TechNet Blogs

TechEd Australia 2012 Call for Content Now Live

Andrew McMurray — Tue, 22 May 2012 03:04:35 GMT

Hey everyone!

The Call for Content portal for TechEd Australia 2012 just went live literally 2 or three minutes ago, so it’s time to get your creative juices flowing and get those sessions in. The Call for Content tool is located at http://teau12.eventpoint.com/cft.

I was going to go into a huge spiel about TechEd 2012, but Jeffa has conveniently done that for me, so reproduced here:

As you know this year is a big year for Microsoft in regards to product releases and focus areas. With that in mind we have changed our track listing slightly to be more focused on 2 areas:

The Microsoft Private Cloud
Building apps for Windows 8

So are track breakdown looks like this:

Windows Azure
Database and Business Intelligence
Developer Tools, Languages and Frameworks
Office, Office 365 and SharePoint
Security, Identity and Management
Exchange and Lync
Virtualization
Windows Client
Windows Phone
Windows Server

The Call for Topics tool is open from today; May 22nd 2012 until Monday June 18th 2012. Get those creative juices going and start submitting sessions. When you are submitting sessions please keep the following in mind:

To enhance the success of your session submission, please prepare your content to ensure it provides TechEd attendees with comprehensive technical readiness to inspire and succeed in their career. Your content should also align to meet the content themes for TechEd 2012, which are:

For Developers: TechEd is the place to get ready to create Windows 8 Metro style apps.

For IT Professionals: TechEd will provide an accelerated path to the skills they need to deploy, manage and secure a Private Cloud within their organisation.

Submissions that compliment the 2012 content themes will be recognised throughout the approval process.

Below are some additional tips for a successful submission:

Abstracts should be limited to 300 words
Be sure to showcase your speaking experience
A succinct and descriptive session title is a must to engage attendees and should match the delivered content 100%
Session objectives should indicate clearly what a delegate will gain from attending the session
Build your presentations with 60-65 mins of content and allow 10-15 mins for Q&A
TechEd is about technical readiness so focus on the technology and ensure there is no blatant marketing in your content

Good luck with your submissions and we look forward to see some great sessions submitted!

Have fun everyone and remember, level 300 and 400 content is what we are after!

Cheers!

Macca

Cloud Security Benefits for SMBs in Malaysia

trusted-cloud — Tue, 22 May 2012 03:00:00 GMT

Posted by: Richard Saunders, Director, Trustworthy Computing

Last week we shared data that highlights the security benefits small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) in the United States, Singapore and India gain from using the cloud. The benefits these organizations attest to—cost savings, time savings and improved security—are echoed by the experiences of Malaysian SMBs.

...(read more)

TechEd Australia 2012: Call for Topics is Live!

Jeffadude — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:52:35 GMT

Welcome to my first email regarding TechEd Australia 2012! This year I’m looking after content again and today I like to announce that call for topics is now open for submissions. This is the first of many milestones on the journey to this event in September. I believe good content is what makes an event such as TechEd possible and we rely on the expertise and creativity of our speakers to make a successful event.

So please submit your sessions using the Call for Topics tool at: http://teau12.eventpoint.com/cft

As you know this year is a big year for Microsoft in regards to product releases and focus areas. With that in mind we have changed our track listing slightly to be more focused on 2 areas:

The Microsoft Private Cloud
Building apps for Windows 8

So are track breakdown looks like this:

For Developers: TechEd is the place to get ready to create Windows 8 Metro style apps.

For IT Professionals: TechEd will provide an accelerated path to the skills they need to deploy, manage and secure a Private Cloud within their organisation.

Submissions that compliment the 2012 content themes will be recognised throughout the approval process.

Below are some additional tips for a successful submission:

Abstracts should be limited to 300 words
Be sure to showcase your speaking experience
A succinct and descriptive session title is a must to engage attendees and should match the delivered content 100%
Session objectives should indicate clearly what a delegate will gain from attending the session
Build your presentations with 60-65 mins of content and allow 10-15 mins for Q&A
TechEd is about technical readiness so focus on the technology and ensure there is no blatant marketing in your content

Good luck with your submissions and we look forward to see some great sessions submitted!

Jeffa

Technorati Tags: TechEd Australia,Call for Topics,CFT

【スクリプトアクセスランキング】RD セッションのホストとファーム編 Top 5

Yuko in Japan — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:21:00 GMT

TechNet オンラインの中でも人気の TechNet スクリプトセンター。Windows コンピュータの管理に携わるシステム管理者のために、Microsoft スクリプトテクノロジを利用したサンプルスクリプトをご用意しています。本日のブログでは Terminal Server ユーザーアカウントの作成、構成、および削除のためのサンプルスクリプトのなかから、アクセスランキング Top 5 をご紹介します。 ----------------------------------------- アクセスランキング Top 5 ターミナルサービスアカウントの追加ターミナルサービスのリモート制御の設定ターミナルサービスクライアントの接続の設定ターミナルサービス接続ライセンスサーバーの追加ターミナルサービスの強制ログオフの有効化 ----------------------------------------- ちなみに、みなさまはご自身の業務に合うスクリプトを検索したことはありますか? TechNet スクリプトギャラリーには、システム管理が楽になる便利なスクリプトが...(read more)

You Can Help Choose the People Choice Award Winner During the Microsoft BizSpark EU Summit on June 7

BizSpark Online — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:31:00 GMT

Have your say! Vote for your favourite BizSpark European Summit Startup Finalist now!

On June 7th, fifteen of Europe's best startups are going to be competing for the top prize in front of a panel of investors and influencers, not to mention an audience consisting of a couple of hundred peers and others from the entrepreneurial ecosystem. We’ve created the People’s Choice Award, an extra prize that ANYONE can cast their vote for – so this is YOUR CHANCE to influence who the winner is! All you have to do is cast your vote between now and midnight BST June 6th. Check out these fifteen finalists and the start-up you think has the greatest potential to succeed.

Visit the page to see all of the potential award winners, and to cast your vote.

We will also be blogging about the candidates this whole week, starting tomorrow morning. Stay tuned.

Stop/Start the Application pool in IIS 6.0 using PowerShell.

Manhar Sharma — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:24:00 GMT

Power Shell script to stop the application pool in IIS 6.0:-

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

$appPool = get-wmiobject -namespace "root\MicrosoftIISv2" -class "IIsApplicationPool" | where-object {$_.Name -eq "W3SVC/AppPools/SharePoint - 80"}
$appPool.Stop()

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

Power Shell script to start the application pool in IIS 6.0 :-

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

$appPool = get-wmiobject -namespace "root\MicrosoftIISv2" -class "IIsApplicationPool" | where-object {$_.Name -eq "W3SVC/AppPools/SharePoint - 80"}
$appPool.Start()

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

** need to change the name of the application pool (sharepoint - 80) as per in your farm.

The Next Big Thing in Learning!

Higher Innovation — Mon, 21 May 2012 23:58:55 GMT

What is the story behind the statement that there is no “next big thing”? EdTech Magazine recently quoted Cameron Evans saying, “The reality is that there is no “next big thing”…The next big shift will be all of these things taken together.” First, you will have to read the original EdTech [...] Related Stores: Can Reality Television Transform E-Learning? Peek Inside How Microsoft Unified Communications Bridges Learning For Our Students...(read more)

The Server Partner Engineering Ecosystem for Windows Server 2012

Natalia Mackevicius [MSFT] — Mon, 21 May 2012 23:48:00 GMT

Hi there! In this blog post, we’ll introduce some of the work my team drives for partner adoption and readiness on pre-release server OSes. In the previous blog post, we showcased the work we drive with customers in the TAP program and the Enterprise Engineering Center. Similarly, The Windows Server Partner Engineering program is focused on enabling partners during early development cycles. This team drives the partner adoption key new features and support readiness of their products on the new Window Server operating systems.

