SCUG.dk

System Center User Group Meeting - May 2012

Ronni Pedersen — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:23:08 GMT

Registration for the next System Center User Group meeting is now live…

We are very excited to announce our next event and offer you the opportunity to come and meet with fellow System Center administrators and influencers.The main focus of this event, is to bring back all latest updates on System Center from Microsoft Management Summit 2012 in Las Vegas. During this event you can expect to see lots of live demos from most of the System Center 2012 suite.

More info on System Center User Group Denmark:

Website: http://scug.dk/

Events: http://scug.dk/content/Events.aspx

Facebook Site: https://www.facebook.com/pages/System-Center-User-Group-Denmark/133995186642729

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/pages/System-Center-User-Group-Denmark/133995186642729#!/groups/196465560389943/

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2509783&trk=hb_side_g

Eventbrite: http://scugdk.eventbrite.com/

Data Protection Manager , Recovery Virtual Machine / Disaster Recovery

Flemming Riis — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:42:13 GMT

With Data Protection Manager 2012 its possible to protect whole virtual machines and recover then as full machines , saving the time to install agents and rebuild the OS from bare metal

With Data Protection Manager 2012 we have the ability to restore a complete virtual machine, backup needs to be performed with the Hyper-V integration for DPM

Under protection we need to select the Microsoft Hyper-V and Recover

If we drill down to the VHD level only the VHD file will be recovered and that can only be restored to a network location.

Option one for restore is Recover to Original Instance

It will then recover the vhd files and config files

When Recovery Starts DPM will take the Virtual Machine offline

And after recovery is completed the Virtual Machine needs to be started manually , but no other interaction is needed.

Or is is possible to restore the virtual machine to another host

And we need to select a destination for the machine when redirected to another host.

DPM will recovery config files and any VHD file with the virtual machine

Success !

And DPM will register the virtual machine on the new host , depending on network configuration there might be a need to change the network settings after the recovery

This will still require some extra work if restore from cluster as there isn't a way (as I see it) to recovery to a new cluster only to files shares on Hyper-V hosts , but in a disaster recovery scenario a cluster isn't always available

Data Protection Manager , Silently Changing File Recovery Points Retention

Flemming Riis — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:57:12 GMT

I ran into a issue today where DPM silently have changed the File Recovery Points , in the above senario we keep 60 snapshots within the limit of 64 snapshots

If we change the retention so we go beyond the supported 64 snapshots DPM will automatically and without warning change to a weekly snapshot , a warning would be very nice as this can and will be missed if people are just making a adjustment for a existing protection group.

But if we go though Modify in the File Recovery Points and exceed the 64 snapshot limit we will get a warning.

So be carefull

Data Protection Manager , Backup / Restore Exchange 2010

Flemming Riis — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 22:13:52 GMT

This post will show the steps needed to protect and recover a Exchange 2010 database in a single server installation , future post will show recovery in DAG.

First step is to create a new Protection Group containing the Exchange database we want to protect

In the protection group you can set DPM to check integrity so that the load of the operation will be on the DPM server

Data Protection Manager 201x supports backup of DAG when server is not in a dag there is only the Full Backup option available.

15 minutes of frequency will enable us to restore a mailbox database that is up to 15 minutes behind so in case of a database+log failure the max data loss is 15 minutes.

When creating the protection group we can schedule the initial data transfer or transfer right away or third option is to move the data though removable media

Data Protection Manager will default run a consistency job if the replica is inconsistent this can also be scheduled

And we can then see the protection group being protected

And Event ID 3154 tells us that the database is gone

Either though powershell run set-mailboxdatabase –Identity “mailboxdatabasename” –AllowFileRestore $True to enable that Data Protection Manager can restore the database

Or though the GUI

Select the database you want to restore and Latest to get the most recent backup

When Recent is selected the database can only be recovered to the original server if you select a time other then latest its possible use other recovery options

As Latest was selected Data Protection Manager and Exchange will reply log files if present , this will enable close to zero data loss if log files are intact

And time to wait for a short while.

And the database is back and operational.

Data Protection Manager , Additional Protection of Domain Controllers Recommended Part 1/2

Flemming Riis — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:01:35 GMT

repost from flemmingriis.com

This is part 1 of 2 , next post will try to cover the steps for recovery when there is only tapes left.

