5nine Cloud Security 4.0 for Hyper-V released

February 9, 2014 by Leave a comment

5nine Cloud Security for Hyper-V is the first and only agentless anti-malware and virtual firewall solution for the Windows Server Hyper-V, utilizing the flexibility of Hyper-V Extensible Switch. It offers some unique features like support for NVGRE. The solution is interesting for service providers who like to protect their customer virtual machines but do not have access to the guest operating system.

5nine

Cloud Security for Hyper-V   is the new name of 5nine’s Security Datacenter for Windows Server Hyper-V. See the datasheet for detailed info.

Cloud Security is available as a free edition (with limitations) and a paid edition.
Download the free edition here.

Enterprises and cloud providers can:

  • Secure multi-tenant Hyper-V environments and provide VM isolation
  • Protect Hyper-V with light-speed agentless antivirus
  • Enforce PCI-DSS, HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance

 

5nine Cloud Security 4.0 for Hyper-V features:

  • Secure multi-tenancy and VM isolation
  • Virtual Machine security groups and cloud tenant security
  • User/roles access that allows users or user groups to manage only objects associated with them
  • Agentless antivirus for Hyper-V hosts and real-time protection for VMs
  • NVGRE support
  • New LWF R2 vSwitch extension
  • Enhanced API and advanced event logging

Licensing options

  • Standard license is available for fewer than or equal to 10 VMs per 2 CPU.
  • Datacenter license is available for unlimited number of VMs per 2 CPU.
  • SPLA license is available for hosting providers upon request.

Thomas Maurer has written a comprehensive blogpost about 5nine here.

Filed under 5nine, Windows Server 2012

How to create a site-to-site VPN connection using ADSL to Windows Azure

February 9, 2014 by Leave a comment

For research on my to be released book on Windows Azure I had to create a site-to-site VPN connection from my home to Windows Azure. Untill recently I was under the impression I needed a VPN device or Windows RRAS server configured with a public facing IP-address to be able to have such a site-to-site VPN.

However, that is not the case. Using a common ADSL modem, Hyper-V manager and a virtual machine running Windows Server 2012 with RRAS I was able to setup the VPN connection.

Thanks to Christopher Keyaert  who blogs at vnext.be who helped me. Read his blog which describes how to update Azure networking if your ADSL connection has a dynamic IP. 

My ADSL modem is a Fritz!Box 7270. I did not have to modify the configuration of the modem. You might want to add a route in your modem pointing to your RRAS server if other servers need access to Azure VMs.

The site-to-site can be setup using a physical server with RRAS installed as well. No need for the RRAS server to have a public IP.

In my book I will publish a step by step instruction how to configure this. In this post I will provide the basic steps. There are many other posts explaining how to setup a site-to-site VPN connection. For example this one. 

1. In the Azure Management Portal create a virtual network. First create a new local network. In here you configure the public IP-address which is assigned to your ADSL modem. You also specify the IP-subnet used in your home location. Mine is 192.168.178.0/24.

2. Enable ‘configure site-to-site VPN’.

3. Then create a gateway in the portal. Select dynamic routing. Creation of the gateway will take about 5 to 10 minutes.

4. After the creation has finished, select ‘Download VPN device script. Choose Windows Server RRAS and store the .cfg file on your RRAS server.

5. Rename the .cfg file to PS1. Start PowerShell and execute the .PS1 file. You might have to change the execute policy .

The PowerShell script adds a Network interface to the RRAS server. This connects to the IP-address of the Azure gateway. When the script has finished open Routing and Remote Access console. Select Network Interfaces-> then select the demand dial connection named as IP-address of the Azure gateway. Right click and select Connect.

If all goes well a VPN connection is enabled.

Make sure the Ethernet network interface of the RRAS server which connects to your internal (home) network does not have a gateway filled in for the IP-properties. Otherwise ip-traffic will not flow to and from Windows Azure.

Also make sure the firewall on the RRAS server does not block VPN-traffic.

