funky like that, and here’s why.

If you open the text file with the exported permissions (ntfsperms.txt in the above example), you’ll see that Icacls uses relative paths (in bold below). Underneath the relative paths are the permissions for the folders in Security Descriptor Definition Language (SDDL) format.

data D:AI(A;ID;FA;;;BA)(A;OICIIOID;GA;;;BA)(A;ID;FA;;;SY)(A;OICIIOID;GA;;;SY)(A;OICIID;0x1200a9;;;BU)(A;ID;0x1301bf;;;AU)(A;OICIIOID;SDGXGWGR;;;AU) data\folder1 D:AI(A;ID;FA;;;BA)(A;OICIIOID;GA;;;BA)(A;ID;FA;;;SY)(A;OICIIOID;GA;;;SY)(A;OICIID;0x1200a9;;;BU)(A;ID;0x1301bf;;;AU)(A;OICIIOID;SDGXGWGR;;;AU) data\folder2 D:AI(A;ID;FA;;;BA)(A;OICIIOID;GA;;;BA)(A;ID;FA;;;SY)(A;OICIIOID;GA;;;SY)(A;OICIID;0x1200a9;;;BU)(A;ID;0x1301bf;;;AU)(A;OICIIOID;SDGXGWGR;;;AU)

Had I specified D:\Data in the command to restore the permissions, it would have failed looking for a D:\Data\Datafolder:

D:\>icacls d:\data /restore perms.txt
d:\data\data: The system cannot find the file specified.
Successfully processed 0 files; Failed processing 1 files

You might think specifying D:\ as the target in the restore command may somehow mess up the permissions on other folders at that level, but as you can see from the ntfsperms.txt output file, it only has information about the Data folder and subfolders, so that is all it will change.

How to determine the appropriate page file size for 64-bit versions of Windows

2013-08-29T08:12:00.001-07:00

When you set up a 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or Microsoft Windows XP, the operating system will create a page file that is one and a half times the amount of RAM that is installed in your computer. However, as the amount of RAM in a computer increases, the need for a page file decreases. The following guidelines and methods will help you determine the appropriate page file size for your system.

Comparison of memory and CPU limits in the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows

When you set up a 32-bit version or a 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP, a page file is created that is one and a half times the amount of RAM that is installed in the computer provided there is sufficient free space on the system hard disk. However, as more RAM is added to a computer, the need for a page file decreases. If you have enough RAM installed in your computer, you may not require a page file at all, unless one is required by a specific application.

The following chart illustrates the amount of RAM and the number of CPUs that can be installed on a computer depending on the operating system that is installed. RAM and CPU limits are much larger in 64-bit operating systems than in 32-bit operating systems.

General memory limits	32-bit	64-bit
Total virtual address space	4 gigabytes (GB)	16 terabytes
Virtual address space per 32-bit process	2 GB, 3 GB if the system is booted with the /3GB switch	2 GB, 4 GB if the application is compiled with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE switch
Virtual address space per 64-bit process	Not applicable	8 terabytes
Paged pool	470 megabytes (MB)	128 GB
Non-paged pool	256 MB	128 GB
System cache	1 GB	1 terabyte

Physical memory and CPU limits	32-bit	64-bit
Windows XP Professional	4 GB / 1-2 CPUs	128 GB / 1-2 CPUs
Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition	4 GB / 1-4 CPUs	32 GB / 1-4 CPUs
Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition	64 GB / 1-8 CPUs	1 terabyte / 1-8 CPUs
Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition	64 GB / 1-32 CPUs	1 terabyte / 1-64 CPUs
Windows Server 2003 SP1, Enterprise Edition	64 GB / 1-8 CPUs	1 terabyte / 1-8 CPUs
Windows Server 2003 SP1, Datacenter Edition	64 GB / 1-32 CPUs	1 terabyte / 1-64 CPUs

There is no specific recommendation for page file size. Your requirements will be based on the hardware and software that you use and the load that you put on the computer. To monitor page file usage and requirements, run System Monitor, and gather a log during typical usage conditions. Focus on the following counters.

Counter threshold	Suggested value
Memory\\Available Bytes	No less than 4 MB
Memory\\Pages Input/sec	No more than 10 pages
Paging File\\% Usage	No more than 70 percent
Paging File\\% Usage Peak	No more than 70 percent
Process\\Page File Bytes Peak	Not applicable

Note Page file use should be tracked periodically. When you increase the use or the load on the system, you generally increase the demand for virtual address space and page file space.

The Pages/sec counter

When you use System Monitor, the values that are returned by the Pages/sec counter for the Memory performance object may be more than you expect. These values may not be related to either paging file activity or cache activity. Instead, these values may be caused by an application that is sequentially reading a memory-mapped file.

The Pages/sec counter counts the number of pages that are read from the disk or that are written to the disk to resolve memory references to pages. These pages were not in memory at the time of the reference. The Pages/sec value is the sum of the Pages Input/sec and Pages Output/sec counter values. The Pages/sec counter includes paging traffic on behalf of the system cache to access file data for applications.

Pages/sec is the primary counter to watch if you are concerned about excessive memory pressure (thrashing) and the excessive paging that may result.

However, the Pages/sec counter also accounts for other activity, such as the sequential reading of memory-mapped files that are either cached or not. Typically, the Pages/sec counter is counting other activity when you see the following:

A high value for the Memory: Pages/sec counter.
An average value, relative to the system being monitored, or a high value for the Memory: Available Bytes counter.
An average or small value for the Paging File: % Usage counter.
For a non-cached memory-mapped file, you also see average or low cache activity. (Low cache activity is also known as cache fault activity.)

Therefore, a high value for the Memory: Pages/sec counter does not necessarily indicate memory pressure or a System Monitor reporting error. To gain an accurate reading of your system, you must also monitor other counters.

How to calculate page file size

Use one or more of the following methods to help you calculate page file size.

Method 1: Use performance logs to understand the paging activity on your computer

Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Performance.
Expand Performance Logs and Alerts, click Counter Logs, right-click the blank space in the right-pane, and then clickNew Log Settings.
In the Name box, type a name for the log, and then click OK.
On the General tab, click Add Counters.
Click Use local computer counters.
In the Performance object list, click Paging File.
Click Select counters from list, click % Usage, and then click Add.
In the Performance object list, click Memory.
In Select counters from list, click Available Bytes, and then click Add.
In Select counters from list, click Pages Input/sec, click Add, and then click Close.
Click OK.

Use the log that you collect during typical computer use to understand the paging activity on your computer. Then, adjust the page file size accordingly.

Method 2: Use the Page File Bytes Peak counter to calculate page file size

Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Performance.
Click System Monitor.
In the right pane, click + (the Add button).
Click Use local computer counters.
In the Performance object list, click Process.
Click Select counters from list, click Page File Bytes Peak, click Add, and then click Close.
Let the counter run during typical use of your computer.
Note the maximum value for the Page File Bytes Peak counter, and then multiply the value by 0.70. The sum of the equation is the size to set for your page file.

Method 3: Calculate the minimum and maximum page file size

To determine the approximate minimum page file that is required by your system, calculate the sum of peak private bytes that are used by each process on the system. Then, subtract the amount of memory on the system.

To determine the approximate maximum page file space that is required for your system, calculate the sum of peak private bytes that are used by each process on the system. Then, add a margin of additional space. Do not subtract the amount of memory on the system. The size of the additional margin can be adjusted based on your confidence in the snapshot data that is used to estimate page file requirements.

Note This estimate is accurate only if the snapshot of data that is used to make the calculations is accurate.

Page file input/output rates

To avoid overloading the system or other disks with page input/output (I/O) activity, use the following guidelines when you set up the page file on your computer:

If the page I/O (real disk I/O) rate is more than 10 pages per second, we recommend that you do not put the page file where the I/O activity occurs on the system disk. When the page I/O rate is 10 pages per second or more, we recommend that you dedicate a separate hard disk for paging.
If the page I/O rate to a particular disk that is used for paging is more than 60 disk I/O operations per second, use more than one dedicated page hard disk to obtain better performance. To do this, use multiple non-striped disks for paging, or use raid 0 striped disks for paging. Dedicate approximately one I/O hard disk to paging for every 60 pages per second of I/O activity.

For example, if a system is averaging 150 pages of I/O activity per second, use three individual hard disks, or a three-disk raid 0 stripe set for the page file.

Note These estimates are for hard disks that run at 7200 revolutions per minute (rpm). If you use a hard disk that runs faster, the I/O rate a disk can handle for page I/O will increase.

Note If peak performance is critical to your system, use peak I/O rates instead of average I/O rates for these calculations.

Important Supportability Information: This article is specifically for computers that do not need kernel mode or full memory dump analysis. For business-critical servers where business processes require to server to capture physical memory dumps for analysis, the traditional model of the page file should be at least the size of physical ram plus 1 MB, or 1.5 times the default physical RAM. This makes sure that the free disk space of the operating system partition is large enough to hold the OS, hotfixes, installed applications, installed services, a dump file, and the page file. On a server that has 32 GB of memory, drive C may have to be at least 86 GB to 90 GB. This is 32 GB for memory dump, 48 GB for the page file (1.5 times the physical memory), 4 GB for the operating system, and 2 to 4 GB for the applications, the installed services, the temp files, and so on. Remember that a driver or kernel mode service leak could consume all free physical RAM. Therefore, a Windows Server 2003 x64 SP1-based server in 64-bit mode with 32GB of RAM could have a 32 GB kernel memory dump file, where you would expect only a 1 to 2 GB dump file in 32-bit mode. This behavior occurs because of the greatly increased memory pools.

Page File How big is Yours

2013-08-29T08:10:00.003-07:00

The Question around ideal sizing of a Page File has been a topic of conversation that Customers have been asking us recently.

I am going to make a stab in this Blog to put together some of the current thinking around this as I think some of the documentation has been around for some time and can be a source for confusion. I have taken as my resources learned colleagues internal to Microsoft who have helped me put this blog together.

SIZING

The sizing of a Page File should not just be arbitrarily set. Some thought and consideration should be put into this. The suggestions I am making below can be considered applicable to 2003 and 2008 platforms 32 bit and 64 bit environment. Although special considerations should be given to 64 bit environment, which is referenced in the kb article list at the bottom of this post.

By default if you have less than 2gb of memory on a machine it will set the page file size to 1.5 times the amount of memory in the box. If the amount of memory exceeds 2gb then by default the page file size will be set to between 2046-4092MB . This is expected behaviour However this may not always be the optimum setting.

Perfmon Counters

One of the best recommendations for deciding the pagefile setting is to monitor the following counters in perfmon:-

Counter threshold Suggested value
Memory\\Available Bytes No less than 4 MB
Memory\\Pages Input/sec No more than 10 pages
Paging File\\% Usage No more than 70 percent
Paging File\\% Usage Peak No more than 70 percent
Process\\Page File Bytes Peak Not applicable

Eg: If the Pagefile %usage shows a value of 70% or higher then we need to consider increasing the pagefile or creating another pagefile on a different disk.

In addition the ideal page file size can be determined by looking at Task Manager / Process Explorer:

· ‘Commit Charge Limit’ - Virtual memory without increasing the page file(RAM + total size of all paging files)

· ‘Commit Charge Peak’ - The peak amount of page file space since the system booted that would have been needed if the system had to page out all private committed virtual memory. (Indicates how close to the limit it is)

The aim of this is to make sure that the Commit charge limit is always larger than the commit charge peak, and the peak never gets close to 70% of the limit.

