Server on Technodrone

The 99c/Hour Computer vs. Buy Your Own Server (BYOS)

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Amazon announced a few days ago the availability of EC2 for In-Memory Computing - The High Memory Cluster Eight Extra Large Instance, here are the specs:

Two Intel E5-2670 processors running at 2.6 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost and NUMA support.
244 GiB of RAM.
Two 120 GB SSD for instance storage.
10 Gigabit networking with support for Cluster Placement Groups.
HVM virtualization only.
Support for EBS-backed AMIs only.

Pricing starts at $3.50 per hour for Linux instances and $3.831 for Windows instances, both in US East (Northern Virginia). One year and three year Reserved Instances and Spot Instances are also available.

Windows 8 Developer Preview on ESXi5

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Thank you William Lam @lamw!!!!!!!

Due to William’s How to Run Windows 8 on vSphere 5 (for reals) post I can now try out
Windows 8 Developer Preview on my ESX boxes.

This was resolved in patch ESXi500-201112001 - it just seems that no-one told us until now.. It would be very interesting to hear what actually changed in this patch.

Running on Workstation was not a good option for me. My lab is on ESX boxes.

A bit of housekeeping – Powershell

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I have been busy with using Powershell in these past few days.

I would like to share with you two of the scripts that I used lately. They were both used because of a password change that was made on a service account.

Now the thing about service accounts in Windows 2003 is, they are good, they need elevated privileges in some cases, and since the account is used for the specific purpose then you know that you have to change it once in a while and you know where. Problem is though unless you catch them all – and someone – somewhere did not update the password somewhere, then you will start having issues with account lockouts.

How To Manage VMware Server 2.0.x ?

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

When VMware released the free product VMware Server 2.0.0 version, they decided to get rid of the Console client application.

Was this a good thing? Some say no, some say that it was, personally - I think it was a mistake to ditch the Console.

A bit of background.

When you install Server 2.0.x, bundled with it you get an Apache/Tomcat installation on your host.

Windows 2000 - R.I.P.

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

From this this post on Technet - we can finally say that if you have a Windows 2000 Server in your enviroment - GET RID OF IT!!!!!! (or at least before July 13, 2010)

Another small thing to note - Service Pack 2 for Windows 2003 - was the last, there will be no no SP3.

Here is the short version.

Windows 2000 Server

Extended Support for Windows 2000 Server will end on July 13, 2010. At this time, Windows 2000 Server will no longer be publicly supported. You will be able to continue using “Self-Help Online Support”*

Is P2V always the best solution?

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I saw this post post on Simon Gallagher’s Blog Using Virtualization to Extend The Hardware Lifecycle. Simon made a good point. Can we take the physical hardware out of the equation? Well I guess that is exactly what VMware and virtualization is doing. We are no longer dependant on physical servers any more.

I would like to however raise another point of view. Correct, the easiest solution for a system residing on aging hardware is to P2V the system to a VM – and it seems that I have solved my problem. But have I? I posted a question about 9 months ago with this exact same thought.

New VMware Product Releases

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

NO! it is not the new ESX version! (there are other products that VMware sells besides ESX you know)

Besides Update 4 for ESX and ESX3i that were released last week:

VMware Player 2.5.2

VMware Workstation 6.5.2

VMware Server 2.0.1

What’s New

With this release of VMware Player, certain new features and support have been added.

Support for New Guest Operating Systems

VMware provides support for the following operating systems for Player 2.5.2:

I wonder what HP have planned?

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

HP started a new campaign “The Guy Who Lives in the Server Room”

How you can follow us to freedom

Step 1: Admit you have a problem
Fear not, HP is here; seek refuge from your data center woes on our HP ProLiant Facebook page. Share your stories, post your pictures, help a fellow “Guy Who Lives in the Server Room,” but best of all – sign up to watch releases of all 6 episodes. Will he find his way out?

SCVMM 2008 R2 Beta

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I found this in my inbox this morning ( I saw that this was mentioned here as well:

Dear SCVMM beta tester, As a past beta tester of the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 software, we wanted to notify you at that new Beta release of the “R2” release for VMM 2008 is now available on Microsoft Connect for download. What is VMM 2008 R2 Beta and what are its new capabilities? VMM 2008 R2 Beta is a comprehensive management solution for virtualized infrastructure that takes advantage of many of the great new features of Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta including:

Hyper-V Technologies - Wrong Information

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Well this is nothing new, we see this all the time, but today it really annoyed me. During a lecture I participated in today with a Microsoft Partner at Microsoft offices in Israel today, one of the slides were comparing costs between VMware and Hyper-V.

