Available Now - Mastering Windows Server 2012 R2

Just before the Christmas break, it was a nice surprise to see the postman had delivered a package that essentially represented the best part of 12 months of hard work for me - mostly working into the early hours of the morning after the day job finished.

This delivery was none other than the 'dead tree' format of my new book...

Late last year and not too long after our 'Mastering System Center 2012 - Operations Manager' book hit the shelves, I was given the opportunity to head up an excellent team of authors to work on a book that would cover the original release of Windows Server 2012. The book was essentially an update to the excellent 'Mastering Windows Server 2008 R2' book that was led by well known author and speaker Mark Minasi with co-authors like Aidan Finn working their magic throughout. (No pressure on us then!)

This updated Windows Server 2012 book was due to hit the shelves by March/April but when Microsoft announced the upcoming Windows Server 2012 R2 release (codenamed Windows Blue), we just knew we had to re-do our work on the book to keep it consistent and current. What we didn't realise is the sheer volume of extra work that the new R2 release had landed us with and suckers like me who had 8 chapters to work on pretty much had to do a re-write of everything - not to mention labs being rebuilt/upgraded too!

Reading through the full book now though, I can see that all the effort was worth it and I want to say a big thanks to all involved in bringing this to market. There's a great team of authors and editors behind it and if you want to ramp up on your Windows Server 2012 R2 knowledge, then this is a great place to start.

Depending on your country and preference, you can get your hands on a paperback copy of it from the links below:

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.de
• Amazon.fr
• Amazon.es
• Amazon.it

Hope you enjoy it!

SCOM 2012 R2 - Deploying Highly Available Solutions on Windows Server & SQL 2012

My good friend and fellow Irish CDM MVP Paul Keely has just published a new whitepaper that outlines how to deploy SCOM 2012 R2 in a highly available (HA) configuration using Windows Server 2012 and SQL 2012.

The paper comprises 18 pages of different HA scenarios using these technologies and is a great read for anyone either about to embark on a new SCOM HA deployment or someone who's just thinking about a new customer design that delivers the contingency of uptime that has come to be expected these days.

Here's Paul's own description of it:

This guide covers the options available for deploying SCOM in a HA configuration using Microsoft technologies. We start off with a base SCOM design, and then go through clustering, SQL AlwaysOn, Stretched Clusters and Hyper-V replica.  This is an overview guide for all the options.


You can download the guide directly from TechNet here:

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/SCOM-2012-R2-HA-options-540beb95

Thanks Paul!

Important Cross-Post: Red Alert–Avoid KB2855336 Rollup with NIC Teaming and VLANs

This is a quick post to bring people's attention to an issue with the very recent KB2855336 July rollup update for Windows Server 2012.

Hans Vredevoort over at Hyper-v.nu has just blogged about a possible blue screen issue you might encounter if you have the following in place:

• Windows Server 2012 Failover Cluster
• Windows Server 2012 NIC Teaming
• VLAN's with your NIC Teams

His advice is to hold off on this particular update until an update is released to avoid this issue. Check out his full post here:

http://www.hyper-v.nu/archives/hvredevoort/2013/07/red-alertavoid-kb2855336-rollup-with-nic-teaming-and-vlans/

Want to learn how to Manage Windows Server 2012 NVGRE with PowerShell?

If the answer is Yes to the title of this post, then make sure that you attend this afternoon's (Irish time) MVP Pro Speaker Series session on the topic by System Center MVP - Damian Flynn. Outside of Microsoft, Damian is one of a small number of people on the planet that actually understand this stuff and that can explain it in easy-to-learn steps.

I've just been speaking to Damian about this session and he's told me that it's going to be a Level 300 bordering on Level 400 type session so not for the faint hearted but definitely no marketing fluff will be presented here.

Here's an excerpt from Damian's own blog post on the session:

If you are still wrapping your head around the NVGRE technology which Microsoft has introduced in Windows 2012, and want to get down and dirty into how this stuff actually ticks, then I have some great news for you.

Following the recent presentation and whitepapers which were just published a few weeks ago, as we “Unravelling the Network”, explaining at a higher level just how these technologies play together to create a seamless implementation for software defined networking, we are now going to deep dive.

In association with the Microsoft MVP Pro Speaker series, on Tuesday July 9th at 8am EST PST (4pm GMT) I will present a 1 hour session demonstrating what needs to happen on the Hosts and VMs to bring NVGRE to life, using nothing but PowerShell.