Process explorer – System Information window provides more information as ‘Percentage of the peak as compared to the limit’ and ‘’the current usage as compared to the limit’ – This is discussed in Windows Internals page 446,447

One other thing to consider is that the Initial and Max pagefile values are the same – this will prevent pagefile expansion which can be a performance killer and can lead to pagefile fragmentation.

Performance can also be increased by splitting the pagefile across disks. -http://support.microsoft.com/?id=197379

Possible suggestion is to start with a 4GB Page File on the root with an additional page file on the data disks and monitor the counters above, tuning accordingly.

Systems with Large Amounts Of Memory

However on systems with larger amount of memory if you have for example a setup such as below

On a 32GB memory x64 bit system it would be advisable to manually set 8GB pagefile on the Windows drive (min max both set to 8GB). This would then provide plenty of space for paging and plus allows a kernel only dump to be produced (in all but the worse case scenarios)

Mark Russinovich touches upon the subject of pagefile sizing for modern systems

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx

Plus he also mentions;

“The maximum is either three times the size of RAM or 4GB, whichever is larger.”

[although it states that is for Vista and Server 2008, but seems to apply to Server 2003 as well]

What you must consider is that it is essentially impractical to create a page file on a system which has 32gb of memory to be 32gb x 1.5. Consider the following factors;

1. The amount of time it will take to create it

2. What practical use will it be

3. The amount of disk space you need to ensure you have on the boot partition

3. How will you transport this huge file to be analysed

How to remove the last disk in a disk group and use it in another disk group in VERITAS Volume Manager 2.x

2013-08-29T08:04:00.002-07:00

In order to remove the last disk in a disk group to be used in another disk group, the volumes must first be removed.

NOTE: The procedure outlined will result in data loss on the disk that is being removed.

# vxprint -g datadg -ht
DG NAME NCONFIG NLOG MINORS GROUP-ID
DM NAME DEVICE TYPE PRIVLEN PUBLEN STATE
V NAME USETYPE KSTATE STATE LENGTH READPOL PREFPLEX
PL NAME VOLUME KSTATE STATE LENGTH LAYOUT NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME PLEX DISK DISKOFFS LENGTH [COL/]OFF DEVICE MODE
SV NAME PLEX VOLNAME NVOLLAYR LENGTH [COL/]OFF AM/NM MODE

dg datadg default default 122000 955057397.1251.kt

dm datadg01 c1t11d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -

v datavol fsgen ENABLED ACTIVE 2097152 SELECT -
pl datavol-01 datavol ENABLED ACTIVE 2097160 CONCAT - RW
sd datadg01-01 datavol-01 datadg01 0 2097160 0 c1t11d0 ENA

# vxdisk list
DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c0t0d0s2 sliced rootdisk rootdg online
c1t8d0s2 sliced test04 testdg online
c1t9d0s2 sliced test01 testdg online
c1t10d0s2 sliced test02 testdg online
c1t11d0s2 sliced datadg01 datadg online

# vxedit -g datadg -rf rm datavol

# vxprint -g datadg -ht
DG NAME NCONFIG NLOG MINORS GROUP-ID
DM NAME DEVICE TYPE PRIVLEN PUBLEN STATE
V NAME USETYPE KSTATE STATE LENGTH READPOL PREFPLEX
PL NAME VOLUME KSTATE STATE LENGTH LAYOUT NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME PLEX DISK DISKOFFS LENGTH [COL/]OFF DEVICE MODE
SV NAME PLEX VOLNAME NVOLLAYR LENGTH [COL/]OFF AM/NM MODE

dg datadg default default 122000 955057397.1251.kt

dm datadg01 c1t11d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -

NOTE: Trying to remove the disk at this point will result in an error since it is the last disk in the disk group.

# vxdiskadm

Volume Manager Support Operations
Menu: VolumeManager/Disk

1 Add or initialize one or more disks
2 Encapsulate one or more disks
3 Remove a disk
4 Remove a disk for replacement
5 Replace a failed or removed disk
6 Mirror volumes on a disk
7 Move volumes from a disk
8 Enable access to (import) a disk group
9 Remove access to (deport) a disk group
10 Enable (online) a disk device
11 Disable (offline) a disk device
12 Mark a disk as a spare for a disk group
13 Turn off the spare flag on a disk
list List disk information

? Display help about menu
?? Display help about the menuing system
q Exit from menus

Select an operation to perform: 3

Remove a disk
Menu: VolumeManager/Disk/RemoveDisk

Use this operation to remove a disk from a disk group. This operation takes a disk name as input. This is the same name that was given to the disk when the disk was added to the disk group.

Enter disk name [<disk>,list,q,?] list

Disk group: rootdg

DM NAME DEVICE TYPE PRIVLEN PUBLEN STATE

dm rootdisk c0t0d0s2 sliced 2015 16839647 -

Disk group: datadg

DM NAME DEVICE TYPE PRIVLEN PUBLEN STATE

dm datadg01 c1t11d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -

Disk group: testdg

DM NAME DEVICE TYPE PRIVLEN PUBLEN STATE

dm test01 c1t9d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -
dm test02 c1t10d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -
dm test04 c1t8d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -

Enter disk name [<disk>,list,q,?] datadg01

Disk datadg01 cannot be removed from disk group datadg because it is the last disk in the disk group. It is advisable to remove the disk group instead. To remove the disk group, quit this operation and select "Disable access to (deport) a disk group" from the main disk operations menu.

Remove a different disk? [y,n,q,?] (default: n) n

So, in order to remove the disk from the disk group to be used by another disk group, access to the diskgroup must be disabled. (The disk group must be deported.)

Volume Manager Support Operations
Menu: VolumeManager/Disk

1 Add or initialize one or more disks
2 Encapsulate one or more disks
3 Remove a disk
4 Remove a disk for replacement
5 Replace a failed or removed disk
6 Mirror volumes on a disk
7 Move volumes from a disk
8 Enable access to (import) a disk group
9 Remove access to (deport) a disk group
10 Enable (online) a disk device
11 Disable (offline) a disk device
12 Mark a disk as a spare for a disk group
13 Turn off the spare flag on a disk
list List disk information

? Display help about menu
?? Display help about the menuing system
q Exit from menus

Select an operation to perform: 9

Remove access to (deport) a disk group Menu: VolumeManager/Disk/DeportDiskGroup

Use this menu operation to remove access to a disk group that is currently enabled (imported) by this system. Deport a disk group to move the disks in a disk group to another system. Also, deport a disk group to use all of the disks remaining in a disk group.

A prompt will ask for the name of a disk group. It will also ask if the disks should be disabled (offlined). For removable disk devices on some systems, it is important to disable all access to the disk before removing the disk.

Enter name of disk group [<group>,list,q,?] (default: list) list

GROUP DISK/VOLUME DEVICE/STATE LENGTH

datadg disk datadg01 c1t11d0s2 8921650

testdg disk test01 c1t9d0s2 8921650
testdg disk test02 c1t10d0s2 8921650
testdg disk test04 c1t8d0s2 8921650
testdg volume testvol ENABLED 2097160
testdg volume vol01 ENABLED 2097152

Enter name of disk group [<group>,list,q,?] (default: list) datadg

The requested operation is to disable access to the removable disk group named datadg. This disk group is stored on the following disks:

datadg01 on device c1t11d0s2

Access to these disks can be disabled (also known as "offline"). This may be necessary to prevent errors if any of the disks are actually removed from the system.

Disable (offline) the indicated disks? [y,n,q,?] (default: n) y

Continue with operation? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) y

Removal of disk group datadg was successful.

Disable another disk group? [y,n,q,?] (default: n) n

# vxprint -ht
Disk group: rootdg

DG NAME NCONFIG NLOG MINORS GROUP-ID
DM NAME DEVICE TYPE PRIVLEN PUBLEN STATE
V NAME USETYPE KSTATE STATE LENGTH READPOL PREFPLEX
PL NAME VOLUME KSTATE STATE LENGTH LAYOUT NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME PLEX DISK DISKOFFS LENGTH [COL/]OFF DEVICE MODE
SV NAME PLEX VOLNAME NVOLLAYR LENGTH [COL/]OFF AM/NM MODE

dg rootdg default default 0 936308190.1025.dot

dm rootdisk c0t0d0s2 sliced 2015 16839647 -

sd rootdiskPriv - rootdisk 16536240 2015 PRIVATE c0t0d0 ENA

v rootvol root ENABLED ACTIVE 16536240 ROUND -
pl rootvol-01 rootvol ENABLED ACTIVE 16536240 CONCAT - RW
sd rootdisk-B0 rootvol-01 rootdisk 16536239 1 0 c0t0d0 ENA
sd rootdisk-02 rootvol-01 rootdisk 0 16536239 1 c0t0d0 ENA

v swapvol swap ENABLED ACTIVE 301392 ROUND -
pl swapvol-01 swapvol ENABLED ACTIVE 301392 CONCAT - RW
sd rootdisk-01 swapvol-01 rootdisk 16538255 301392 0 c0t0d0 ENA

Disk group: testdg

DG NAME NCONFIG NLOG MINORS GROUP-ID
DM NAME DEVICE TYPE PRIVLEN PUBLEN STATE
V NAME USETYPE KSTATE STATE LENGTH READPOL PREFPLEX

PL NAME VOLUME KSTATE STATE LENGTH LAYOUT NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME PLEX DISK DISKOFFS LENGTH [COL/]OFF DEVICE MODE
SV NAME PLEX VOLNAME NVOLLAYR LENGTH [COL/]OFF AM/NM MODE

dg testdg default default 10000 952101973.1171.kt

dm test01 c1t9d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -
dm test02 c1t10d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -
dm test04 c1t8d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -

v testvol fsgen ENABLED ACTIVE 2097160 SELECT -
pl vol01-02 testvol ENABLED ACTIVE 2097160 CONCAT - RW
sd test01-01 vol01-02 test01 0 2097160 0 c1t9d0 ENA

v vol01 fsgen ENABLED ACTIVE 2097152 SELECT -
pl vol01-01 vol01 ENABLED ACTIVE 2097160 CONCAT - RW
sd test04-01 vol01-01 test04 0 2097160 0 c1t8d0 ENA

# vxdisk list
DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c0t0d0s2 sliced rootdisk rootdg online
c1t8d0s2 sliced test04 testdg online
c1t9d0s2 sliced test01 testdg online
c1t10d0s2 sliced test02 testdg online
c1t11d0s2 sliced - - offline

The disk can now be used in another disk group as follows:

# vxdiskadm

Volume Manager Support Operations
Menu: VolumeManager/Disk

1 Add or initialize one or more disks
2 Encapsulate one or more disks
3 Remove a disk
4 Remove a disk for replacement
5 Replace a failed or removed disk
6 Mirror volumes on a disk
7 Move volumes from a disk
8 Enable access to (import) a disk group
9 Remove access to (deport) a disk group
10 Enable (online) a disk device
11 Disable (offline) a disk device
12 Mark a disk as a spare for a disk group
13 Turn off the spare flag on a disk
list List disk information

? Display help about menu
?? Display help about the menuing system
q Exit from menus

Select an operation to perform: 1

Add or initialize disks
Menu: VolumeManager/Disk/AddDisks

Use this operation to add one or more disks to a disk group. It is possible to add the selected disks to an existing disk group or to a new disk group that will be created as a part of the operation. The selected disks may also be added to a disk group as spares. The selected disks may also be initialized without adding them to a disk group leaving the disks available for use as replacement disks.

