Occasionally I talk with an IT guy who is scared to death of virtualization. Why the fear? Well the typical answer I get is that "it's complicated" or "expensive" or "I have no experience with it; going forward with it would be risky." If you're a virtualization tech of any stripe you'll know these worries can be easily erased. My own work experience with Hyper-V is a great answer to these techs who are scared (no offense) of virtualization. Why do I say don't be scared? I say don't be scared of virtualization because 1) you have no reason to be and 2) virtualization is super helpful for the most ordinary of IT projects.
At work we needed to implement Server 2008 R2's RDWeb services to enable our work application to be available to users who are away from our main office and for users who needed to access the application when they're sick, on vacation, etc. When the concern was approached to me, I immediately thought of R2's RDWeb services and pitched the idea to a group of people who were not interested in buying a new server. They assumed to use the RDWeb service we would need to purchase new hardware and that just wasn't going to happen (I work for local government and money is tight!). I told them they didn't have to worry about purchasing new hardware because of Hyper-V! We were limited to the 2008 version of Hyper-V, so we aren't able to use features like dynamic memory and bandwidth management but the point I made to them and want to make here is that even 2008's Hyper-V can make the simplest of IT projects, e.g. rolling out RDWeb, even simpler and much, much cheaper than going with new hardware. The only purchase made was five Remote Desktop Services CALs! The rest of the project requirements were already owned by us which was awesome. If we didn't go the virtualization route we would have made a lot of purchases in hardware. So I added the Hyper-V role to an existing Windows Server 2008 machine, configured the RDWeb virtual machine, installed a copy of Windows Server 2008 R2 on the VM, installed and configured RDWeb on the virtual machine, made the necessary configurations in our Sonicwall TZ210 and then we were all set. Virtualization made that project so much easier than the alternative which is to buy new hardware, make room for that hardware, oh and convince the treasurer and company to make those purchases. For us, the project only cost us a couple of hundred dollars and RDWeb has helped us out a lot. Virtualizaton was the obvious route to take.
Don't be scared of virtualization! Implementing Hyper-V, Citrix, or VMWare doesn't mean you have to setup live migrations, virtual storage, virtual networks, VDI, or whatever else is intimidating to you; all it can mean is that you're going to use a virtual machine instead of a physical machine for your project. Try it out, even if it's in a lab at first. You can download trial copies of Server 2012 and Windows 8 to tinker around with virtualization if you haven't yet. Keith Mayer has awesome lab exercises for you to try and I know from personal experience that his lab exercises are awesome because I've used them multiple times! Again, don't be scared of virtualization because the benefits and range of uses are too great for you to not use because you're a little intimidated.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Just an Update
Hey all. This post isn't a troubleshooting, from-the-trenches post, it is just an update post due to the sad fact I haven't posted anything in more than a month. What am I doing? Well I'm still studying in my time from work for the MCSA: Server 2012 certification. I'm actually studying for all three exams before I take an exam; a studying tip from Ed Liberrman of Trainsignal. At first I wasn't sure about that method but now I completely understand his advocating that method. Studying for all three exams before taking the exams will give you a full understanding of Server 2012, which is what Ed suggested and I know this to be true now that I'm applying his method to my study time. Having studied Active Directory at the 70-411 and 70-412 levels has helped me to understand Active Directory better at level 70-410! It's just a great study method I think.
Study Tools
I'm using the Server 2012 certification book from Sybex that is authored by William Panek (an excellent tech writer) for all three exams. I have and am also using the Exam-ref book for 70-410 from Microsoft Press and the 70-410 Training Guide from Microsoft Press by Mitch Tulloch (another excellent tech writer). An additional and amazing study tool I'm using is TrainSignal. I can't recommend their videos and practice exams enough. Their practice exam for the 70-410 exam let me know quickly that I wasn't ready to take that exam. Ed Libberman is a great teacher too. His personality is engaging and you can just tell he knows what he is talking about. What about the books? The questions at the end of each chapter in the Sybex book are great questions in that they are scenario based and make you actually think instead of just matching the correct definition with the term. Also in each chapter are exercises which is always nice. The Exam-Ref book is a good book for giving you information for exactly what Microsoft requires you to know on the 70-410 exam. The author doesn't go any further than that and he doesn't exactly go in the deep end either so I can't say that book alone will prepare you for the 70-410 exam. There are practice exercises peppered throughout each chapter which, again, is nice. The 'Training Guide' form Tulloch is a very nice tool. He goes deeper on the exam objectives and his practice exercises are fun, challenging and helpful. This guide is a nice companion to the Exam-Ref book.
Is this study method and are these tools a great approach to earning the MCSA? Well I guess I'll see when I go in and take the 70-410 exam. I can't see how my current study method with all the tools I'm using is setting me up for failure. If I fail it will be because of me.
