Month: October 2005

Windows: Longhorn Server – the little things mean a lot – SMB2 Protocol http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2005/10/20/412800.aspx   Storage Manager for SANs Quick Start Guide http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d5483d65-5056-4711-a6df-2e2a6e3f9441&displaylang=en   SPS: Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services Inside Out http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d46e9c6f-6f29-4bfc-969a-3fcfede2b066&displaylang=en   Deployment and Customization Best Practices for Windows SharePoint Services http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3d1fa469-0064-4054-9c1a-a6d8c8afce2b&displaylang=en   Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services Step by Step http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=761f1eac-2eb4-428b-86f0-bbc995913771&displaylang=en   Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services Inside Out http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=29bf1ede-019e-4a9a-a771-9f8df1c4322b&displaylang=en   LCS: Office Communicator 2005: Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 Planning and Deployment Guidehttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=04ce058b-5024-4198-8d27-2aa331fd5a3d&displaylang=en

1. Assign appropriate IP addresses to each NIC, placing the NICs in separate subnets. Rename the first NIC “Public“ and the second to “Admin“, do this for each machine.* Node1 –o “Public” NIC* IP address: 10.10.10.11* Subnet: 255.255.255.0* Gateway: 10.10.10.1* DNS: as appropriateo “Admin” NIC* IP address: 192.168.1.1* Subnet: 255.255.255.0* Gateway: N/A* DNS: N/A* Node2 –o “Public” NIC* IP address: 10.10.10.12* Subnet: 255.255.255.0* Gateway: 10.10.10.1* DNS: as appropriateo “Admin” NIC* IP address: 192.168.1.2* Subnet: 255.255.255.0* Gateway: N/A* DNS: N/A2. On the “Public” NICs, click “Advanced” and add an additional IP address as the Virtual IP Address which clients will connect … Continue reading How-To: Configure Network Load Balancing (NLB) with Two Network Adapters

Just recorded – TechNet Webcast: How You Can Achieve Greater Availability with Failover Clustering Across Multiple Sites (Level 300) http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032282061&CountryCode=US This is yet another (http://msmvps.com/clustering/archive/2005/06/27/56143.aspx) excellent webcast from the master himself – Elden Christensen. This is a great free resource to learn everything you ever wanted to know about Geographically Dispersed Clusters. The strange part is not that you learn a lot from Elden. Not that you get a glimpse of what LongHorn Server may have in store for us. Not the excellent presentation skills of Elden throughout this 68 minutes presentation. The strange part is that the slides and graphics … Continue reading GeoClustering – How You Can Achieve Greater Availability with Failover Clustering Across Multiple Sites

Exchange: Service Pack 2 Release notes are out – http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/b/5/fb5c54af-fe5c-48e9-be97-f9e8207325ab/Ex_2003_SP2_RelNotes.htm   Exchange Insider – good stuff http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/insider/default.mspx   What’s New in Exchange Server 2003 – version 4 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=84236bd9-ac54-4113-b037-c04a96a977fd&displaylang=en   Windows: Microsoft Windows Server Update Services Operations Guide http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e26bcdb4-ef0b-4399-8a71-9b3b00c4f4cd&displaylang=en   Print Management Step-by-Step Guide http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=83066ddc-bc96-4418-a629-48c8abd2c7a0&displaylang=en   Step-by-Step Guide to Setting up Server for NIS http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=864fcd99-956f-459a-adfd-aeb4a071bf73&displaylang=en   Step-by-Step Guide to Deploying Active Directory Federation Services for Windows Server 2003 R2 Beta 2 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=062f7382-a82f-4428-9bbd-a103b9f27654&displaylang=en   Security: patterns & practices Security Engineering Explained http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=75039f39-b33a-4bbd-b041-cf25f7473a0b&displaylang=en   ISA: Implementing WSUS with ISA Server 2004 to Manage Remote Clients http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ab72eb03-09cf-4cfb-9af5-1a7dc9c80bc9&displaylang=en   ADAM: ADAM Step-by-Step Guide http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=5163b97a-7df3-4b41-954e-0f7c04893e83&displaylang=en   … Continue reading Exchange, Windows, Security, ISA, ADAM, SPS

After the fun Microsoft had with Slammer a change was made: SQL 2000a does exist and is the current version. SQL 2000a is basically the original disk of SQL 2000 with one DLL replaced to protect against getting the Slammer worm.  Windows Server 2003 actually has a check for this particular patch (hence the need for SQL SP3a or higher requirement) and disables network access for SQL until it is in place.  That is why we have to do the named pipe alias (see http://msmvps.com/clustering/archive/2005/10/19/71580.aspx) for clustered non-default instance installs on Windows Server 2003. Windows Server 2003 doesn’t like installing the original version and prefers SQL … Continue reading SQL 2000a? Does it really exist, or is it a misprint?

We added a node to one of our clusters. We confirmed that the hardware, firmware, bios, OS, and installed programs were exactly alike. The new machine joined the cluster like a champ, no issues. When I went to install SQL and create a new instance, I was hit with this error: The cluster resource failed to come online. If extended error information was reported by the clustering service it can be obtained from the event log. It turns out this is a known issue. From http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;815431 “To run SQL Server on Windows Server 2003, you must have SQL Server 2000 Service … Continue reading Installing a new SQL instance into an existing cluster on a new Node

Exchange: Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 – its out! http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=535bef85-3096-45f8-aa43-60f1f58b3c40&DisplayLang=en   Using the Exchange Dump Utility (ExchDump) http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Using-Exchange-Dump-Utility-ExchDump.html   Exchange Server Error-1018 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7d6d90f2-50f8-4072-8ce9-b073069b8756&displaylang=en   Windows: Deploying Microsoft Windows Server Update Services http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e99c9d13-63e0-41ce-a646-eb36f1d3e987&displaylang=en   SPS: SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 2 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=171dc9a7-b4ba-4759-bd64-6b7d851a97ef&displaylang=en  

The question goes something like this: My cluster is installed and running SQL/Exchange nicely but I noticed that all the services for SQL/Exchange are set to start manaully. Should I set the services to automatic instead? Answer: Cluster controlled services should always be set to manual, so that the cluster can control the startup and shutdown. Remember with Microsoft clustering only one server can control a resource at any given time. Leaving the services set to manual will help the cluster service do it’s job and ensure an error free service 🙂

Just a few months ago Ben H. won a free exam voucher by reading this blog and being the first to email me (that contest is over, look for another very soon). It seems Ben is pretty good at Exchange and recently used the voucher to pass 70-285 – http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-285.asp. That is not an easy exam! Congrats Ben! Great job! Ben is working on his own site as we speak –  www.ExchangeIS.com.  

Exchange: Exchange Standby Clusters are now supported – This is HUGE!!!! http://blogs.technet.com/evand/archive/2005/10/07/412175.aspx – http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/DROpsGuide/2493c2d6-618c-4c49-9cb1-fff556926707.mspx (How to Move All Exchange Virtual Servers from a Production Exchange 2003 Cluster to a Standby Exchange 2003 Cluster)   Vulnerabilities in MSDTC and COM+ Could Allow Remote Code Execution (902400) – Nasty little bugger. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS05-051.mspx   Best Practices for Using Volume Shadow Copy Service with Exchange Server 2003 – Nice http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/vssbp.mspx   Using Microsoft Office Outlook Live – Interesting stuff. http://www.msexchange.org/articles/Using-Microsoft-Office-Outlook-Live.html   Security: Windows exploit code raises worm alarm – Here we go again – See MSDTC/COM+ download above J http://news.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029694,39193187,00.htm