In Windows Azure create a virtual machine and make sure it is added to the virtual network you created in the first step. After creation has finished, open an RDP connection. Then make sure the Windows Server firewall does not block VPN traffic.

That is it. You now should be able to ping or use any other connection from your home server (RRAS) to a virtual machine in Azure.

Please let me know if you have issues in setting up the S2S VPN (mvdb22 at gmail dot com )

Filed under VMware solutions, Windows Server 2012, Windows Azure, Azure Virtual Machine

Guide: How to sync on-premise Active Directory to Windows Azure Active Directory

January 16, 2014 by Leave a comment

Microsoft released a Test Lab Guide which explains in detail how to synchronize an organization Active Directory with Windows Azure Active Directory.

Organizations moving to a hybrid cloud want to be able to provide identity management for services running on Windows Azure whil not depending on their on-premise Active Directory.

By using Windows Active Directory Synchronization Tool (DirSync) on-premise AD can be synchronized to Windows Azure Active Directory.

This 48-pages documents explains step by step how to sign up for a free trial of Azure, how to enable WAAD and how to setup and configure DirSync.

 

Since November 2013 DirSync can be installed on a server with Active Directory installed. So only a single DC is needed to be able to use this Lab Guide.

More information and download of the guide here.

Filed under Azure Virtual Machine, Windows Azure, Windows Server 2012

New Hyper-V + System Center exam plus voucher for free exam

January 2, 2014 by Leave a comment

Microsoft released in November 2013  a new exam named “74-409 Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center“.

The exam requires knowledge of Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V. Also some basic knowledge of Windows Azure, System Center and monitoring is required.

Questions are multiple choice with some drag-and-drop.

The exam details can be found here.

To prepare for the exam a 5 day classroom course is available: 20409A: Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center (5 Days)

Alternatively Microsoft Virtual Academy has a free 15 modules on-line course available.

There is a voucher for a free exam. Register using this link

The MVA course is available here,

Channel 9 has 13 videos online which explains this subject.

The number of free exams is limited, so be sure to schedule your appointment to lock-in your free exam. Vouchers expire and all exams must be taken by June 30, 2014.

Marius Sandbu wrote a blog titled Study resources 74-409 Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center with links to more information to prepare for this exam.

Filed under Hyper-V, VMware solutions, Windows Server 2012

Free ebook: Introducing Microsoft System Center 2012 R2

December 17, 2013 by Leave a comment

Microsoft published a new free ebook titled:  Introducing Microsoft System Center 2012 R2. The book is currently available in PDF format only. Mobi and ePub format will be available soon. The ebook has 155 pages and provides a high level overview of Microsoft Cloud OS and System Center 2012 R2 is particular. Each chapter has an overview of one of the components of System Center. Content of each chapter includes an introduction, some screenshots, a Microsoft expert writing about new features and links to more information.

This ebook provides a good insight into System Center 2012 R2 and is highly recommended for those who are looking for an easy to consume total overview.

Download here.

Filed under Microsoft Cloud OS, System Center 2012, VMware solutions, Windows Azure, Windows Server 2012

Free ebook: Microsoft System Center: Cloud Management with App Controller

November 27, 2013 by Leave a comment

Microsoft released a new free ebook titled “Microsoft System Center: Cloud Management with App Controller”. The book has 5 chapters and 106 pages. It describes how to install App Controller, how to manage public, private and hybrid cloud.

The ebook is available in PDF, Mobi en ePub formats. Download here.

ebook-cloud-management-with-app-controller

Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 App Controller is uniquely positioned as both an enabler and a self-service vehicle for connecting clouds and implementing the hybrid computing model. In Microsoft’s cloud computing solutions, both System Center and Windows Azure play critical roles. System Center can be used to transform enterprise IT from a device-based infrastructure and deployment strategy to a service-based user-centric consumption model based on private cloud computing. Windows Azure on the other hand is a subscription-based public cloud platform that enables the development, deployment, and management of cloud solutions. App Controller is the glue that unifies these two platforms by providing a single interface that enables administrators to perform complex operations without overwhelming them with the underlying technical complexities involved.

