TechAgility

So the other day I realised that there was something very unusual happening to my HP 2540p – it has been blindingly fast, but just recently it seemed that it was on strike – I also found that it would effectively hang when trying to suspend.

So it seemed that this was around the Power Management side of things and I couldn’t find anything in the Event Viewer to isolate what was causing it – in the past I have found that this sort of issue can be sometimes caused by BIOS related issues – and while this does not explain why the symptom suddenly appeared, I can report that my original BIOS was F.02 and upgrading this to the latest version does seem to have resolved this.

This is certainly good news – as I was starting to think that I might need to rebuild to clear this (mind you that was going to be a good excuse to rebuild with the new SP1 )

HP Notebook System BIOS Update (ROM Family 68CSU)

written by dcaddick

Some while back I was really wishing it was possible to boot to a USB Stick from within a VM – and now it is possible – great news because it just adds that little bit extra in the way of functionality

Great tip how-to boot from USB stick inside of VMware Workstation

A tip pointed by Ivo Beerens. By using my RSS Reader to stay updated on blogs in the Virtualization Sphere I checked this post from Ivo. It’s a great tip. What’s about?

Basically when you want to test ESXi 4 installation to the USB Stick (or this Video post too…) you’ll want to follow my post, which I’ve done in the past and that’s it.

But if you want to test unattended installation of ESXi 4 on USB stick then you would want to boot your VM which is executed in your VMware Workstation, from an USB stick too.Well you can’t. Even the version 7 of VMware Workstation does not support that.

Here comes the help tip from Ivo. Basically what do you have to do is a work around.

01. Download boot manager from PLoP
02. Use the Iso in the boot manager as a boot device to boot your VM
03. Add an USB adapter to your VM (if not already done).

03. Insert your USB stick with ESXi 4 installed in it.
03. When your VM boots from that ISO, just select USB from the menu.

Well not all the credit goes to IVO, because the original help provided was from Ulli Hankeln from sanbarrow.com. -:)

Great tip how-to boot from USB stick inside of VMware Workstation

written by dcaddick

***UPDATE***
If you would like to follow this – check the discussion at XDA Developers

I recently purchased an LG GM730f as a new mobile – specifically because I thought the form factor was quite good, it also used a microUSB as a connector AND it was being advertised as being able to be updated to WM 6.5 in the New Year. So I sent an email to LG Australia in the first week of Jan asking when they might be releasing it and I got a reply back at the start of the week saying it was ready.

So this is my experience and hopefully it will save you from wasting some time? And if someone from LG would like to contact me I’d be glad to get things resolved?

But it appears that in some cases that the Web Site doesn’t work accurately?

This was sent from LG after I discussed with them that the web page they first sent me to failed to work correctly:

Dear David Caddick,

Thank you for emailing LG Electronics Australia.

We apologise for the problem you have experience with trying to access our website, please try the following website address:

http://au.lgmobile.com/web/web.support.laf?q=201011412401

I hope this has been of some assistance.

So this should bring you to this location at http://au.lgmobile.com/web/web.support.retrieveSoftwareDownload.laf:

So by clicking on Download you should get this tool:

If you have already installed this it will be shown as a desktop Icon like this:

And when up and running it looks like this:

So I started clicking on the “Start Updating for Smartphone (Windows Mobile)” as this seemed to be the most appropriate place to start? J This then pops up with:

Click on Next get you a reminder to save your data:

So at this point the phone changes to a black screen with:

                   !

Emergency Download

And on the computer you see:

So clearly at this point – even though ActiveSync was working fine before this there is some need/requirement for LG’s “process” to use a specific driver to communicate with the Phone when it is placed in “bootloader” mode? So at this point I clicked on OK, and then tried to install the USB Driver

So then at this stage you’d think you should be able to go back and check that the Modem Driver is installed:

And then I should now be able to Start the Update?

But as you can see by the screenshot above this first checks comms with the mobile – and as a consequence it initiates another install sequence of the USB Modem Driver:

So now we are completely in a loop – I could remove the USB Modem Driver, but then regardless of whether it’s installed or not – the process ALLWAYS tries to install the Driver before starting the update.

I can cancel, but this doesn’t help in trying to get anywhere.

Why can’t LG just do this like all other WM Vendors?

• Download a ROM update
• Plug phone into PC
• Start ActiveSync
• Run ROM update executable

I have been using Windows Mobile devices since 2003 and this would have to be one of the *worst* Update mechanisms I have ever experienced

Anyway, if you keep at it long enough and manage to get it in to the “Bootloader” mode then you can try using “Start Updating” without the Smartphone side of things (I know, but by this stage I was willing to try anything?) and it does appear to get going

It also looks like It does download a 107Mb ROM image and that would be about consistent with my experience?

