Microsoft Storage Disk Pools and Spaces vDisk explained

This will explain Storage Pools and Spaces (vDisk) introduced in Windows Server 2012 and now better with Tiering and Cache.

This example will create a Pool with 4 HDDS and a Mirror vDisk based on these 4 disks. When the Pool is created and you start over to the vDisk the System will automatically creates two columns for the vDisk.

Each HDD will be tagged with a reserved Reservation of 256 MB. Information about the Pool and the Spaces will be placed there. The Stripe Size is 256 KB per default. The stripe width is in a two columns envrionment 2 x 256 KB = 512 KB

A Mirror is based on a minimum nuber of disks 2 and a Column to disk correlation 1 : 2 = 2 Disk per Colum = 2 Colums = 4 Disks

To check the columns settings ... please use PowerShell

Get-VirtualDisk | fl *

The expansion of a vDisk =

Add the same number of disk you started your vDisk. We started with 4 Disk that results in 2 columns means you need for every expansion 4 new disk in your pool and then you can expand the vDisk and then the LUN.

For best performance use the half the number of disks in your pool as columns size.

Do NOT use parity. It is very slow. Mirror will rock the performance tool !

Storage Pools and Spaces are built on LRC Erasure Code.

Epic Solution Fails in Project planning

During the support and implementation of many IT projects, I found the recurrent epic fails in IT projects. You should never do the following things in or before a project.

1) Plan on beta or not supported Hard / Software Features or the magic firmware that will bring the redeeming solution. This feature will never be ready when your project has to be ready. NEVER

2) Please, CIO out there, never never plan the success of your IT project on 1.0 Software or Hardware Releases. They are and will be full of unplanned behavior and bugs. Let the other guys fix the first bugs

3) Believe Marketing

4) Complex Solutions, the devil is in the detail, and will cause failures. So concentrate on "Keep it simple" (KIS) solutions. They will look simple but are mostly rock solide solutions.

5) Test phase smaller than 1 Month. No hasty reactions in IT Project they are too complex for this kind of acting. TEST TEST TEST and by the way, create a kind documentation during testing.

6) This is really old school but...you still need a test environment for your productive world where you can do Domain Controller Fire Drills and test the patch behavior from MS or your loved vendor.

7) Missing education. Imagine the following situation. The IT project will update only 2 main applications. Exchange (upgrade) and new Lync integration. This are worlds of new features, administration tasks and problems. How can you manage to learn this whole super complex new stuff ? So plan a lot of eduction during testing phase !


working on it...

How to find my Serial Numbers

for Office, Windows 8 and so on
try this free applikation Jelly Bean
link

DFS changes in 2012 R2

DFS is a great feature, but with 2012 R2 there was a great change behind. Microsoft changed the "tested" size for DFS Folders from 10 TB (2012) to 100 TB with 70 Million Files and max file Size changed from 64GB to 250 GB !

Link

what is executed behind cmd

to find the execution behind a cmd. Execute a PowerShell with administrator rights.

win32_process | fl commandline

DELL Management Packs for Server 2012 / R2

For all DELL Server out there, here are the Managment Packs for System Center 2012

Dell MD Storage Arrays Management Pack Suite 

Dell Printer Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager

Equallogic Management Pack 5 for Operation Manager 2012 SP1

Dell Server PRO Management Pack for Microsoft System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager

DELL Management  Pack for System Center Operation Manager 2012 R2 5.1 NEW

Link to the DELL Open Manage Server Administrator (OMSA)

Direct Link to the actual Open Manage Server Adminstrator from DELL OMSA 8.1  NEW

and the link to the DELL Wiki

Automatic Virtual Machine Activation AVMA in Windows Server 2012 R2

The Automatic Virtual Machine Activation is a really great feature in Windows Server 2012 R2
So read more how to configure it, it is very easy link

For faster access to the serials attached, provided in the link above

Datacenter	Y4TGP-NPTV9-HTC2H-7MGQ3-DV4TW
Standard	DBGBW-NPF86-BJVTX-K3WKJ-MTB6V

Windows Server 2012 can not see USB stick or is not able to format it

The USB Stick must be listed in Disk Management, start an administrative cmd 

diskpart
list disk
select disk #
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format quick fs=fat32
assign
exit

Powershell: Ping and Test-Connection

For you who want to have a "True" as PING result please use
PS > Test-Connection -ComputerName xx -Quiet 
and you get a True or False. This is useful for PowerShell Scripting.

DELL Venue 8 Pro Slow Network

during searching for a small issue to network performance with my new DELL Venue Pro 8 I read some articles about this issue and my solution is:

Reset your device complete (Update/recovery)
After init deinstall KB2883200 from Updatelist
Restart
Install all other Updates (new check)  (but not KB2883200)
Restart
Install KB2883200
Restart
Update with the newest Qualcom driver from DELL Support Website.

Please leave your comment !

Features Removed or Deprecated in Windows Server 2012 R2

Want to know where your feature is gone...or will be in next Windows release.
Be prepared and read carefully.

here

Can not install DPM 2012 R2 with PDT 2.5.2708

If the installation of DPM 2012 R2 failed during your PDT deployment, enter the System Center Serial Number into your Workflow.XML and the installation will work !