This book serves as an introduction to implementing and managing the hybrid computing solutions using App Controller. It describes the basic concepts, processes, and operations involved in connecting, consuming, and managing resources that are deployed both on and off premises. Each chapter provides a concise, self-contained walkthrough for a specific aspect of managing private, public, and hybrid clouds using App Controller.

While cloud computing is still evolving, the hybrid approach will likely continue to emerge as the go-to IT computing model for the foreseeable future. Using App Controller to strategically connect both on-premises System Center private clouds with off-premises deployments in both Windows Azure and third-party cloud hosting providers enables new scenarios, develops new possibilities, and offers exciting new opportunities that can help IT transition better into the next generation of enterprise computing.

Filed under System Center 2012, VMware solutions, Windows Server 2012

It is official: I will be writing a book on Managing the Microsoft Hybrid Cloud

September 4, 2013 by 4 Comments

One of my dreams has always been to write a book. Today this dream starts as I signed a contract with Packt Publishing.
Packt is a large publisher of IT-books (total 1714 titles )  and has 49 titles on cloud and virtualization. Some names of authors who wrote books for Packt are Leandro Carvalho, Prasenjit Sarkar, Jason Langone and Andre Leibovici.

The draft title of the book will be ‘Managing the Microsoft Hybrid Cloud’ . In this book I will explain the architecture of Windows Azure Infrastructure Services, how to connect on-premise datacenters running System Center 2012 to Windows Azure. You will learn about Disaster Recovery Orchestration, monitoring, backup of on-premise VMs to Azure, migration of VMs to Azure, cloudbursting  and much, much more.

It will be a technical guide of how Microsoft translated their Cloud OS vision into solutions.

Writing a book will take lots and lots of hours. I am very gratefull to my girlfriend and QNH, my company, for supporting me full on making this dream come true!

Also I will get support of Microsoft.

The release of the book is scheduled for Q1 2014. During the next months I will update you on my experiences.

If you want to be a reviewer of the book please let me know! (mvdb22 at gmail dot com)

Filed under Azure Virtual Machine, VMware solutions, Windows Azure, Windows Server 2012

Nutanix releases NOS 3.5 with many new features and tech preview of Hyper-V support

August 20, 2013 by Leave a comment

Nutanix today released Nutanix Operating System (NOS) version 3.5. NOS 3.5 has many new features including a tech preview of support for  Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. This article will shortly introduce Nutanix and the new features delivered in NOS 3.5

Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution for virtual infrastructures which is hypervisor agnostic. It is delivered as a virtual appliance based on commodity x86 server hardware which has compute, memory, storage and networking in a single box. Using Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform there is no need to use a traditional SAN as shared, high available storage is provided by local storage.

Nutanix support VMware vSphere 5.0 and later, KVM and now Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V (as technical preview)

nutanix-nodesValue for customers are:

  • -lower capital costs compares to running blades and SAN
  • -very quick to deploy delivering agility to the business
  • -very good performance due to usage of PCIe Flash/SSD and ILM (hot blocks are moved to faster storage)
  • -scaleable in very small steps
  • -integration with virtualization platform

Local storage in Nutanix servers is aggregated into  volumes which can be used by VMware ESXi, KVM or soon Hyper-V to run virtual machine off. To make the data high available, data is distributed over nodes. You will need at least 3 Nutanix nodes to start a cluster.

Besides presenting  volumes the Nutanix Operating System has a lot of other features like compression, de-duplication, in the box Disaster Recovery, per VM policies, snapshotting, cloning, read caching, write buffer and data tiering. Next week I will release a blogpost with lots more info.

All these features are delivered by NOS. NOS runs inside a CentOS Linux virtual machine which runs on the hypervisor installed on each node. This Controller VM deliveres features which are typically delivered by controllers and firmware in traditional SAN. The Controller VM sits between the storage and the hypervisor.

So what is new in NOS 3.5?

1. Technical preview for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. Hyper-V can now be installed on the server nodes. The Controller VM will present storage to Hyper-v as SMB3 shares. General availability production support will be delivered towards the end of calendar 2013.