This presentation is targeted as the Level 300/400 so I am going to really recommend that you take an hour upfront and watch the presentation with Savision if you have not yet had the opportunity.

You can join the live meeting here:

https://join.microsoft.com/meet/karrieo/5KH311B3

If you're reading this and think it's too late to join up or you're otherwise engaged, then keep an eye out for the recording and slides that will be put up on the Microsoft Partner and Customer Solutions blog here:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/wincat/

Enjoy!

SCOM 2012 Hyper-V Management Pack Extensions Released by the Community

This is a quick cross-reference post from Kevin Holman's excellent System Center blog about a new community released management pack (MP) for Microsoft's Hyper-V 3.0 on Windows Server 2012.

The current official Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 MP is quite basic and poor and this new extensions one gives us an extra dimension of Hyper-V monitoring till Microsoft decide to revamp their own official one. You'll still need to deploy the official Hyper-V MP along with the Windows O/S and Cluster MP's, all of which can be found on the Management Pack Wiki Page.

Here's Where To Get It

You can download the new Hyper-V Extensions MP for free on Codeplex here:

Hyper-V Management Pack Extensions 2012

Also Check Out..

I'd recommend that you take a read of Kevin Holman's original post to see exactly what's on offer from this MP (includes screenshots):

http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2013/06/22/opsmgr-2012-hyper-v-management-pack-extensions-published.aspx

Enjoy!

Failed Cluster While Backing Up Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V CSV's

Last week I had the opportunity to do something other than SCOM and get my hands dirty with a new Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V cluster project for one of our customers.

The build went well and I used the excellent Hyper-V Installation and Configuration Guide book along with this blog post on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Best Practices (In Easy Checklist Form) to double and then triple check all was deployed to best practice recommendations.

After we P2V'd a number of the customers physical machines and configured the DPM 2012 SP1 backup application to perform host-level backups (i.e. backing up the entire virtual machine while it's still running using the agent deployed to a Hyper-V host), we started seeing problems with performance on the cluster nodes and then ultimately inside each virtual machine running on the cluster.

Leaving the cluster in this state resulted in both hosts becoming unresponsive and everything grinding to a halt. We had to power cycle down the SAN (FC connected HP) and both hosts to get everything back online - not cool :(

So, after a small bit of searching for an answer we came across the following two recently released Hotfixes from Microsoft that needed to be applied to the Hyper-V hosts:

• Update improves cluster resiliency in Windows Server 2012 (KB2848344)
• Can't access a resource that is hosted on a Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012-based failover cluster (KB2838043)

When I spoke with some of my MVP buddies about this particular issue, I was pointed in the direction of this excellent script from Hans Vredevoort over at Hyper-V.nu:

Updated: Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and Cluster Hotfixes and Updates

This script can be run against your Windows Server 2012 hosts to report on any missing hotfixes or updates that should be applied. Although we thought we had deployed all the relevant updates to our customers cluster, once we ran the script it was apparent that there were a few more that still needed to be added in.

Edit: Microsoft's Cristian Edwards has mentioned in his comment below that there are some additional and updated scripts that you can also use to ensure you keep your Hyper-V hosts up to date. Check out his updated blog post here:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/cedward/archive/2013/05/31/validating-hyper-v-2012-and-failover-clustering-hotfixes-with-powershell-part-2.aspx

Conclusion

If you're running a Hyper-V 2012 cluster and are using ANY backup application (not just specifically DPM 2012 SP1) that performs host-level backups of virtual machines located on Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV's), then I'd highly recommend you install the above two hotfixes at least and then also run Hans' script to see what else you need to get deployed.

With the hotfixes applied to the environment, it works perfectly now!

New System Center 2012 and Windows Server 2012 Downloads Available

There's been a surge in new downloads available from Microsoft on Windows Server and System Center 2012 over the past few days. Here's a sample of some of my favourites:

Tools and Whitepapers

Technical Documentation Download for Technical Scenarios for System Center 2012 SP1

Microsoft Operations Readiness Toolkit

Capacity Planner for Hyper-V Replica

Enabling Hybrid Cloud Today with Microsoft Technologies Whitepaper

Blogs

Server & Cloud Blog - Partnering Through Disruptive Change

SCVMM Engineering Blog - Logical Networks (Part III) – Network Isolation

SCOM Engineering Blog - New Video: System Center 2012 Operations Manager Dashboards: Visualizing Alert Data

SCOM Engineering Blog - KB: Operations Manager agents with teamed network adapters fail to be discovered and monitored

SCOM Engineering Blog - Local Resolution Time monitor in the OpsMgr DNS Management Pack may show unexpected results

DPM and System State Backup Explained


MVP Pro Speaker Series - (These are seriously excellent and a must-watch for anyone serious about System Center 2012)

Backup that really works using multiple members and functions of the System Center 2012 SP1 family (Level 300)

Building Workstation and Application Deployment Automation with Service Manager and Orchestrator (Level 300)

Operations Manager Evolution: Taking Your Environment to the Next Level with Operations Manager (Level 300)


Enjoy!

