Month: July 2005

Ok, I downloaded these from Microsoft last night. You might have heard Longhorn is the Server’s Code name, while Vista is the desktop’s marketing name. Vista is available to everyone with an MSDN subscription, the others are not available (expect to about 5,000 beta testers).   IE 7 = 10 MB Vista = 2.42 GB Longhorn = 2.9 GB   Plus a boat load of walkthroughs and white papers and release notes. With my normal traffic, I must have downloaded 7 GB last night, I bet knology.net loves me today!   I managed to install Vista in Virtual PC 2004 … Continue reading Windows Vista Beta 1, IE 7 Beta 1, Windows Longhorn Server Beta 1…

Recently Microsoft released a white paper (Using WSRM and Scripts to Manage Clusters – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ba2559e6-dd23-41a6-9efb-1d90f8f1fc17&displaylang=en) on how to configure and use Windows System Resource Manager to manage Clusters.   For those of you not familiar with WSRM, it’s a free product that comes with Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition or DataCenter – both of which you can run a cluster on today. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/wsrmfastfacts.mspx.   Here are a few features of WSRM:   Set CPU and memory allocation policies on applications. This includes selecting processes to be managed, and setting resource usage targets or limits. Manage CPU utilization (percent CPU in … Continue reading WSRM for Microsoft Clusters

Exchange: How does Outlook 2003 Cached Mode leverage Exchange 2003 Full-Text Indexing? http://blogs.technet.com/exchange/archive/2005/07/22/408103.aspx   .NET Rocks! – Russ Nemhauser Talks Mobility + More http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=8120af86-fc92-4623-a6f3-514d1b71e645&displaylang=en   ISA: ISACertTool for Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 Enterprise Edition http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=f8f60164-c5a5-4716-9ff4-2d56c86506c3&displaylang=en   MSDEToText Tool for Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=a60a09a0-e4ad-47c7-9961-5e22e65ca986&displaylang=en   CacheDir Tool for Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=88117626-d72c-4cc8-a15f-c1fbdbcff688&displaylang=en   RemoveAllNLBSettings Tool for Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 Enterprise Edition http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1b02dfa5-b982-48cd-ad4c-b72bbac0002f&displaylang=en   Remote Access Quarantine tool for ISA Server 2004 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=17897522-ab69-46e0-9860-e2d9ec8ca122&displaylang=en   Windows: Windows 2000 Authorization Manager Runtime http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7edde11f-bcea-4773-a292-84525f23baf7&displaylang=en   Live … Continue reading Exchange, ISA, Windows, Live Meeting, Misc.

The following is an article recently published about clustering and recovering from a failure: http://www.serverpipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=AGZPAZLXNB4QMQSNDBCCKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleId=166400601   I would like to point out a few things. First go read the article (leave it open, so you can flip back to it below). Then come back here for my review.   Page 1: First mistake – Running an Active/Active (A/A) cluster is a very bad idea. Period! Since the cluster is on Windows Server 2003, a third node that can handle a failure of either Exchange or SQL should be added. This implementation is not mission critical worthy – as is. The … Continue reading Surviving the Windows Server 2003 Cluster Bomb – Review

I have been asked by Netlan to teach a custom, but yet still public Windows Server 2003 Clustering/NLB course. The class will run from Tuesday September 6th through Friday September 9th, 2005. Seating is limited so call the number below or email Patrick Power PPower@netlan.com. Netlan Technology Center, Inc. 39 West 37th Street, 11th floorNew York, NY 10018Ph: 212-730-5900  Fax: 212-730-4411 You can find out more about the course here – http://www.netlan.com/CourseDetails.php?cNo=2087X   I hope to see/meet you in NYC J

Exchange: Exchange 2003 Server Service Pack 2 (SP2) Anti-Spam Framework – I love this blog, I wish they would post more!!!! http://blogs.technet.com/exchange/archive/2005/07/18/407838.aspx   The NoMAS Tool – What its? When do you use it? Why did PSS develop it? http://www.msexchange.org/articles/NoMAS-Tool.html   Restoring Exchange Server 2003 to alternate Hardware http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Restoring-Exchange-Server2003-Alternate-Hardware.html   SQL: MSDN TV: Introduction to Analysis Services 2005 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=79d0ff2e-f7d6-4f27-b06a-c6476cfc172a&displaylang=en   Security: Microsoft® Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) – Version 1.0.615 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=321cd7a2-6a57-4c57-a8bd-dbf62eda9671&displaylang=en   Live Meeting: Live Meeting 2005 Document: Live Meeting 2005 Add-in Deployment Guide http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=69021ddb-d8d0-4bd2-9551-9500c2e66521&displaylang=en   LCS: Live Communications Server 2005 Document: Configuring Certificates http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=779dedaa-2687-4452-901e-719ce6ec4e5a&displaylang=en   SMS: Active Directory Schema Modification and … Continue reading Exchange, SQL, Security, Live Meeting, LCS, SMS, Misc.

Question: How can we expand a couple of volumes in our SAN infrastructure that are used for our Clustering solution?   I have Knowledge Base article 304736 – http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304736.   How much downtime am I looking at?   Answer: Great question! I did this not that long ago… The dispart part is seconds. And I mean seconds. Lets break down the Q article steps (Microsoft steps in italics, my comments in bold):   First you have to prepare the SAN, which should not involve any downtime for the SAN or your cluster. This of course assumes that your SAN allows this … Continue reading Expand your SAN partition on your Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 Cluster Shared Disk

This week Microsoft announced a new keyboard.  Last year at the company store I purchased this keyboard.  I really liked the sound features in the middle. Earlier this year I won a contest and got this keyboard.    So what is the common thread here? Sounds, Launch Buttons, Mute, etc. The newer keyboards have the sliders on them, these are really handy – once you get used to them. While within any document you can make the font lager or smaller with the slider, this really comes in handy.   I love to listen to music why I work, Sirius … Continue reading A good keyboard can make the world of a difference

As you can see by my recent activity, I am back. I presented 10 Hands On Labs on various topics: HOL 540 ISA 2004 Enterprise Edition HOL 533 Installing and Configuring Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) for Claims Aware Applications HOL 536 Migrating Windows NT 4.0 to SBS 2003 HOL 531 Windows Small Business Server 2003 –  Customizing Windows SharePoint Services – Part 2 HOL 539 Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) While I did not attend any formal sessions, I can say the parties at night were excellent 🙂 I look forward to meeting more of you next year … Continue reading Microsoft’s Worldwide Partnering Conference 2005

I normally read Robert Scoble (the Scobleizer) but last week he mentioned a video that I am now in love with. You can see it here.   Incredible stuff, it’s long but very educational and funny! Thanks Robert!