More than one disk or pattern may be entered at the prompt. Here are some disk selection examples:

all: all disks
c3 c4t2: all disks on both controller 3 and controller 4, target 2
c3t4d2: a single disk

Select disk devices to add:
[<pattern-list>,all,list,q,?] list

DEVICE DISK GROUP STATUS
c0t0d0 rootdisk rootdg online
c1t8d0 test04 testdg online
c1t9d0 test01 testdg online
c1t10d0 test02 testdg online
c1t11d0 - - offline

Select disk devices to add:
[<pattern-list>,all,list,q,?] c1t11d0

Here is the disk selected. Output format: [Device_Name]

c1t11d0

Continue operation? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) y

This disk can be added to an existing disk group, a new disk group, or left available for use by future add or replacement operations. To create a new disk group, select a disk group name that does not yet exist. To leave the disk available for future use, specify a disk group name of "none".

Which disk group [<group>,none,list,q,?] (default: rootdg) testdg

Use a default disk name for the disk? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) n

Add disk as a spare disk for testdg? [y,n,q,?] (default: n) n

The selected disks will be added to the disk group testdg with disk names that you will specify interactively.

c1t11d0

Continue with operation? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) y

Access is disabled for the following disk.
Output format: [Device_Name]

c1t11d0

Enable access for this device? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) y

This disk is listed as added to a disk group. The disk group is not currently enabled (imported). If importing from the disk group, quit from this operation and select "Enable access to (import) a disk group" from the main disk operations menu.
Output format: [Device_Name,Disk_Access_Name,Disk_Group]

[c1t11d0,c1t11d0s2,datadg]

Use this device? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) y

The following disk selected for use appears to already have been initialized for the volume manager. If the disk has already been initialized for the volume manager, then there is no need to reinitialize the disk device.
Output format: [Device_Name]

c1t11d0

Reinitialize this device? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) y

Initializing device c1t11d0.

Enter disk name for c1t11d0 [<name>,q,?] (default: testdg01) test03

Adding disk device c1t11d0 to disk group testdg with disk
name test03.

Add or initialize other disks? [y,n,q,?] (default: n) n

# vxprint -ht
Disk group: rootdg

DG NAME NCONFIG NLOG MINORS GROUP-ID
DM NAME DEVICE TYPE PRIVLEN PUBLEN STATE
V NAME USETYPE KSTATE STATE LENGTH READPOL PREFPLEX
PL NAME VOLUME KSTATE STATE LENGTH LAYOUT NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME PLEX DISK DISKOFFS LENGTH [COL/]OFF DEVICE MODE
SV NAME PLEX VOLNAME NVOLLAYR LENGTH [COL/]OFF AM/NM MODE

dg rootdg default default 0 936308190.1025.dot

dm rootdisk c0t0d0s2 sliced 2015 16839647 -

sd rootdiskPriv - rootdisk 16536240 2015 PRIVATE c0t0d0 ENA

v rootvol root ENABLED ACTIVE 16536240 ROUND -
pl rootvol-01 rootvol ENABLED ACTIVE 16536240 CONCAT - RW
sd rootdisk-B0 rootvol-01 rootdisk 16536239 1 0 c0t0d0 ENA
sd rootdisk-02 rootvol-01 rootdisk 0 16536239 1 c0t0d0 ENA

v swapvol swap ENABLED ACTIVE 301392 ROUND -
pl swapvol-01 swapvol ENABLED ACTIVE 301392 CONCAT - RW
sd rootdisk-01 swapvol-01 rootdisk 16538255 301392 0 c0t0d0 ENA

Disk group: testdg

DG NAME NCONFIG NLOG MINORS GROUP-ID
DM NAME DEVICE TYPE PRIVLEN PUBLEN STATE
V NAME USETYPE KSTATE STATE LENGTH READPOL PREFPLEX
PL NAME VOLUME KSTATE STATE LENGTH LAYOUT NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME PLEX DISK DISKOFFS LENGTH [COL/]OFF DEVICE MODE
SV NAME PLEX VOLNAME NVOLLAYR LENGTH [COL/]OFF AM/NM MODE

dg testdg default default 10000 952101973.1171.kt

dm test01 c1t9d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -
dm test02 c1t10d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -
dm test03 c1t11d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -
dm test04 c1t8d0s2 sliced 1089 8921650 -

v testvol fsgen ENABLED ACTIVE 2097160 SELECT -
pl vol01-02 testvol ENABLED ACTIVE 2097160 CONCAT - RW
sd test01-01 vol01-02 test01 0 2097160 0 c1t9d0 ENA

v vol01 fsgen ENABLED ACTIVE 2097152 SELECT -
pl vol01-01 vol01 ENABLED ACTIVE 2097160 CONCAT - RW
sd test04-01 vol01-01 test04 0 2097160 0 c1t8d0 ENA

# vxdisk list
DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c0t0d0s2 sliced rootdisk rootdg online
c1t8d0s2 sliced test04 testdg online
c1t9d0s2 sliced test01 testdg online
c1t10d0s2 sliced test02 testdg online
c1t11d0s2 sliced test03 testdg online

To do this procedure from the command line:

# vxdisk list
DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c0t0d0s2 sliced rootdisk rootdg online
c1t8d0s2 sliced testdg03 testdg online
c1t9d0s2 sliced testdg04 testdg online
c1t10d0s2 sliced testdg01 testdg online
c1t11d0s2 sliced datadg01 datadg online

# vxdg deport datadg

# vxdisk list
DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c0t0d0s2 sliced rootdisk rootdg online
c1t8d0s2 sliced testdg03 testdg online
c1t9d0s2 sliced testdg04 testdg online
c1t10d0s2 sliced testdg01 testdg online
c1t11d0s2 sliced - - online

# vxdiskunsetup c1t11d0

# vxdisk list
DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c0t0d0s2 sliced rootdisk rootdg online
c1t8d0s2 sliced testdg03 testdg online
c1t9d0s2 sliced testdg04 testdg online
c1t10d0s2 sliced testdg01 testdg online
c1t11d0s2 sliced - - error

# vxdisksetup -i c1t11d0
# vxdisk list

DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c0t0d0s2 sliced rootdisk rootdg online
c1t8d0s2 sliced testdg03 testdg online
c1t9d0s2 sliced testdg04 testdg online
c1t10d0s2 sliced testdg01 testdg online
c1t11d0s2 sliced - - online

# vxdg -g testdg adddisk testdg02=c1t11d0s2

# vxdisk list
DEVICE TYPE DISK GROUP STATUS
c0t0d0s2 sliced rootdisk rootdg online
c1t8d0s2 sliced testdg03 testdg online
c1t9d0s2 sliced testdg04 testdg online
c1t10d0s2 sliced testdg01 testdg online
c1t11d0s2 sliced testdg02 testdg online

Veritas: Remove A Disk Group

2013-08-29T02:51:00.001-07:00

1. remove volumes from the disks
a. vxassist –g disk-group remove volume volume-name

2. remove disks from the disk group
a. vxdg –g disk-group rmdisk vxvm-disk-name
you cannot remove the last disk from a disk group. At this point you will just need to remove the disk group itself.

3. remove the disk group
a. vxdg destroy disk-group

SCCM 2007 installation in Windows Server 2008

2013-01-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

you have first setup Windows Server 2008 and configured it for Active Directory, with DHCP. If you want to deploy operating systems within SCCM you will then also need the Windows Deployment Services installed.
You must have installed and configured IIS (for SCCM) and installed SQL Server 2005 SP2 (or SQL Server 2008 with this hotfix) and WSUS (you can install WSUS later if you want, it's only required for the SUP role).

Run the prerequisite checker and fix the warnings/errors.

When the menu appears, click on Run the prerequisite checker, we'll do this to see if our Windows Server 2008 needs any additional tasks performed prior to installing SCCM 2007 sp1.

enter your servername as below (leave OUT the instance name or you may get errors explained in the Final Note)

this gave me two prerequisites which needed looking at, the AD Schema extensions, Microsoft Remote Differential compression.

If you want to get more details of the problems identified, then check c:\ConfigMgrPrereq.log (and c:\ConfigMgrSetup.log) or double click each warning/error in turn to get a short description (scrollable) of the problem.

Quote

<08-22-2008 10:33:16> WIN-2SDX7MZCDA7; Schema extensions; Warning; Configuration Manager Active Directory schema extensions are not required, for site server installation, but are recommended to fully support the use of all Configuration Manager features.

My first problem was that I needed to extend the Active directory schema, to do so I followed this guide.

Once I had extended the active directory schema, I ran the prerequisite checker again,

That left me with the RDC error,

Quote

The Microsoft Remote Differential Compression (RDC) library must be registered for Configuration Manager site server installation

That led me here and that in turn had this info

Quote

Site servers and branch distribution points require Remote Differential Compression (RDC) to generate package signatures and perform signature comparison. RDC is not installed by default on computers running Windows Server 2008 and is not installed automatically during Configuration Manager Setup. For information about installing RDC on Windows Server 2008 computers, see How to Configure Windows Server 2008 for Site System Roles.

Site servers and branch distribution points require Remote Differential Compression (RDC) to generate package signatures and perform signature comparison. RDC is not installed by default on computers running Windows Server 2008.

To add Remote Differential Compression to site servers and branch distribution points

In Server Manager, on the Features node, start the Add Features Wizard.

On the Select Features page, select Remote Differential Compression, and then click Next.

Complete the rest of the wizard by clicking install then close.

Now run the prerequisite checker again and the RDC error should be gone

Once you have no warnings or errors, please proceed to Part 2.

Final Note: if you entered the instance name at the start of this guide, you may get an error which states

Quote

Either the user account running Configuration Manager Setup does not have sysadmin SQL Server role permissions on the SQL Server instance targeted for site database installation or the SQL Server instance could not be contacted to verify permissions. Setup cannot continue.

The Technet page for Setup Prerequisite checks states:-

Quote

A SQL Server best practice is to remove the Builtin\Administrators group from the sysadmin role on installed SQL Server instances. If the Builtin\Administrators group has been removed from the sysadmin role, the user account running Configuration Manager Setup must be granted sysadmin role permissions for setup to succeed.

Part 2. Install it !

Start the SCCM 2007 SP1 DVD and click on Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 under Install

review the welcome screen

Choose the first option, Install a Configuration Manager site server

accept the license...

Next we get to choose the type of installation, as we want to see all the options, choose Custom

For Site Type, stick with the default (primary site)

decide if you want to participate in CEIP

Specify your key

where to install it

enter your Site Settings and Site Code name

For the mode type, choose mixed mode (it is easier to setup and we can always migrate to Native mode in the future).

specify your client agent settings...

enter your Database server details

specify your SMS provider settings

Note: The SMS Provider can be installed on the site database server computer, site server computer, or another server class computer (during setup at this point). The SMS Provider is used by the Configuration Manager console, Resource Explorer, tools and custom scripts used by Configuration Manager Admins to access site information stored in the site database.

specify the management point

decide your TCP port settings

check for updates

create a local folder to store these updates if necessary

updates will be downloaded...

once done, click ok to review your settings summary

and click Next to start the prerequisite check (final)

as everything is ok, you can click on Begin Install

After a long wait you should see this

lets launch the configuration manager after closing

and click on Finish to finish the installation.

