How-To: Monitor Exchange Server Health & Performance

Read this How To from SolarWinds and learn the best practices for monitoring the health & performance of your Microsoft Exchange Servers.

Don’t wait until it’s too late!

Read How To>>

Managing Network Adapters: Get-NetIPInterface

First, I want to track down interface information for a remote server

PS C:\> Get-NetIPInterface -CimSession chi-dev01

Results are displayed below in Figure 1.

Since I’m not using IPv6 in my network, let me focus only on IPv4.

PS C:\> Get-NetIPInterface -CimSession chi-dev01 -AddressFamily IPv4

Figure 2 displays an easier-to-read result.

If I can do this for one, I can do it for many. Since I’m going to be querying remote machines more than once, I’ll go ahead and create some CIMSessions that I can reuse.

PS C:\> $cim = New-CimSession -ComputerName chi-dc04,chi-fp02,chi-dev01,chi-app01

Now I’ll repeat my previous command for all the computers and filter out the loopback adapters. But I’ll also need to tweak it to show the computer name.

PS C:\> Get-NetIPInterface -CimSession $cim -AddressFamily IPv4 -InterfaceAlias ethernet,team* | Select PSComputername,if*,InterfaceMetric,DHCP,nlMTU | Out-Gridview –title "IP Interface Data"

This will give me a nice list displayed in a sortable and filterable grid.

The interface index can come in handy when using the next cmdlets if a server has multiple adapters and you want to limit your query. I don’t have the situation in my test domain.

Getting More Info with Get-NetIPAddress

Based on the preceding, I can get an idea of the TCPIP configuration for each adapter. But I want more information, so I’ll turn to Get-NetIPAddress, focusing on IPv4 addresses.

PS C:\> Get-NetIPAddress -CimSession (get-cimsession -comp chi-app01) -AddressFamily IPv4

I want to re-use an existing CIMSession I’ve already created for CHI-APP01. You can see my results below in Figure 4.

I don’t really need to know about the loopback adapter, so I’ll filter it out. As before, I grab IPv4 address configuration for multiple servers.

PS C:\> Get-NetIPAddress -CimSession $cim -AddressFamily IPv4 -InterfaceAlias ethernet,team* | Select PSComputername,IPAddress,Prefix*,AddressState,*Lifetime,Interface* | out-gridview -title "IP Address"

I know this seems like a lot to type – and if you need to do this on a regular basis, you’ll definitely want to turn this command into a script or function. Figure 5 illustrates the result.

Many of the cmdlets I’m demonstrating are designed to work together. I could also have used my earlier command getting IP Interface objects and pipe them to Get-NetIPAddress.

PS C:\> Get-NetIPInterface -CimSession $cim -AddressFamily IPv4 -InterfaceAlias ethernet,team* | Get-NetIPAddress | Select PSComputername,IPAddress,PrefixLength,*Origin,*Lifetime

This is sort of like running IPConfig remotely – plus, we get objects.

More Details with Get-NetIPConfiguration

Actually, we can more details on IP Configuration using Get-NetIPConfiguration. I think of this cmdlet as the IPCONFIG PowerShell equivalent.

PS C:\> get-netipconfiguration

 

 

InterfaceAlias       : Ethernet 3

InterfaceIndex       : 17

InterfaceDescription : Microsoft Hyper-V Network Adapter #3

NetProfile.Name      : GLOBOMANTICS.local

IPv4Address          : 172.16.30.8

IPv4DefaultGateway   : 172.16.10.254

DNSServer            : 172.16.30.203

172.16.30.200

172.16.10.1

Although the major benefit to the cmdlet is that it can query a remote computer.

PS C:\> get-netipconfiguration -CimSession (get-cimsession -comp chi-app01)

 

 

InterfaceAlias       : Ethernet

InterfaceIndex       : 12

InterfaceDescription : Microsoft Hyper-V Network Adapter

NetProfile.Name      : GLOBOMANTICS.local

IPv4Address          : 172.16.10.126

IPv6DefaultGateway   :

IPv4DefaultGateway   : 172.16.10.254

DNSServer            : 172.16.30.203

172.16.30.200

Or you can get detailed configuration information.

PS C:\> get-netipconfiguration -CimSession (get-cimsession -comp chi-app01) –Detailed

Querying remote computers is a little different, as the –CimSession parameter for Get-NetIPConfiguration won’t accept an array of sessions. However, you can pipe a CIMSession to the cmdlet.

PS C:\> Get-CimSession -comp chi-fp02 | Get-NetIPConfiguration –Detailed

Where it gets difficult is selecting the properties to display in gridview, export to a CSV, or build an HTML report. This is because many of the properties are themselves nested CIMInstances. The shell automatically unrolls everything when displaying to the console as I’ve done above. But anything else takes a little more work.

$cim | get-netipconfiguration -Detailed |

Select Computername,InterfaceAlias,

@{N="Status";E={$_.NetAdapter.Status}},

@{N="IP";E={"$($_.IPv4Address.IPv4Address)/$($_.IPv4Address.PrefixLength)"}},

@{N="DefaultGateway";E={$_.IPv4DefaultGateway.nexthop}},

@{N="MAC";E={$_.NetAdapter.MACAddress}},

@{N="DHCP";E={$_.NetIPv4Interface.DHCP}},

@{N="DNS";E={

($_.DNSServer | where {$_.AddressFamily -eq 2} |

select -ExpandProperty ServerAddresses) -join ","}}

This is definitely something you would want to script. But now I can run my CIMSessions through this and then to Out-Gridview, as you can see in Figure 9.