The Integration packs you need for Orchestrator 2012 R2

The whole System Center 2012 R2 Integration Packs

download

The PowerShell Plugin v 1.2

download

Robocopy Integration Pack

download

Text Manipulation Pack

download

System Center 2012 R2 Deployment Toolkit PDT

Yes Microsoft has released the next perfect PDT Tool. With this tool you can Setup a whole System Center envrionment in 2 h (depends on the Server IOPS and CPU) on physical or virtual boxes. But even better than in 1 Week with manuel keyboard and download sessions! The scripts can also deploy the new Azure Pack 2013 and SQL Cluster !!! Great work and thank you to Rob Willis and his team.

Get the latest release here

download

Hyper-V Gen 2 Converter

For all of you searching how to convert Gen1 to Gen2 Hyper-V VMs during migration from Windows Server 2012 to Windows Server 2012 R2. Here you can find the Convert-VMGeneration.ps1 tool from John Howard. A perfect how to is attached on the link.

download

Whats new in Windows Server 2012 R2

all overview : Technet

• TechNet - What's New for SMB in Windows Server 2012 R2
• TechNet - Virtual Hard Disk Sharing Overview
• TechNet - What's New in Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2012 R2
• TechNet - What’s New in Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 R2

System Center 2012 R2 - Orchestrator Component Add-ons and Extensions

New integration Packs for Orchestrator 2012 R2 were released

donwload here

Hyper-V Managemen Pack MP for System Center Operation Manager 2012 and 2012 SP1

With this community driven MP for Hyper-V you can go deeper with System Center Operation Manager.

• VMs Integration Services Version monitor
• Hyper-V Replica Health Monitoring Dashboard and States 
• SMB Shares I/O latency monitor  
• Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical processor monitoring
• Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual processor monitoring
• Hyper-V Dynamic Memory monitoring
• Hyper-V Virtual Networks monitoring
• NUMA remote pages monitoring
• SLAT enabled processor detection
• Hyper-V VHDs monitoring
• Physical and Logical Disk monitoring
• Host Available Memory monitoring
• Stopped and Failed VMs monitoring
• Failed Live Migrations monitoring

Link to Codeplex

What's new in System Center 2012 R2

System Center 2012 R2 App Controller
System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager
System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manager
System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager
System Center 2012 R2 Orchestrator
System Center 2012 R2 Service Manager
System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager

To use Powershell to download all SC 2012 R2 preview VHDs ...use vniklas blog

Install DPM on a Cluster / Node

is not supported

Read this : link

Default cluster sizes for NTFS

What is the standard Block size for NTFS ?
link 

Windows Server 2012 Failover Cluster and Hyper-V Hotfix List

Do you know this moment: Are all patches deployed by WSUS for my Cluster, or are this event log entries from a bug ?


Actual Hotfixes:

KB 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

v1 dont install: there are a lot of memory leaks reported
v2 intermediate version but not final: link for the new KB 2813630 but be aware of ODX and disable it if you need to ! There are still errors with v2
Please follow this forum link we expect a v3 stay tuned. "The Windows team is investigating other issues found during testing and not included in this release.  However they wanted to get this fix published since the memory leak issue is fixed and provide immediate relief"
v3  new release from Microsoft :Update that improves cluster resiliency in Windows Server 2012 is available will replace v2 (KB2813630) with v3 (KB 2838669)
v4 the KB2838669 was replaced with KB 2870270

One other thing to think about is that a LUN (CSV) created under Windows 2008R2 should not be used. Create a new LUN (CSV) with Windows Server 2012 (R2)

1. Open a Windows PowerShell session as an administrator.
2. Check whether ODX is currently enabled (it is by default) by verifying that the FilterSupportedFeaturesMode value in the registry equals 0. To do so, type the following command:
   Get-ItemProperty hklm:\system\currentcontrolset\control\filesystem -Name "FilterSupportedFeaturesMode"
3. Disable ODX support. To do so, type the following command
   Set-ItemProperty hklm:\system\currentcontrolset\control\filesystem -Name "FilterSupportedFeaturesMode" -Value 1

KB2796995 ODX Fix for Microsoft Server 2012 link

-------------------------------------------------------------

Microsoft cluster Patch that is released for Windows Server 2012 Part1 link

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Failover Cluster Patches Part 2 link
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Patches link
Microsoft Windows Server 2008R2 Hyper-V Patches link

Windows Server 2012 R2 / System Center 2012 R2 Preview released

Download your Testversion incl. Key here:
Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview

Download your System Center 2012 R2 Preview here:
System Center 2012 R2 Preview

Download Windows Azure Pack here:
Download Windows Azure Pack

Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track Information Updated for Windows Server 2012 and System Center Service Pack 1

The Fast Track Information was updated to Windows Server 2012 and System Center Service Pack 1

The Download starts here:
Infrastructure-as-a-Service Product Line Architecture Fabric Architecture Guide
Infrastructure-as-a-Service Product Line Architecture Fabric Management Architecture Guide
Infrastructure-as-a-Service Product Line Architecture Deployment Guide

Get TAG from DELL Products

Want to see the DELL TAG Number ? open your CMD and past in the following Command:

wmic bios get serialnumber