Congratulations, SCCM 2007 SP1 is now installed !

Note: At this point REBOOT your server.

Prerequisites for Installing Configuration Manager

2013-01-19T12:01:00.000-08:00

Before installing Configuration Manager 2007 or implementing new features, ensure that you have verified that your computing environment meets the following prerequisites:

General site system prerequisites
Configuration Manager primary site server prerequisites
Site database server prerequisites
SMS Provider prerequisites
Configuration Manager secondary site server prerequisites
Configuration Manager console
Configuration Manager feature prerequisites

General Site System Prerequisites

All site servers must be a member of an Active Directory domain.

Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 or later is required if the system will perform any of the following site system roles:

Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)-enabled distribution point. This role requires BITS server extensions and Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) extensions. IIS is not required if the distribution point will not be BITS-enabled.

Management point. This role requires BITS server IIS extensions and WebDAV IIS extensions.

Reporting point. This role requires Active Server pages.

Fallback status point. This role requires BITS server IIS extensions.

Software update point

Server locator point

All Configuration Manager distribution point systems using BITS bandwidth throttling require BITS 2.0 or later.
Management points and server locator points configured to be part of a Network Load Balancing (NLB) cluster are supported.
All site servers require Internet Explorer 5.0 or later.
Windows Server 2008 is the only supported operating system for hosting the System Health Validator point site system role.
Site servers and branch distribution points require Remote Differential Compression (RDC) to generate package signatures and perform signature comparison.

Configuration Manager Primary Site Server Prerequisites

The following software must be installed before running Setup on a server to support the primary site server role:

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0. MMC 3.0 is available for download athttp://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=55423.
.NET Framework 2.0. .NET Framework 2.0 is available for download at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=56407.
If applicable, the following update should also be applied to the system before running Setup:
- MS06-030: Vulnerability in Server Message Block could allow elevation of privilege (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=79239).

Site Database Server Prerequisites

Configuration Manager 2007 primary sites require access to a SQL Server database to host the site database. The site database can be hosted on a SQL Server instance installed on the same server as the primary site, on a remote computer, or on a virtual SQL Server cluster instance. The following conditions apply:

SQL Server 2005, Service Pack 2 is the earliest version of SQL Server supported for hosting the Configuration Manager 2007 site database. For more information about the SQL Server versions that are supported to host the site database, see Configuration Manager Supported Configurations.
SQL Server Express editions are not supported for hosting the Configuration Manager 2007 site database.
The SQL database service is the only SQL Server component required to be installed to host the site database.

SMS Provider Prerequisites

Because Configuration Manager 2007 allows you to install the SMS Provider on a computer other than the site server or site database server, you should check to ensure that the computer you have identified to install the SMS Provider on meets the following prerequisites:

The SMS Provider must be installed on a computer in the same domain as the site server and site database server site systems.

Important
The SMS Provider must be installed on a computer with the same operating system language as the site server's operating system language when a site contains site servers or clients with different language operating systems installed.

The SMS Provider cannot be installed on a virtual SQL Server cluster computer or a physical computer hosting a virtual SQL Server cluster node.
The SMS Provider cannot be installed on a computer already hosting the SMS Provider for another site.
If applicable, the following updates should also be applied to the system before installing the SMS Provider:
- MS06-030: Vulnerability in Server Message Block could allow elevation of privilege (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=79239).
- Availability of Windows Server 2003 Post-Service Pack 1 COM+ 1.5 Hotfix Rollup Package 6 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=79240).

Configuration Manager Secondary Site Server Prerequisites

If applicable, the following updates should be applied to the system before installing a secondary site server:

"A custom program that uses the RegConnectRegistry function can no longer access the registry of a remote computer in Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 or in an x64-based version of Windows Server 2003", described in Knowledge Base article 906570 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=60872).
"MS06-030: Vulnerability in Server Message Block could allow elevation of privilege" (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=79239).

Configuration Manager Console Prerequisites

Before installing the Configuration Manager console on a remote computer, you should ensure that it meets the minimum requirements outlined in the Configuration Manager supported configurations, as well as the following installation prerequisites:

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0. MMC 3.0 can be downloaded from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=55423.
.NET Framework 2.0. .NET Framework 2.0 can be downloaded from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=56407.

Configuration Manager Feature Prerequisites

Some Configuration Manager 2007 features have specific prerequisites for installation or use. Before implementing the following features, ensure that you meet their specific prerequisite requirements as described in the following topics:

VMware ESX Server Basics

2013-01-19T11:41:00.002-08:00

We have 3 Node(Node = ESX Host) cluster with ISCSI SAN Storage attached.

Node1 Summary View

Physical sockets=2 , Physical CPU per socket= 1, Core Per CPU=4

So Total core:- 2x4=8 , Each core is 2.294Ghz

Total Computing power is :- 8x2.294 GHz=18.352 GHz

Here we have not enable HyperThreding so total logical Processors its showing is = 8 Logical processor

If we enable Hyperthreding then we should get double of it i. e 8x2=16 Logical processors

but this will not increase total computing power because it is depend on your total core and not logical processors……….:)

Below figure shows that after enabling Hyperthreding in 2 sockets Node with 4 cores per sockets.

It showing 16 logical processors……………Grt

2 (sockets) x 4 (Cores per sockets) x 2 (Hyperthreding) = 16 logical Processors

But total compute capacity i.e. CPU Capacity is= 8 (total cores) X 2.393 GHz

Below is the Virtual machine running on 3 node cluster

Now here we have given 1 vCPU and 2 GB RAM to this Virtual machine and install Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition 64 Bit OS

In windows its showing Quad-Core AMD processor with 2.29 GHz and in task manager its showing 1 core of processor.

And my node is licenced with Enterprise licensed type its showing 6 cores per CPU

And with enterprise plus licensed type its gives 12 core per CPU and 8 way virtual SMP

Now when I tried to edit the Virtual processors and change it to MAX available value i.e. 8

Oh wait from where this MAX Virtual processors value came from …. My license type doesn't say anything about this then it must be the MAX total core in my node…… Yah that’s gr8 we found the link between vCPU and Physical core of the node.

Ok now I change the vCPU from 1 to MAX 8 and try to boot the Virtual machine………

Ohh no there is an error …….

It says that virtual machine has 8 virtual CPUs but host support only 4. Oh no, then I am not able to use 8 vCPU.

I went to check where the exact problem is? Is this the guest OS limitation or my host licence?

My guest OS is Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition which Supports Upto 8 CPU then it must be a problem with Host License ok let me check that as well.

Ok here is my license type Enterprise License with 2 physical CPUs and 1-6 Core per CPU

It looks good then what is the 4-Way virtual SMP ………

Here is the definition of SMP from VMware

“4-Way VMware Virtual SMP (symmetric multiprocessing). With the power of up to four physical processors available to each virtual machine”

Now we can conclude that 4-way SMP it the blocking point for us, so we can’t use more than 4 vCPU to any guest regardless of Guest OS type.

Let’s check by giving 5 vCPU to same guest………….

Yah same error

So I give 4 vCPU and starts Virtual machine.

Ok I have one more server node of ESX having different license file.

Here its enterprise plus and 8 way SMP

And I checked here Virtual machine with windows 2008 R2 Ent. Edition having 8 vCPU

And in windows its showing 8 processors wow gr8.

From above figure we can see how memory has been allocated to Virtual machine

Starting from bottom 512 MB and 4 GB are the default memory Tab from Operating system, as guest os is windows 2008 so recommended is 4 GB.

Now third tab is “Maximum recommended for best performance” and it’s 32GB Ohh what is that?

Its MAX memory installed on Node... Remember we have 32GB physical memory installed on Node1.

Ok then what is the fourth Tab about 255 GB RAM…ok now we can get that this is the max memory supported by that Node as per our ESX license file ……256 GB max supported in Enterprise license

And for enterprise plus there is no RAM limitation.

2.294 GHz X 4 vCPU = 9.176 GHz total computing power allocated to Virtual Machine

CPU resource allocation

Share: - Low=1, Normal=2, High=4

So in above condition when Low share selected it allocating

Share Values
Setting	CPU share values	Memory share values
High	2000 shares per virtual CPU	20 shares per megabyte of configured virtual machine memory.
Normal	1000 shares per virtual CPU	10 shares per megabyte of configured virtual machine memory.
Low	500 shares per virtual CPU	5 shares per megabyte of configured virtual machine memory.

For example, an SMP virtual machine with two virtual CPUs and 1GB RAM with CPU and memory shares set to Normal has 2x1000=2000 shares of CPU and 10x1024=10240 shares of memory.

Note

■	Two CPU-bound virtual machines run on a host with 8GHz of aggregate CPU capacity. Their CPU shares are set to Normal and get 4GHz each.
■	A third CPU-bound virtual machine is powered on. Its CPU shares value is set to High, which means it should have twice as many shares as the machines set to Normal. The new virtual machine receives 4GHz and the two other machines get only 2GHz each. The same result occurs if the user specifies a custom share value of 2000 for the third virtual machine.

What if my VirtualCenter server crashes?

2012-10-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

When your vCenter server needs an upgrade or maintenance, or when it suffers a crash, it’s important to know what pieces of the environment can and will function without the benefit of a vCenter server orchestrating and managing the various resources within the environment.

When the vCenter server is offline, your virtual machines will continue to function, along with HA. However, other key pieces will be unavailable or will work in a degraded mode. Tables Table 4-1 through Table 4-8 list the impacts that a vCenter server outage can have on an environment.

Table 4-1. vCenter server outage effects on VMware HA
VI function	Available	Comment
Restart virtual machine	Yes	No impact
Admission control	No	vCenter is required as the source of the load information
Add new host to cluster	No	vCenter is required to resolve IP addresses of cluster members
Allow hosts to rejoin the cluster	Yes	Resolved host information is stored on the ESX host itself in /etc/FT_HOST

Table 4-2. vCenter server outage effects on VMware DRS
VI function	Available	Comment
Manual	No	Requires vCenter to manage
Automatic	No	Requires vCenter to manage
Affinity rules	No	Requires vCenter to manage

Table 4-3. vCenter server outage effects on resource pools
VI function	Available	Comment
Create	No	Requires vCenter to manage
Add VM	No	Requires vCenter to manage
Remove VM	No	Requires vCenter to manage

Table 4-4. vCenter server outage effects on VMotion
VI function	Available	Comment
VMotion	No	Requires vCenter to manage

Table 4-5. vCenter server outage effects on ESX host
VI function	Available	Comment
Shutdown	Degraded	Through a direct connection to the ESX host server only
Startup	Yes	Expires within 14 days
Maintenance mode	Degraded	Requires vCenter to manage
Deregister	No	Requires vCenter to manage
Register	No	Requires vCenter to manage

Table 4-6. vCenter server outage effects on virtual machine
VI function	Available	Comment
Power on	Degraded	Expires in 14 days; direct connection to ESX host server only
Power off	Degraded	Direct connection to ESX host server only
Register	No	Requires vCenter to manage
Deregister	No	Requires vCenter to manage
Hot migration	No	Requires vCenter (VMotion)
Cold migration	Degraded	Within the same ESX host only

Table 4-7. vCenter server outage effects on templates
VI function	Available	Comment
Convert from virtual machine	Degraded	Direct connection to host only; requires vCenter to manage
Convert to virtual machine	Degraded	Direct connection to host only; requires vCenter to manage
Deploy virtual machine	No	Requires vCenter to manage

Table 4-8. vCenter server outage effects on virtual machine (guest)
VI function	Available	Comment
Guest OS (virtual machine)	Yes	No impact, will run without vCenter

DirectAccess

2012-10-30T09:11:00.002-07:00

DirectAccess is the new feature from Microsoft windows server 2008 R2, if you every struggled with windows VPN access then DirectAccess is going to change the way you interact or connect with the intranet from internet (from the public network to private network)

Normally we use VPN for accessing the intranet or office network from internet or home, VPN has its limitations, I will discuss about the Direct Access features and difference between DirectAccess and VPN

DirectAccess features for Administrator

• As an administrator you can’t manage the user and the computers if they are connecting through VPN, what I means to say is you can’t update the windows and security patches and Group policy settings and distributing the software updates

• Using DirectAccess feature you can manage remote users very effectively, you can update the windows and security patches and Group policy settings and distributing the software updates

• You can manage the DirectAccess client like a local system and always manageable

• When ever the user connect the DirectAccess client to internet, you can manage like update the antivirus definitions and update the security patches and keep the DirectAccess client within security compliance

• You can check and troubleshoot the DirectAccess client if require, since connection between DirectAccess client and corporate network is bidirectional

• And one more important feature is DirectAccess client uses the separate tunnel to access the internet, yes DirectAccess separates intranet from Internet traffic, which reduces unnecessary traffic on the intranet by sending only traffic destined for the intranet through the DirectAccess server

• If require you can configure DirectAccess clients to send all traffic through the DirectAccess server.