Based on this, I can see I need to make some configuration changes to a few servers. We’ll look at that in a future article.

As with everything I show you in PowerShell, be sure to read the full help and examples because I am not demonstrating every parameter and use case. I know it looks like a lot of typing, but most of the time that was because I wanted some specific information. If you are happy with the default console output, it doesn’t take much work to get network adapter information from Windows Server 2012 with PowerShell.

Next time we’ll look at some other information we can gather remotely.

Download Windows Server 2012

Windows Server 2012 is now available!

It offers businesses and service providers a scalable, dynamic, and multitenant-aware cloud-optimized infrastructure.

Windows Server 2012 helps organizations connect securely across premises and helps IT Professionals to respond to business needs faster and more efficiently.

Download FREE 180-Day Full Featured Trial

How to Install System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1

• First, insert the installation DVD or mount the ISO and run the setup program. A splash screen will appear.
• Click the Install link. In the Select the Features to Install screen, choose both VMM Management Server and VMM Console.
• Enter the license information, including the product key. You get a time-limited trial if you do not enter the key. You can add this afterwards in the VMM Console. You can normally choose the default installation location.
• In the Database Configuration screen, enter the name of the VMM server. Leaving Port blank will cause VMM to default to TCP 1433. If the user you are logged in as does not have admin rights in the SQL Server instance, then you can check Use The Following Credentials and supply an alternative username and password for a user with sufficient privileges.
• Choose the SQL Server Instance. The final option defaults to creating a new database called VirtualManagerDB. You have the option to reuse an existing VMM database if one exists (in the case of an upgrade or repair).

• The next screen allows you to put some of your environment preparation into use. By default the VMM service will log in using the Local System account. This limits VMM functionality, so you should opt instead to using the domain-based service account that you should have created.
• By default, the encryption keys for the sensitive data in the VMM database are stored on the VMM server. Check the Store My Keys in Active Directory option, then enter the location of the DKM container that you should have already created and configured.

The Port Configuration screen gives you the opportunity to customize the ports that are used by VMM. Normally you will not change these settings.

The Library Configuration screen allows you to customize the VMM library location, share name, and share description. You might have an existing library (upgrade or install) that you would like to use. Best practice is to place this library on a non-system drive. This will protect the operating system and allow you to enable volume deduplication to optimize VMM library storage utilization. Note that you can add extra libraries later in the VMM console.

• Complete the wizard and you are nearly done. The second-to-last step is to apply the latest Update Rollup for System Center 2012 SP1 – Virtual Machine Manager. These URs are being released pretty regularly, so use your favorite search engine to find the latest one and install it.
• Finally, run Windows Update and update/reboot your VMM server until all updates are applied.

Unlimited IT Training - $49 Per Month

Get unlimited access to TrainSignal's entire IT library, certification practice exams & more!

With TrainSignal, you’ll be able to take practice exams for some of the most popular IT certifications, including CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+, Cisco CCNA, Microsoft MCSE and the VMware VCP exam.

TrainSignal - Start FREE Trial Now!

What Is BLOB?

BLOB stands for Binary Large Object. In SharePoint, BLOB is large block of unstructured data that is stored in the content databases. When BLOB is stored in the content databases, it is stored with all the metadata that it is associated with it, causing the database to grow in size. Typically BLOB data comprises word documents, video files, and power points, all of which can be large in size, so storing them outside of the content databases can mean performance improvements to the SQL database. Using RBS allows SharePoint to utilize less-expensive disks for BLOB and optimizes the faster disks for more intensive SQL transactions. When RBS is used with SharePoint, the metadata for the BLOB is stored in the SQL content database while the BLOB data is stored remotely on the RBS store.

In order to use RBS you need a provider. The provider is what communicates and connects the BLOB store to the database. SharePoint supports third-party providers and the local FILESTREAM provider that is part of SQL 2008 installation. Local FILESTREAM basically means storing the BLOB data outside of the content database but still on the same local server. Remote Provider means storing the BLOB data on a different volume or server. There is, however, some limitations with using SharePoint 2013 and Remote RBS Provider – certain backup and restore functions are not supported and can only be used with the local FILESTREAM Provider. Check out this link for more about RBS and SharePoint.

Configure the Database Server

Even though FILESTREAM is installed with SQL 2008 by default, you will need to enable and configure the settings on the SQL server that your SharePoint databases are residing on. You can follow these steps to enable FILESTREAM.

• Go to SQL Server Configuration Manager and right-click SQL Server Services to open it.
• Right-click on the instance of the SQL server on which you’re enabling FILESTREAM and select Properties.

• Select the FILESTREAM tab and check the box to Enable FILESTREAM for Transact-SQL access.
• Type the name of the Windows share.
• If you want to allow remote clients to connect to the FILESTREAM, then select Allow remote clients to have streaming access to FILESTREAM data, then select Apply.

• Next, open the SQL Server Management Studio, then click on Query.
• Type the following command in the Query editor (also shown in the image below). When completed, execute the command.

EXEC sp_configure filestream_access_level, 2

RECONFIGURE

• When the query completes, restart the SQL services.