And then goes ahead and flashed the phone

So eventually this gets to 91% or better and the phone starts booting to WM 6.1….. <sigh>

So I have now tried this 6 times or so, from Windows 7 and XP Pro and even though the Web Site clearly indicates that there is a new Update available, and that’s what I was told from LG, it’s clear that they still need to do some work to get this out? I for one am sick and tired of reflashing my Mobile Phone only to find it *STILL* on WM 6.1…………..

If I hear any news I’ll update at the top of this post

written by dcaddick

Just something worth mentioning that I have come across recently that might be of some help?

I was recently hunting down the exact reason for why a 2533 running RGS across WiFi was struggling to be able to deliver the video content and found that I had to do quite a bit of logging and then gathering the raw data in to an excel sheet to make sense of it all – in the process I ditched PerfMon – in part because it wasn’t working under XPe, but also because I feel its performance can’t be relied on when things are already going wrong, so I had started using TYPEPERF.EXE which is actually installed by default on everything from at least XP onwards.

Then on one of my initial builds of Windows 7 on my laptop I found that on resume it would occasionally appear quite sluggish and when digging deeper this appeared to be caused by 50% of the CPU being consumed by DPC’s (Deferred Procedure Calls). So after ascertaining that Typeperf wouldn’t cut it I started looking deeper for a tool that would help identify exactly what driver was causing this.

So I then discovered this article Measuring DPC time that highlighted the latest tool being Xperf – the main difference is that this is not installed natively in the OS, so you’ll have to go and download it and install it.

The really neat part of this is that it comes with an XPerf viewer that allows you to intuitively drill through the results, highlight particular time slices, overlay multiple graphs, etc.

And as if this isn’t enough, it also allows you to download symbols on the fly exactly like the latest debugging tools so that you can drill in to find the offending file/driver, etc. There is also a similar tool that will allow you to do similar performance tracking at boot time, and from what I can see it is this set of tools that has assisted MS in getting on top of the performance issues from Vista to Windows 7. My understanding at this stage is that this *should* work to capture info in XP (failed for me so far…) 

XPerf:
Windows Performance Toolkit (WPT) – Download
Two Minute Drill: Introduction to XPerf
Using Xperf to take a Trace
Xperf support for XP

Typeperf:
Although it’s not installed/supported in XPe by default it is possible to run it direct from any drive (Temp, USB, etc. ) and collect data
See Two Minute Drill: TYPEPERF for more details

Example:
Check your Total CPU usage every second:
C:\>typeperf "\processor(_Total)\% Processor Time"
"(PDH-CSV 4.0)",\\2K8SRV\processor(_Total)\% Processor Time
"04/13/2009 09:50:04.359","2.509119"
"04/13/2009 09:50:05.360","0.754295"
"04/13/2009 09:50:06.360","2.899090"
"04/13/2009 09:50:07.360","1.534207"
"04/13/2009 09:50:08.360","0.559314"
"04/13/2009 09:50:09.360","10.113409"
"04/13/2009 09:50:10.360","10.113409"
"04/13/2009 09:50:11.360","3.094071"
"04/13/2009 09:50:12.360","0.559314"

I hope this is of some use?

written by dcaddick

This arrived in my inbox at work courtesy of a colleague at work and it looked too useful not to share… I hope it’s useful?

Useful Sources

• Blog: Cluster Team: http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering
• Blog: Ask Core: Clustering
• Training: Course 6423a: Implementing and Managing WS08 Clustering
• Website: Cluster Information Portal
• Website: Clustering Forum (2008)
• Website: Clustering Forum (2008 R2)
• Website: Clustering Newsgroup
• Website: Cluster Technical Resources