--Natalia Mackevicius

In the Windows Server Blog, we’ve already detailed some of the amazing new technologies in Windows Server 2012 and the compelling story these new technologies have on the private and public cloud. Windows Server 2012 has also had incredibly positive press from some of the top industry professionals on the extensive feature lineup and Windows Server’s response to what our customers have been asking for in an operating system. With the Release Candidate just around the corner in the first week of June, we are excited about the robustness and stability of our new product- something our broad Partner and Customer ecosystem will soon be able experience directly. But before we congratulate ourselves too much for a job well done, the Windows Server 2012 team must acknowledge the hardware and software partners who have innovated alongside Windows Server during this release process. The Partner and Customer Ecosystem Team (PaCE) within the Windows Server organization has done some amazing work by closely engaging with partners to drive adoption of the key new features being delivered in Windows Server 2012. Our partners have embraced and adopted the value proposition and the business benefits that Windows Server 2012 can bring to the IT and Hoster organizations. Engineering collaboration from our OEM, IHV, and ISV partners during early development cycles enables a supportive partner ecosystem that provides collaborative solutions to our mutual customers.

Microsoft values partner relationships in developing and showcasing end-to-end solutions for our customers. In the Windows Server organization, we also recognize how important the partner engineering ecosystem is to the success of product innovation. Whether it is network controllers, CNAs, chipset vendors, OEMs, or software partners building products and services to complement and support new Windows Server operating systems, each partner type plays a critical role in driving product adoption and readiness. Our Windows Server Partner Engineering program is designed to identify and enable these partners to develop Windows Server solutions and unlock new possibilities for IT professionals and hosters.

Over the next few months, my team will be blogging about key learning’s and areas of opportunity on how partners can successfully engage with Microsoft to adopt and support Windows Server 2012. We’ll give you a preview of new technologies our hardware and software partners have built to support new technology areas and keep you informed of how to engage with Windows Server on building your application and products.

Stay tuned for some exciting new products from some of our top and some of our newest partners on Windows Server 2012!

Allison Jones
Sr. Program Manager Lead, Partner Engineering Team
Server and Cloud Division

Optimizing Windows Server 2012 storage management via PowerShell for both performance and resiliency

Natalia Mackevicius [MSFT] — Mon, 21 May 2012 23:32:00 GMT

“Hi there! I’d like to introduce Josh Adams, a Senior Program Manager in the Enterprise Engineering Center (EEC), a facility dedicated to validating Microsoft’s next wave of enterprise solutions. Josh’s area of focus is Window Server 2012’s new Storage Management features. This blog delves into the intricacies of optimizing Windows-managed storage via PowerShell for both performance and resiliency.”

--Natalia Mackevicius

Although the new Server Manager UI in Windows Server 2012 provides a very convenient and intuitive workflow to provision and manage Storage, interaction with PowerShell is required to access many of the advanced features afforded by the new Storage Management API. For example, you can easily create a Virtual Disk in the UI; however, the Wizard only allows setting the following parameters:

Underlying Storage Pool name
Virtual Disk Name
Resiliency setting (Simple, Mirror or Parity)
Provisioning type (Thin or Fixed)
Virtual Disk size

In contrast, when creating a Virtual Disk via PowerShell, you can specify additional parameters to tune both resiliency and performance:

Number of Columns: The number of columns the Virtual Disk contains
Number of Data Copies: Number of complete copies of data that can be maintained
Disk interleave: Number of bytes forming a stripe
Physical disks to use: Specific disks to leverage in the Virtual Disk

For example, assuming I have an existing pool with the following attributes:

Friendly Name: Pool01
Disks: 9 450GB disks (each allocated as Data Store)
Pool Capacity: 3.68TB

If I then create a simple 200GB Virtual Disk via the UI named VDiskSimpleUI, the resulting Virtual Disk leverages 8 columns and maintains 1 copy of the data. But when creating the Virtual Disk via PowerShell, I can force the tripping across all nine of the disks and optimize performance.

New-VirtualDisk -StoragePoolFriendlyName Pool01 -ResiliencySettingName Simple -Size 200GB
-FriendlyName VDiskSimplePS -ProvisioningType Fixed -NumberOfDataCopies 1 -NumberOfColumns 9

And creating a mirrored 200GB Virtual Disk via the UI named VDiskMirrorUI produces a Virtual Disk with 4 columns and 2 data copies. But with PowerShell, I can create a slightly different configuration, increasing the data protection (and also the disk footprint):

New-VirtualDisk -StoragePoolFriendlyName Pool01 -ResiliencySettingName Mirror -Size 200GB
‘-FriendlyName VDiskMirrorPS -ProvisioningType Fixed -NumberOfDataCopies 3 -NumberOfColumns 3

The results and differences of these various permutations can be easily displayed via PowerShell:

Get-VirtualDisk | ft FriendlyName, ResiliencySettingName, NumberOfColumns, NumberOfDataCopies, @{Expression={$_.Size / 1GB}; Label="Size(GB)"}, @{Expression={$_.FootprintOnPool / 1GB}; Label="PoolFootprint(GB)"} -AutoSize

FriendlyName ResiliencySettingName NumberOfColumns NumberOfDataCopies Size(GB) PoolFootprint(GB)
---------------- --------------------------- ----------------------- -------------------------- --------- -------------------

VDiskSimpleUI Simple 8 1 200 200

VDiskMirrorUI Mirror 4 2 200 400

VDiskSimplePS Simple 9 1 200.25 200.25

VDiskMirrorPS Mirror 3 3 200.25 600.75

Some additional tips:

The number of columns multiplied by the number of data copies cannot exceed the number of disks in the underlying pool
256MB of each physical disk is consumed when adding to a Pool
Default Resiliency Settings

Simple: Striping with no redundancy using a default stripe size of 64K
Mirror: 2-way mirroring with a 64K default stripe size
Parity: Striping with parity using a default column width of 3 (i.e. 3 disks per row with 2 containing data while the other contains parity) and a default stripe size of 64K

Although not enforced, it is recommended that pools with more than 24 disks use ‘Manual’ allocation (as opposed to the auto allocation default of ‘Data Store’)
Clustering

Clustering Virtual Disks requires the underlying hardware to support Persistent Reservations
Clustered Storage Spaces require fixed provisioning
Removing a clustered Storage Pool from Failover Clustering will cause the underlying Pool to be marked Read Only

PowerShell Links

New-VirtualDisk: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848643.aspx
New-StoragePool: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848689.aspx

Joshua Adams
Senior Program Manager
Enterprise Engineering Center

Upgrading Active Directory W2K3 to W2K8

mzbowe — Mon, 21 May 2012 23:01:00 GMT

Keeping in the spirit of my blog title "Tangent Thoughts" this is another Tangent to my recent post "Known Issues for Upgrading Active Directory to Windows Server 2008R2 from Windows 2003". This post is not necessarily anything that everyone will have happen, but really a "Notes from the field" collection of errors discovered before, during and after the upgrade. So below, you see a trace record of Event IDs discovered, notes about those, and any recommended remediations to apply. The focus is primarily on the Errors and Warnings from the Applications and Systems logs on the Windows 2003 and 2008 Servers.