Provision a BLOB Store

Each content database that you want to use RBS with must have a BLOB store provisioned for use. Follow these steps to provision a BLOB Store.

• Using SQL Server Management Studio, connect to the SQL instance and locate the Content database.
• Select the database you want to provision for, and click on New Query.
• You will need to enter the following queries into the editor replacing [WSS_Content] with the database you want to enable RBS for, and c:\BlobStore with the location where you want the BLOB store. Run the queries in the following order:

1^st query to run:

use [WSS_Content]

if not exists

(select * from sys.symmetric_keys

where name = N'##MS_DatabaseMasterKey##')

create master key encryption by password = N'Admin Key Password yourpassword'

2^nd query to run:

use [WSS_Content]

if not exists

(select groupname from sysfilegroups

where groupname=N'RBSFilestreamProvider')

alter database [WSS_Content]

add filegroup RBSFilestreamProvider contains filestream

3^rd query to run:

use [WSS_Content]

alter database [WSS_Content]

add file (name = RBSFilestreamFile, filename =

'c:\Blobstore')

to filegroup RBSFilestreamProvider

Install the RBS Client Library on the Web Server

Even though each database is configured separately for the BLOB store, you will only need to install the RBS client once on the web server.

• Download the RBS_amd64.msi file.
• Open CMD and type the command (shown below), then press Enter to run it. You will need to change WSS_Content to reflect your database name and DBInstanceName with your SQL Server instance.

msiexec /qn /lvx* rbs_install_log.txt /i RBS_amd64.msi TRUSTSERVERCERTIFICATE=true FILEGROUP=PRIMARY DBNAME="WSS_Content" DBINSTANCE="DBInstanceName" FILESTREAMFILEGROUP=RBSFilestreamProvider FILESTREAMSTORENAME=FilestreamProvider_1

To verify the installed successfully type the following command:

Rbs_install_log.txt |find “successfully” /i

Note: If you have multiple web servers, then you will need to repeat the steps and type the following command into each additional web server:

msiexec /qn /lvx* rbs_install_log.txt /i RBS_amd64.msi DBNAME="WSS_Content" DBINSTANCE="DBInstanceName" ADDLOCAL=Client,Docs,Maintainer,ServerScript,FilestreamClient,FilestreamServer

• Once you are finished with installation, confirm the RBS installation on the databases by checking the database to see if there are tables that start with mssqlrbs%.

Enable RBS on a Content Database Using PowerShell

After installing RBS, it now must be enabled on at least one web server in a SharePoint farm. The only way to enable RBS is through PowerShell, using the following cmdlets. You will need to change the ContentDatabaseName to reflect your database name.

$cdb = Get-SPContentDatabase <ContentDatabaseName>

$rbss = $cdb.RemoteBlobStorageSettings

$rbss.Installed()

$rbss.Enable()

$rbss.SetActiveProviderName($rbss.GetProviderNames()[0])

$rbss

Enabling RBS on all your databases may not be an option – or even practical, as there could be performance considerations depending on the type of disk that is used. However, RBS for SharePoint is definitely worth investigating and it's a great option if you’re looking to maximize on hardware investment by utilizing tiered storage.

Although it might seem counterintuitive to install desktop features on a server, there may be certain scenarios where it is desirable. One case is where users have access to a remote server desktop via Remote Desktop Services. The Desktop Experience installs features on Windows Server 2012 that are present in Windows 8 but are not part of the standard install of Windows Server.

Your Windows Infrastructure Will Want This Nifty Tool!

Wouldn't you love it if you could automatically discover and restart an FTP service before even 30 seconds of it being down?

OpManager through over 500 built-in monitors, event log rules, SNMP traps and remote troubleshooting tools, gives admins a tight grip over Windows server performance, including even MS Exchange, SQL and Active Directory.

Monitor 10 Servers for Free! Download a 30-day Trial Here »

Desktop Experience Install Components

The Desktop Experience feature installs the following components on Windows Server 2012:

• Windows Media Player
• Desktop themes
• Video for Windows (AVI support)
• Disk Cleanup
• Sync Center
• Sound Recorder
• Character Map
• Snipping Tool

How to Install Desktop Experience

Desktop Experience is an all-or-nothing feature, so you can’t choose which components to install. Before adding the Desktop Experience feature on Windows Server, I recommend that you test in a preproduction lab environment to ensure that Desktop Experience doesn’t conflict with any important server functions.

• Log on to Windows Server 2012 with an account that has local administrator permissions.
• Open Server Manager from the Start screen or the icon on the desktop taskbar.
• In Server Manager Dashboard, click Add roles and features under Welcome to Server Manager.
• In the Add Roles and Features Wizard, click Server Selection in the left pane.
• Now click Features in the left pane.
• Scroll down the list of features and expand User Interfaces and Infrastructure.
• Check Desktop Experience.

In Windows Server 2012, Desktop Experience is no longer listed as a separate feature; instead, it's under User Interfaces and Infrastructure.

• In the pop-up dialog, click Add Features to add Ink and Handwriting Services and Media Foundation.
• In the Add Roles and Features Wizard, click Next.
• Click Install on the confirmation page.
• When Desktop Experience has finished installing, click Close in the Add Roles and Features Wizard and restart the server.

Once the server has rebooted, you will have access to the desktop features from the Start screen.

Support Thousands of End-Users From Your Desk!

DameWare Remote Support allows you to manage servers, notebooks, and laptops remotely to quickly and easily support end-users!

