GuillaumeD's blog : WS08

Virtualisation... du rab !

GuillaumeD — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:17:00 GMT

J'ai été un peu vite hier et j'ai oublié une information quelque peu conséquente, la disponibilité de SCVMM 2008 (System Center Virtual Machine Manager) d'ici 30 jours.

A noter que SCVMM 2008 sera capable de prendre en charge les produits suivants :

Virtual Server 2005 R2
Hyper-V (la version de Windows Server 2008)
Hyper-V Server
VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3

Par ailleurs, l'évènement décrit hier aura son pendant en France le 2 Octobre prochain avec la présence du bouillonant Steve Ballmer.

Pour toutes les informations et vous inscrire cliquez ici : Microsoft Days - Virtualisation

~ Guillaume

My working environment - Part 1

GuillaumeD — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:30:21 GMT

As products evolve, I want to use as much as possible the new technologies I have to support. To reach this goal I decided to build an environment respecting Microsoft security policies but enough flexible to host quickly and easily all kind of products and most of all : provide tools to troubleshoot customer issues !

From now, I have 4 more drafts in hand dealing with this subject (i.e. "My working environment") but I will begin by the beginning : describing what I installed and what I daily use in my job.

This first post will deal with an overview of the hardware involved and how I defined the job for each of the machines I have (hope nobody will ask me why I have so much machines :-) and how they work together.

Machines

I have some of those machines since my first(s) day(s) at Microsoft, I grabbed the old Dell OptiPlex when we had our last machines' upgrade and the GX620 from a team mate which has virtualized all his machines.

And a very old Dell OptiPlex I use to present SCSI disks to my HP xw6200.

Network

All my machines are connected to a Gb switch which is connected to the Corporate Network through my IP Phone. This one is limited to 100Mb but as most of my traffic is between my computers it's not a real issue.

I also have a private network (also on a Gb switch) to allow communication between my Hyper-V server and my Virtual Server 2005 server. I can then have more virtual machines (well... not so much !) in the same environment and have some routing capabilities which is useful to test stretched clusters or running some repro scenarios when dealing with customer issues.
This private network is also used for my physical iSCSI network (where the Initiator Software Target is my HP xw6200) used to present shared disks to my physical cluster and to some virtual machines.

Here is a schema to understand how it is configured physically :

Machines roles

So here are the roles I assigned to the machines :

Cluster Windows Server 2008
- Clustered File Server
- Clustered Print Server
- Machines involved
  - Dell Precision 690
  - Dell OptiPlex GX620
iSCSI network
- Used to share disks in my cluster
- Machines involved
  - HP xw6200 : ISCSI Software Target Initiator
  - Dell Precision 690 : iSCSI Target
  - Dell OptiPlex GX620 : iSCSI Target
Hyper-V
- Dell Precision 690
Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1
- HP xw6200
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
- Used to manage my Hyper-V and Virtual Server servers
- Machine involved
  - HP xw6200
System Center Data Protection Manager 2007
- Used to backup some data on my servers
- Used to backup my laptop
- Machine involved
  - HP xw6200

When I'm at the office, my laptop is the master commander of all of this. Through RSAT (Remote Server Administration Tools), the diverse MMC consoles, Windows Remote Shell and of course Remote Desktop I have a large set of tools to manage the servers. But I'll speak about this in another post.

My next post regarding this theme will describe all the configuration steps I followed to set up this small infrastructure.

To be continued...

~ Guillaume

Windows Server roadmap

GuillaumeD — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:04:05 GMT

For those who are curious about the roadmap of Windows Server, you can find it here :

Product Roadmap

The next version should be a minor release named Windows Server 2008 R2 if we consider the post on the Windows Server Division blog : Windows Server '7' aka "Windows Server 2008 R2"

~ Guillaume

Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008

GuillaumeD — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:50:34 GMT

You can find this guide here : Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008

There's a lot of tuning aspects in this document, including Hyper-V.

~ Guillaume

Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide

GuillaumeD — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:54:32 GMT

Here is the first release of the deployment guide for Hyper-V :

Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide

In my opinion this document gives a good overview of the requirements and limits of Hyper-V and some useful information on some of the main components of this platform.

But I still wait a deployment guide for clustered Hyper-V as there is many options to set up a highly available virtualized environment with this hypervisor.

~ Guillaume

Clustered Hyper-V improvements

GuillaumeD — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:57:00 GMT

A new update has been released to improve the behavior of Hyper-V while clustered.