NOTES FROM THE FIELD :)

ITEM	NOTES	COMMENTS
948690	Access Encrypted Files after upgrade. How to Backup the EFS Recovery Agent should be done 1^st to preserve the EFS Recovery Agent	If the 1^st DC from the source forest no longer exists, you cannot recover the EFS Domain Recovery Agent!
PSGetSID	This sysinternals utility will quickly help you to identify what the first DC was in the source domain. RIDs are created sequentially, so the lowest number of all DCs will be the first.
Event ID 1202	Source SceCli No Mapping between account names and Security IDs was done	See Troubleshooting SceCli Events
Event ID 7030	McAfee ePolicy service account	Based on error seems that the service account needs interactive logon on the DCs
Event ID 53528	Source: MSDTC
Event ID 10009	Source: DCOM	Additional Reference

WPC 2012: Getting to Toronto

Diane Golshan — Mon, 21 May 2012 22:37:30 GMT

Posted by Jemima Herman, Worldwide Partner Conference lead for the Microsoft U.S. Partner Team.

With WPC 2012 just a few weeks away, we’re in the final stages of planning this year’s experience. Last week, my worldwide counterparts released details about the Value Keynotes, the Session Catalog is published (and includes the U.S. Sub sessions), the WPC Connect tool will be available soon, and you already know that our guest speaker is Deepak Chopra and that Grammy-winning band, Train, will be rocking the Partner Celebration on Thursday night.

Now, it’s time for you to finalize your plans for getting to Toronto, so you can soak up all the WPC goodness!

Before I go into the different ways to get to the host city, there is one important thing to cover. All U.S. citizens are required to present a valid passport when entering or re-entering the United States. There may still be time to apply for a new passport or renew your existing passport if necessary. On the WPC website’s Getting There page, you’ll find information and helpful links to resources like the U.S. Department of State.

To get to Toronto and the Conference as quickly as possible, air travel is the way to go. If you have not already booked your flight, both Delta Airlines and WestJet are offering discounts to WPC attendees. Take advantage of their discounts and you may have a little extra money to spend while in Toronto! The Getting There page includes details about these discounts and how to get them.

If you prefer a more leisurely trip, consider taking the train. I once took a 36-hour train ride to Canada and found it to be heavenly. It’s definitely a more stress-free way to travel—just put up your feet and relax. Plus, there’s no baggage claim to worry about, you get free Wi-Fi during the trip, and you’ll be dropped off right at the Convention Centre. Amtrak offers a number of different routes between Toronto and New York City, Detroit, Minneapolis, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Check out the Train Travel Information at the bottom of the Getting There page for details.

Travel Tip: Regardless of how you plan to get to Toronto, use your travel time to start networking! With so many people heading to the Conference from across the U.S., it’s possible that the person sitting next to you on your journey is either a Microsoft partner or a Microsoft employee who is also on his or her way to WPC. What a great opportunity to kick-start your networking efforts and make the most of your attendance.

I look forward to seeing you in July—maybe you’ll have a great story to share with me about your journey!

Not yet registered for WPC 2012? Register today to secure your spot, and stay informed about U.S. activities at http://aka.ms/usatwpc.

Manually Discovering JEE Application Servers with SCOM 2012

Christopher Crammond — Mon, 21 May 2012 22:37:00 GMT

Out-of-the-box, System Center Operations Manager can discover several different application server platforms and versions (support matrix is here); however, this is not every version of every application server. Also, for an application server to be discovered and monitored in Operations Manager, the machine it runs on must be discoverd and monitored by Operations Manager. Luckily, the System Center 2012 Operations Manager monitoring packs includes PowerShell scripts for manually discovering JEE application servers where such application servers cannot be automatically discovered.

The following steps (taken from the README.txt - see here for feature download) describe how to manually discover a JEE application server.

Step #1: Deploy BeanSpy to your JEE application server.

Step #2: If your application server requires authentication, create a Run As account to be associated with "JEE Monitoring Account" Run As profile for monitoring. Create another Run As account to be associated with "JEE Invoke Account" Run As profile for invoking methods on MBeans.

Step #3: Obtain PowerShell scripts using one of the following methods:

1) If you have at least one JEE application server automatically discovered by Operations Manager, go to Operations Console, select an automatically discovered JEE application server instance, and run the task "Copy BeanSpy and Universal discovery files" in the Tasks pane. This will copy the BeanSpy files to the %WINDIR%\temp folder.

2) Search the Operations Manager installation folder for BeanSpy*. For example, if Operations Manager is installed under "C:\Program Files\System Center 2012\Operations Manager", BeanSpy files are located in one of the folders under C:\Program Files\System Center 2012\Operations Manager\Server\Health Service State\Resources\ as of this writing.

There should be three PowerShell script files:

JEEAppServerLibrary.ps1
NewJEEAppServer.ps1
RemoveJEEAppServer.ps1

Step #4: Run PowerShell scripts to add or remove application servers.

1) You can add or remove application servers one by one. However, if you have multiple application servers, you can create a configuration file. Each line of this file should contain a URL where your JEE application server is listening on for http or https requests. For example:

https://linux.contoso.com:8080
http://myredhat:8180
http://10.0.0.1

2) To add JEE application servers for monitoring, run NewJEEAppServer.ps1. Run this script with -help for details of command line options. You can pipe the configuration file you created to this script, or specify a single URL on the command line.

3) To remove JEE application servers currently being monitored, run RemoveJEEAppServer.ps1. Run this script with -help for details of command line options. You can pipe the configuration file you created to this script, or specify a single URL on the command line.

The discovered application servers will first appear under "Universal application servers" folder in the "Configured application servers" view. Verify that the application server type and version are populated correctly. After multi-stage discovery (ranging from a few minutes to four hours by default), the discovered application server should appear under the application server folder specific to its type, in the deep monitored application server view, with detailed application server information populated.

ANNOUNCING: Microsoft Project Server 2010 Burn & Forecast and Spend Report Solutions

Christophe Fiessinger — Mon, 21 May 2012 22:34:25 GMT

I am pleased to announced the release of two Microsoft Project Server 2010 reporting solutions on TechNet Gallery: Project Burn and Forecast Report and Project Spend Report . Both solutions can be deployed and tested with the Microsoft Project Server ...read more...(read more)

"The return URL specified for request redirection is invalid" error when using forms authentication

Praveen Hebbar — Mon, 21 May 2012 22:05:02 GMT

In SharePoint Server 2007, when you try and login to a forms-based site the .RedirectFromLoginPage results in the following error:

"The return URL specified for request redirection is invalid"

Basically, this would happen when you navigate to a URL like http://server/_layouts/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=default.aspx%3f%3a

So, why does this happen ?

This is a problem with the URL validation on the login.aspx page. The reason why this fails is because we have the ' : ' colon character (the escape character ‘ %3a ’ in the query string. The URL query string validator does not seem to like the colon character at all.

The colon is a reserved character, per the URI RFC. You CANNOT put an unencoded ' : ' in the query or hash of a URI, period.

One workaround would be the need to %-encode the colon.

Another one would be to use a code snippet. For more information on this, please see http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlreportingservices/thread/cf27c390-07b1-4a48-b337-130a8e220069

Let’s Build a Cloud… With PowerShell! – Part 2: Managing Virtual Machines

Yigal Edery [MSFT] — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:47:23 GMT

In the previous blog in this series, we discussed how to use PowerShell to deploy and configure Hyper-V and File Server clusters to set up a cloud infrastructure environment. We’ve seen how remote PowerShell invocation helps achieve that at scale and with zero manual intervention. We’ve also used a management server to host the PowerShell samples and invoke commands from it against the target servers being deployed, as a way to simulate how typical management tools are built.