• DirectAccess more secure then VPN

DirectAccess features for User

• No need for VPN, without VPN connection you can access the intranet network (office network)

• If your system is DirectAccess enabled then you can access the office network without doing any addition task (VPN you have to dial and connect to intranet network after the login)

• Through DirectAccess you can access the files, intranet websites, applications

• There is no difference if you are in office or roaming some ware, you just require a internet connection to access the office network

• With the DirectAccess feature, it’s like working in office no mater where you are

• Most of the limitation are removed just connect to internet and access the corporate network

Pre-request to configure DirectAccess

You should have the Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 to configure the DirectAccess feature

How to configure DirectAccess

I will explain how to configure DirectAccess in my upcoming article, please check back

Difference between windows 2003 and windows 2008

2012-10-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

Difference between windows 2003 and windows 2008

Windows 2008 gives you two installation types, Full installation and Server Core installation, to know more
Windows server 2008 Installation is faster because it’s 32 bit where as 2003 it is 16 bit as well as 32 bit, to know more
Windows deployment services (WDS) instead of RIS in 2003 server
Services are known as role in windows server 2008, like Active Directory has been renamed to Active Directory DomainServices (AD DS)
Windows server 2008 Boot sequence is changed
Virtualization (Hyper-V) is the main difference between windows 2003 and windows 2008
PowerShell been fully supported, you can manage easily using PowerShell script and PowerShell commands
Difference between Group Policy 2003 and 2008, please see my previous article Group Policy 2008 Features
Group Policy slow link detection process change on windows server 2008
New power-saving features been introduced in windows server 2008. It includes updated support for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) processor power management (PPM) features, including support for processor performance states (P-states) and processor idle sleep states on multiprocessor systems. These features can be managed through Group Policies.
Security has been Improved, features like Bitlocker
IIS updated version
Difference between Active Directory 2003 and Active Directory 2008
Difference between Windows DNS server 2003 and 2008
Difference between Sysvol Replication in Windows 2003 and 2008
Difference between windows 2008 and r2
DirectAccess

Sysvol Replication change in Windows 2008

2012-10-30T08:25:00.002-07:00

Group Policy replication change
Before I start the SYSVOL replication changes in windows server 2008, I would like to explain how the GPO has been replicated in windows server 2003 and earlier versions

Understanding SYSVOL/GPO replication
Group policy template (GPT) and group policy container (GPC) are two types of Group policy settings, Its stored in two different locations and uses different replication technology to replicate the changes, however both should be available up-to-date on domain controller to function properly

Group policy templates are stored in SYSVOL, it’s a folder structure in SYSVOL share on a domain controller, if you create a new Group Policy it will create a Group policy templates folder on SYSVOL share for the new policy that contain the group policy setting related to this policy, GPT folder name would be Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) of the GPO that you created, you can view all the GPT folders from the below Path (it’s a default GPT path)

C:\Windows\Sysvol\Sysvol\DomainName\Policies

Group Policy template (GPT) is replicated by SYSVOL through FRS, FRS uses state-based replication. As soon as there is a change to any file under the Sysvol folder structure, replication is triggered and entire file get replicated

Group policy containers are stored in Active Directory, mostly all the GPO setting are stored in GPT (Group policy templates), GPC only have the reference information of the corresponding GPO, like GPT path, GUID of the GPO, version information, WMI filter information, and a list of components that have settings in the GPO, you can view the GPC from Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC)

\System\Policies

Group policy container (GPC) is replicated through Active Directory replication

Note: By default the Group Policy Management Editor console (GPME) uses the PDC Emulator so that all administrators can work on the same domain controller, if you want a different Domain controller you can change through Group Policy Management console (GPMC)

File Replication Services (FRS)
I will try to explain step by step, let say you modify the Policy A from Server001 and how this change get replicated to Server002 (Server002 is a downstream replication partner for server001)

• Once you modify the Policy A from server001, the corresponding GPT folder on SYSVOL gets updated on the server001 (also updates the Group policy containers in Active Directory on server001)

• NTFS will change the USN journal according to the file and folder change.

• FRS monitors the USN journal for changes on the SYSVOL folder

• FRS updates the inbound log on server001, FRS not only updates the local changes on inbound log, also updates the inbound log for the changes from entire upstream replication partner (all inbound partners)

• FRS creates a file in staging folder on server001 by using APIs (backup application programming interfaces) based on the change.

• This change has been updated on outbound log on server001 by FRS. And also send change notification to entire downstream replication partner about the change (all outbound partners)

• Server002 get the change notification from Server001 and store the change order in inbound log, Server002 copies the staging file from Server001 to the staging folder on Server002. Server002 then update outbound log so other outbound partners can pick up the change

• Using Restore APIs, Server002 reconstructs the file and folder in the preinstall folder, and then FRS renames the file or folder into the replica tree

In FRS replication process the entire changed file and folder get replicate to source to destination server

What is NTFS USN journal?
Logs all the changes to an NTFS volume, including file creations, deletions, and changes, Separate log on each NTFS volume and it has a size limit (Windows server 2003 SP2 & Windows server 2008 is 128 MB) if require you can increase the size up to 2 TB, however MS Recommends increasing by 128 MB for every 100,000 files/folders

What happens when the NTFS USN change journal fills up?
If the USN journal log fills up then NTFS will be overwrite the old entry’s, that’s why in some scenarios before the change get updated, NTFS delete the entries in USN journal log, it’s called journal_wrap

USN journal wrap Error
An error that occurs when large numbers of files change so quickly that the USN journal must remove the oldest changes (before FRS has a chance to detect the changes) to stay within the specified size limit, to resolve this issue you have to perform a non-authoritative restore also called D2

Morphed folder
Replication conflict will occur if identically named directories are created in different servers, to resolve this conflict FRS create a folder and this folder called morphed folder

Let’s say two identical directories are created in different replication members, FRS identifies the conflict during replication, and the receiving member protects the original copy of the folder and renames (morphs) the later inbound copy of the folder. The morphed folder names have a suffix of “_NTFRS_xxxxxxxx,” where “xxxxxxxx” represents eight random hexadecimal digits.

Version vector join (vvjoin)

Till now we are discussing about the SYSVOL replication, how the SYSVOL replication works for the newly added replication partner, newly added replication member doesn’t have any updates, and it should build the folder structure from the beginning, this process is called vvjoin, in which a downstream partner joins with an upstream partner for the first time.

Vvjoin is a CPU-intensive operation that can affect the performance of the server and increase the replication traffic

Distributed File System (DFS)
Now we are coming to the point, how the SYSVOL replicating using DFS and how it’s been improved to provide better replication performance, to use this feature you should have Windows Server 2008 domain functional level that means all the domain controller has to be Windows Server 2008

SYSVOL replication using DFS is called DFS-Replicated SYSVOL (DFSR)

DFSR is a multimaster replication engine and changes that occur on one of the replication member are then replicated to all of the other servers in the replication group

DFSR also monitors the NTFS for the update sequence number (USN) journal to detects changes on the volume, and then DFSR replicate the changes only after the file closed

And before sending or receiving a file, DFSR uses a staging folder to stage the file

If any changes in SYSVOL share, FRS replicate the entire file unlike the DFSR, DFSR replicates only the changes blocks and not the entire file, sounds like a attribute level Active Directory replication, it compare the source and destination file using remote differential compression (RDC), it reduce the SYSVOL replication traffic

Other improvements are… (Difference between DFRS and FRS)
• DFSR and Journal Wraps, DFSR also monitors the NTFS change journal, but DFSR always heals itself hence no Journal Wrap error

• Morphed files and folders automatically taken care of

• FRS silently fails if the volume SYSVOL resides on < 1GB of free space

• Copies the changes on files and folder not entire files and folder

• Uses Version Vector tables to confirm the changes, also to resolve the conflicts

• Support read-only replication on a particular members in which users cannot add or change files

• You can also make the changes to the SYSVOL folder of an RODC

• DFSR does not require the version vector join (vvjoin) operation

Windows 2008 DNS features

2012-10-30T07:32:00.000-07:00

Compare to windows 2003, Windows 2008 have more features and improvement, I will discuss the improvement related to DNS in this article, Microsoft done the improvement that really required for the IT environment, Windows 2008 DNS features are listed below

Background zone loading: If you are an administrator for an large environment you would have seen this issue, after the DNS server restart it take some time to load the DNS zones, till that time server will not respond to an DNS query from client (even server will not respond to the nslookup) you have to wait for the server to load the zones, this issue has been rectified in Windows 2008 DNS server, since zone data loaded in the background while the time of DNS server restart and DNS server respond to the client query very quickly.

IP version 6 support: The Windows 2008 DNS Server fully supports the longer addresses of the IPv6 specification.

Support for read-only domain controllers (RODCs): We able to modify the Primary DNS zone, what about the primary zone in read only domain controller, we can’t modify or update the primary zone on read only domain controller, yes Windows 2008 server provides primary read-only zones on RODCs.

Global single names: Not required to add DNS suffixes for the name resolution for the various domain names, GlobalNames zone provides single-label name resolution for large enterprise networks, if your environment doesn’t have WINS or planning on deploying IPv6-only in your environment then you Need to Deploy the GlobalNames Zone, it’s useful when using DNS name suffixes to provide single-label name resolution is not practical.

Global query block list: Clients of such protocols as the Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) and the Intra-site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP) that rely on DNS name resolution to resolve well-known host names are vulnerable to malicious users who use dynamic update to register host computers that pose as legitimate servers. The DNS Server role in Windows Server 2008 provides a global query block list that can help reduce this vulnerability.

DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC): DNSSEC works by digitally signing these records for DNS lookup using public-key cryptography. The correct DNSKEY record is authenticated via achain of trust, starting with a set of verified public keys for the DNS root zone which is the trusted third party.