Windows Server 2008 R2

• R2 Evaluation Build: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/try-it.aspx
• Blog: Adding Features via PowerShell
• Blog: Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV): Disk Ownership
• Blog: Deploying Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)
• Blog: How to manually defrag or ChkDisk a CSV disk
• Blog: Hyper-V Export and Import (2008 R2)
• Blog: Live Migration Traffic
• Blog: Network Load Balancing (NLB) and Virtual Machines
• Blog: PowerShell for Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008 R2
• Blog: PowerShell for Network Load Balancing (NLB) in Windows Server 2008 R2
• Blog: SCVMM Quick Storage Migration
• KB Article: Hyper-V R2 Upgrades
• TechNet: Exchange 2010 Move Local Legacy Mailbox
• TechNet: Migration to Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clusters
• TechNet: Using Live Migration in Windows Server 2008 R2
• TechNet: What’s new in R2 Clustering
• Webcast: Building a Hyper-V R2 Cluster
• Webcast: Clustering in a Virtual World
• Webcast: Deploying Clusters for Live Migration
• Webcast: Failover and Live Migration
• Webcast: Failover Clustering Feature Roadmap in WS08 R2
• Webcast: Getting started with Hyper-V in R2 videos
• Webcast: Getting Started with Live Migration
• Webcast: High Availability Basics with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V (Level 200)
• Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 1
• Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 2
• Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 3
• Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 4
• Webcast: Hyper-V Quick Migration on a Failover Cluster
• Website: Hyper-V Server (2008 R2)
• Webcast: Innovating High Availability with Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)
• Webcast: Introducing Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)
• Webcast: Making Highly-Available VMs (2008 R2)
• Webcast: Server Virtualization Webcast Videos
• Webcast: Top 10 VMWare Myths, including CSV and live migration
• Webcast: Top 10 VMWare Myths, including CSV and live migration
• Webcast: Server Virtualization Webcast Videos
• Webcast: Windows Server 2008 R2 Live Migration
• Website: Clustering Forum (2008 R2)
• Whitepaper: Hyper-V Live Migration Overview & Architecture

Core

For PowerShell, Cluster.exe & Scripting see that section.

• TechNet: Server Core
• TechNet: Installation
• Utility: Remote Server Administration Tools (simplifies Server Core configurations)
• Webcast: How Microsoft does IT: Enhancing High Availability with Server Core in Windows Server 2008

Deployment, Migration & Upgrades

For deployment guides for a specific resource (Exchange, File Server, Hyper-V, Print, SQL, Other) or for deployment using PowerShell, Cluster.exe or scripting, please visit that section.

• Blog: Configuring Auditing
• Blog: Migration Options for Hardware
• Blog: Rolling Upgrade to Windows Server 2008 SP2 Failover Clustering
• KB Article: Cluster Nodes as Domain Controllers (DCs)
• KB Article: Failover behavior on large clusters (preferred owner, possible owner)
• TechNet: Add a Server to a Failover Cluster
• TechNet: Cluster Requirements
• TechNet: Clustering with multiple active resources
• TechNet: Configuring Accounts in Active Directory
• TechNet: Creating a Failover Cluster
• TechNet: Failover Clustering Deployment
• TechNet: Installing a Failover Cluster
• TechNet: Migrating Cluster Settings
• TechNet: Migration to Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clusters
• TechNet: Recommended Clustering Hotfixes (2003)
• TechNet: Recommended Clustering Hotfixes (2003 SP2)
• TechNet: Recommended Clustering Hotfixes (2008)
• TechNet: Validating a cluster
• Blog: Validation Warning: Teredo
• Blog: Validation Warning: Patch GUID
• TechNet: Validating Hardware for a Failover Cluster
• Utility: Cluster Configuration Validation Wizard (ClusPrep) (2003)
• Webcast: Configuring Failover Clustering
• Webcast: TechNet Webcast: Failover Cluster Validation and Troubleshooting with Windows Server 2008

Exchange Server

• KB Article: Exchange 2003: Move Mailbox
• Lab: TechNet Virtual Lab: Exchange Server 2007 Standby Continuous Replication
• Lab: TechNet Virtual Lab: Using Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) in Exchange 2007
• TechNet: Deploying Exchange 2003 in a Cluster
• TechNet: Deploying Forefront Security with Exchange Clusters
• TechNet: Exchange 2007 Cmdlets
• TechNet: Exchange 2007 Move Mailbox Scenarios
• TechNet: Exchange 2007 Overview
• TechNet: Exchange 2010 Move Local Legacy Mailbox
• TechNet: How to create an Exchange SCC Failover Cluster with CMD
• TechNet: Installing Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) on 2008
• TechNet: Planning for Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR)
• Webcast: Exchange 2007 High Availability Deep Dive
• Webcast: Exchange Webcast Videos
• Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 1
• Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 2
• Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 3
• Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 4
• Webcast: How Microsoft IT Implemented New Storage Designs for Exchange Server 2007
• Webcast: Installing Exchange 2007 SP1 CCR on Windows Server 2008
• Webcast: Installing Exchange on WS08 Failover Clustering using UI Wizard
• Webcast: Upgrading Exchange CCR Clusters from 2007 to 2007 SP1