2. Nutanix Prism — a newly announced, completely resigned UI — so there is never a need to learn additional management tools for multi-hypervisor environments. See this video for an overview of the Prism UI which is powered by HTML5.

3. Introduction of a  VMware validated Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM). The SRA is a storage vendor supplied software interface which intercepts SRM command and translates those to storage instructions. Think about initiating a replication, or presenting a volume to a hypervisor.

4. Introduction of a REST-based API enabling Nutanix to be easily integrated into enterprise or cloud management systems. A good post of REST API used by Nutanix and Veeam here.

5.Introduction of the Nutanix Elastic Deduplication Engine, a ground-breaking deduplication technology that accelerates application performance and increases effective storage capacity for virtual datacenters. The industry’s first deduplication technology to span memory, flash and hard disk drive (HDD) resources simultaneously in any storage offering or converged infrastructure platform, the Nutanix Elastic Deduplication Engine is built specifically for scale-out architectures to accelerate performance while enabling large clusters with the best economics.

The Nutanix Elastic Deduplication Engine continuously analyzes read I/O access patterns and granularly deduplicates data to deliver the highest possible performance and to maximize effective storage capacity. For applications with large working sets, such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments, the technology increases effective flash and memory resources by up to 10x and delivers nearly instantaneous application response times. Additionally, Nutanix is also announcing plans to extend the technology to optimize the storage of “cold data” on HDDs in an upcoming 2013 release.

The NOS 3.5 release packages more than 75 additional enhancements, including the extension of compression to the native Nutanix Disaster Recovery feature for unmatched capacity optimization.

Nutanix OS 3.5 including the Elastic Deduplication Engine is available at no cost to all Nutanix customers with current maintenance agreements.

The image below shows a detail of the Prism interface.

Other posts on the release of NOS 3.5 are:
Nutanix introduced NOS 3.5 with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 Support (Tech Preview)
Nutanix Release 3.5 comes with huge improvements
Nutanix Dedupe: Past, Present, Powerful

Nutananix-prism-ui-

Filed under Uncategorized, VMware solutions, vSphere 5, Windows Server 2012

Free ebook: Introducing Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Release

August 2, 2013 by Leave a comment

Microsoft released at August 1 a new , free ebook titled: Introducing Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Release.

it is a 96 pages PDF file full of information on new features and enhancements on Hyper-V, storage, networking, failover clustering and other subjects.

Very much recommended!!

Download here.

 

Filed under VMware solutions, Windows Server 2012

Gartner: Can you replace VMware with Hyper-V or other competitor?

August 1, 2013 by Leave a comment

Gartner Catalyst Conference is an event for advisors and decision makers in IT. July 29- August 1 2013 the event was held in San Diego having tracks on Cloud computing, mobility, virtual datacenter and big data. An overview of the agenda can be seen here.

One of the sessions was  titled D4 – Rethinking Your Hypervisor Choice: Can You Replace VMware. The session presented by Chris Wolf of Gartner  has been recorded and is available for viewing here. Registration is required but is free and allows you to view up to three sessions for free.

The highlights of the sessions are written in this blogpost.

Gartner compared 5 x86 virtualization solutions: vSphere 5.1, Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV), Citrix XenServer and Oracle VM.

Gartner uses their Evaluation Criteria for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure to assess the solutions and to be able to compare them. This helps customers to answer the question “What product is right for my technical requirements?” The Evaluation Criteria complements the Magic Quadrant which helps customers to select vendors for a short list.

Gartner uses in total 241 criteria. Criteria are features on compute, storage, networking, Guest OS support, management, business continuity etc.  70 of those criteria are ranked as required features by Gartner, 117 preferred and 45 are optional. Gartner selects the criteria based on customer requirements they get from Gartner customers. Vendors do not have any influence on the selection of criteria.

Required criteria are features which are essential for the typical large Enterprise. Products that do not meet 100% of the required criteria are considered not ready for large-scale Enterprise production workloads.