Save time by remotely completing Windows administration tasks such as starting and stopping Windows Services, clearing and viewing Windows Event Logs, automatically install agents as you need them, and much, much more. Take full control of the end-user’s desktop in a single click!

Download a FREE trial of DameWare Remote Support here >

What Is a Scale-Out File Server (SOFS)?

It is clear that while Microsoft is committed to their ongoing development and support for traditional block storage, they see SMB 3.0 as a way to reduce the expense and increase the performance of one of the biggest cost centers in the data center. Once legacy concerns about SMB 3.0 performance have been put to rest, the question of high availability will come up: You don’t want to rely on a single point of failure like a file server when your entire business is relying on it. The traditional active/passive file server will not suffice; the failover process is too slow.

In Windows Server 2012, Microsoft gave us a new storage architecture called the Scale-Out File Server (SOFS), which is (deep breath required) a scalable and continuously available storage platform with transparent failover. Users of block storage will wonder what this new alien concept is. Actually, it’s not that different to a SAN.

In the case of a SAN, there are four major components or layers:

• Disk trays
• Switches
• Controllers
• Application servers

SAN: Disk Trays

The disks of the SAN are inserted into one or more disk trays. Disks are aggregated into pools or groups. Logical units (LUNs) or virtual disks are created from theses disk pools, and RAID is optionally configured to provide disk fault tolerance for each LUN. The SAN manufacturer usually requires you to use disks for which they have created a special firmware. While this can provide higher quality, the price of these prone-to-failure devices is increased substantially over their original cost. SANs can offer tiered storage, where slices of data (subsets of files) are automatically promoted from cheaper/slower storage to expensive/faster storage, and vice versa, depending on demand. This gives a great balance between performance and capacity. The disk tray can be seen as a single point of failure – this is why some SAN solutions also offer a form of RAID for disk trays.

SAN: Switches

The entire SAN is connected together by two or more fiber channel switches. Ideally, the switches are redundant (for network path fault tolerance) and dedicated (for performance) switches. The switches connect the entire SAN solution together, forming the storage area network.

SAN: Controller

The controller is an appliance that is actually a very specialized form of server. It is responsible for storage orchestration, mapping logical units to servers, enabling management, and it provides caching. The controller is also a very expensive part of the SAN. Basic SAN models can only have two controllers, and higher end storage systems can expand to more than two controllers.

SAN: Application Servers

The application servers will have at least one connection to each switch, and typically these are dedicated connections, such as a network card for iSCSI or a host bus adapter for SAS or Fiber Channel. Multipath IO (MPIO) is installed and configured on the application servers. This software is normally provided by the SAN manufacturer. The role of MPIO is to aggregate the servers’ connections to the switches and to provide transparent redundancy. The application servers access data that is stored in LUNs on the disk tray via the SAN controllers.

Summarizing the SAN

The SAN has become the de facto standard for bulk storage in the medium-to-large enterprise. Solutions provide impressive scalability, relatively centralized (per SAN footprint) LUN management, great redundancy, and easier backup. But is this the right solution? The cost per gigabyte of SAN storage is extremely high. The amount of data that we are generating and being forced to retain is escalating. And we do have to ask two very serious questions:

• Do we need to use a SAN?
• If some SAN functionality is required (such as LUN-LUN replication), then do we need to store all/most/just some of our data on this expensive storage?

The Scale-Out File Server

Before Windows Server 2012, deploying systems with resilient and scalable storage meant deploying a SAN. Microsoft realized that this was becoming an issue for small and large businesses, as well as hosting companies due to the price/GB and the vendor lock-in that this solution requires. Microsoft included multiple features in WS2012 that, when used together, give us software-defined storage that is more economic, more scalable, more flexible, and easier to deploy than a traditional SAN.

One example of this is the Scale-Out File Server (SOFS). This new architecture is different to a SAN, but it won’t be alien to storage engineers. That is because most of the roles are still there in a different form:

• JBOD trays
• Clustered servers + Scale-Out File Server clustered role
• Switches
• Application servers

JBOD Trays

The most commonly explained implementation of a SOFS uses SAS-attached JBOD trays as the shared storage. These are very economic and scalable units of storage that typically have a hardware compatibility list that supports SAS controllers and disks from many manufacturers.

Instead of using hardware RAID, Windows Server Storage Spaces are used. A storage pool is created to aggregate disks. Virtual disks with different kinds of fault tolerance can be created from the storage pool. Virtual disks can be made fault tolerance across multiple JBOD trays. And WS2012 R2 offers tiered storage across SSDs and HDDs, and it builds on the IOPS SSD to provide persistent write-through caching that applications such as Hyper-V can use. This means that a JBOD with Storage Spaces can be cheaper than using SAN disk trays, offering most of the functionality that we want for enterprise level performance.

SOFS Switches

The application servers will communicate with the storage of the SOFS via two redundant switches. The SOFS is based on WS2012 and this means a wide variety of networking is supported.

• 1 GbE
• 10 GbE
• iWarp: 10 Gbps Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA – low CPU impact & high speed offloaded networking)
• ROCE: 10/40 Gbps RDMA
• Infiband: 56 Gbps RDMA

The switches can be dedicated, but it is more likely that they will be used for several roles, including the private networks of a cluster. This especially applies to Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V where Live Migration can make use of RDMA networking. That means an investment in 10 GbE or faster networking can offer more than fast storage; WS2012 R2 can use RDMA networking for CSV redirected IO and SMB Live Migration.