	1 Host - 4 guest VM’s
	Hyper-V	VMware
Windows 2008 Server	$2,500	$2,500
Hypervisor	- (Built-in)	$5,800 (3.5 Enterprise)
System Center	$1,500	-
Virtual Center	-	$5,800

Total	$4,000	$14,100

Now Come on!!!!! - Where did they get these numbers? I guess that Microsoft think that people do not know how to compare technologies one to another.

vCenter Physical or Virtual?

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Every now and again, this comes up. It did again 2 Days ago on Dave Lawrence’s Blog

I still feel that in spite of all the benefits and extra redundancy you get with vCenter as a VM, it still feels like putting too much of my precious eggs in one basket.

According to VMware - 60% of all vCenters are Physical - and 95% run of them use an SQL database.

A new free Ebook

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft have published a new book - granted it is on Virtualization - the Microsoft way, but still should be something to go over. Understanding Microsoft Virtualization.

This is the book for IT professionals who want to learn more about the latest Microsoft virtualization technologies, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. The book also examines other virtualization-enabling technologies from Microsoft including Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services, Roaming User Proﬁles, Folder Redirection, and Ofﬂine Files.

Time to Change the Passwords Again...

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Do you all know how one of the biggest headaches you have is changing all the service accounts and administrative passwords on a regular basis? Well I did that this week.

This entailed changing passwords on almost 10 different accounts, local administrator passwords on over 100 servers, Local services, and tasks running under these accounts.

It wasn’t so bad though the only real headache is the changing of the local passwords on the servers, the services and the tasks.

Comparisons... Comparisons....

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ahh….. Come On!!!!!!!!!

VMware vs Hyper-V comparison.

Jason and Scott have said more than enough on the matter.

People should get their facts straight!!!!

The New online hardware Compatibility guide for Vmware

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So yesterday VMware released a new application online that allows you to search for your hardware to see if it is supported with ESX systems

We got this one from John Troyer (and thanks to Duncan for letting us know).

But…

The the small print at the bottom says:

THE HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY GUIDE IS UPDATED FROM TIME TO TIME WITHOUT NOTICE. FOR THE LATEST HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY GUIDE, PLEASE GO TO THE FOLLOWING LINK

Active Directory Health Check

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Well I have spent the past two days with a Microsoft PFE (Premier Field Engineer) who has been doing a quick health check for issues in our domain.

This does not replace an Active Directory Risk Assessment Process (ADRAP) - but was a highly informative and educating session.

ADRAP Objectives

Perform a detailed analysis of an organization‘s Active Directory environment.
Review Active Directory configuration.
Improve availability by eliminating single points of failure and by verifying that fault tolerant designs are in place.
Improve Active Directory performance.
Reduce service outages and subsequent downtime by identifying current or imminent issues.
Impart knowledge and skills to administer, manage, and troubleshoot Active Directory.
Provide tools and methodologies that will enable customers to identify existing problems.

So I have spent the past two days deep-diving into my forest.

Israeli VMUG Will Take Place on Wednesday Dec. 3rd

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:07:00 +0200

On the schedule:

VMware
Virtual Desktop Technical Deep Dive
EMC Recover Point
Product announcements and upcoming technologies (from VMworld 2008)

It should be a good morning …

So what to do with 60 or so servers that are falling out their warranty period

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted share with you a bit of what is happening with a process on how we can save money with virtualization.

About 3 years ago or more, Virtualization was not the mainstream for most companies, personally, my current employer did not really get into it until about 18 months ago. So… we are doing our yearly review on what hardware warranty will end and at the moment it looks like that I will have over 60 physical servers that will need to be replaced or have a maintenance contract applied to them for the next year.

VMware to the Rescue Again

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Well a colleague of mine had an issue today. A physical server running VMware server with 2 vm’s on it. One VM’s disk “exploded” and we were left with 0% (yep that is right) free space on the HD of the physical server.

Now if this was a small VM then that would not be a problem but the vmdk was 120 GB in size (even though inside the VM it was only using 40GB). So to remove the file from the server would have taken too long.