The following DNSSEC related features are introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2:

The ability to sign a zone (that is, to provide the zone a digital signature)
The ability to host signed zones
New support for the DNSSEC protocol
New support for DNSKEY, RRSIG, NSEC, and DS resource records.

A key feature of DNSSEC is that it enables you to sign a DNS zone – which means that all the records for that zone are also signed.The DNS client can take advantage of the digital signature added to the resource records to confirm that they are valid. This is typical of what you see in other areas where you have deployed services that depend on PKI. The DNS client can validate that the response hasn’t been changed using the public/private key pair. In order to do this, the DNS client has to be configured to trust the signer of the signed zone.

The new Windows Server 2008 R2 DNSSEC support enables you to sign file-based and Active Directory integrated zones through an offline zone signing tool. I know it would have been easier to have a GUI interface for this. When configured with a trust anchor, a DNS server is able to validate DNSSEC responses received on behalf of the client. However, in order to prove that a DNS answer is correct, you need to know at least one key or DS record that is correct from sources other than the DNS. These starting points are called trust anchors.

Another change in the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 DNS client is that it acts as a security-aware stub resolver. This means that the DNS client will let the DNS server handle the security validation tasks, but it will consume the results of the security validation efforts performed by the DNS server. The DNS clients take advantage of the NRPT to determine when they should check for validation results. After the client confirms that the response is valid, it will return the results of the DNS query to the application that triggered the initial DNS query.

DNS Cache Locking: Using the DNS Cache locking in Windows Server 2008 R2 enables you to control the ability to overwrite information contained in the DNS cache. If you turned on the DNS cache locking then DNS server will not allow cached records to be overwritten for the duration of the time to live (TTL) value. This helps protect your DNS server from cache poisoning.

Whats new in windows 2008 Active Directory

2012-10-30T07:15:00.002-07:00

As an Active Directory administrator very curies about the windows 2008 features compare to the earlier version like windows 2003, Windows 2008 comes with the whole bunch of features, and am going to discuss specific about the features of Active Directory server roles in Windows 2008

First I will list the features of windows 2008 Active directory and will discuss in detail of each in my upcoming article

Auditing

Now you can know the previous and present values for the changed attributes of the active directory object using the new auditing feature in windows 2008, as per the windows 2003 auditing you will only know the present values of the changed attribute

This is very useful features in windows 2008 since you can revert back the changes using the previous value of the attribute

Fine-Grained Passwords

By default in windows 2003 all the user account in the domain should use the same password policy configured in domain level, thats why we called domain is a security boundary, if you require a different password policy then you have to create new domain

In windows 2008 password policy can be configured for specific group of peoples with in the domain

Read-Only Domain Controller

Every one know about the BDC (backup domain controller) and it’s a same as the BDC but it only take the advantages from the BDC and it’s specifically designed for the today’s requirements like branch office setup and to managing the branch office

We all know how difficult to design and manage the domain controller from the branch office, some time it lead to the lingering object, but using the Read-Only Domain Controller
In the branch office where the physical security of the domain controller is in question, or domain controllers that host additional roles, requiring other users to log on and maintain the server

In any Active Directory environment if one Domain Controller not replicated with the partner Domain Controller more then one month, then it’s a very critical issue you have to rectify the replication problem as soon as possible or the Domain Controller needs to be decommissioned with in the tombstone lifetime, since its read-only domain controller no worries about the tombstone time.

Restartable Active Directory Domain Services

Hey good new, now no need to restart the domain controller for every time for the active directory maintenance.

In windows 2008 active directory is a services, you can stop or restart the services for maintenance without restarting the domain controller and restarting it in Directory Services Restore Mode is not required for most maintenance functions, however still some maintenance function require Directory Services Restore Mode

Database Mounting Tool

Active Directory Database mounting tool in Windows Server 2008 to create and view snapshots of data that is stored in Active Directory Domain Services, and no need to restart the domain controller. A snapshot is a shadow copy created by the Volume Shadow Copy Service, at different times so that you can better choose which data to restore after object deletion. This reduces the administrator time and no need to restore multiple backups to compare the Active Directory data.

Active Directory Database mounting tool can be called Snapshot Viewer, Snapshot Browser, and Active Directory data mining tool.

Active Directory Recycle Bin

You can restore the accidentally deleted Active Directory object, without Active Directory authoritative restore, this can be used for single object restore like a accidental deletion of user or OU and you can reduce the domain controller downtime

Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell

PowerShell available on windows 2003 itself, however it’s not fully supported for Active Directory, you can’t manage the Active Directive using the PowerShell in windows 2003

In windows 2008 Windows PowerShell provides command-line scripting for administrative, configuration, and diagnostic tasks

You can manage the Active Directory with Exchange Server, Group Policy, and other services and it’s very easy to use like a windows commands, you can easily pipe cmdlets to build complex operations

Active Directory Administrative Center

It’s new tool in windows 2008 R2 to manage active directory, we already have active directory users and computer to manage the active directory, using this new tool you can manage active directory in a new way

As an administrator you perform most of the task commonly that is daily, some how it’s hard to open an active directory user and computer and find the object and do the task, in this new tool Active Directory Administrative Center it’s very easy to do a common task like password reset and search the Active Directory object and others

Active Directory Best Practices Analyzer

This can be helped to identify and implement the best practices in the configuration of your active directory environment, this will scan your network and find the best practice violations,
Then you can correct that, to get the best out of Active Directory services in windows 2008.

Active Directory Web Services

Active Directory Web Services is give you the Web service interface to Active Directory domains and AD LDS instances (Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services)

Active Directory Database Mounting Tool uses the Active Directory Web Services as a front end, like that Windows PowerShell and Active Directory Administrative Center is used the Active Directory Web Services to access the directory service instances.

Offline domain join

Offline domain join makes to join a member server to the domain even the domain controller not reachable from the member server

And this can be very useful for bulk deployment, when the system starts, it will automatically joined to the domain, this will reduce the administrative effort

Managed Service Accounts

Normally applications and services uses the Local Service and Network Service and Local System accounts, it’s easy to configure and shared among multiple applications and services and cannot be managed on a domain level

You can use the domain account for the application (services), this can isolate the privileges for the application, but it’s very hard to manage these domain accounts like password management

We have two new types of accounts, Managed service accounts and virtual accounts in windows 2008, now you can easily manage the service principal names (SPNs), it will provide Automatic password management

Active Directory Management Pack

You can monitor the Active Directory service on windows 2008 using the Active Directory Management Pack (MOM, SCOM)

Designed specifically to monitor the performance and availability of Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), also monitors the overall health of AD DS and alerts you to critical performance issues.

Group Policy Features in Windows 2008

2012-10-30T07:09:00.000-07:00

Group Policy 2008 Features: I will discusses about the Group policy changes in windows 2008 server, Microsoft have made some of interesting changes and added new features in Group Policy 2008, first I will list the features and explain one by one

• New Administrative template files (ADMX)
• New Policy settings
    o Power options
    o Block device installation
    o Improved security settings
    o Internet Explorer settings management
    o Assign printers based on location
    o Delegate printer driver installation to users

• Group Policy slow link detection
• SYSVOL replication change
• SYSVOL uses DFS Replication service to replicate Group Policy object files to other domain controllers (In windows server 2003 uses FRS to replicate this)

Am very interested about the below changes because I have faced several issues related to this in windows 2003 group policy

• Group Policy slow link detection
• Internet Explorer settings management
• Blocking device installation
• SYSVOL replication change

New Administrative template files (ADMX)

In windows server 2003 and earlier versions, ADM file used to store registry based GPO settings, In Windows server 2008 ADMX file used to store registry based GPO settings, it’s a XML based and easy to manage registry based policy settings

ADMX format support Multilanguage, centralized datastore, and version control capabilities, policy can be edited in other language that was created in English language because Group Policy tools will adjust the user interface according to the administrator's configured language, you can also create a Central Store for Group Policy Administrative Templates to reduce the disk space, see article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=122539)

New Policy settings

Power options: Now you can configure the power option through group policy

Configure power option through GPO:
Computer Configuration ->Administrative Templates -> System -> Power Management

Block device installation: In windows 2003 to block the device assess like USB and CD drive we have to import the customized ADM file, in windows 2008 it’s inbuilt yes now you can configure he device access through group policy

Configure Block device installation through GPO:
Computer Configuration ->Administrative Templates -> System -> Device Installation

Improved security settings: IPsec & firewall setting are combined to provide the enhanced security and avoid policy duplication

Configure security settings through GPO:
Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Windows Firewall with Advance Security

Internet Explorer settings management: We had an issue like some one edited the GPO to update the trusted sites and we have lost entire IE configuration because he used a different account to change the group policy, it’s a known concern in Windows server 2003 because Internet Explorer policy settings would change based on the policy settings enabled on the administrative workstation used to view the settings.

In windows 2008 this behavior has been changed, you can change the Internet Explorer policy settings without affecting the policy configuration

Configure Internet Explorer settings through GPO:
Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Internet Explorer
User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Internet Explorer

Assign printers based on location: Install the network printer based on the user location, it’s very useful for the roaming user because if the user login to the network other then the base location GPO will install the printer for the new location.

Assign printers based on location through GPO:
Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Deployed Printers
User Configuration -> Windows Settings ->Deployed Printers

Delegate printer driver installation to users: Now user can install the printer on there system without admin access, it helps to reduce the security risk and admin effort.

Delegate printer driver installation through GPO:
Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Driver Installation

Group Policy slow link detection

This was a big problem in windows server 2003 because it uses the ICMP ping to detect the network bandwidth, some of the VPN sites ICMP ping might be disabled in firewall or the MTU size would be less then the required limit and also ping will increase the network traffic to overcome this problems Microsoft come up with solution called NLA (Network Location Awareness)

Network Location Awareness is a service on client computer, it provide necessary information about the network and GPO uses this to apply the policy settings, most important it’s not using ICMP ping and very efficient compare to earlier process in Windows 2003, Check Group Policy Processing over Slow Links for Windows server 2003

SYSVOL Replication

In windows server 2003 FRS (File replication service) has been used to replicate SYSVOL folder changes, in windows server 2008 you can use the DFS (Distributed File System) to replicate changes on the SYSVOL folder, to use this feature you should have Windows Server 2008 domain functional level that means all the domain controller has to be Windows Server 2008

If any changes in SYSVOL share, FRS replicate the entire file unlike the DFS, DFS only replicate the change in the file, sounds like a attribute level Active Directory replication, it compare the source and destination file using remote differential compression (RDC)

If you are migrated from windows 2003 to windows server 2008, FRS is the default replication service for SYSVOL replication, you have to migrate the SYSVOL share to use the DFS

Compare to earlier version Group Policy settings has increased from approximately 2,400 in Windows Server 2008 to optimize the environment and support new features, more info from technet

How to Enable SSH in to ESXi 4.0

2012-10-17T09:36:00.001-07:00

ESXi 40 does ship with the ability to run SSH, but this is disabled by default (and is not supported). If you just need to access the console of ESXi, then you only need to perform steps 1 - 3.