Any brand of switch can be used in a SOFS implementation. This avoids the vendor lock-in that one associates with a SAN, provides the customer with choice, and makes the price more competitive.

SOFS: Application Servers

The application servers will use SMB 3.0 to access the SOFS through the switches. SMB 3.0 provides:

• SMB Multichannel: A feature that requires no configuration to work, and allows an SMB client to communicate to an SMB server via more than one NIC. This MPIO replacement requires no input from a hardware vendor and provided scalable and automatically fault tolerant networking straight out of the box.
• SMB Direct: Using RDMA enabled NICs, the SMB client can stream data to/from an SMB server with high speed and with much lower utilization of the processor.

SMB 3.0 is supported by WS2012 (and alter) Hyper-V, IIS, and SQL Server. The simplicity of SMB 3.0 and the speed of the protocol, combined with the bandwidth of supported NICs and the potential of RDMA, makes SMB 3.0 a much better alternative to iSCSI or Fiber Channel storage protocols.

SOFS: Clustered File Servers

Application servers will be communicating with between two and eight file servers that are clustered together. The file servers play the role of a SAN controller – a very economic SAN controller, to be precise.

Each of these file servers are connected to the same shared JBOD trays at the back end. Virtual disks are created in the JBOD trays. These appear as available storage in the file server cluster and are converted into active/active Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs).

A special cluster role is known as the file server for application data is deployed on the cluster. This active/active role creates a computer account in Active Directory; this is the “computer” that will share storage with the application servers. Active/active shares are created on the cluster. The shares’ permissions are configured to allow full control to application servers and administrators. And now you have active/active storage, which also handles transparent failover if one of the clustered file servers fails. All that remains is to use the UNC path of the shares (via the single SOFS computer account) on the application servers to deploy files on the SOFS.

Summarizing the SOFS

It doesn’t take long to figure out that:

• SANs have expensive disk trays and vendor locked-in disks, but a SOFS can use relatively inexpensive JBODs and disks that offer the fault tolerance and performance features of their wealthier cousin.
• A SAN has switches, and so does a SOFS, but we can use the SOFS switches for more than just storage.
• SAN controllers are expensive devices, but you can use any server as a cluster node in a SOFS. And by the way, the RAM will be used as a cache!
• Application servers will use legacy block storage protocols to connect to a SAN, but SOFS clients use the faster SMB 3.0 that provides the aggregation and fault tolerance of MPIO but without the complexity.
• If engineered correctly, SAN or a SOFS implementations don’t have single points of failure.

Perhaps you're wondering: If I can deploy a SOFS with more performance than a SAN, and much more economic than a SAN, that is software defined (file shares), then why do you continue to pay for overpriced legacy storage platforms? With the SOFS, Microsoft has given you a choice that you have never had before.

SOFS FAQs

Can I use servers with DAS and replicate/stripe that data to create a SOFS?

No; the SOFS is a cluster and must have shared storage. In the most commonly presented example, the SOFS uses shared JBOD with Storage Spaces.

Must I use a JBOD?

No. The SOFS can use any shared storage that WS2012 or WS2012 R2 Failover Clustering supports. This includes JBOD, PCI RAID, SAS, iSCSI, and Fiber Channel Storage. Microsoft argues that using SMB 3.0 in-front of any storage offers better performance and easier operations. It also reduces the number of ports required in a SAN (only the SOFS nodes need connect to the SAN switches). Usingsha legacy SANs as the shared storage of a SOFS offers features such as Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX), TRIM, and UNMAP.

Can I deploy Storage Spaces on my SAN?

No. Storage Spaces is intended to be used with JBOD disk trays that have no hardware RAID.

Does SOFS have the ability to replicate virtual disks?

No. You would instead use Hyper-V Replica in the case of virtual machines, or one of SQL Server’s replication methods. These are hardware agnostic and very flexible.

Test Drive: Exchange & Mobile Device Management Tool

Mailscape is an award-winning Exchange and mobile device management tool that provides monitoring, reporting and administrative capabilities in a single, affordable solution.

Installed in minutes, easy to deploy, and intuitive enough for the help desk to use, Mailscape lets you manage your entire environment in a sleek, one look dashboard.

Test Drive Mailscape Today!!

TechEd Exchange Highlights

If you missed TechEd 2013, or simply didn’t have time for Exchange sessions, here are some of the Exchange-focused highlights:

• Exchange 2013 CU2 will now support 100 databases per server instead of the 50 databases.
• There were also hints that with CU2 there could be support to run the witness server in Azure, solidifying the push towards the cloud.
• The Remote connectivity Analyzer got an additional component: the Message Analyzer Beta. This new component allows the copy and paste of message headers in the tool which then breaks down the header of a message for you to analyze.
• Lagged copies in Exchange 2013 will now automatically replay log files that are under low disk space conditions (10%), these settings can be modified in the registry.