Extract :

"This update incorporates changes in the way that the Windows Server 2008 Failover Cluster Management console functions for the Hyper-V role. These changes provide increased functionality and virtual machine controls that are consistent with the Hyper-V Manager console.
This update changes the Failover Cluster Management console (the Cluadmin.msc file) and the server components of the failover cluster. If this update is installed on one node, it should be installed on all nodes of a Windows Server 2008 failover cluster. It may be installed on one node at a time. However, we recommend having all the nodes updated in a reasonable time. You may experience errors on a Failover Cluster Manager that has not been updated to a failover cluster that has had this update applied. These errors occur because of differences between the non-updated Cluadmin.msc file and the updated failover cluster."

Be sure to review the following technical article to learn about the changes and get the update (there's a link at the top of the KB) :

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=951308

~ Guillaume

Do you know TechNet Edge ?

GuillaumeD — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:54:00 GMT

That's a cool link !

You will be able to found videos of PMs (Product Managers) speaking about the product they manage and it gives another sight on our products.

One I like is on Hyper-V High Availability : http://edge.technet.com/Media/Hyper-V-Part-5-High-Availability-Interview-with-PMs/

~ Guillaume

Fichiers de réponse Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008

GuillaumeD — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:38:00 GMT

Mon assiduité sur ce blog laisse à désirer depuis quelques temps... et ce n'est pas près de changer !

La faute aux demandes de plus en plus nombreuses des clients souhaitant en savoir plus à propos de Windows Server 2008 et à ceux demandant notre assistance pour rapidement prendre en main les aspects de déploiement de ce nouvel OS !

Je souhaitais poster à propos d'un aspect particulier du déploiement qui nécessite quelque peu de s'y pencher : le fichier de réponses.

Vous trouverez une explication très simplifiée de la façon qu'a désormais le setup de s'exécuter ici : Installation automatisée de Windows Vista ou de Windows Server 2008.

J'y donne un exemple d'installation unattended mais vous serez peut-être intéressés par la création d'un fichier de réponse utilisé dans le cadre d'un sysprep.

Voici donc un exemple permettant d'automatiser l'exécution de sysprep sur Windows Server 2008 (utilisable pour Windows Vista) :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="windowsPE">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <UserData>
                <AcceptEula>true</AcceptEula>
                <FullName>Test</FullName>
                <Organization>Test</Organization>
            </UserData>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core-WinPE" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <SetupUILanguage>
            <UILanguage>en-us</UILanguage>
            </SetupUILanguage>
            <InputLocale>040C:0000040C</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>en-us</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>en-us</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>en-us</UserLocale>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="oobeSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <OOBE>
                <HideEULAPage>true</HideEULAPage>
                <NetworkLocation>Work</NetworkLocation>
                <ProtectYourPC>3</ProtectYourPC>
            </OOBE>
            <TimeZone>Romance Standard Time</TimeZone>
            <RegisteredOwner>Test</RegisteredOwner>
            <RegisteredOrganization>Test</RegisteredOrganization>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <InputLocale>040C:0000040C</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>en-us</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>en-us</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>en-us</UserLocale>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="catalog://server/medias$/os/catalogs/install_windows longhorn serverdatacentercore_amd64.clg" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" />
</unattend>

Ce fichier permet d'exécuter sysprep en ne laissant que le nom du système à définir manuellement. Egalement à la fin du processus, lorsque l'on ouvre une session en administrateur local, le système demande à modifier son mot de passe.

Pour créer ce fichier de réponse, utilisez Windows System Image Manager (inclus dans le Windows AIK).

J'oubliais...

Pour exécuter sysprep, copiez ce fichier de réponse dans C:\Windows\System32\sysprep et exécutez la commande suivante :

C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /oobe /generalize /unattend:C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\monfichier.xml

~ Guillaume

Veuillez noter que cette procédure est proposée "telle quelle" sans aucune garantie ni engagement de support. Elle n'engage Microsoft en aucun cas.
Si, cependant, vous considérez ce post flou, incomplet ou inadequat, n'hésitez pas à me le faire savoir !

Useful links... for Server Core

GuillaumeD — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:15:00 GMT

For those trying Windows Server 2008 as a Server Core server, it could be useful to know which command line tools are available and how to use them.

It will be unfair to not use this edition of Windows Server because you missed this information !