Recordings from our Windows Server 2012 Deep Dive and Mini-MMS Event, April 22-23, Dublin

A few weeks back we delivered two days of Windows Server 2012 Deep Dive sessions out in Microsoft Ireland and I've just received a mail that the session videos are now available.

For me, I totally enjoyed listening to the other guys present and definitely learned some new tips and tricks along with gaining a better understanding of Windows Server 2012 features through the content delivered.

I did a lightning roundup of some of my favourite sessions that were presented at MMS 2013 - unfortunately I couldn't get all of the ones I wanted in there but hopefully it gives people an idea of what they can see if they go and download the videos from Channel 9.

Dave Northey has done an excellent job in co-ordinating the event and overseeing the final recording content so if you have some time to learn about some of the new enhancements that you get with Windows Server 2012, then go check out the Deep Dive videos from here:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/ieitpro/archive/2013/05/14/windows-server-2012-deep-dive-two-days-of-free-training.aspx

New Downloads: Microsoft IaaS Product Line Architecture Guides

Microsoft have just published two excellent guides to kick start your Friday morning coffee read ;) that are based on their Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) Product Line Architecture (PLA). The first guide is mostly based on Windows Server 2012 storage and virtualization and the second guide is based around System Center 2012.

• Infrastructure-as-a-Service Product Line Architecture Fabric Architecture Guide (Windows Server 2012)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38817

• Infrastructure-as-a-Service Product Line Architecture Fabric Management Architecture Guide (System Center 2012)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38813


Go check them out and I'm sure you'll learn something new from them. Also, the Microsoft PLA team are keen to get some feedback on these documents so if you have any 'constructive' feedback that you want me to pass on, feel free to leave a comment and I'll do just that.

Windows Server & System Center MVP Pro Speaker Series Kicks Off This Week!

This week sees the beginning of an excellent series of FREE online speaker events being led by Microsoft. There will be different sessions each week and the content will vary depending on the speaker but will all revolve around Windows Server and System Center 2012.

I can't wait to watch these sessions as I understand that some of them will be content that didn't quite make the final cut of presentations at MMS 2013 but will now be given the run they deserve online.

This MVP Speaker Series is open to everyone and if you can't watch the sessions live, then don't worry - they'll all be made available for download as offline viewing material.

Check out these links for more information:

Windows Server/System Center MVP Speaker Series Starting This Week!

Announcement: Special Windows Server/System Center MVP Speaker Series presentation taking place on Thursday 4/25/13

Windows Server 2012 Deep Dive and Mini-MMS Event, April 22-23, Dublin

If you want to get some excellent FREE Windows Server 2012 deep-dive training and are based in Ireland, then get yourself registered with Microsoft Ireland for this two day event kicking off on Monday 22nd April until Tuesday 23rd.

The event sessions will be delivered by Microsoft Premier Field Engineers and MVP's alike. I'll be doing a session on Tuesday rounding up my best bits of the Microsoft Management Summit 2013 that was held last week in Las Vegas but before that, you'll be treated to sessions on Storage, Networking, Active Directory and Hyper-V (this one's delivered by 'Mr Hyper-V' Aidan Finn so you definitely want to hear what he has to say).

Check out this link for registration info but make sure you get your name down quickly as there's only a small number of places left:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/ieitpro/archive/2013/04/19/windows-server-2012-training-in-dublin.aspx

Enjoy and hopefully I'll see you there!

TechEd 2012 North America - Download the Sessions Offline

Stefan Roth has been at it again with his offline viewing scripts but this time, instead of giving us a quick and easy way to download MMS 2012 sessions, he has modified his script to enable the download of the TechEd 2012 Orlando sessions in much the same way.

Check out his blog posting here with instructions on how to download the script and what you need to do for it to work:

http://blog.scomfaq.ch/2012/06/13/teched-2012-orlando-download-sessions-offline-viewing/

Thanks again Stefan!