• Exchange 2013 continues to supports VHD of the server on SMB3 file shares; there is still no support for NFS at this point.
• For those virtualizing Exchange, Microsoft continues to stress that Dynamic memory is not recommended for Exchange servers. When the available memory on an Exchange server is decreased, expect to see High RPC latency numbers.
• Exchange 2013 Server Role Requirements Calculator (formerly the Mailbox role calculator) has been renamed and now includes sizing for all the roles of an Exchange 2013 server. The calculator has made improvements on High Availability Architecture as well as Transport service and CAS roles. It’s a one-stop-shop calculator.
• There has been no change on the max database size in a DAG, the max size is still 2TB.
• Windows 8.1 RT will be available for Surface RT and will now include Outlook 2013 RT, making Surface RT more appealing to use for business.

• Outlook Connectivity to Office 365 Troubleshooter – This tool will help diagnose outlook connectivity issues that you may experience with Outlook on-premise or in Office 365. It'll help guide you on troubleshooting your connectivity issues. You can download Outlook Connectivity to Office 365 Troubleshooter.
• The Hybrid Environment Free Busy Troubleshooter – This tool will help troubleshoot issues you may have with Free Busy when transitioning to the cloud. You can download the Hybrid Environment Free Busy Troubleshooter.

The writer poses with friends at TechEd 2013.

(Image via WordLo)

Microsoft is one of the worst offenders in this respect, and after spending several weeks covering Microsoft more closely that usual -- thanks to a trip or two to the Microsoft campus and a long week at TechEd 2013 -- I thought it might be useful (and humorous) to present a list of some of the most common phrases and buzzwords I've come across. Some of these are actual technical terms and terminology, while others are less technical.

Some of these buzzwords were used by Microsoft employees to describe product features, while others (submitted anonymously by Microsoft employees) deal more with internal Microsoft organizational structures and office politics.

• A-dash: A temporary Microsoft contractor who works for an agency, who may have a temporary Microsoft email address preceded by an "A-" prefix. Also called an "Orange Badge" for the color of their badges issued by Microsoft when on the company campus.
• B-dash: A Microsoft business guest, who may have a temporary Microsoft email address preceded by an "B-" prefix. Also called an "Purple Badge" for the color of their physical badges issued by Microsoft when on the company campus.
• BG: (pronounced “bee gee”) Refers to a business group within Microsoft.
• Blue badge: Internal Microsoft office slang for full-time salaried employees who have blue badges issued by Microsoft security.
• Configuration drift: The propensity of configuration information to slight change -- or "drift" -- as data is being migrated, copied, backed-up, etc. Not to be confused with traditional drifting, which involves obscenely overpowered rear-wheel drive cars turning expensive tire rubber into foul-smelling smoke while sliding sideways around a racetrack.
• Dedup cache chunk store: Refers to a storage concept where data needed for data deduplication is stored in chunks in cache memory. Or something like that. (I included this primarily because it sounds cool when you say it out loud.)
• DL: (Pronounced "dee el") Shorthand for an email distribution list.
• Double-click on that: Heard being used by Microsoft employees and staff at other IT vendors as well. Used to signify a need for more detail on a topic being discussed. Example: "Let's double-click on that white-paper later today, shall we?"
• Flowlets: Refers to a specific aspect of TCP data networking traffic. Not exactly a buzzword, but it sounds like you're referring to the offspring of someone named "Flo" when used in a conversation with anyone but a dedicated TCP network engineer. (See entry for Special needs long-lived flows.)
• Live reparenting: A phrase that deals with reassigning a VM to a local master when migrating or merging them. Despite what it sounds like, it doesn't involve on-the-fly reversal of parenting decisions, particularly when dealing with hungry, grumpy, and sometimes truculent toddlers and teenagers.
• Looping a candidate:  Putting a job applicant through a round of interviews during a job interview process.
• PG: (Pronounced "pee gee") Microsoft shorthand for product group.
• Pri0 or P0: (Pronounced "pry-oh" or "pee zero" ) Refers to a very important topic that has a priority above priority one, hence the phrase "priority zero."
• Special needs long-lived flows: Refers to a specific aspect of TCP data networking traffic. Not exactly a buzzword, but sounds like you're speaking Greek (or Klingon) to anyone but a dedicated TCP network engineer.
• Super: Commonly used to describe how excited someone is about something, but my anonymous sources within Microsoft tell me this superlative is now being used excessively within the halls of Redmond these days. "I'm super excited to join this team."
• V-dash: A vendor who works with Microsoft who may also have a temporary Microsoft email address preceded by the "V-" prefix. Also called an "Green Badge" for the color of their physical badges issued by Microsoft when on the company campus.
• V-team or virtual team: Used in reference to assigning a group of Microsoft employees to a task that aren't part of the current group.
• WSSC: (Pronounced “wisk”) = Shorthand for Windows Server/System Center (WSSC).

Do you know of any that I didn't include on this list? Add a comment to this blog post and I'll add them.

Download Windows Server 2012

Windows Server 2012 is now available!

It offers businesses and service providers a scalable, dynamic, and multitenant-aware cloud-optimized infrastructure.

Windows Server 2012 helps organizations connect securely across premises and helps IT Professionals to respond to business needs faster and more efficiently.

Download FREE 180-Day Full Featured Trial

Cloud OS Vision: A Cloud for Every Taste

Microsoft's big push at TechEd this year was the Cloud OS. In the Cloud OS model, key Microsoft products and platforms like Windows Server, System Center, Windows Intune, and Windows Azure services are designed and developed to allow IT administrators to embrace cloud computing on their own terms. They can manage their private clouds on-premise, or they can rely on trusted external hosting providers for cloud services.