For work, I'm currently doing the day-in and day-out stuff. I'm not doing anything special but my current job is what it is: entry-level. Hopefully after earning the MCSA, along with my continued experience will land me an exciting System Administrator job elsewhere.
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Study Tools
I'm using the Server 2012 certification book from Sybex that is authored by William Panek (an excellent tech writer) for all three exams. I have and am also using the Exam-ref book for 70-410 from Microsoft Press and the 70-410 Training Guide from Microsoft Press by Mitch Tulloch (another excellent tech writer). An additional and amazing study tool I'm using is TrainSignal. I can't recommend their videos and practice exams enough. Their practice exam for the 70-410 exam let me know quickly that I wasn't ready to take that exam. Ed Libberman is a great teacher too. His personality is engaging and you can just tell he knows what he is talking about. What about the books? The questions at the end of each chapter in the Sybex book are great questions in that they are scenario based and make you actually think instead of just matching the correct definition with the term. Also in each chapter are exercises which is always nice. The Exam-Ref book is a good book for giving you information for exactly what Microsoft requires you to know on the 70-410 exam. The author doesn't go any further than that and he doesn't exactly go in the deep end either so I can't say that book alone will prepare you for the 70-410 exam. There are practice exercises peppered throughout each chapter which, again, is nice. The 'Training Guide' form Tulloch is a very nice tool. He goes deeper on the exam objectives and his practice exercises are fun, challenging and helpful. This guide is a nice companion to the Exam-Ref book.
Is this study method and are these tools a great approach to earning the MCSA? Well I guess I'll see when I go in and take the 70-410 exam. I can't see how my current study method with all the tools I'm using is setting me up for failure. If I fail it will be because of me.
For work, I'm currently doing the day-in and day-out stuff. I'm not doing anything special but my current job is what it is: entry-level. Hopefully after earning the MCSA, along with my continued experience will land me an exciting System Administrator job elsewhere.
Subscribe to the blog! Tell people about it.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Exchange 2010 451.4.4.0 Queue Problem
Sometimes weird stuff happens with technology. There's no philosophical inquiry needed because, in my experience, technology problems often don't have an answer as to *why* the problem happened; it just happened. Yeah, there are some reasons we can give to why it happened, sometimes, but like with this problem I'm about to describe, I can't give a reason why it happened. All I know is that it happened and I had to fix it.
A couple of the employees told me they weren't receiving emails from our employee self service application. Employees use this to view paystubs, events, and such so it is important that this application is working correctly. Employees register with whatever email address they want to use: professional or personal, we don't care.
When I dove into Exchange 2010, I noticed by looking at the logs and the queue viewer that the only domain generating an error was our professional domain. Google, Live, and yahoo domains were receiving email from our server, but not our domain. The error generated in the queue viewer was 451.4.4.0 DNS Query Failed. This was odd because I leave this server alone. The only changes made to the server are security updates. That's it. Regardless, this problem happened and I had to fix it.
How did I fix it? Well, obviously it was a DNS issue. I could tell by the error message. :p
So I checked out the external DNS lookups tab in the HUB transport server object properties. I had the top option "use network card dns settings" selected and that is how it has been running for over a year now. Anyway, since a problem had occurred I decided to select the other option "use these DNS servers" and put in the IPs of the servers we forward to. I then configured the SMTP send connector properties under the network tab (located by selecting hub transport under org. configuration) and checked the box "use the external DNS lookup settings on the transport server." Doing this cleared the queue and employees using their professional email addresses received (are are receiving) their email from "employee self service." Yeah, this is working, but I'm not sure why the problem occurred. I'm glad I was able to fix it in a timely manner. Obviously there was a problem with the DNS properties of the network card for the exchange server because changing the option to external lookups and using the DNS forwarders fixed the problem. I'll have to investigate further and will write here again if and when I figure that out.
Anyway, I hope this helps one of you having this strange problem.
A couple of the employees told me they weren't receiving emails from our employee self service application. Employees use this to view paystubs, events, and such so it is important that this application is working correctly. Employees register with whatever email address they want to use: professional or personal, we don't care.
When I dove into Exchange 2010, I noticed by looking at the logs and the queue viewer that the only domain generating an error was our professional domain. Google, Live, and yahoo domains were receiving email from our server, but not our domain. The error generated in the queue viewer was 451.4.4.0 DNS Query Failed. This was odd because I leave this server alone. The only changes made to the server are security updates. That's it. Regardless, this problem happened and I had to fix it.