In this blog post, we’ll continue on this path of automating common IT cloud management tasks, and take a look at a new set of sample scripts that demonstrate how to automate some of the key tasks around deploying, moving and monitoring virtual machines that are deployed onto the cloud infrastructure we’ve built.

The cloud infrastructure we’ll be using as an example is the one which you’re already well familiar with, which was described in previous blog posts and is configured by the samples in the previous sample package. It basically looks like this:

In that simplified environment, we basically have a library of VHD images that you can use to provision virtual machines from. The samples provide an example on how to provision virtual machines from the library, and configure them for high availability and in a way that when these virtual machines run, Hyper-V would store the running VMs on the same file server in the VMLibrary share, using the new support for Hyper-V over SMB3.0. By the way, Jose Barreto has a really cool blog showing multiple ways for rapid provisioning VMs from an SMB share!. You should feel free to mix and match these techniques with the ones discussed here and optimize the scripts to your needs.

Lets now dive into the specific samples in the new package and discuss each of them and some of the operations they demonstrate. For each sample, we’ll discuss what it does, how it does it, and take a look at the specific cmdlets that it uses to achieve the task at hand.

OnboardVM.ps1

This is the basic virtual machine deployment script. At the heart of it is really a very simple flow: It takes a VHD from the library, creates a new image that will be used for the running VM, places the new virtual machine on the cluster, configures the necessary networking for it, and triggers monitoring on that virtual machine so that we can later (in MonitorVM.ps1) calculate chargeback information.

Let’s take a deeper look into the script. The script starts by getting a few arguments that will allow you to tweak what it’ll do. Naturally it gets the name of the VM to be provisioned, but it also gets a few input arguments to know which virtual machine to deploy and on what cluster, along with a few characteristics of the virtual machine (like the memory size it needs). You can also tell it how the library VHD should be instantiated (copied over or linked back to the library using a differentiating disk).

The first thing that the script does is to select which node to place the virtual machine on. Usually, in the process of a virtual machine placement onto a cloud, there needs to be logic as to which host is the best fit for that VM, or which host is least loaded. In the sample, we just chose to implement a random algorithm to spread the VMs across the cluster. In real life– you’d likely want a smarter algorithm that fits your specific need (or you could just use System Center Virtual Machine Manager and let it do the smart thing!). In the following snippet you can see how the script uses Get-Cluster | Get-ClusterNode to build a list of all nodes in the cluster, and then uses Get-Random to just select one of them as the target:

#Find a random node to place the vm on

$Nodes = @(Invoke-Command-Authentication Credssp-credential $Credential-ComputerName $ComputerName-ScriptBlock {

param( $Name )

Import-ModuleFailoverClusters

Get-Cluster-Name $Name| Get-ClusterNode

} -ArgumentList $Computername)

if ( -not $Nodes)

{

throw "No nodes found"

}

$Target = Get-Random-Maximum $Nodes.count -SetSeed (get-date).millisecond

$TargetName = $nodes[ $target ].name

Once we have the node selected and stored in $TargetName, we can now get to the task of provisioning the actual VM. The script always creates the VHD as a differentiating disk from the parent VHD which is in the master library of VHDs (to avoid duplicating the base), but you can specify that you want the parent VHD to be copied over so that the VM won’t depend on having the parent kept in the library. This all leads to a call to New-VHD to actually create the new VHD for the virtual machine.

# construct the path for the new differencing disk

$parent = Get-ChildItem$ImagePath

# Change vhd name if there is a name collision

$ChildPath = Join-path-Path $defaultVHDLocation-ChildPath ( $Name+ $parent.extension )

$ChildPath = UniqueVHDPath-Path $ChildPath

if( $copyParent ){

$NewParentPath = UniqueVHDPath-path ( Join-path-Path $DefaultVHDLocation-ChildPath $Parent.Name )

Copy-Item -path $parent-Destination $NewParentPath

$parent = Get-ChildItem$newParentpath

if(-not $?){throw "VHD could not be copied"}

}

$NewVHD = New-VHD -ParentPath $Parent.fullname -Path $Childpath -Differencing

Once this is done, it’s a simple matter of a New-VM call to create the new virtual machine and connect it to the network through a virtual switch. If you recall, in the deployment and configuration scripts, when a Hyper-V node was created, we also instantiated a virtual switch that will be used to connect VMs to the network. In a real environment, you may have cases where you need to instantiate more than one switch on a given host, but for simplicity we assume a single switch per host on this configuration:

$vm = New-VM -name $Name -VHDPath $NewVHD.path -MemoryStartupBytes(1 * $Memory) –switchname $SwitchName

Now comes a tricky part. If you look at the sample, you’ll see that right after creating the VM, the sample can use the input argument called NICSettings to set up some advanced settings on the VMNic that was just created (think of the VMNic as the port in the virtual switch that the VM is connected to). This input argument is a PowerShell hashtable and it’s intended to be used only when it’s being called by another script. We will actually use it when we get to our next blog and set of samples of configuring virtual machines with network virtualization, so for now, we’ll leave this piece of code as a mystery code…

That’s about it. Once the VM is there, the script triggers monitoring of the virtual machine (by calling MonitorVM.ps1, see below), and then clusters it by calling Add-ClusterVirtualMachineRole and starts it using Start-VM.

Deploying virtual machines with Windows Server 2012 is pretty easy, isn’t it?

MigrateVM.ps1

Migrating virtual machines around the datacenter (or within a cluster) in a planned manner is a common task for the cloud admin. You’d usually do it for the purpose of balancing the load on your servers, or for servicing servers without interruption to the running workloads. Note that specifically for the servicing scenario, Windows Server 2012 actually has a new capability called “Cluster Aware Updating” that will do all of this heavy lifting for you!

Anyway, for the purpose of the migration sample, we just move a VM between two nodes as specified, so this sample is pretty basic and demonstrates the use of the Move-ClusterVirtualMachineRole cmdlet. Most other samples you have probably seen where focused on Move-VM, which migrates a VM in a non-clustered environment, so we thought it’s worthwhile to provide it just to make the point that it’s different when it’s done on a cluster.

MonitorVM.ps1

This is the last but certainly not the least among this set of samples. This sample demonstrates the use of yet another new Windows Server 2012 feature called resource meters. What resource meter do is allow you to place ‘meters’ on a provisioned virtual machine, start metering it’s network, compute and storage activities, and collect information about resources being used so that later you can use it to calculate how much this virtual should cost to the owner of it.

These resource meters are kept together with the virtual machine even as it’s being migrated across the datacenter, so if you’re building chargeback tools, all you have to do is enable metering on a provisioned virtual machine, and on a periodical basis go and read those meters, calculate the cost information based on that, and reset them for the next cycle. Pretty cool, ha?!

This sample has two modes of operation. It can initialize metering, which is actually happening when the OnboardVM.ps1 scripts calls it while provisioning a VM, and then it has a reporting mode, where you can run it on a VM that was previously provisioned and it will produce a simplified cost report for that VM. Here’s the script’s main dispatching code. Note the use of Invoke-Command –ScriptBlock to actually pass a function of the script as a script block to the target host, instead of having the two modes implemented in separate script files:

if( $Initialize )

{

# Set up monitoring

if ($computername)

{

Invoke-Command –ComputerName $computername -ScriptBlock( get-item function:\Start-VMMonitoring).ScriptBlock -ArgumentList$VM,$ACLs

}

else

{

Start-VMMonitoring $VM

}

else

{

if($computername)

{

invoke-command –ComputerName $computername -ScriptBlock( get-item function:\Calculate-VMCost).scriptblock -ArgumentList$VM, $VMSetting

}

else

{

# Calculate the VMCost for the chargeback cycle

$data =Calculate-VMCost $VM

Write-host "Total Cost: $($data.TotalCost)"

$data

}

To initializing metering, there are actually two things that need to happen. The first is to define meters on network traffic in and out of the virtual machine. Those meters are actually implemented as ACLs on the VM Network Adapter and they can be filtered to only measure “interesting” network traffic flows. Enabling network metering is done by calling the Add-VMNetworkAdapterAclon the VM Network Adapter, and with an action of “Meter” instead of the usual allow/deny you would expect from an ACL.