Finally, Microsoft offers Windows Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for IT shops who want public cloud services. The Microsoft business unit behind the Cloud OS strategy -- the Server and Tools division -- has listened to customer feedback about cloud computing services over the years, especially those that had legitimate concerns about putting IT resources in the cloud from an auditing, compliance, data portability, or security perspective. So the Cloud OS strategy accommodates them by letting them keep their data and IT services onsite and protected from the risk of an ISP failure or Internet outage that could prevent them from accessing business critical data, information, and IT services.

Microsoft's new Xbox One console. (Photo: Microsoft)

Xbox Interrupted: Microsoft Fumbles Xbox One Launch

So how is the Cloud OS tied to Microsoft's launch of the new Xbox One game console? If you don't follow the video game industry, here's the key highlight in a nutshell: Microsoft announced that the Xbox One would require an "online check-in" once every 24 hours to enable offline gaming. Here's the official explanation from Microsoft's Xbox Wire website:

"With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies."

So what happens if your Internet connection goes south, or if you're trying to play a single-player game offline? After 24 hours of no Internet access, the Xbox One becomes the video gaming equivalent of a $500 boat anchor – albeit one that serves as a glorified movie player, limited to playing DVDs and Blu-ray discs.

Combined with news that Sony would price their rival PS4 console $100 cheaper than the Xbox One ($399 versus $499) and had fewer restrictions on playing used games, Microsoft's Xbox marketing seemed to spend most of this week on the ropes of public opinion, with Luke Plunkett at Kotaku possibly capturing the mood of E3 watchers best in his article "Sony Just Smacked the Xbox One in the Mouth."

Why Xbox One Should Embrace the Cloud OS Model

So, let's take Microsoft's Xbox One licensing approach and "always on" requirement to the enterprise: What if every copy of Microsoft Office needed to "phone home" to a Microsoft cloud service every 24 hours? If you lost Internet connectivity for longer than that, Microsoft Office apps wouldn't load, and you'd constantly be urged via system prompts to find an Internet connection so that Microsoft could confirm that you have a legitimate license for the software you're using. Placed in that context, Microsoft's always-connected requirement for the Xbox One seems ludicrous. Corporate users can't be held hostage when cloud services go down; Microsoft's server and tools business gets that, hence the three approaches in the Cloud OS model: Private, internal clouds that don't require access to cloud services, and two other options that do.

In the context of the Xbox One, the Cloud OS model could be applied by never requiring offline single-player (or offline multiplayer split-screen games on the same console) to connect to a cloud service for verification. Obviously, online multiplayer games would require an Internet connection, but this approach would give Xbox One gamers the opportunity to enjoy their consoles when offline. Sony allows this sort of gameplay with the PS4, and Sony execs are undoubtedly salivating at the prospect of bludgeoning Microsoft's Xbox One efforts from here until the holidays with ads that drive the point home.

Microsoft's Xbox PR agency, Edelman Worldwide, is probably already bracing for Sony marketing depicting grim-faced active-duty U.S. servicemen deployed overseas, laden with spotty or nonexistent Internet connections and unable to play their favorite single-player games. Or of a rural rancher who can't play a split-screen game of Forza 5 with his disappointed, rosy-cheeked children because Microsoft bricked his console for failing to contact the Xbox mothership. Granted, these examples are a bit melodramatic and overwrought, but Sony has already proven that it's willing to go for Microsoft's jugular when it has the advantage: Witness this Sony-produced video that lampoons Microsoft's convoluted and confusing system for sharing used games on the Xbox One. Before I posted this article, this video had already been viewed more than 10 million times.

There has been a trend in the gaming industry towards using an Internet connection as a digital rights management (DRM) tool, a method that game publishers have employed to fight game piracy. It's a valid argument, but gamers have already strongly voiced their opinions about using always-on connectivity as a requirement, particularly when that requirement is dressed up as a value-added feature. Didn't anyone on the Xbox One marketing team pay attention to the furor over always-on connectivity in Diablo III, or the SimCity 5 launch debacle? Kyle Orland over at Ars Technica recently interviewed Xbox Marketing Chief Yusef Mehdi about the controversy, and Mehdi told Orland that "It's fair to say there's a segment of consumers at this show [E3] in particular who really pay attention, who are very passionate about all aspects of gaming, and that we listen to closely. In a broader set of community, people don't pay attention to a lot of the details. We've seen it in the research, we've seen it in a lot of the data points."

In essence, Mehdi is saying that only hardcore gamers are concerned and paying attention about this, and that Microsoft research shows that more mainstream consumers "...don't pay attention to a lot of the details." Again, imagine this argument on the enterprise side of the fence: Would an average IT shop gloss over the fine print that tells them they'll lose access to Microsoft Office or SharePoint if they don't have a 24/7 Internet connection?

Granted, Microsoft could argue that there's a difference between mission-critical business applications and playing video games. Yet arbitrarily limiting access to use of a product that a customer has legitimately purchased -- regardless of whether that product is intended for the general gaming public or IT professionals in a server room -- is a questionable business decision at best.

Following on from last week’s article on Storage Spaces and Data Deduplication, here I continue the list of new file services and storage features in Windows Server 2012.

That was then…this is WOW!