How did I fix it? Well, obviously it was a DNS issue. I could tell by the error message. :p
So I checked out the external DNS lookups tab in the HUB transport server object properties. I had the top option "use network card dns settings" selected and that is how it has been running for over a year now. Anyway, since a problem had occurred I decided to select the other option "use these DNS servers" and put in the IPs of the servers we forward to. I then configured the SMTP send connector properties under the network tab (located by selecting hub transport under org. configuration) and checked the box "use the external DNS lookup settings on the transport server." Doing this cleared the queue and employees using their professional email addresses received (are are receiving) their email from "employee self service." Yeah, this is working, but I'm not sure why the problem occurred. I'm glad I was able to fix it in a timely manner. Obviously there was a problem with the DNS properties of the network card for the exchange server because changing the option to external lookups and using the DNS forwarders fixed the problem. I'll have to investigate further and will write here again if and when I figure that out.
Anyway, I hope this helps one of you having this strange problem.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
How to delete Exchange 2010 mailbox without removing user object
This is a question that pops up occasionally. If you want to remove a user mailbox, but keep the user account active because he will still be connecting to the network how do you do it? Right-clicking the user mailbox in Exchange 2010 displays options like 'remove' and 'disable.' Clearly I don't want to disable the mailbox because that will just disable the user mailbox instead of removing it right? Wrong. Disable is actually what you want to click to remove the mailbox while keeping the user account in Active Directory. Yes, the mailbox will be disabled for a while and not removed, but after a period of time (depending on your Exchange setup) the mailbox will be removed (deleted) from storage.
Yes, it's strange but clicking disable will remove exchange properties from the user account then the disconnected mailbox will be setup for deletion. Doesn't it seem like 'remove' should do this?
Yes, it's strange but clicking disable will remove exchange properties from the user account then the disconnected mailbox will be setup for deletion. Doesn't it seem like 'remove' should do this?
Thursday, July 11, 2013
SyncBack Free Review
I just finished testing 2BrightSparks SyncBack Free. I'm very satisfied with this free backup solution. I'm so satisfied that I'm going to stop using the previous solution I used for simple backups.
SyncBack Free isn't intending to be an enterprise level backup solution so don't expect features like that in this free solution (though their paid pro version does that stuff). What it does do though it does very well. For my environment, I wanted to backup my documents and outlook content to a shared storage location. In my past experience this has either been very easy and thus neglecting some extra features or very complicated and thus keeping me from wanting to use the product. Syncback Free takes an approach that I like a lot by having two modes: easy mode and expert mode. In easy mode and expert modes you first name your backup profile, e.g., outlook profile. Then, you decide what this profile is going to be: backup, synchronize, or mirror (these choices are explained by hovering your mouse over the "?" next to each choice). After naming and choosing the purpose for your profile you automatically are in easy mode. In this mode you can setup your source and destination folders (local, external, or network paths to choose), setup a schedule, and choose what you want to happen if SyncBack Free encounters a duplicate file during a backup, e.g., do you want to copy and replace, do nothing, prompt, etc. If you're done then you can do a simulation run to test the backup. You can choose expert mode from the left menu bar before going through with the simulation run.
In expert mode, you obviously have more options to design your backup profile. This is the part of Syncback Free I really like. Expert mode has options like compression, encryption, FTP, Programs-before and more. One to thing to point out: by default, Syncback Free backups your data to the destination as is. What do I mean? I mean that if you go to your destination drive to view your backup you'll see all your data just the way it looks in your source drive, i.e., the backup isn't zipped into a single folder or encrypted. Anyone with access to that destination drive will be able to access your data without any problem. This is important to point out and the only flaw, I've found, with SyncBack Free. It's basically a copy and paste by default. Expert mode allows you to change this. In the compression section you can check the box to compress the files on the destination into a zip file, then check the box below it to put all the files into a single zip file and if you want you can choose the level of compression. Doing this will make the size of your backup smaller and make the backup a single zipped folder. You can also encrypt your compressed backup which is nice.
So that is my review of SyncBack Free. It's my impression that this solution is for personal use and for very small businesses who can't afford to pay for a solution that is more robust than this free solution. The Pro version is 54.95, but it has a lot of features that make the product worth the price.
If you're looking for a backup solution for your home or small office then checkout SyncBack Free.
SyncBack Free isn't intending to be an enterprise level backup solution so don't expect features like that in this free solution (though their paid pro version does that stuff). What it does do though it does very well. For my environment, I wanted to backup my documents and outlook content to a shared storage location. In my past experience this has either been very easy and thus neglecting some extra features or very complicated and thus keeping me from wanting to use the product. Syncback Free takes an approach that I like a lot by having two modes: easy mode and expert mode. In easy mode and expert modes you first name your backup profile, e.g., outlook profile. Then, you decide what this profile is going to be: backup, synchronize, or mirror (these choices are explained by hovering your mouse over the "?" next to each choice). After naming and choosing the purpose for your profile you automatically are in easy mode. In this mode you can setup your source and destination folders (local, external, or network paths to choose), setup a schedule, and choose what you want to happen if SyncBack Free encounters a duplicate file during a backup, e.g., do you want to copy and replace, do nothing, prompt, etc. If you're done then you can do a simulation run to test the backup. You can choose expert mode from the left menu bar before going through with the simulation run.