The sample also takes a few parameters from a settings file to filter the metering and apply it only traffic the virtual machine generates on the tenants network subnet, filtering out traffic to a potential storage volume, for example. Other examples for such filtering would be to only measure network traffic to/from the Internet and not measure internal traffic between virtual machines.

The second thing that needs to be done is to call Enable-VMResourceMetering on the VM. That will trigger metering of the CPU usage and disk usage of that VM. Here’s the code snippet from the sample that actually initializes metering on the virtual machine:

# VM netadapter ACLs for metering

$ACLs = $VMSetting.ACLs

Function Start-VMMonitoring

{

param(

[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]

$VM,

$ACLs

)

$NewVM =Get-VM $VM

#Set ACLs for metering inbound network traffic

$NewVM |Get-VMNetworkAdapter |Add-VMNetworkAdapterAcl -Action Meter -Direction Inbound-RemoteIPAddress $ACLs.Meter.inbound

if(-not$?){ throw"ACLs could not be set on $($NewVM.name)"}

#Set ACLs for metering outbound network traffic

$NewVM |Get-VMNetworkAdapter |Add-VMNetworkAdapterAcl -Action Meter -Direction Outbound-RemoteIPAddress $ACLs.Meter.outbound

if(-not$?){ throw"ACLs could not be set on $(NewVM.name)"}

#Enable resource metering

$NewVM |Enable-VMResourceMetering

if(-not$?){ throw"Resources are not being metered on $(NewVM.name)"}

}

Now, when it comes to collecting the measured data, all the needs to happen is a call to Measure-VM and then reading the returned data:

function Calculate-VMCost

{

param(

[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]

$VM,

$VMSetting

)

if($VMSetting){

$Acls =$VMSetting.ACLs

$Rates =$VMSetting.Rates

}

# Get the VMMeteringReport

$ChargeBackData = Get-VM $VM | Measure-VM

. . .

}

The rest is code that looks at $ChargeBackData and does some dummy calculation of cost for each resource based on rate information found in the settings file. Once we’re done reading, we want to reset the meters so that we’re ready for the next charge cycle:

# Reset metering for next bill cycle. (No output)

Get-VM $VM | Reset-VMResourceMetering

And that’s all there is to it!

The Settings File

You knew this is coming, right?

As in the deployment and configuration sample set, the samples are built in a generic way that should allow you to easily reuse them and tweak the right settings to make them fit your needs. In this case, the configurable settings include things like the VHDLibrary location, IP addresses of your cluster, and some additional settings. Here’s a snapshot of some of them:

$FileServerName = 'Scaleoutfs'

$VHDlibraryShareName = 'VHDLibrary'

$VHDLibraryLocation = "\\$FileServerName\$VHDlibraryShareName"

# $VHDLibraryLocation = 'C:\ClusterStorage\Volume3\VHDs'

$VSwitchname = "TenantSwitch"

$AdminAccount = "hcp\Administrator"

That’s about it for now. In the next blog, we’ll take a look at a set of advanced virtual machines on-boarding samples that will show how to deploy virtual machines in an environment with Hyper-V network virtualization enabled. Stay tuned!

And last but not least, I’d like to remind you that if you find the scripts useful, you should feel free to contribute your own modified versions back to the TechNet ScriptCenter. It’s all about the community!

One PowerShell to Rule Them All…

Yigal Edery

New Exchange Integration Pack On the TechNet Gallery

Travis Wright MSFT — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:23:18 GMT

Bart Timmermans ( blog , @Bart_Inovativ ) , a consultant at Inovativ, has just released an integration pack for Exchange! Here is a graphic of the activities included. You can read more about the integratio pack on his blog or download it from the TechNet Gallery . Nice work Bart! I’m really looking forward to setting up some automated self-service provisioning scenarios with the Service Manager service catalog + Orchestrator on the backend with this integration pack! ...(read more)

New Exchange Integration Pack On the TechNet Gallery

J.C. Hornbeck — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:23:18 GMT

New Exchange Integration Pack On the TechNet Gallery

Travis Wright MSFT — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:53:45 GMT

I’m really looking forward to setting up some automated self-service provisioning scenarios with the Service Manager service catalog + Orchestrator on the backend with this integration pack!

Why I Can't access Hyper-V VM's: "Cannot find the physical computer that runs the virtual machine" Error Message

Alaa A. Al-Ankar — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:44:00 GMT

Hi,

I ran into an issue on my new notebook "Lennovo W520" that runs Windows Server 2008 R2 w/ SP1. I configured Hyper-V and start building my own Labs. i was happy to build a 24 VM's with different technologies in one day :). so I was tired and i went to sleep, but before that i saved all my created VM's so next day i continue working on my personal Lab.

but, and while am drinking my lovely Coffe Morning, I switch on my laptop and fired up my VM console, and bring all the VM's into running state from the saved mode, but when i tried to connect to these VM's by double click on any of the VM's, i start getting this anoying error:

“Cannot find the physical computer that runs the virtual machine. Try to flush your DNS cache (run ipconfig /flushdns). Then try to connect again. If the problem persists, contact the administrator of the physical computer or your network administrator”

after a quick search over the net, I found that this problem happens if you have DirectAccess Service Enabled and Configured on your Hyper-V Host Server (or notebook as in my case), here is the link for a full description of the problem and the How-To:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/thompal/archive/2009/11/06/hyper-v-virtual-machine-connection-and-direct-access.aspx

basically what you need to do is either:

1.Quick Workarround : A less drastic fix, if you happen to have the DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant installed and configured is to right-click the DCA icon in the WIndows taskbar and select "Prefer Local DNS Names". This too clears the NRPT cache from the local computer and gets you around this problem. Re-enabling DirectAccess can be accomplished by right-clicking DCA again and selecting "Prefer Corporation DNS Names"

2. Another Solution: from the Hyper-V Host Server do the following:

- go into the Registry and delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\DNSClient\DnsPolicyConfig"
- in an elevated command prompt, enter: sc control dnscache paramchange

After that the “Virtual Machine Connection” was working fine.

Search application 'Search Service Application' is in a good state and try again

saantil — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:34:12 GMT

We get the error on Search Admin page "Search service application is not working we are getting error "The search service is not able to connect to the machine that hosts the administration component. Verify that the administration component <GUID> in search application 'Search Service Application' is in a good state and try again."

Solution:-

We started search service on a different service and created Search application using power shell.

You can provision your own service application pool instead of using the SharePoint Web Services Default.