Preferred are nice to have features.They improve TCO for instance but are not deal breakers.  Optional features are those needed for selected deployments or use cases. All the results of the product assessments have been checked by the vendors on results being factual correct,

Gartner customers can get an Excel spreadsheet listing all the criteria and  results of the assessment.

The slide below shows the results of the assessment. VMware vSphere is the leader. It is the only solution on the market which scores 100% on the required criteria. Hyper-V is very close behind. Interesting to see is that RHEV scores slightly better than Citrix XenServer.

slide1

 

Results of the product comparison are showed in so called spider graphs or radar charts. The next slide shows the score of the required, preferred and optional features. vSphere is a bullseye. Hyper-V has some small white spaces in Business Continuity and Guest OS support

 

slide2

vSphere and Hyper-V are very close to each other when looking at the  required features. Hyper-V supports less operating systems in the guest. The gap with vSphere is also caused by less support of snapshots of Linux guests by Hyper-V. A Linux guest will be temporary suspended prior to a backup when snapshots are used in a Hyper-V environment.
Another of Hyper-V weaknesses  is lack of central management. Certain tasks can only be done in either Hyper-V manager, SCVMM or Powershell. Gartners says VMware offers the best GUI management solution as basically all operations can be done using  vCenter Server.

Both VMware and Microsoft management tooling is able to manage other hypervisors. However Gartner is not aware of any Gartner customer who is using SCVMM to manage ESXI or using vCenter Server to manage Hyper-V.

vSphere weakness is its costs. Other weaknesses mentioned by Gartner are all shared with the other solutions.

Hyper-V-strengthsHyper-V-weaknesses

An interesting remark by Chris Wolf is  that Gartner does not see large scale clusters being used in enterprises. Typically in enterprises virtualization clusters are 32 nodes or less.

 

The slides below show some of the criteria used by Gartner.

compute-required-capabilities compute-required-capabilities2 network-required-capabilities required-guestos

 

Filed under Gartner, Hyper-V, VMware solutions, Windows Server 2012

Hyper-V again moves closer to vSphere in Gartner Magic Quadrant of 2013

July 2, 2013 by Leave a comment

Gartner published end of June 2013 its annual Magic Quadrant for  x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure. The publication provides an overview of the server virtualization market. Part of the report is a graphic known as the Magic Quadrant. The upper right box is the box vendors want to be listed on.

VMware is still leader in the x86 server virtualization market. They have the largest market share and are leading with technologies. However Microsoft is closing the gap rapidly and even offer features vSphere does not have. Each year Microsoft is positioned closer to rival VMware.

The graphic below shows the Magic Quadrant for 2011, 2012 and 2013. It is clear Microsoft has been consistently moving ‘up’ and to the ‘right’ in the Magic Quadrant graphic . See Microsoft’s comment on this development here.

gartner-hyper-v-mq-2013

I recommend downloading the full report (compliments of Microsoft) and reading it in detail.

For the Gartner Magic Quadrant of 2012 see my post titled Hyper-V moving closer to vSphere in 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant

Filed under Hyper-V, VMware solutions, Windows Server 2012

Another update of another update improves cluster resiliency in Windows Server 2012

June 19, 2013 by Leave a comment

Microsoft made available another update of a fix which improves cluster resiliency. I lost count now but believe this is the fourth try of Microsoft to fix a number of issues which are storage related.

One of the readers of my blog applied this latest hotfix KB2848344 and wrote me:

I’ve applied this fix on 2 nodes in a two node HV failover cluster. (LAB based on iSCSI shared storage)
DPM2012SP1 with latest rollups is still not able to backup a single VM on this cluster.
DPM encountered a retryable VSS error…

KB2848344 is titled  Update improves cluster resiliency in Windows Server 2012 and was released June 13, 2013.

I blogged about previous storage issue and the Microsoft attempts to solve this here:
Microsoft releases 2nd bug fix to fix issues on CSV backup of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V
here
Storage issues on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. Microsoft struggling to fix!
and here
Important update that improves cluster resiliency in Windows Server 2012 is available

I guess you can make your own conclusions on the reliability of the storage integration with Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V! Quite a few customers have difficulties to make a proper backup or not able to make a backup at all without the risk of crashing volumes. Not good at all!