File Server, DFS-R, DFS-N & NFS

• Blog: Deploying DFS-R on a 2008 R2 Failover Cluster – Part 1 of 3
• Blog: Deploying DFS-R on a 2008 R2 Failover Cluster – Part 2 of 3
• Blog: Deploying DFS-R on a 2008 R2 Failover Cluster – Part 3 of 3
• Blog: File Share ‘Scoping’ in Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters
• Blog: Share Subdirectories in Windows Server 2008
• TechNet: Configuring a Two-Node File Server Failover Cluster
• TechNet: Create a Shared Folder in a Clustered File Server
• TechNet: Creating a Clustered File Server checklist
• Utility: File Server Migration Toolkit (FSMT) (2008)
• Webcast: How Microsoft IT Deploys Windows 2008 Clusters for File Services
• Webcast: New File Server Features of Windows Server 2008 (Level 200)
• Webcast: Prepare Yourself for Windows Server 2008 (Part 5 of 8): New File Server Features
• Website: File Server Migration Toolkit (2008)
• Whitepaper: File Server Migration Toolkit (2008)

Hyper-V

• Blog: Adding a Pass-Through Disk to a HA VM
• Blog: Deploying a HA Virtual Machine (2008)
• Blog: HA Virtual Machine Deployment Considerations (2008)
• Blog: Hyper-V Export and Import (2008 R2)
• Blog: Monitor Network Traffic for a VM on a Cluster
• Blog: Network Load Balancing (NLB) and Virtual Machines
• Blog: SCVMM: Intelligent Placement
• Blog: SCVMM: Quick Storage Migration
• Blog: VM Scale with Clustering: Physical Memory Reservations
• KB Article: Hyper-V R2 Upgrades
• TechNet: Design for a Failover Cluster in Which All Nodes Run Hyper-V
• TechNet: Failover Cluster in which the Servers run Hyper-V
• TechNet: Getting Started with Hyper-V
• TechNet: High-Availability for a Server Running Hyper-V
• TechNet: Requirements and Recommendations for Failover Clusters in Which All Nodes Run Hyper-V
• TechNet Case Study: Best Practices for Deploying VMs using Hyper-V
• TechNet Case Study: How Microsoft IT Designs the Virtualization Host & Network Infrastructure
• Training: Configuring Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008
• Training: eBook: Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions
• Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 24 of 24): High Availability with Hyper-V
• Webcast: Building a Hyper-V R2 Cluster
• Webcast: Creating Business Continuity Solutions Using Windows Virtualization
• Webcast: Deploying Clusters for Live Migration
• Webcast: Failover and Live Migration
• Webcast: Failover and Quick Migration of VMs
• Webcast: Getting Started with Live Migration
• Webcast: Getting started with Hyper-V in R2 videos
• Webcast: High Availability Basics with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V (Level 200)
• Webcast: High Availability with Hyper-V
• Webcast: Hyper-V Quick Migration on a Failover Cluster
• Webcast: Introducing Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)
• Webcast: Making Highly-Available VMs (2008 R2)
• Webcast: Server Virtualization Webcast Videos
• Webcast: Top 10 VMWare Myths, including CSV and live migration
• Website: Hyper-V Server (2008)
• Website: Hyper-V Server (2008 R2)
• Whitepaper: Testing Hyper-V and Failover Clustering
• Whitepaper: Quick Migration with Hyper-V

Miscellaneous

• Blog: Add a New Disk to a Cluster (2008)
• Blog: Cluster Recovery (2003)
• Blog: Cluster Virtual Adapter (NetFT)
• Blog: Configuring Auditing for a Cluster (2008)
• Blog: DNS Registration with the Network Name Resource
• Blog: PlumbAllCrossSubnetRoutes
• Blog: Resource Group Management Enhancements in 2008 R2 Failover Clustering – Part 1
• Blog: Resource Group Management Enhancements in 2008 R2 Failover Clustering – Part 2
• Blog: RHS and what does it does
• Blog: Stop 0x9E Error
• KB Article: Microsoft Support Policy for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters
• TechNet: Configuring the Quorum in a Failover Cluster
• TechNet: Failover Cluster Management Snap-In
• TechNet: Managing a Failover Cluster
• TechNet: Modifying Settings for a Failover Cluster
• TechNet: Support Policy
• TechNet: Understanding Backup and Recovery Basics for a Failover Cluster
• TechNet: Windows Server 2008 Itanium / IA64 support
• Webcast: Achieving High Availability with Windows Server “Longhorn” Clustering (Level 200)
• Webcast: Build High-Availability Infrastructures with Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering
• Webcast: Delivering High Availability to Your Infrastructure
• Webcast: Failover Clustering 101
• Webcast: Failover Clustering and Quorum in Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Storage
• Webcast: Introduction to Failover Clustering
• Webcast: Reducing IT Overhead with Windows Server 2008 Storage Features
• Webcast: Top 10 Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering Enhancements over 2003 Clustering (Level 300)
• Webcast: Virtual Lab: Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Failover Clustering Lab
• Website: Windows Logo site
• Whitepaper: Failover Cluster Architecture Overview
• Whitepaper: HA with Microsoft MPIO (2003, 2008)
• Whitepaper: Microsoft’s HA Strategy
• Whitepaper: Overview of Failover Clustering