1) At the console of the ESXi host, press ALT-F1 to access the console window.
2) Enter unsupported in the console and then press Enter. You will not see the text you type in.
3) If you typed in unsupported correctly, you will see the Tech Support Mode warning and a password prompt. Enter the password for the root login.
4) You should then see the prompt of ~ #. Edit the file inetd.conf (enter the command vi /etc/inetd.conf).
5) Find the lines that begins with #ssh and remove the #. Then save the file. If you're new to using vi, then move the cursor down to #ssh line and then press the Insert key. Move the cursor over one space and then hit backspace to delete the #. Then press ESC and type in :wq to save the file and exit vi. If you make a mistake, you can press the ESC key and then type it :q! to quit vi without saving the file. Note: there are two lines for SSH with ESXi 4.0 now - one for regular IP and the other for IPv6. You should the line appropriate to the protocol you'll use to access your host.
6) Once you've closed the vi editor, you can either restart the host or restart the inetd process. To restart inetd run ps | grep inetd to determine the process ID for the inetd process. The output of the command will be something like 1299 1299 busybox inetd, and the process ID is 1299. Then run kill -HUP <process_id> (kill -HUP 1299 in this example) and you'll then be able to access the host via SSH.

Tip - with some applications like WinSCP, the default encryption cipher used is AES. If you change that to Blowfish you will likely see significantly faster transfers.

Managing Hyper-v server in a workgroup

2012-10-09T23:26:00.002-07:00

Microsoft makes it very difficult to manage a standalone Hyper-v server in a workgroup but it is possible. The first thing you need to know is that you will need a Windows Vista machine to manage Hyper-v server. What Microsoft doesn’t make very clear is that machine will need to be Vista Business or Ultimate. Lucky for me my media pc is running Ultimate which is also how I discovered the OS needs to be â€œbusiness classâ€. Lucky for you I’m here to walk you through the rest of setup process and get you VM’ing in a few simple steps.
I’m not going to walk through this step by step. There are other guides out there that do that, I just want to highlight getting Hyper-v working in a workgroup. So as I write this I am assuming you are here because you already read a ton, know the basics and are at a dead end.
You need to install the Hyper-v management utility found here
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952627
Next you will need to create a matching account on both machines. I know you can’t create a new account on the Hyper-v server so you need to create an administrator account on the Vista machine.
Oh you didn’t really try to create an administrator account did you? Yes one already exists we just need to enable it. Follow these instructions here on enabling the admin account on Vista.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/enable-the-hidden-administrator-account-on-windows-vista/
Now set the password on the Vista machine so it matches your Hyper-v server.
Next we need to tackle to firewall, the easiest way to do this is to disable it completely, and after all you do have a real hardware firewall don’t you?
Disable the firewall on the Vista machine the normal way. To disable on the Hyper-v server open the command prompt (if you don’t know how please read my previous article). Now run this command
netsh firewall set opmode mode=DISABLE
From here we can bring up the management utility, it is located in administrative tools. Connect to your server by machine name. You should have named your machine when you were doing the initial setup. Once connected you should see something along the lines of “Access Denied” in the virtual machines window. Don’t worry, we have one last fix and you will be off creating virtual machines.
Scroll down on this website and follow the com instructions, although it looks like he is making these changes on the server and maybe he is, the changes made on the Vista machine did the trick for me. I wasn’t even going to try it because I thought to myself “Oh here we go with another fix aimed towards a full install of Server 2008 where you apply the fix to the server”. But much to my amazement it worked.
http://www.carbonwind.net/blog/post/2008/12/31/Hyper-V-Server-2008(workgroup)-managed-from-Hyper-V-MMC-Vista-x64(workgroup-too)-How-it-worked-for-me.aspx
The final instructions are as follows
1. Click Start, Run, type DCOMCNFG. Click OK.
2. Expand Component Services, expand Computers. Right-click on My Computer and click on Properties.
3. Click on COM Security.
4. In the Access Permission area, click Edit Limits.
5. Select ANONYMOUS LOGON in the Group or User Name area. Then set the Permissions for ANONYMOUS LOGON to Allow for Remote Access.

VMware vSphere Features

2012-09-20T19:24:00.000-07:00

What is a thin provisioned disk?

When creating a virtual disk file, by default, VMware ESX uses a thick type of virtual disk. The thick disk pre-allocates all of the space specified during the creation of the disk. For example, if you create a 10 megabyte disk, all 10 megabytes are pre-allocated for that virtual disk.

In contrast, a thin virtual disk does not pre-allocate all of the space. Blocks in the VMDK file are not allocated and backed by physical storage until they are written during the normal course of business. A read to an unallocated block returns zeroes, but not back the block with physical storage until it is written.

Update Manager

Simplify VMware vSphere management by automating patches and updates. vSphere Update Manager makes it easy to manage tracking and patching of vSphere hosts.

Keep machines up to date and in compliance

Reduce risks of patching

Eliminate vSphere downtime related to host patching

vMotion

vSphere vMotion enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability and complete transaction integrity. vMotion is a key enabling technology for creating the dynamic, automated and self-optimizing datacenter.

Storage vMotion

Perform live migration of virtual machine disk files within and across storage arrays with vSphere Storage vMotion. Relocate virtual machine disk files while maintaining continuous service availability and complete transaction integrity.

Storage APIs

VMware vSphere provides an API and SDK environment to allow customers and independent software vendors (ISVs) to enhance and extend the functionality of vSphere in the following areas:

Storage Awareness

Array Integration

Multipathing

Data protection

Replication

Replicates powered-on virtual machines over the network from one vSphere host to another without needing storage array-based native replication. vSphere Replication provides a number of unique advantages

Reduce bandwidth needs
Eliminate storage lock-in
Build flexible disaster recovery configurations

Fault Tolerance

vSphere Fault Tolerance (FT) provides continuous availability for applications in the event of server failures by creating a live shadow instance of a virtual machine that is in virtual lockstep with the primary instance. By allowing instantaneous failover between the two instances in the event of hardware failure, FT eliminates even the smallest chance of data loss or disruption.

Automatically trigger seamless stateful failover when the protected virtual machines fail to respond for zero downtime, zero data loss continuous availability
Automatically trigger the creation of a new secondary virtual machine after failover, to ensure continuous protection to the application

Distributed Resources Scheduler (DRS), Distributed Power Management (DPM)

vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) continuously monitors utilization across vSphere servers and intelligently allocates available resources among virtual machines according to business needs.

vSphere Distributed Power Management (DPM) continuously optimizes power consumption in the datacenter. When virtual machines in a DRS cluster need fewer resources, such as during nights and weekends, DPM consolidates workloads onto fewer servers and powers off the rest to reduce power consumption. When virtual machine resource requirements increase, DPM brings powered-down hosts back online to ensure service levels are met.

Data Protection

Many backup products write their data to tape, which is great for long-term archiving but often difficult and time-consuming to restore. vSphere Data Protection (VDP) protects against data loss in your virtual environment by enabling fast backups to disk and, more importantly, fast and complete recovery.

vShield Zones - Secure vSphere Deployments

vShield Zones provides basic protection from network-based threats in virtual datacenters. The solution is included with most VMware vSphere packages and offers an application firewall with policies based on basic traffic information. vShield Zones is deployed per vSphere host.

Get visibility and control over network communications between virtual machines

Improve hardware resource utilization while implementing application security

Simplify compliance with comprehensive logging of all virtual machine network activity

vShield Endpoint

Leverage existing investments and manage antivirus and anti-malware policies for virtualized environments with the same management interfaces you use to secure physical environments. VMware vShield™ Endpoint strengthens security in VMware vSphere and VMware View environments while improving performance for endpoint protection by orders of magnitude, offloading antivirus and anti-malware agent processing to a dedicated secure virtual appliance delivered by VMware partners

High Availability (HA)

VMware vSphere High Availability (HA) provides easy-to-use, cost effective high availability for applications running in virtual machines. In the event of physical server failure, affected virtual machines are automatically restarted on other production servers with spare capacity. In the case of operating system failure, vSphere HA restarts the affected virtual machine on the same physical server.

vCPU and Entitlement

2012-09-20T17:31:00.000-07:00

Below are some basic question about vCPU entitlement comes in our mind and there answers respectively.

I have 2 Physical CPU , each is dual core.

suppose I'll create 1 virtual machine with 1 vCPU and Entitlement 40% .

Q1: how many virtual machines i can create with this entitlement.

Q2: This 40% is a percentage of each CPU or each Core?
Q3: what is the maximum Entitlement which i can assign to any virtual machine? Can i assign for example 150% as Entitlement for one virtual machine?
Q4: Numbers of vCPUs must be less than or equal to number of physical CPUs or physical Cores ?

Q1 : Your question should be "how many virtual machines i can RUN..." because you can CREATE as many guest as you want.

Well : on your 4 core physical host, you can theorically run simultaneously 10 virtual machines with 1 vCPU / 40 % entitlement each. Total entitlement = 400 % wich doesn't exceed the whole processing power of the host

In fact its is not so simple, because you will start no more than 8 virtual machines in the configuration you have described.

Entitlement is a GUARENTEED % of processing power of a core. GUARANTEED means that a guest will not be started if the entitlement can't be honored by the host. If 8 VMs, with 1 vCPU and a 40% entitlement each, are started on your 4 cores host, you will get :

- core1 : vm1 and vm2 with 40% entitlement each --> 80%. So the host can only guarantees 20% for running an other VM on this core
- core2 : vm3 and vm4 with 40% entitlement each --> 80%. So the host can only guarantees 20% for running an other VM on this core
- core3 : vm5 and vm6 with 40% entitlement each --> 80%. So the host can only guarantees 20% for running an other VM on this core
- core4 : vm7 and vm8 with 40% entitlement each --> 80%. So the host can only guarantees 20% for running an other VM on this core

Q2 : ... of each core mapped to each vCPU of the guest

Q3 : 100% is the maximum entitlement. On a 1 vCPU guest it means you can have 100% of one physical core, on a 2 vCPU guest it means you can have 100% of 2 physical cores, and so on ...

Q4 : a vCPU relies on a physical core. Simply forget CPU on the host, and just think in term of core. So number of vCPU in a given guest must be less or equal than physical cores.

As a summary and a guideline, you must think to vCPU in term of a thread running at a time on a given physical core. Several vCPU of a given virtual machine can't run on the same physical core.

vRAM Entitlement In vSphere

2012-09-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

here is a comparison of the previously announced and the currently unveiled vSphere 5 vRAM entitlements per vSphere edition

vSphere Edition	Previous vRAM Entitlement	New vRAM Entitlement
vSphere Enterprise+	48 GB	96 GB
vSphere Enterprise	32 GB	64 GB
vSphere Standard	24 GB	32 GB
vSphere Essentials+	24 GB	32 GB
vSphere Essentials	24 GB	32 GB
Free vSphere Hypervisor	8 GB	32 GB[ii]
vSphere Desktop	Unlimited	Unlimited

The release of VMware vSphere 5 comes with a new licensing model. This model is based on licensing “per CPU with vRAM entitlement limitation”. As I mentioned in my previous licensing post this is a difference with regards to the previous vSphere version. :

“Also I need to mention that VMware changed it’s licensing model from a “per CPU with core / physical memory” to a “per CPU with vRAM entitlement limitation”. No longer the limitation is on the amount of cores or physical RAM memory in a server, but the limitation is in the amount of virtual memory (vRAM) consumed by the hosted virtual machines.”

In this post I will try to explain the per CPU with vRAM licensing model by using the example below. I hope this will make things a lot easier to grasp. After all it’s about licensing, so it’s about money! And in the end you don’t want to end up in a situation that you’re unable to power-on new virtual machines.