So here they are :

For those thinking I speak about the syntax of xcopy, dir or whatever command, I would ask : are you clever with cluster.exe, netsh or sc ? :-)

~ Guillaume

Excellent "real life" blog and case study !

GuillaumeD — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:43:00 GMT

During the past weeks, I worked with a customer that implemented a ton of new stuff around deployment and virtualization.

He did a fantastic job and continue to dig into those new Microsoft technologies as you can see on his blog : http://blogs.ethz.ch/jlaville/

Additionally, you can check out the case study :

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000001734

Note that this post is provided "as is" with no warranty nor supportability engagement. It does not engage Microsoft at all.
Nevertheless if you consider this not clear, incomplete or inadequate, please let me know !

MDT 2008 is here !

GuillaumeD — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:08:00 GMT

The so awaited Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 has been released !

That's huge !

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008

Extract from the Release Notes :

The following list highlights the many new features that have been included in this release of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit:

Deployment Workbench

To better align with System Center Configuration Manager, Deployment Workbench has been modified to create and use task sequences instead of builds.
Support for multiple task sequence templates has been added. Included with this release of MDT are sample templates. Among them are a client template for Windows Vista and Windows XP, a server template for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003, a Replace scenario template, and a custom template that can be used to build task sequences that perform tasks in addition to the deployment of operating systems.

System Center Configuration Manager support, with the following features

MDT 2008 supports System Center Configuration Manager deployments for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003.
MDT 2008 functionality is completely integrated into the System Center Configuration Manager server. Deployment Workbench is not used with System Center Configuration Manager operations, except when configuring the Deployment Workbench database (DWDB).
Ability to quick-start System Center Configuration Manager operating system deployments using one wizard to create either operating system packages or operating system installation packages, a Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT) package, a System Preparation Tool (Sysprep) package, a customized boot image, or an MDT 2008 custom settings package (using CustomSettings.ini, Unattend.xml, Unattend.txt, or Sysprep.inf).
Manage deployment settings directly in Configuration Manager Console.
Dynamically determine whether user state is backed up locally or to the state management point.
System Center Configuration Manager uses the CustomSettings.ini file and DWDB to determine the list of packages that will be installed on the target computer. When this list of packages is determined, System Center Configuration Manager performs the required installations.
A new wizard for creating the boot image is available on the Boot Images node.

LTI deployment

Deployment team members have the option of configuring disks and network adapters as deployment tasks in LTI deployments.
Functionality has been designed to work like System Center Configuration Manager to ease migration from LTI and Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 to System Center Configuration Manager.
LTI can use Windows Deployment Services multicast transmission when performing LTI deployments of operating system images from Windows Server 2008 servers.
MDT 2008 supports LTI deployment for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista with SP1.
Support to optionally back up the existing drive C on new computers, in addition to support for backing up and reformatting the old computer in Replace scenarios.

Software updates

Support for detecting, downloading, and installing software updates that are available through the Microsoft Updates Web site or intranet servers running Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

Web service calls

Web services can be invoked as part of the rules processing performed by MDT 2008, using new rules that can be defined in CustomSettings.ini.

Windows Server roles

Support for the installation and, in some cases, configuration of Windows Server roles. These roles include Active Directory® directory service Domain Services (AD DS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Domain Name Service (DNS), Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services, Windows Deployment Services, and Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS).

Package groups

Added PackageGroup functionality. Package groups help separate packages during installation. For instance, when you have multiple operating systems to deploy and they use different packages or require different levels of patches or different languages, you can assign packages to different groups. You then assign the group to a particular operating system during deployment or you can select a package group for a task sequence. A PackageGroup can be assigned using the PackageGroup variable in CustomSettings.ini.

Distribution Share Wizard

The installation and configuration process for MDT 2008 has changed from BDD 2007. In MDT 2008, Windows Installer does not create a distribution share. Team members instead need to use Deployment Workbench to create the distribution share before adding the operating system source, applications, and so on.
There is now support for side-by-side installation of MDT 2008 and BDD 2007 installed on the same computer.
There is now support for upgrading a BDD 2007 distribution share to MDT 2008.

An overview of new features of Windows Server 2008 by Ward Ralston (Microsoft PM)

GuillaumeD — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:45:00 GMT

Discover new features of the upcoming server OS in an excellent webcast organized for French customers last november by a French Beta Engineer and animated by Ward Ralston, a really huge Product Manager in Redmond in the Windows Server 2008 Launch Team.

English language except for the intro :-)

Here is the link to the webcast.

Enjoy !