In expert mode, you obviously have more options to design your backup profile. This is the part of Syncback Free I really like. Expert mode has options like compression, encryption, FTP, Programs-before and more. One to thing to point out: by default, Syncback Free backups your data to the destination as is. What do I mean? I mean that if you go to your destination drive to view your backup you'll see all your data just the way it looks in your source drive, i.e., the backup isn't zipped into a single folder or encrypted. Anyone with access to that destination drive will be able to access your data without any problem. This is important to point out and the only flaw, I've found, with SyncBack Free. It's basically a copy and paste by default. Expert mode allows you to change this. In the compression section you can check the box to compress the files on the destination into a zip file, then check the box below it to put all the files into a single zip file and if you want you can choose the level of compression. Doing this will make the size of your backup smaller and make the backup a single zipped folder. You can also encrypt your compressed backup which is nice.
So that is my review of SyncBack Free. It's my impression that this solution is for personal use and for very small businesses who can't afford to pay for a solution that is more robust than this free solution. The Pro version is 54.95, but it has a lot of features that make the product worth the price.
If you're looking for a backup solution for your home or small office then checkout SyncBack Free.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Disk Management refresher
In Windows Server 2012, disk management is arguably defeated by server manager, powershell, and storage spaces. However, not every business (small, medium, or large) is going to make a quick move to Server 2012. What that means is that the IT pro needs to know the basics.
I found this great post at TechNet on implementing disk management. In it the reader will learn disk terms and how to use disk management for creating and managing basic and dynamic disks, software RAID, enabling quotas, and enabling encryption.
Enjoy!
Implementing Disk Management
I found this great post at TechNet on implementing disk management. In it the reader will learn disk terms and how to use disk management for creating and managing basic and dynamic disks, software RAID, enabling quotas, and enabling encryption.
Enjoy!
Implementing Disk Management
Monday, June 3, 2013
Fun with Windows update errors 80246007 and 80070002
*yes it has been a while since I've blogged. I've been very busy with life and studying for MCSA 70410*
At work recently, I've had trouble with a Windows 7 pro 64 bit machine dedicated to running our remote check scanner device and software. The machine has never given me trouble until today. I was doing my morning "thang" checking out security stuff on our network. I discovered that the remotescanner machine had failed update install errors. I RDP into the machine to get a closer look. The specific errors surrounded in large, scary, red-ness were: 80246007 and 80070002. The machine hasn't been installing the latest updates for the past few days.
Looking into the errors I found that there was a 'fix-it' option. I took that option because, hey, usually that is the efficient way to take. Guess what? Fix-it didn't fix it! That's unusual for my 'fix-it experience. I even ran fix-it again only to find that it still didn't work. Tackling the errors myself I was able to solve the problem following *some* of the steps. At first, I restarted the BITS service, restarted the machine, checked for updates, downloaded the updates and then the updates actually installed. Upon reboot and logging into Windows, I was told by Update that more updates needed to be installed so I ran the install and all the updated installed successfully (yes, the updates that failed these past few days). I checked for more but there weren't any to download. So, the machine is now nice, green, and updated.
I'm confused though. Restarting the BITS is the solution for 80246007, not for 80070002. Why are Windows Updates now installing instead of failing? Whatever the answer, I'm glad the machine is working properly now, but I do wonder why two errors were the culprit for failed updates only to be fixed by the solution for one of the errors?
At work recently, I've had trouble with a Windows 7 pro 64 bit machine dedicated to running our remote check scanner device and software. The machine has never given me trouble until today. I was doing my morning "thang" checking out security stuff on our network. I discovered that the remotescanner machine had failed update install errors. I RDP into the machine to get a closer look. The specific errors surrounded in large, scary, red-ness were: 80246007 and 80070002. The machine hasn't been installing the latest updates for the past few days.
Looking into the errors I found that there was a 'fix-it' option. I took that option because, hey, usually that is the efficient way to take. Guess what? Fix-it didn't fix it! That's unusual for my 'fix-it experience. I even ran fix-it again only to find that it still didn't work. Tackling the errors myself I was able to solve the problem following *some* of the steps. At first, I restarted the BITS service, restarted the machine, checked for updates, downloaded the updates and then the updates actually installed. Upon reboot and logging into Windows, I was told by Update that more updates needed to be installed so I ran the install and all the updated installed successfully (yes, the updates that failed these past few days). I checked for more but there weren't any to download. So, the machine is now nice, green, and updated.
I'm confused though. Restarting the BITS is the solution for 80246007, not for 80070002. Why are Windows Updates now installing instead of failing? Whatever the answer, I'm glad the machine is working properly now, but I do wonder why two errors were the culprit for failed updates only to be fixed by the solution for one of the errors?
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