In the example we have 2 ESXi host that both have 2 processors. The amount of cores does not matter anymore when using vSphere 5. There is no longer a limitation on the amount of cores or the amount of physical memory in a server. But as mentioned above, VMware has introduced a new limitation with regards to licensing : vRAM entitlement.

vRAM entitlement

vRAM entitlement comes with each “per CPU” license. The amount of vRAM depends on the vSphere edition that is being used.

* vSphere 5 Standard Edition gives you 24 GB vRAM
* vSphere 5 Enterprise Edition gives you 32 GB vRAM
* vSphere 5 Enterprise Plus Edition gives you 48 GB vRAM

So this means that for each CPU license that you buy, you’ll get a certain amount of vRAM entitled. In the example above there are 2 physical CPUs in each ESXi host. Making a total of (2 x 2 = ) 4 physical CPUs you’ll need to license for VMware vSphere 5. In the example I’m using Enterprise licenses, which entitle me to 32 GB of vRAM per CPU license. This makes a grant total of 128 GB of vRAM which I can use.

The total vRAM is also known as a vRAM entitlement pool. This is the combined total of all the ESXi hosts managed by a vCenter instance or a set of linked vCenter instances. Every vRAM entitlement is aggregated into one pool which can be used by all virtual machines managed by vCenter.

vRAM usage

The usage of vRAM comes with the amount of virtual machines that is powered-on. Each time a virtual machines is powered-on, licensing will check if enough vRAM is available in the vRAM pool. The amount of vRAM used by the virtual machine is then added to the total amount of vRAM used by all virtual machines combined.

The total of the used amount of vRAM must be equal of lower then the total amount of vRAM in the vRAM pool. If this is not the case, the virtual machine will not be powered on and you’ll need to buy more licenses or upgrade to a higher vSphere Edition (if possible).

In the example above we have 18 virtual machines, all configured with different amounts of vRAM per virtual machine. The total amount of vRAM used by all virtual machines is 68 GB.

Summary

So looking at the example again. I’ve got 128 GB of vRAM in my vRAM pool. At this moment I’ve got 18 virtual machines that combined have a vRAM usage of 68 GB.

So to calculate the amount of vRAM I still have left I need to take total licensed vRAM minus the vRAM that is already used by the virtual machines :

Total licensed vRAM – Used vRAM = Available vRAM

In the end this comes down to 128 GB (Total licensed vRAM) – 68 GB (Used vRAM) = 60 GB of vRAM that still available for new “to-be-powered-on” virtual machines.

I hope this gives a good impression of how the vRAM entitlement works in vSphere 5. For more information have a look at the VMware vSphere 5 Licensing, Pricing and Packaging Whitepaper overhere.

System requirements for Citrix XenApp

2012-09-20T16:52:00.001-07:00

Operating system

The required operating system is Windows 2003 Server. Client versions of Windows, such as Windows XP, cannot be used because Citrix XenApp requires Terminal Server, which is not available on client versions of Windows.

The recommended version of Windows Server 2003 is Enterprise Edition. You can also use Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, but you might need to reduce the maximum heap size for the Java virtual machine that is used by the Message Broker Toolkit.

Software prerequisites

Citrix XenApp (previously known as Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 or 4.5) and its prerequisites must be installed on the Windows 2003 server.

Hardware prerequisites

The server must have enough CPU, RAM, disk space, and network bandwidth for each concurrent user. Performance depends on the tasks that are being performed, and on the hardware, software and networking setup. As a guide, the server should have a minimum of 1 GB of RAM per concurrent user and at least 4 GB of RAM in total. If the tasks require frequent disk access, it should help performance to have a separate physical disk for each user so that they do not slow each other down.

Note: Although there is a maximum 75 number of users who are authorized to use
an XenApp Fundamentals server, the number who can use XenApp Fundamentals
at the same time depends on the limitations of your server hardware (such as total
memory, processor speed, disk space, and so on).

What is SMTP relay?

2012-09-20T16:25:00.001-07:00

Many administrators misunderstand the concept of SMTP relay. Some over-cautious administrators block SMTP relay completely and others leave it open for any Internet user to misuse their servers. Problems exist in both extremes. Therefore, it is important to understand exactly what SMTP relay is and how to configure your SMTP server so that is does not leave you vulnerable to outside attacks and allows legitimate users to send and receive emails. This article should clear up some of the confusion on this topic and show how to effectively turn off an open relay.

What is SMTP

Before we dive into SMTP Relay, it is important to know how the SMTP protocol works. SMTP is an acronym for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Most of Internet service providers nowadays use this protocol to send email. Email clients, also known as Mail User Agents (MUA), utilize this protocol and act as an SMTP client to distribute email messages to the recipients. When a MUA sends an email messages, it connects to the configured SMTP server and communicates to it using the SMTP protocol.

Internet mail works pretty much like our postal mail. When you wish to send a letter or a package via snail mail, you put the letter inside an envelope, write the recipient's as well as your return address and drop it off at your local post office. The local post office figures out the final destination of the package and sends it to the appropriate post office in the recipient's town. One important factor to notice here is that if both sender and recipient are in the same town no other post office gets involved.

Electronic mail works pretty much the same. SMTP servers act as local post offices. When a user wishes to send an email, he or she sends it to the SMTP server, which then forwards it to the recipient's SMTP server. Rather than street address and apartment numbers, electronic mail recipients are identified by unique email addresses. Every SMTP server is configured to handle one or more domain names. Analogous to snail mail, if both sender and recipient are in the same domain no other SMTP server gets involved. Following characteristics are common between snail mail and electronic mail.

Snail Mail	Electronic Mail
Every mail package is wrapped within an envelope that contains: Sender's name and address. Recipient's name and address. Post office's stamp. A timestamp when package was received.	Every electronic mail is wrapped within an envelope as well and contains: Sender's name and email address. List of recipients and their email address. SMTP server's signature. There can be more than one SMTP server involved. The date and time the email was received. Electronic mail can have more elements than mentioned above.
There is no guarantee that the sender's name and address will always be correct. It is very easy to forge the sender's identity.	Similarly, it is very easy to hide the sender's true identity in an electronic mail.
If the sender and receiver are in the same town, your local post office will not send the package to any other post office.	If the sender and receiver are handled by the same SMTP server, no other server will get involved.
Although the sender's identity cannot be trusted, you can still find a few things about the package by looking at the envelope such as the town letter was mailed from and time.	Similarly, the SMTP envelope (also known as header) contains information such as sender's IP Address and date/time stamp the mail was sent.
Every post office is assigned a postal code or zip code, which is used to identify it location. It is possible that in one post office may handle multiple zip codes.	These postal/zip codes are known as domain names in SMTP speak. Every SMTP server is configured to handle one or more domains. Domain name is the text that appears after the @ sign in an email address.

What is mail relay

In case of snail mail, the local post office is a government agency and there are no restrictions on who can send a package. Consider a scenario where you live in town A and you want to send a package to town B. When one town's post office accepts packages from another town it is said to "Relay" your message.

Similarly, if you work for company A and want to send an email to someone in company B, you connect to your SMTP server which then relays your message to the SMTP server owned by company B. The notion that an SMTP server accepts an email that is destined for a different SMTP server is called relaying.

It would be impossible to send email if every SMTP server in the world stopped relaying

User authentication
The electronic world is a bit different than the real world: you can do things faster, cheaper and distances do not matter. Imagine every time you wanted to send a snail mail you were asked to show your passport or any other document that proved your identity. This would add extra security at a cost of frustration and time. However, the frustration level associated with asking for a user's id and password in an electronic transaction is much lower than the burden of having to carry your passport.

Most SMTP servers ask for the user's credentials in terms of their id and password. The SMTP server will allow users to relay their message to a different server only if these credentials are correct. This authentication mechanism ensures that no one outside the organization can use the company's SMTP server to send message to a third party recipient.

What is an open relay

Your server is said to be an open relay if it accepts messages on behalf of other domains and does NOT require user authentication. In the case of an open relay, a person sitting in Singapore can send an email to California through your server, which could be in London.

Open relay servers are frequently misused by spammers sending unsolicited emails. Once a malicious user finds out about an open relay server on the Internet, he/she can send millions of messages all over the world, potentially bringing your network to its knees.

Several organizations have setup databases of IP Addresses that list and track open relay servers. If you have an open relay server you run the risk of having your IP listed in one of these databases. As a result many SMTP servers may not accept emails from you.

How to check for open relay

The easiest way to test for an open relay is using QuickTest at AboutMyX.com

Workstation 8 and bridged connection - don't work at all

2012-09-20T05:55:00.003-07:00

When I upgraded my VMware Workstation from 7.1 to 8, I can't use bridged connection at all in any VM, I just don't have any internet connection then.

I always need to use NAT. Even when I installed Windows 8, I still can't bridge it, only NAT is working.

Before on 7.1 everything was working fine. How I can solve it?

The solution is:-

by choosing restore to default in virtual network editor. It removed all the VMNet adapters that were present from Version 7.x and left met with only 3 VMNetAdapters.

how can we check the current SharePoint Installation type?

2012-09-19T04:21:00.001-07:00

Here are the steps:

Launch regedit.exe
For MOSS 2007, navigate to:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS
For Sharepoint 2010, navigate to:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\WSS
Check the ServerRole key

Here are the valid values:

SINGLESERVER => Stand Alone
APPLICATION => Farm Complete
WFE => Web Front End

System Administration

How to Back Up and Restore NTFS and Share Permissions

How to determine the appropriate page file size for 64-bit versions of Windows

Comparison of memory and CPU limits in the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows

The Pages/sec counter

How to calculate page file size

Method 1: Use performance logs to understand the paging activity on your computer

Method 2: Use the Page File Bytes Peak counter to calculate page file size

Method 3: Calculate the minimum and maximum page file size

Page file input/output rates

Page File How big is Yours

How to remove the last disk in a disk group and use it in another disk group in VERITAS Volume Manager 2.x

Veritas: Remove A Disk Group

SCCM 2007 installation in Windows Server 2008

Prerequisites for Installing Configuration Manager

General Site System Prerequisites

Configuration Manager Primary Site Server Prerequisites

Site Database Server Prerequisites

SMS Provider Prerequisites

Configuration Manager Secondary Site Server Prerequisites

Configuration Manager Console Prerequisites

Configuration Manager Feature Prerequisites

VMware ESX Server Basics

What if my VirtualCenter server crashes?

Table 4-1. vCenter server outage effects on VMware HA

Table 4-2. vCenter server outage effects on VMware DRS

Table 4-3. vCenter server outage effects on resource pools

Table 4-4. vCenter server outage effects on VMotion

Table 4-5. vCenter server outage effects on ESX host

Table 4-6. vCenter server outage effects on virtual machine

Table 4-7. vCenter server outage effects on templates

Table 4-8. vCenter server outage effects on virtual machine (guest)

DirectAccess

Difference between windows 2003 and windows 2008

Sysvol Replication change in Windows 2008

Windows 2008 DNS features

Whats new in windows 2008 Active Directory

Group Policy Features in Windows 2008

How to Enable SSH in to ESXi 4.0

Managing Hyper-v server in a workgroup

VMware vSphere Features

vCPU and Entitlement

vRAM Entitlement In vSphere

vSphere Edition

Previous vRAM Entitlement

New vRAM Entitlement

System requirements for Citrix XenApp

Operating system

Software prerequisites

Hardware prerequisites

What is SMTP relay?

What is mail relay

What is an open relay

How to check for open relay

Workstation 8 and bridged connection - don't work at all

how can we check the current SharePoint Installation type?