Multi-Site Clustering

• Blog: Multi-Site Cluster Communications Connectivity
• KB Article: Deployment Consideration for Multi-Site Clusters
• TechNet: Configuring Heartbeat and DNS Settings in a Multi-Site Cluster
• TechNet: Design for a HA Service in a Multi-Site Cluster
• TechNet: Multi-Site Cluster Checklist
• TechNet: Multi-Site Clustering
• TechNet: Requirements and Recommendations for a Multi-Site Cluster
• Website: Multi-Site Clustering Homepage
• Webcast: Geographically Dispersed Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
• Webcast: How You Can Achieve Greater Availability with Failover Clustering Across Multiple Sites (Level 300)
• Webcast: Multi-Site Clustering in Windows Server 2008
• Website (Cluster Team): http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/failover-clustering-multisite.aspx
• Whitepaper: Multi-site Clustering

Network Load Balancing

• Blog: Configuring Network Load Balancing (NLB) Cluster of VPN Servers
• Blog: Exchange Server 2007 using Network Load Balancing (NLB)
• Blog: Network Load Balancing (NLB) and Virtual Machines
• Blog: PowerShell for Network Load Balancing (NLB) in Windows Server 2008 R2
• Blog: UAG Array and Network Load Balancing
• KB Article: Create/manage/destroy NLB clusters via NLB Manager remotely from another server or RSAT
• KB Article: NLB Troubleshooting Overview
• Presentation Deck: Server Core: Install the NLB feature
• TechNet: Configuring NLB with Terminal Services
• TechNet: Controlling Hosts on NLB clusters
• TechNet: Creating NLB Clusters
• TechNet: Implementing a new NLB Cluster
• TechNet: Managing NLB Clusters
• TechNet: NLB Deployment Guide
• TechNet: NLB Overview
• TechNet: Overview of NLB
• TechNet: Setting NLB Parameters
• TechNet: Troubleshooting for System Event Messages Related to NLB Cluster
• TechNet: Upgrading a NLB Cluster
• TechNet: Upgrading a Network Load Balancing (NLB) Cluster
• TechNet: User Interface: NLB Manager
• TechNet: Verifying the NLB Cluster and Enabling Client Access
• Utility: NLB Management Pack for SCOM 2007 Released
• Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 23 of 24): Failover Clustering and Network Load Balancing
• Website: NLB with IIS

Other Resources & Workloads

For information about a specific resource (Exchange, File Server, Hyper-V, Print, SQL), please visit that section.

• Blog: Configure Multiple Instances of MSDTC (2008)
• Blog: Creating and Configuring a Generic Application Resource
• Blog: Creating and Configuring a Generic Service Resource
• Blog: Deploying IIS on a Failover Cluster
• Blog: DHCP Database migration to Windows Server 2008
• Blog: Installing MSDTC (2003)
• KB Article: Configuring IIS 7 in a Windows Server 2008 Failover Cluster
• MSDN: Cluster Custom Resource DLL entry points
• MSDN: Creating Customer Resource DLLs
• TechNet: Cluster Custom Resource DLLs
• TechNet: Configure a Service or Application for High Availability
• TechNet: Configuring Generic Resources
• Whitepaper: Configuring and Troubleshooting AD CS (2008)
• Whitepaper: SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering

PowerShell, Cluster.exe & Scripting

• Blog: Adding Features via PowerShell
• Blog: CLI: Adding Disks
• Blog: CLI: Cluster Creation
• Blog: CLI: Cluster Resource Groups
• Blog: CLI: Disk Resources
• Blog: CLI: Quorum
• Blog: Creating a Cluster using WMI
• Blog: Failover Clusters, Performance Counters, and PowerShell
• Blog: PowerShell for Failover Clustering: Frequently Asked Questions
• Blog: PowerShell for Failover Clustering: Getting Started
• Blog: PowerShell for Failover Clustering: Read-Only Cluster Access
• Blog: PowerShell for Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008 R2
• Blog: PowerShell for Network Load Balancing (NLB) in Windows Server 2008 R2
• Blog: PowerShell Remoting and the “Double-Hop” Problem
• Blog: Failover Clustering WMI Provider Impersonation Limitations
• TechNet: How to create an Exchange SCC Failover Cluster with CMD