For an overview of issues which are backup related see this thread on Microsoft.com

BTW: Microsoft also released a bugfix for Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX) issues described in KB2796995.

As stated by Microsoft in this KB:

This update replaces a previous resiliency improvements update that is described in KB 2838669. Additionally, the following issues that you experience are resolved.

 

This article introduces an update for cluster resiliency improvements in Windows Server 2012. After you install this update, the issues that are described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) articles are resolved:

2801054

VSS_E_SNAPSHOT_SET_IN_PROGRESS error when you try to back up a virtual machine in Windows Server 2012

2796995

Offloaded Data Transfers fail on a computer that is running Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012

2813630

Virtual machine enters a paused state or a CSV volume goes offline when you try to create a backup of the virtual machine on a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster

2824600

Virtual machine enters a paused state or goes offline when you try to create a backup of the virtual machine on a CSV volume in Windows Server 2012

2848727

“Move-SmbWitnessClient” PowerShell command fails in Windows Server 2012

2799728

Virtual machine enters a paused state or a CSV volume goes offline when you try to create a backup of the virtual machine on a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster

Note This update replaces a previous resiliency improvements update that is described in KB 2838669.
Additionally, the following issues that you experience are resolved.

Issue 1

Assume that you have a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster. A Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) is moved or is toggled between directed access and redirected access when the performance monitor is running. In this situation, the performance counters no longer function.

Issue 2

Consider the following scenario:

  • You have the Hyper-V server role installed on Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster nodes.
  • Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) files of the virtual machines are stored on a scale-out file share.
  • The cluster nodes are under heavy loads.

In this scenario, the cluster nodes may crash, and you may receive a Stop error message that resembles the following:

STOP: 0x000000C2 (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4)

Filed under Hyper-V, VMware solutions, Windows Server 2012

Important update that improves cluster resiliency in Windows Server 2012 is available

June 13, 2013 by Leave a comment

Microsoft released a very important bug fix which could solve issues for many customers. In short all sort of issues can happen when using Windows Server 2012 in combination with clustering, SMB shares or CSV volumes. Some issues are initiated by backup processes or snapshotting.

These issues are first reported in November 2012. Microsoft released several fixes but these sometimes solved the initial issue but created a new issues. I wrote about these in my post titled Storage issues on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. Microsoft struggling to fix!

Mid of May 2013 Microsoft published a new knowledgebase article and a hotfix. The KB2838669  is titled Update that improves cluster resiliency in Windows Server 2012 is available The hotfix did not get attention by the blogosphere yet although it is an important update.

Lets hope this solves the issues reported! I could not find feedback on this hotfix.

This article introduces an update for cluster resiliency improvements in Windows Server 2012. After you install this update, the following issues that you experience are resolved:
Issue 1 Consider the following scnario:

  • You have the Hyper-V server role installed on a Windows Server 2012-based file server.
  • You have lots of virtual machines on a Server Message Block (SMB) share.
  • Virtual hard disks are attached to an iSCSI controller.

In this scenario, you cannot access to the iSCSI controller.
Issue 2 Consider the following scenario:

  • You have a two-node failover cluster that is running Windows Server 2012.
  • The cluster is partitioned.
  • There is a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) on a cluster node, and a quorum resource on the other cluster node.

In this scenario, the cluster becomes unavailable.
Note This issue can be temporarily resolved by restarting the cluster.
Issue 3 Assume that you set up an SMB connection between two Windows Server 2012-based computers. The hardware on the computers do not support Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX). In this situation, the SMB session is closed unexpectedly.
Issue 4 Consider the following scenario:

  • You have a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster.
  • You have a virtual machine on a CSV volume on the cluster.
  • You try to create a snapshot for the virtual machine. However, the snapshot creation is detected as stuck. Therefore, the snapshot set is aborted.
  • During the abortion process of the snapshot, the CSV volume is deleted after the snapshot shares are deleted.

