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Here is a compilation of my live tweets from SNIA’s SDC 2012 (Storage Developers Conference). You can also read those directly from twitter at http://twitter.com/josebarreto (in reverse order) Notes and disclaimers These tweets were typed during the talks and they include typos and my...

1. Overview In this post, I am sharing all the steps I used to create a Windows Server 2012 File Server test environment that I used for some of my Hyper-V over SMB demonstrations. My goal with this post is to share some of configuration details and the exact PowerShell scripts I used to configure the...

IMPORTANT: This blog post is now obsolete. For the latest version of this content, please visit: http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2012/08/23/windows-server-2012-scale-out-file-server-for-sql-server-2012-step-by-step-installation.aspx 1. Introduction 1.1. Overview In this document...

1. Introduction 1.1. Overview As I explained in a previous blog post , I delivered a presentation this week as part of the Microsoft TechEd 2011 event. The presentation was titled “Windows Server 2008 R2 File Services Consolidation - Technology Update”. It included two demos that...

The new Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3 is commonly deployed to provide data storage for servers that boot from a local hard drive. However, there are interesting cost savings and management advantages in deploying servers that have no local disk at all and get their syste and boot volumes from the...

We just got an updated version of the “iSCSI Initiator Users Guide for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2“ posted on the Microsoft Download Center by Bruce Langworthy, the iSCSI Initiator PM. Here’s a summary of the contents of this 82-page Word document: · Microsoft...

Introduction For the last few years, I’ve been blogging about the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target and its many uses related to Windows Server Failover Clustering, Hyper-V and other server scenarios. Today, Microsoft has made this software publicly available to all users of Windows Server 2008...

A new white paper about Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Architecture and Deployment (including the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3) has just been published. Here's an outline of this content: Introduction Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Overview Comparing Windows Server Operating...

Scott M. Johnson has published two new blogs post on the Windows Storage Server blog: The first post is a compilation of links covering all kinds of Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 content. http://blogs.technet.com/b/storageserver/archive/2010/11/16/windows-storage-server-2008-r2-references.aspx ...

I recently blogged about the PowerShell cmdlets included with the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3 . That included the details on all the 10 cmdlets available, including the one used to create VHD files, which is New-IscsiVirtualDisk. If you’re paying close attention to the list of new features...

I was glad to see that tje TechNet public site was recently updated to include detailed documentation on Windows Storage Server 2008 and iSCSI Software Target 3.2. See below the main two top items that were posted, along with the topics covered under each one: Windows Storage Server 2008 ...

The Windows Storage Server Team just released a new 30-page white paper on "Configuring Failover Clusters with Windows Storage Server 2008". This paper will guide you through the process of configuring the networks, domains and clustering features, including performance recommendations for a pair...

Scott M. Johnson, a Program Manager in the Windows Storage Server team, has just published a new blog post that might give you some ideas on different ways to use the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target. He outlines six different uses for it: 1) Consolidate storage for multiple application servers. 2...

This blog post is obsolete, since new versions of Windows Storage Server and the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target are now available on MSDN and Technet. For details on new releases, check http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2010/09/27/windows-storage-server-2008-r2-and-the-microsoft-iscsi-software...

I am glad to share that Windows Storage Server 2008 (WSS 2008) and the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.2 have been released to the Microsoft OEM partners. This is the successor to Windows Storage Server 2003 (WSS 2003) and Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (WUDSS 2003). I have been working...

Overview In this post, I will show all the steps required to run Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V with the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target. We will cover the specific scenario of a standalone Windows Server 2008 server (as opposed to a clustered one) on a full install (as opposed to a core install)...

There are many ways to implement Windows Server Failover Clustering with Hyper-V. I could actually find five unique methods to do it. Some of them will actually not give you a fully fault-tolerant solution, but most of them actually make sense in specific scenarios (even if only for demonstrations)....

1 – What is Storage Explorer Storage Explorer is a new tool in Windows Server 2008 to help you understand how your server SAN storage is configured. It provides information about the storage fabrics (Fibre Channel and iSCSI) and also about the configuration of each server. This new tool can...

It’s very common for a server running Windows Storage Server (WSS) with the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target or Windows Unified Data Storage Server (WUDSS) to include a RAID controller and many hard drives in the box. I got a question on exactly how to configure RAID volumes for this kind of setup. The...

I spent last week in Orlando, Florida, working at the Microsoft booth in the Storage Networking World. I delivered one of the demos there and my demo included the following technologies: Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 iSCSI Software Target Windows Server 2008 Core Install Windows...

Windows Server 2008’s Hyper-V has been in public beta for a while now and lots of people have been experimenting with it. One aspect that I am focusing on is storage for those virtualized environments and more specifically the options related to SAN storage. Virtualization terminology Before we...

Introduction This post describes how to configure the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target offered with Windows Storage Server, including the steps to configure both the iSCSI Target and the iSCSI Initiator. Note: The iSCSI Target is the server (where the iSCSI virtual disks are actually stored) and...

I recently delivered a presentation on Highly Available Clusters focused on the scenarios related to Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 (WSS 2003 R2) and Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (WUDSS 2003). The scenarios ended up being quite generic, so I decided to share them here. High Availability...

This post is OBSOLETE. Please check the updated post at: http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/01/07/installing-the-evaluation-version-of-wudss-2003-refresh-and-the-microsoft-iscsi-software-target-version-3-1-on-a-vm.aspx --- Overview These are step-by-step instructions on how...

I just wanted to share my experience around the use of Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering. I worked on this basically for a demonstration and I ended up doing quite a lot of work around it. This was mainly because I like to build my demo systems from scratch as opposed to just downloading ready...