Print Clustering

• Blog: Optimize Print Cluster (2003)
• Blog: PrintBRM Error 0×80070043 workaround
• TechNet: Deploy a 2-Node Print Cluster
• TechNet: Print Migration Guide
• TechNet: Print Migration Overview
• TechNet: Print Migration Tool/Wizard

SQL Server

• Blog: Clustering SQL Server 2008 and Server 2008
• KB Article: How to change the network IP addresses of SQL Server failover cluster instances
• KB Article: SQL Server 2008 Rolling Upgrades
• MSDN: Add or Remove nodes in a SQL Server 2005 with MSCS
• MSDN: Configuring SQL Server 2000 Failover Clustering
• MSDN: Configuring SQL Server 2005 Failover Clustering
• MSDN: Getting Started with SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering
• MSDN: How to create a new SQL Failover Cluster
• MSDN: SQL Upgrade Paths
• MSDN: SQL Cluster Upgrade
• MSDN: Upgrade Paths for SQL Server
• MSDN: Upgrade SQL on a Failover Cluster
• MSDN: Books Online: Maintaining a SQL Failover Cluster
• Podcast: FAQs: HA with SQL Server 2008
• TechNet: Database Mirroring and Failover Clustering
• TechNet: Database Mirroring in SQL Server 2005
• TechNet: SQL Server 2000 with Failover Clustering
• TechNet:  SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring FAQs
• Webcast: 24 Hours of SQL Server 2008: Ensuring Business Continuity
• Webcast: Achieving Higher Scalability with SQL Server on Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition (Level 300)
• Webcast: An Introduction to How SQL Server 2005 Can Help You Deliver Highly Available Database Systems (Level 200)
• Webcast: Clustering Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2000/2005 (Level 200)
• Webcast: Clustering Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2000 and 2005 (Level 200)
• Webcast: Ensuring Business Continuance with SQL Server 2005 Data Availability Solutions (Level 300)
• Webcast: How to cluster Microsoft SQL Server 2005 by using Microsoft Virtual Server
• Webcast: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Failover Clustering on Windows Server 2008
• Webcast: Overview of SQL Server Availability Features and Upcoming Improvements
• Webcast: SQL Server 2005 Failover Clustering for SQL Server 2000 Users (Level 200)
• Webcast: SQL Server 2005 for the IT Professional (Part 7 of 11): Technologies and Features to Improve Availability (Level 200)
• Whitepaper: SQL Server 2008 Replication: Providing High Availability using Database Mirroring

Utilities

• Utility: ClusPrep: Cluster Configuration Validation Wizard (2003)
• Utility: Failover Cluster Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007
• Utility: File Server Migration Toolkit (FSMT) (2008)
• Utility: Microsoft iSCSI Target Software available to the public!
• Utility: NLB Management Pack for SCOM 2007 Released
• Utility: RSAT – Remote Server Administration Tools (2008)
• Utility: RSAT – Remote Server Administration Tools (2008 R2)

written by dcaddick

It seems that although I have been running various early releases of Windows 7 since around late January I have had no real problems at all – but just prior to being out of the office for an event I found a few issues:

• VPN wasn’t working for some reason
• I didn’t have the time to troubleshoot it
• The event was Tech Ed 09 and as it was sort of like a soft Launch for Windows 7 I thought I’d do a final build with proper release code from MSDN

It seems that although the USB was working correctly through all the previous releases – it was this final release that tipped it over the edge and for some reason caused the USB subsystem to quite erratic and would only recognise very few devices.

And so the answer was to update the BIOS

I have not touched the BIOS since I got the device originally so it was still on F.0 – the latest currently available is F.14

When I went to install F.14 I was warned that I needed to upgrade to F.10 first…

Once this was installed ALL USB was working exactly as advertised.

I just thought it worth mentioning that before or after installing Windows 7 that it’s worth making sure the BIOS is up to date as well?

written by dcaddick

Some while back one of my US based colleagues passed on some advice about checking out some details on how to get the best out of Wireshark

For anyone interested in getting their feet wet using Wireshark the network protocol analyzer.  This knowledge can be useful to have when dealing with network anomalies.

www.chappellseminars.com/s-wireshark101.html

Download the latest 1.2.1

As you may or may not know this was originally called Ethereal, and then morphed in to Wireshark, and has recently had quite a number of improvements and has moved from ver. 0.9 to now 1.2 plus in the last few months. There has been quite a number of additions including the ability to graph throughput etc from within the tool, as well as it now supporting GeoIP DB’s so that you can carry out extensive mapping of where the packets are going to or coming from.

http://wiki.wireshark.org/HowToUseGeoIP

Running Windows 7?