•    $app = new-spserviceapplicationpool –name MOSS2010_Search_AppPool -account domain\account

Create Search Service Application

•     $SearchApp = New-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication -Name MOSS2010_SSA -applicationpool $App -databasename MOSS2010_SSADB

•     $proxy = new-spenterprisesearchserviceapplicationproxy -name MOSS2010searchserviceapplicationproxy -Uri $searchapp.uri.absoluteURI

•     $proxy.status

•     $si = get-spenterprisesearchserviceinstance –local

•     $si.status

•     Start-SpEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -identity $SI

•    set-spenterprisesearchadministrationcomponent –searchapplication $searchapp –searchserviceinstance $si

•     $ct = $searchapp | new-spenterprisesearchcrawltopology

•     $csid = $SearchApp.CrawlStores | select id

•     $CrawlStore = $SearchApp.CrawlStores.item($csid.id)

•     $hname = hostname

•     new-spenterprisesearchcrawlcomponent -crawltopology $ct -crawldatabase $Crawlstore -searchserviceinstance $hname

•     $qt = $searchapp | new-spenterprisesearchquerytopology -partitions 1

•     $p1 = ($qt | get-spenterprisesearchindexpartition)

•     new-spenterprisesearchquerycomponent -indexpartition $p1 -querytopology $qt -searchserviceinstance $si

•     $PSID = $SearchApp.PropertyStores | Select id

•     $PropDB = $SearchApp.PropertyStores.Item($PSID.id)

•     $p1 | set-spenterprisesearchindexpartition -PropertyDatabase $PropDB

•     $qt | Set-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryTopology –Active

Introduction of iSCSI Target in Windows Server 2012

Jane Yan[MSFT] — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:32:17 GMT

The iSCSI Target made its debut as a free download for Windows 2008 R2 in April 2011, since then, there were more than 60,000 downloads. That was the first step to make it available for everyone. Now in Windows Server 2012, no more downloads and separate installation; it comes as a build-in feature. This blog will provide step-by-step instructions to enable and configure iSCSI Target.

If you are not familiar with iSCSI Target, it allows your Windows Server to share block storage remotely. iSCSI leverages the Ethernet network and does not require any specialized hardware. In this release we have developed a brand new UI integrated with Server manager, along with 20+ cmdlets for easy management. The following references also provide additional examples/use cases:

Six uses for the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target

Using the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target with Hyper-V

Diskless servers can boot and run from the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target using a regular network card!

Note: the instructions from the above references are for previous release, they are not applicable on Windows Server 2012. Please use the instructions provided in this blog instead.

Overview

There are two features related to iSCSI Target:

· The iSCSI Target Server is the server component which provides the block storage to initiators.

· The iSCSI Target Storage Provider (VDS and VSS) includes 2 components:

o VDS provider

o VSS provider

The diagram below shows how they relate to each other:

The providers are for remote Target management. The VDS provider is typically installed on a storage management server, and allows user to manage storage in a central location using VDS. VSS provider is involved when application running on initiator is taking application consistent snapshot. This storage provider works on Windows Server 2012, for version support matrix, please go to the FAQ section.

As it shown on the diagram, the iSCSI Target and Storage providers are enabled on different servers. This blog focuses on the iSCSI Target Server, and will provide instructions for enabling iSCSI Target Server. It is similar in UI to enable the Storage providers, just be sure to enabling it on the application server.

Terminology

iSCSI: it is an industry standard protocol allow sharing block storage over the Ethernet. The server shares the storage is called iSCSI Target. The server (machine) consumes the storage is called iSCSI initiator. Typically, the iSCSI initiator is an application server. For example, iSCSI Target provides storage to a SQL server, the SQL server will be the iSCSI initiator in this deployment.

Target: It is an object which allows the iSCSI initiator to make a connection. The Target keeps track of the initiators which are allowed to be connected to it. The Target also keeps track of the iSCSI virtual disks which are associated with it. Once the initiator establishes the connection to the Target, all the iSCSI virtual disks associated with the Target will be accessible by the initiator.

iSCSI Target Server: The server runs the iSCSI Target. It is also the iSCSI Target role name in Windows Server 2012.

iSCSI virtual disk: It also referred to as iSCSI LUN. It is the object which can be mounted by the iSCSI initiator. The iSCSI virtual disk is backed by the VHD file. For the VHD compatibility, refer to FAQ.

iSCSI connection: iSCSI initiator makes a connection to the iSCSI Target by logging on to a Target. There could be multiple Targets on the iSCSI Target Server, each Target can be accessed by a defined list of initiators. Multiple initiators can make connections to the same Target. However, this type of configuration is only supported with clustering. Because when multiple initiators connects to the same Target, all the initiators can read/write to the same set of iSCSI virtual disks, if there is no clustering (or equivalent process) to govern the disk access, corruption will occur. With Clustering, only one machine is allowed to access the iSCSI virtual disk at one time.

IQN: It is a unique identifier of the Target or Initiator. The Target IQN is shown when it is created on the Server. The initiator IQN can be found by typing a simple “iscsicli” cmd in the command window.

Loopback: There are cases where you want to run the initiator and Target on the same machine; it is referred as “loopback”. In Windows Server 2012, it is a supported configuration. In loopback configuration, you can provide the local machine name to the initiator for discovery, and it will list all the Targets which the initiator can connect to. Once connected, the iSCSI virtual disk will be presented to the local machine as a new disk mounted. There will be performance impact to the IO, since it will travel through the iSCSI initiator and Target software stack when comparing to other local IOs. One use case of this configuration is to have initiators writing data to the iSCSI virtual disk, then mount those disks on the Target server (using loopback) to check the data in read mode.

iSCSI Target management overview

Using Server Manager

iSCSI Target can be managed by the UI through Server Manager, or cmdlets. With Server Manager, a new iSCSI page will be displayed, as follow:

All the iSCSI virtual disk, Target management can be done through this page.

Note: iSCSI initiator UI management is done by the initiator control panel, which can be launched through Server Manager:

Using cmdlets

Cmdlets are grouped in modules. To get all the cmdlets in a module, you can type

Get-command –module <modulename>

iSCSI Target cmdlets: -module iSCSITarget

iSCSI initiator cmdlets: -module iSCSI

Volume, partition, disk, Storage pool and related cmdlets: -module storage

To use iSCSI Target end to end, cmdlets from all three modules will be used as illustrated in the examples below.

Enable iSCSI Target

Using Server Manager (UI)

iSCSI Target can be enabled using Add roles and features in the Server Manager:

1. Choose the Role-based or feature-based installation option

2. Select the server you want to enable iSCSI Target

3. Select the iSCSI Target Role:

To enable iSCSI Target feature, you should select the “iSCSI Target Server” feature.

4. Confirm the installation

Using cmdlets

Open the powershell cmdlet window, and run the following cmdlet:

Add-WindowsFeature FS-iSCSITarget-Server

Configuration

Create iSCSI LUN

To share storage, the first thing is to create an iSCSI LUN (aka. iSCSI virtual disk). The iSCSI virtual disk is backed by a VHD file.

Using Server Manager

Once the iSCSI Target role is enabled, Server Manager will have an iSCSI page:

The first wizard link is to create iSCSI Virtual Disk.

	Since Server Manager allows for multi machine management, the UI is built to support that. If you have multiple servers in the management pool, you can create iSCSI Virtual disk on any servers with iSCSI Target enabled from one management UI.
	The UI also pre-populates the Path to “iSCSIVirtualDisks” by default. If you want to use a different one, go to the previous page, and select “Type a custom path”. If the path doesn’t exist, it will be created.
	Specify the iSCSI virtual disk size.
	Now the wizard will guide you to assign the virtual disk to an iSCSI Target.
	Give the Target a name. This name will be discovered by the iSCSI initiator, and use for the connection.
	This page allows you to specify the initiators which can access the virtual disk, by allowing the Target to be discovered by defined list of initiators. Clustering: You can configure multiple initiators to access the same virtual disk by adding more initiators to the list. To add the initiators, click on the Add button.
	The wizard is designed to simplify the assignment using the server name. By default, it is recommended to use IQN. The IQN is typically long, so the wizard will be able to resolve the computer name to IQN if the computer is Windows Server 2012. If the initiator is running previous Windows OS, you can also find the IQNs as described in the Terminology section.
	CHAP is an authentication mechanism defined by the iSCSI standard to secure access to the target. It allows the initiator to authenticate to the Target, and in reverse allowing the Target to authenticate against the initiator. Note: You cannot retrieve the CHAP information once it is set. If you lose the CHAP information, it will need to be set again.
	Last, the confirmation page.