In this scenario, the abortion process is paused automatically because of an error that occurs on the cluster.
Issue 5 Assume that you have a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster. Two specific snapshot state change requests are sent from disk control manager to CSV proxy file system (CSVFS). The requests are present in the same message. In this situation, disk control manager is out-of-sync with CSVFS.
Issue 6 Assume that you create a snapshot for a CSV volume on a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster. When the snapshot creation is still in progress, another snapshot creation is requested on the same CSV volume. In this situation, the snapshot creation fails and all later snapshot creation attempts on the CSV volume fail.
Note You cannot create a snapshot for the CSV volume until the volume fails over or the volume goes offline and then back online.
Additionally, the update also resolves the issues that are described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) articles:

2799728

Virtual machine enters a paused state or a CSV volume goes offline when you try to create a backup of the virtual machine on a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster

2801054

VSS_E_SNAPSHOT_SET_IN_PROGRESS error when you try to back up a virtual machine in Windows Server 2012

2796995

Offloaded Data Transfers fail on a computer that is running Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012

2813630

Virtual machine enters a paused state or a CSV volume goes offline when you try to create a backup of the virtual machine on a Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster

2824600

Virtual machine enters a paused state or goes offline when you try to create a backup of the virtual machine on a CSV volume in Windows Server 2012

Filed under VMware solutions, Windows Server 2012

TechEd 2013 recorded sessions available and how to download

June 4, 2013 by Leave a comment

As always Microsoft makes   recorded sessions of TechEd available online for free about 24 hours after the session ends. I  think this is a great way to share knowledge, let customers study for upcoming releases. Many vendors should do the same thing.

Sessions of TechEd North America 2013 can be watched at Channel 9.  

Each individual session can be downloaded by selecting Save As. If you want to download all or a lot of sessions this is a lot of work.

It is also possible to automatically download sessions you want using a tool made by Tim Nilimaa. It is a very easy to use tool. No install, just execute. Then select the quality of the download (MP4 HD etc), set the download folder, refresh sessions, select sessions for download, press download and ready!

The tool can also be used to download sessions of MMS 2013. 185 sessions are available!

update June 06

Tim made on request a new release of Session Downloader which is able to not only download the recorded sessions but also the Powerpoint pptx files! Great job Tim. download Session Downloader 0.4 here.
At this moment 169 sessions are available for download.

update June 13
Tom Arbuthnot wrote a PowerShell script which is able to download sessions and Powerpoint slides as well. The Easy thing about this is you can select sessions easily.

More info in this post #PowerShell Download-TechEdSessions Script, Download all the #TechedNA 2013 Sessions

Session downloader

Filed under VMware solutions, Windows Server 2012 Tagged with

System Center Summer Night R2 – 3 juli 2013 in the Netherlands

June 4, 2013 by Leave a comment

Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 have just been announced and an event featuring those products is planned! Woh, the Dutch sure have passion for virtualization and cloud !

Hyper-V.nu & System Center User Group will jointly present on Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 during System Center Summer Night R2 at July 3 in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands.

As sessions will be in Dutch here the agenda:

Programma
15.00 uur: Binnenkomst en welkomstwoord – MVP Maarten Goet
15.15 – 16.20 uur: Catch up with System Center VMM 2012 R2 – Marc van Eijk
16.20 – 16.30 uur: Break
16.30 – 17.35 uur: Top 10 Feature Countdown for Hyper-V & Cluster in Windows Server 2012 R2 – MVP Hans Vredevoort & MVP Peter Noorderijk
17.35 – 17.45 uur: Break
17.45 – 18.50 uur: System Center Operations Manager R2 – Walter Eikenboom & MVP Oskar Landman
18.50 – 19.00 uur: Break
19-00 – 20.05 uur: Delivering People-centric IT with Configuration Manager R2 – Ronny de Jong
20.05 uur: Afsluiting met BBQ en drankje

More info and registration here.

Filed under Windows Server 2012

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