Making sense of the data you get from Hyper-V Manager and vSphere used to be a complex and manual process. SolarWinds Virtualization Manager provides:

Virtualization Dashboards – give you at-a-glance insight into the performance, capacity, configuration and usage of your virtual infrastructure

Virtualization Reports – give you out-of-the-box and customizable reporting for your business

Heterogeneous Management – provides a single pane of glass across your Vmware and Hyper-V environment

Download Virtualization Manager Free Trial Now>>

Resilient File System (ReFS)

An extension to NTFS, ReFS is designed to prevent the corruption of file metadata that often occurs on standard NTFS volumes and renders data inaccessible. ReFS uses checksums for file metadata (and optionally for the actual file), and an allocate-on-write method to update data, minimizing the risk of corruption. Otherwise known as Integrity Streams, the use of checksums is a means of protecting data on disk that goes beyond what is possible on standard NTFS volumes.

ReFS volumes are not bootable, cannot be used on removable media and there’s no way to convert an existing NTFS volume to ReFS. Along with Storage Spaces, thin provisioning, and ReFS, Windows Server 2012 makes for an extremely scalable file server solution. ReFS supports volumes up to 256 zettabytes and a storage pool can be a maximum of 4 petabytes.

NTFS Improvements

In addition to the improvements that ReFS brings, standard NTFS volumes also benefit from a continuous corruption scanner that tries to identify and repair errors before they affect system performance or data retrieval. The CHKDSK command line utility has also been updated so that it can scan for errors much faster than in previous versions of Windows, allowing you to get a volume back online more quickly in the event of a corruption issue.

SMB 3.0

If you’ve had the chance to transfer files over the network between Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 (or between Windows 8 clients), you probably will have noticed that it’s faster than in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 – sometimes so fast that it’s almost like performing a copy operation on a local disk.

The extra network file transfer speed in Windows 8 and Server 2012 is just one improvement that the Server Message Block protocol brings. Here’s the full list of new features:

• SMB Transparent Failover
• SMB Scale Out
• SMB Multichannel
• SMB Direct
• SMB Encryption
• VSS for SMB file shares
• SMB Directory Leasing
• SMB PowerShell

SMB Transparent Failover and SMB Scale Out are used to provide Continuously Available File Shares (CAFS), an improvement in clustering file shares on Windows Servers that allows SMB to automatically failover to an available cluster node without interrupting server applications sorting data on the share. SMB Scale Out allows access to more than one cluster node simultaneously for load balancing and improved network throughput, resulting in better server performance.

SMB Multichannel and SMB Direct help speed up file transfers, increase network throughput, and provide connection resiliency, load balancing and automatic reconfiguration when new network paths are detected. SMB Direct requires network cards that support Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA).

SMB Encryption can be turned on for a file server or individual file shares, and differs from IPSec encryption in that it can be enabled without any planning or special configuration. In Windows Server 2008 R2, SMB signing prevented the spoofing of network packets but couldn’t encrypt data over the wire.

The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) can now be used to back up remote shares on Windows Server 2012 file servers or Network Attached Storage (NAS) that supports the SMB 3.0 protocol. SMB Directory Leasing improves performance when accessing file servers across wide area networks (WANs) by keeping file metadata cached locally for longer, and updating the local metadata cache when changes are made on the remote file server.

Finally SMB 3.0 features can be managed using SMB PowerShell. If you have Windows 7 clients or Windows Server 2008R2 devices on your network, the SMB protocol used during file transfer operations will default to version 2.1. SMB 3.0 features aren’t supported on Windows 7 or down level server editions.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how we're continuing to invest in how-to technical content by building out our pool of authors and increasing our posting frequency. Since my last post on the topic we've hired Aidan Finn and Russell Smith, who both cover the Microsoft Windows Server Platform for us. Now we're looking for two more bloggers to add to the Petri IT Knowledgebase editorial team, and this time we're looking for VMware and Microsoft System Center experts. Read on for more details on the new positions and what we're looking for.

VMware Blogger

Are you an IT professional who has extensive, hands-on experience with VMware’s product family? Can you recite the differences between VMware vCloud 5.0 and vCloud 5.1 in your sleep? And do you know – at a glance – what the acronyms VCHS, VCAP, VCLI, CBRC, SDDC, and S2 stand for?

Do you also like to write – perhaps you have your own blog, or you’ve had technical articles published before – and you’re active on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, G+, and LinkedIn? If so, we’d like to talk to you.

The VMware Blogger will post news analysis, opinion, and both short- and long-form technical how-to content about VMware’s product families, as well as provide regular tips and suggestions to help readers get the most out of VMware’s enterprise virtualization products. This position will focus on VMware deployment, management, optimization and security topics. Applicants should also be well versed and knowledgeable about using VMware products in mixed-vendor environments, including Windows Server and Linux environments. Apply for the VMware Blogger position.

Microsoft System Center / Windows Intune Blogger

Are you an IT professional who has extensive experience with Microsoft System Center, Virtual Machine Manager, Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, and other Microsoft management platforms and tools like Windows Intune? Do you know the differences between the various versions of the System Center product family? Do you know what the acronyms SCCM, SCOM, SCVMM mean at a glance? Do you also like to write and are active on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, G+, and LinkedIn? If so, we’d like to talk to you.

The Microsoft System Center / Windows Intune Blogger will post about the latest news and analysis of Microsoft’s System Center and Windows Intune product families, as well as provide regular tips and suggestions to help readers get the most out of those platforms. Apply for the Microsoft System Center / Windows Intune Blogger position.