Once the wizard is completed, the iSCSI Virtual Disk will be shown on the iSCSI Page.

If you want to find all the iSCSI Virtual disks hosted on a volume, one simple way of doing this is to go to the Volume page, and select the volume. All the iSCSI virtual disks on that volume will be shown on the page:

Using Cmdlet

Same configuration can also be automated using the cmdlet.

1. LUN creation: New-IscsiVirtualDisk c:\test\1.vhd –size 1GB

First parameter is the VHD file path. The file name must not exist. If you want to load an existing VHD file, use Import-IscsiVirtualDisk command. The –size parameter specifies the size of the VHD file.

2. Target creation: New-IscsiServerTarget TestTarget2 –InitiatorIds “IQN: iqn.1991-05.com.Microsoft:VM1.contoso.com”

The first parameter is the Target name, and the –InitiatorIds stores the initiators which can connect to the Target.

3. Assign VHD to Target: Add-IscsiVirtualDiskTargetMapping TestTarget2 c:\test\1.vhd

Configure iSCSI initiator to logon the Target

Once the iSCSI Virtual disk is created and assigned, it is ready for the initiator to logon.

Typically, the iSCSI initiator and iSCSI Target are on different machines (physical or virtual). You will need to provide the iSCSI Target server IP or host name to the initiator, and the initiator will be able to do a discovery of the iSCSI Target. All the Targets which can be accessed will be presented to the initiator. If you cannot find the Target name, check

1. The Target Server IP or hostname which was given to the initiator

2. The initiator IQN which assigned to the Target object. It is very common to have a typo in this field. One trick to verify this, is to assign the Target with “IQN:*”, which means any initiator can access this Target. It is not a recommended practice, but a good troubleshooting technique.

3. Network connectivity between initiator and Target machine.

Using UI

Launch the iSCSI initiator Properties from Server Manager -> Tools

	Go to the Discovery tab page and click on the Discover Portal. Add the IP address of the iSCSI Target Server.
	After discovery, all the Targets from the Server will be listed in the “Discovered Targets” box. Select the one you want to connect, and click on Connect. This will allow the initiator to connect to the target and access associated disks.
	Connect button will launch a “Connect to Target” dialog box. If target is not configure with CHAP, you can simply click “OK” to connect. To specify CHAP information, click on the Advanced button. Check the “Enable CHAP log on” box, and provide the CHAP information. Advanced configuration by specify IPs for iSCSI connection: If you want to dedicate iSCSI traffic to a specific set of the NICs, you can specify that in the “Connect using”. By default, any IPs can be used for iSCSI connection. Note if a specific IP is configured, and the IP address changed due to DHCP, the iSCSI initiator will not be able to reconnect after reboot. You will need to change the IP on this page, then connect.
	Connection established.

Using Cmdlet

By default iSCSI initiator service is not started, the cmdlet will not work. If you launch the iSCSI initiator from the control panel, it will prompt for service start, as well as setting the service to start automatically.

For the equivalent using the cmdlet, you need to run

Start-Service msiscsi

Set-Service msiscsi –StartupType “Automatic”

1. Specify the iSCSI Target Server name:

New-IscsiTargetPortal –TargetPortalAddress Netboot-1

This is similar to the discovery in the UI.

2. Get the available Targets (this is optional):

Get-IscsiTarget

3. Connect:

Connect-IscsiTarget –NodeAddress “iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:netboot-1-nettarget-target”

If you want to connect all the Targets, you can also type:

Get-IscsiTarget | Connect-IscsiTarget

4. Register the Target as Favorite target, so that, it will reconnect upon initiator machine reboot.

Register-IscsiSession -SessionIdentifier "fffffa8004146020-4000013700000007"

You can get the sessionIdentifier from output of Connect-IscsiTarget, or Get-IscsiSession

Create new volume

Once the connection is established, the iSCSI virtual disk will be presented to the initiator as a disk. By default, this disk will be offline,. For typical usage, you want to create a volume, format the volume and assign with a drive letter so it can be used just like a local hard disk.

Using Server Manager

You can right click on the disk to bring it online, but it is not necessary. If you run the new volume wizard, it will be brought online automatically.

From Server Manager->File and Storage Services->Volumes->Disks page, check the disk 2 is in offline mode:

Launch the New Volume Wizard, from

	Select the disk. Disk 2 is the offline iSCSI virtual disk.
	UI will bring the disk online, and initialize it to GPT. GPT is preferred, for more information, see here. If you have specific reasons creating MBR partition, you will need to use the cmdlet.
	Specifies the volume size.
	Assign drive letter
	You can create either NTFS or ReFS volume. For more information about ReFS, please see the link
	Confirmation page to create the new volume

Using cmdlet

The following cmdlets are provided by the Storage module:

1. Check if the initiator can see the disk: Get-disk

2. Bring disk 3 online:

Set-disk –number 3 –IsOffline 0

3. Make disk 3 writable:

Set-disk –number 3 –isReadOnly 0

4. Initialize the disk 3:

Initialize-Disk -Number 3 -PartitionStyle MBR

5. Create a partition on disk 3 (To avoid a format volume popup in Windows Explorer, let’s not assign a drive letter at this time. We will do that after the volume is formatted)

New-Partition -DiskNumber 3 -UseMaximumSize -AssignDriveLetter:$False

6. Format volume:

Get-Partition –DiskNumber 3 | Format-Volume

7. Assign the drive letter now:

Get-Partition –DiskNumber 3 | Add-PartitionAccessPath –AssignDriveLetter:$true

FAQs

If you have used previous release of the iSCSI Target, the most noticeable change in Window Server 2012 is the user experience. Some common questions are:

1. Installing the web download of iSCSI Target for Windows Server 2008 R2 on Windows Server 2012.

The installation might succeed, but you won’t be able to configure it. You need to uninstall the download, and enable the inbox iSCSI Target.

2. Trying to manage the iSCSI Target with the MMC snapin

The new UI is integrated with Server Manager. Once the feature is enabled, you can manage the iSCSI Target from the “iSCSI” tab page. Server Manager\File and Storage Services\iSCSI

3. How to get all the cmdlet for iSCSI Target?

Type ��get-command –module iscsiTarget” . The list shows all the cmdlets to manage the iSCSI Target.

4. Running the cmdlet scripts developed using the previous release

Although most of the cmdlets do work, there are changes to the parameters which may not be compatible. If you run into issues with the cmdlets developed from the previous release, please run the get-help cmdname to verify the parameter settings.

5. Running the WMI scripts developed using the previous release

Although most of the WMI classes are unchanged, some changes are not backward compatible. If you run into issues with the cmdlets developed from the previous release, please check the WMI classes and its parameters.

6. SMI-S support

iSCSI Target doesn’t have the SMI-S support in Windows Server 2012.

7. VHD compatibility

iSCSI virtual disk stores data in a VHD file. This VHD file is compatible with Hyper-V, i.e. you can load this VHD file using either iSCSI or Hyper-V. Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 has introduced a new virtual hard disk format VHDx, which is not supported by iSCSI Target. Refer the table below for more details:

8. Cmdlet help

If you have any questions about the cmdlet, type “get-help cmdletname” to learn the usage. Before you can use get-help, you need to run “Update-help –module iscsTarget”, this allows the help content to be downloaded to your machine. Of course, this also implies you will need internet connectivity to get the content. This is a new publishing model of the help content, which allows for dynamic update of the content.