If you are running Windows 7 – then do be aware that the WinPcap driver (the component that does the sniffing) will fail to install by default – but if you modify the executable to run in Vista SP1 compatability mode then all should be fine – as detailed below:

I’ve just downloaded WinPcap 4.1 beta5 from here: WinPcap, the Packet Capture and Network Monitoring Library for Windows Set the compatibility mode to Windows Vista (right click on the installer executable then select Properties; on the Compatibility tab, check "Run this program in compatibility mode for", select Windows Vista SP1 from the dropdown list, then finally click OK =)) and it will install as it should.
For me it worked flawlessly so far.

Further reading

I then followed this up a bit further and noted that after a recent Sharkfest event there were a number of presentations made by a chap called Ray Tompkins (CEO of Gearbit) and these are available at:

At Sharkfest 2009 gearbit presented 3 sessions::
Finding the Latency:
How Protocols Work:
Wireshark Charts & IO Graphs:
OSTU – Wireshark IO Graph for Response Time Analysis:
Understanding the Need for Protocol Analysis: HYPERLINK
OSTU – Wireshark Case Study: Benchmark Test
OSTU – Wireshark TCP Stream Graphs
OSTU – Wireshark Capture Filters
OSTU – Wireshark Display Filters
OSTU – Identifying Zero Window with Wireshark

If you do find that you have to dig in on a Customers Site to start doing some serious troubleshooting around Networks then I would seriously recommend the first two presentations in PDF format as they do appear to explain things in a very simple and matter of fact way.

Wireless Issues:

Now this should in no way be any sort of substitute for a proper Wireless Survey, but when you find that you are up against some issues then try using inSSIDer as a very good starting point? And it works on Windows 7 straight out of the box

written by dcaddick

I recently was doing some final testing after installing a number of BladePC’s and I was pretty sure that I had connected to blade-003 via an RDP connection only to find the file that I was looking for wasn’t in the C:\Temp location at all – and I was certain that the Altiris Console had just reported the File Copy job that I had just started had gone through clean……  So what was going wrong?

It turned out that when I checked the host name of the Blade I was actually on blade-051 and not 003 after all (we were still just finalizing the images and hadn’t added BGInfo at this stage, so it wasn’t immediately obvious)

As I started to dig in to this with the local Admin it became clear that quite a lot of changes had happened to the system in the past few months and there was a still a lot going on, but the upshot of it was that the DHCP and IP address info I had received on my Laptop was inconsistent with what the servers were using.

The Altiris Server was using:

written by dcaddick

A colleague of mine was after some info on a tool that I had mentioned before and while I was at it I had some extra tools and links and other handy stuff that I thought I’d share?

The details regarding Fixed Mode below have proven to be very useful today in getting PXE working across multiple VLAN’s – very nice to see it burst in to life

Gui tool to check AD/LDAP context etc. (30 day free trial)

Softerra LDAP Browser

Altiris DS 6.8 Docs… (Very useful for additional info)

chapter-1-preparing-your-server-ds68sp2-installation
chapter-2-installing-deployment-solution-68sp2
chapter-3-introducing-ds-console
chapter-4-introduction-imaging-using-pxe
chapter-5-ms-dos-a-pxe-automation-option
chapter-6-winpe-pxe-automation-option
chapter-7-hidden-bootworks

Troublshooting PXE

Altiris KB – PXE not crossing subnets or VLANs
Altiris KB – Configuring PXE to work across VLANs
Altiris KB – Error: PXE-E53: No boot filename received (very comprehensive list of 11 possible causes and 14 possible resolutions, and a reminder that when using Wireshark filter down to BOOTP packets to focus on PXE)
Installing Altiris Deployment Server and Altiris PXE Server in a VLAN Environment this lead me to this link of a PDF (PXE Modes of Operation) regarding setting PXE in “Forced Mode” that has just worked a treat in a multi VLAN environment and essentially it means that you simply set Options 60, 66, 67 and 43 on the DHCP with the relevant details of where to find the PXE Server

Now setting the Option 43 correctly is not quite that simple, so I have added my explanation here:

All figures/values need to be in HEX
Example: 06 01 0B 08 0F AA AA 03 C0 A8 02 C8 C0 A8 03 68 C0 A8 01 66

06 01 0B 08 and AA AA are set by Altiris and should not be changed

0F = Specifies the number of octets that exist to be read after this one (the fifth octet) in this particular case it’s 15

03 = Number of PXE Servers, change as needed, in this example there are 3 PXE Servers

C0 A8 02 C8 C0 A8 03 68 C0 A8 01 66 = the IP Address of each PXE Server, defined in HEX, octet by octet

C0 A8 02 C8 = 192.168.02.200

Once you have crafted the Value of Option 43 as described above you simply need to add a zero value of 00 to indicate the end of the Value and then add this to the DHCP Server, paying particular care not to add any spaces or CR’s?

