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...

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...

Introduction The File Server team often talks to customers about file server migration and file server consolidation projects. Many times, these are customers running Windows Server 2003 that can point to a number of issues they wanted fixed. In most...

Introduction The SQL CAT team has posted a blog last year about the "Top 10 hidden gems in SQL Server 2008 R2", which included the support for placing SQL database files on an SMB network file share. This works even better if you use the SMB2 version...

A new white paper covering "NTFS CHKDSK Best Practices and Performance" was posted today at microsoft.com/downloads, covering the CHKDSK improvement in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This was first highlighted in a blog post by Claus Joergensen...

As you probably know, the File Services team provides a Best Practices Analyzer tool (BPA). It includes several rules for the configuration, operation, performance and security of the SMB, NFS, DFS-N, DFS-R and FSRM. I was recently looking at the pageview...

During an internal conference this week I came across a group at Microsoft Services that works directly with customers that are deploying SQL Server to support line-of-business applications like like SAP and JD Edwards. They pointed me to their recent...

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...

I am doing a little demo this week and it includes a simple SQL Server script to generate activity on the network while I demo SMB2 durability. First, the database is created: USE [Master] GO CREATE DATABASE [Sales] ON PRIMARY ( NAME = N'Sales...

If you’re installing a Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 file server, we always recommend getting the latest hotfixes from Windows Update. That will include all security updates and updates that are considered important enough to be...

I just discovered this interesting book on "Programming Windows Phone 7", by Charles Petzold (yes, that's the author of the famous "Programming Windows" series of books). This Microsoft Press title is available as a free PDF download and is over 1,000...

I have spent my last few weekends building an ASP.NET web application that sends multiple queries to Bing and displays the results in a table. I called it BingMatrix and you can read more about what it does and how it works in the blog post titled “ BingMatrix...

I wanted to share a little application I put together using Windows Azure. It uses Bing queries to find out how the popularity of a specific set of keywords on a specific set of sites. I actually created this for my own use while researching how frequently...

In a previous blog post, I described the BingMatrix search tool: http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2010/12/21/bingmatrix-a-windows-azure-application-that-provides-a-fun-way-to-mine-data-from-bing.aspx I have now updated it to allow you to pass...

SMB Signing is a feature through which communications using SMB can be digitally signed at the packet level. This post covers signing configuration, defaults and effective behavior for both SMB1 and SMB2.

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Well, I have been using my new Samsung Focus (one of the Windows Phone 7 options for AT&T) for about a week now. I saw a number of reviews of the Windows Phone 7 software and the many hardware options available on different providers. However, I wanted...

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...

As you probably already know, Microsoft maintains a number of community forums divided into categories. The work I do is mostly related to File and Storage, which is one of those categories. You can find the File and Storage forum at http://social.technet...

Some time ago, I was automating a few tasks with PowerShell and needed to set NTFS permissions on a folder. I was tempted to use the good old ICACLS.EXE command line, but I wanted to keep it all within PowerShell...

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Joel Garcia announced from TechEd Europe the release Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, a new member of the Storage Server product family. In the blog post, he outlines the main features: Easy to use Backup and Recovery Active Directory Domain...

Note: This post is now obsolete. Please refer to this newer post which includes coverage of SMB 3.0: http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2012/06/06/windows-server-2012-which-version-of-the-smb-protocol-smb-1-0-smb-2-0-smb-2-1-or-smb-3-0-you-are...

... The good news is that PowerShell is really good at using WMI directly. So I set out to find how to create an iSCSI Target differencing disk using PowerShell and the WMI classes.

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One the new features in the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3 (included in Windows Storage Server 2008 R2) is the inclusion of PowerShell cmdlets for management. In this blog post, we will examine the details of the cmdlets available to manage targets and their associated virtual disks.

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Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 is also now available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers for evaluation. This means subscribers can now use the Microsoft iSCSI Target 3.3 for Development, Test and all other non-production purposes. Find below the information from the MSDN/TechNet site where you download the bits.

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Please find in the table below my “Extended Edition” of the mapping of the CLUSTER.EXE commands (including parameters) to PowerShell cmdlets, as they exist in Windows Server 2008 R2. I also added below a basic class diagram showing the main entities, attributes and methods involved. Below the table, you can also find a list of new PowerShell cmdlets that have no equivalent in the old CLUSTER.EXE.

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