9. Storage Provider and iSCSI Target Version interop matrix

iSCSI Target has made a few releases in the past, below shows the version numbers and the supported OS it runs on.

iSCSI Target 3.2 <-> Windows Storage Server 2008

iSCSI Target 3.3 <-> Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2

iSCSI Target (build-in) <-> Windows Server 2012

For each Target release, there is a corresponding storage provider package, which allows the remote management. The table below shows the interop matrix.

Note:

1: Storage provider 3.3 on Server 2012 can manage iSCSI Target 3.2. This has been tested.

2: the 2012 Downlevel storage provider is a web download, which is planned to be released for RTM.

10. Does iSCSI Target support Storage spaces?

Storage space is a new feature in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, which provides storage availability and resiliency with commodity hardware. You can find more information about the Storage Spaces feature here. Hosting iSCSI virtual disks on Storage Spaces is supported. Using iSCSI LUNs in a Storage Spaces pool is not supported. Below is a topology diagram to illustrate the two scenarios:

Supported setup
Not supported setup

Conclusion

I hope this helps you get started using the iSCSI Target in Windows Server 2012, or make a smoother transition from the previous user experience. This blog only covers the most basic configurations. If you have questions not covered, please raise it in the comments, so I can address it with upcoming postings.

Slow crawl with SharePoint connector via FAST content SSA

saantil — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:31:18 GMT

We found that crawl will start with high speed but after that it will hangs and we will not see any progress.

In ULS we see following errors.

05-09-2012 14:06:23.13 mssearch.exe (0x27D4) 0x2724 SharePoint Server Search             Search service   cd14       Warning                A database error occurred. Source: Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 10.0 Code: 515 occurred 1 time(s) Description: Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'GthrDBID', table 'GWIM_NonCustom_FAST_ContentService.dbo.MSSAutoHostDistrRules'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails. Context: Application 'FAST_Content_Service'
05-09-2012 14:06:23.13 mssearch.exe (0x27D4) 0x2724 SharePoint Server Search             UtilCommon      cd09       High                error 0: Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'GthrDBID', table 'GWIM_NonCustom_FAST_ContentService.dbo.MSSAutoHostDistrRules'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails. (source Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 10.0, 0x80040e2f, code 515: ) [atldbext.cxx:1386] d:\office\source\search\libs\utild\atldbext.cxx
05-09-2012 14:06:23.13 mssearch.exe (0x27D4) 0x2724 SharePoint Server Search             GatherSvc           e58e      Medium                CTransaction::AddLink: InsertOneRowNonCrawledAnchor failed, Error is 0x80040e2f [gthrtrx.cxx:2159] d:\office\source\search\native\gather\gthrsvc\gthrtrx.cxx
05-09-2012 14:06:23.14 mssearch.exe (0x27D4) 0x38C8 SharePoint Server Search             GatherPI              e5gm     High                CGatherer::GetHost: cmdGetHost.Open SQL failure HRESULT 0x80040e2f              [gatherobj.cxx:8852] d:\office\source\search\native\gather\server\gatherobj.cxx

We found a Stored Proc (proc_MSS_GetHost ) that is executed when the search runtime is prepared for execution.
The job of this SP is to run this statement - SELECT TOP 1 @GthrDBID = Ordinal FROM MSSCrawlStores WHERE Ordinal IS NOT NULL and IsDedicated = 0 ORDER BY DocCount ASC

If the above statement finds no matching records ( values) then the code will attempt to insert a NULL value in the table which then throw the above error that we see in ULS since we don’t allow NULL values.
Then we tried to find out in what circumstances statement will find no matching values -
We found that there were “Host Distribution Rules” in Content SSA with only dedicated Crawl Store for hosts.

Solution;
=========

We created a Crawl Store marked as non-dedicated. Ran the full crawl .

This happens because If all crawl stores are dedicated type, then discovered URLs have nowhere to go, and the crawl will hang.

Values are not crawled as multi- valued using fast content SSA.

saantil — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:22:45 GMT

Here are the sceneries :-

• Created a list with two columns, one with lookup and one with MMS. Both are set to use multi value.

• Added few items.

• Did full crawl with FAST content SSA. Fund that it was crawled as Multi-valued as NO

• Now did a full crawl with SharePoint SSA. Fund that it was crawled as Multi-valued as YES

Now when search for content we don’t get data where we have multiple value s.

Solution :-

When you add a crawled property in a managed property try to add both with (TEST) and (), do a full crawl .

By doing this we can get the multiple values but the only issue is the values will not be separated by any spl characters.

Then other way to accomplish it to use custom processing component.

You can get the details in info at.

Create a custom processing component to apply the correct multivalued character separator

http://searchunleashed.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/working-with-fast-search-for-sharepoint-and-multivalued-properties/#configure-pipeline-extensibility

Microsoft открывает центр НИОКР в Сколково

RUmicrosoftERP — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:11:00 GMT

Сегодня президент Microsoft Business Solutions Кирилл Татаринов и вице-президент фонда «Сколково» по работе с международными партнерами Конор Ленихан подписали соглашение об открытии центра НИОКР Microsoft в Сколково. К 2015 году в Центре будет задействована команда из более чем сотни разработчиков, которые займутся в рамках сколковского проекта прикладными исследованиями и разработкой программных решений. Новый R&D центр Microsoft будет создавать новую архитектуру и проектировать гибкую структуру и функциональность продуктов семейства Microsoft Dynamics. Работа эта ориентирована не только на Россию: различные решения будут разрабатываться в соответствии с требованиями и потребностями разных стран мира. А «Сколково», таким образом, станет одним из мировых центров разработки программных решений, рынок которых достигает сотни миллиардов долларов.

Полная версия сообщения - Russian Microsoft blog

Официальный сайт - official site of Microsoft Russia

Некоторые другие источники - Rambler , TV 100 TV channel, Expert , RIA Novosti , Digit.ru , Interfax, RBC , Vesti, Lenta.ru , BFM.

OSBC 2012: Advancing Interoperability in the Cloud

Peter Galli — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:08:00 GMT

At the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco today, Sandy Gupta, the General Manager for Microsoft’s Open Solutions Group, along with Alan Clark, Director of New Initiatives and Emerging Standards for Open Source at SUSE, announced the release of a beta version of the SUSE Manager Management Pack for System Center.

In a blog post, Gupta said the announcement, which was made in collaboration with SUSE, lets this management pack connect the Linux server management capabilities provided by SUSE Manager to System Center, Microsoft’s management platform.

“As a result, customers will be able to administer both Windows and Linux environments from a single management console,” he said.

Gupta positioned the management pack as one example of the work Microsoft is doing to advance interoperability for private clouds. You can try the Linux management capabilities this management pack provides for System Center here.

“On the public cloud front, there’s extensive work going on across the company to facilitate interoperability between Microsoft and open source cloud tools and services. One of the most exciting examples of this comes from the SQL Server Team -- the Hadoop-based service for Windows Azure, for which Microsoft released a second preview last month,” he said.

This solution for managing “big data,” connecting it and turning it into business insight, is a prime example of the type of value customers want to realize as a result of leveraging open source and Microsoft software together, he noted.

You can read his full blog post here.

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Slow crawl with SharePoint connector via FAST content SSA

Values are not crawled as multi- valued using fast content SSA.

Microsoft открывает центр НИОКР в Сколково

OSBC 2012: Advancing Interoperability in the Cloud

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