Alternatively I have also discovered a tool that can help in making this calculation at PXE Forced Mode Utility

written by dcaddick

Interesting? I’m already running an earlier release of Windows 7 under VMware Workstation as described in an earlier post so it’s good to hear that the Beta will be out shortly as this will put the code through a more vigorous round of testing and should seriously shake the bugs out? Although the latest update would appear to indicate that MS has pulled back from an early Jan. release I’d be guessing that it will be out earlier rather than later?

Windows 7 Beta download will be available before January 5th

Ed Bott, a good friend of mine, recently predicted that Windows 7 Beta bits are going to be publicly unveiled on January 13, during CES. Some late night scrounging around revealed that Windows 7 could be available sooner — via download links slipped into the next Microsoft Action Pack Subscription quarterly update kit, which starts shipping January 5, 2009. Word internally is that the beta build was already baked a while ago, we just have to be patient.

Update (Dec 23): Microsoft has removed all mention of Windows 7 Beta.

What is also interesting to note is the amount of time and effort that Microsoft is taking to “eat their own dog food” as well as make sure people know they are focusing on both the actual performance as well as the perceived performance?

Squeezing Every Drop of Performance Out of Windows 7

In accordance with users’ expectations

In the sense in which Microsoft is building Windows 7 as the evolution of Windows Vista, the next iteration of the Windows client will perform as if on steroids, compared to its precursor. Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, along with Michael Fortin, one of Microsoft’s Distinguished Engineers and head of the Windows Fundamentals feature team, revealed that the Redmond company had a strong focus on delivering a high level of performance for Windows 7, comparable with end users’ expectations. And Microsoft should make no mistake about it, Windows 7 performance expectations are as high as they can be. 
“We’ve been building out and maintaining a series of runs that measure thousands of little and big things,” revealed Sinofsky and Fortin. “We’ve been running these before developer check-ins and maintaining performance and responsiveness at a level above which all that self-host our builds will find acceptable. These gates have kept the performance and responsiveness of our daily builds at a high enough level that thousands have found it possible to run their main systems on Windows 7 for extended periods of time, doing their normal daily work.”

Microsoft underlined that the perception of performance was just as important as the actual performance delivered by the operating system. In fact, what managed to hurt Vista the most was this perception of poor performance compared to Windows XP, despite the fact that benchmarks from the software giant placed the two operating systems on par.
“We’ve been driving down footprint, reducing our service costs, improving the efficiency of key code paths, refactoring locks to improve scalability, reducing hangs, improving our I/O efficiency and much more. These are scenario driven based on real world execution paths we know from our telemetry to be common,” Sinofsky and Fortin added.
In addition to the actual efforts poured into building the Windows 7 bits, Microsoft is also collaborating closely with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), independent software vendors (ISVs) and independent hardware vendors (IHVs) in order to ensure that Windows 7 will deliver a top performance in concordance with the hardware resources it is made available with. But at the same time the Windows developing team is keeping a close eye on the milestones of the operating system as they are deployed internally.
“Within the Windows dev team, we’ve placed a simple trace capturing tool on everyone’s desktop. This desktop tool allows each person to run 24×7 with performance tracing enabled. If anything seems slow or sluggish, they can immediately save the last minute-or-so of activity and send it for automated analysis. Additionally, a team of people visually inspect the traces for new issues or issues not yet decipherable by our automation. The traces are incredibly rich and allow us to get to the root of top issues most of the time,” Sinofsky and Fortin said.
In the end, Microsoft does not rely exclusively on monitoring tasks performed as an integral part of the dogfooding of Windows 7. The company is also centralizing telemetry from the testers participating in the Windows 7 pre-Beta program and will continue to do so throughout the Beta and Release Candidate stages. In addition, the software giant will take into account micro-benchmarks and specific performance scenarios for Windows 7, on top of the system tuning it is already introducing.
"For all Pre-Beta, Beta and RTM users, we’ve developed a new form of instrumentation and have used it to instrument over 500 locations in the operating system and inbox applications. This new instrumentation is simple in concept, but revolutionary in result. The tool is called PerfTrack, and it has helped confirm our belief that the client benchmarks aren’t too informative about real user responsiveness issues," Sinofsky and Fortin stated.

written by dcaddick