Data Protection Manager require a domain to be able to work , this means that in a disaster recovery scenario we need to be able to get active directory up and running without the help of Data Protection Manager , this is in my opinion a big issue that everyone needs to step up on the soap box and yell about , adding the option to logon with a local account would speed up things and help out a lot , this would require that the site is alive and only the Active Directory is dead or that there is a 2nd Data Protection Server creating protection of critical workloads Offsite

Disaster Recovery can be triggered by complete site failure or rouge admin disabling all high privileged account locking admins out of the domain

The “workaround” is to schedule local backups with Windows Server Backup and then let Data Protection Manager back that up to tape as we can restore that from a “clean” build , but preferable copy the backup offsite or to tape directly on a server , this will be a cost issues on a lot of smaller sites but it cant be stressed enough that we need be to able to recovery Active Directory without Data Protection Manager.

This is in addition to the normal backup of domain controllers though Data Protection Manager, and would apply to every single backup vendor , always keep a separate native backup of active directory, auditors will complain but setting up a safe procedure for storage the additional backup is worth the effort

Reference : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772519(WS.10).aspx

Setup a schedule

When destination is remote , the backup will be overwritten each day so its needs to keep some rotation on the destination to ensure that there is more than one generation to recover from if disaster strikes , and again if there can be backup to tape it would be great

And we now have a WindowsImageBackup we can use if disaster strikes

Data Protection Manager 2012 , Disaster Recovery

Flemming Riis — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:59:57 GMT

Repost from : flemmingriis.com

Backup is one thing , Restore is another especially disaster recovery , in this blog post we will cover the scenario where everything is gone except the backup tapes , first blog post will cover getting the domain up and running again where following posts will cover fileservers , sql and exchange.

Data Protection Manager requires a functional domain to be able to recover any data from tape , so first step will always be to get the domain up and running again.

In this post we a production domain test.local with dc10.test.local as the sole domain controller and dpm10.test.local as the Data Protection Manager server.

For restore purpose we setup dctemp10.temptest.local and dpmtemp10.temptest.local to restore the data , so a disaster recovery will always require staging of the restore data if the domain is lost.

Its always recommended to keep additional backup of the domain controllers outside of Data Protection Manager to ensure that we always no matter what happens can recover the domain and then start recovery

But always keep separate backup of domain controllers , there cant be to many backups if the media is located in a big safe somewhere

On the test.local domain we need a complete backup of the Domain Controller

And we will need the configuration database for Data Protection Manager

After creating the Protection Groups create a manual recovery point to tape , both for the domain controller and the Data Protection Manager configuration database

For testing I am using Cristalink brilliant Virtual Tape Library for Data Protection Manager http://www.cristalink.com/fs/ , so here the backup is located on 3 virtual tapes.

We need a new domain to restore to until we can get the original production environment up and running so here we created a new domain and is adding a Data Protection Manager Server to the same domain.

To simulate adding tapes from the library we use FileStreams Import feature Load From File

And then we can see the same tapes as we had before the wipe of the Domain Controller and Data Protection Manager Server

We then need to start a detailed inventory so we can see what's on the tapes

After the detailed inventory have completed we need to Recatalog Imported Tape to add the content of the tapes to the Data Protection Managers configuration database

We then need to recover the System Protection from the tapes we did a recatalog on

Only restore option for systemprotection is a network folder

And its time to start the restore

Data Protection Manager == Success

We then need to share the folder out so we can access it from the Windows 2008 R2 installation media

to Restore from the recovered data we need to start the Windows 2008 R2 installer , DHCP needs to be enabled for networking support

Select a repair

As there are no local images to restore from select next

And start networking

Connect to the DPM Server

With Credentials from the new temporary domain

Select the Image to restore

Start the ReImage

And Wait

For about 12 minutes on my test setup

And after a reboot and setting fixed ip address the domain is up and running , and we now have a working domain so we can start to restore the Data Protection Manager server and then start restore all remaining workloads.

Data Protection Manager 2012 (Backup and Recovery of Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Generic Data Source Support)

Flemming Riis — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:40:55 GMT

One of the many new features in DPM2012 is the ability to use Generic Data Source Support where application owners can provide VSS support so Data Protection Manager can make a backup of the application, Microsoft have provided a writer for VMM 2012 that protect the database, hopefully more complex applications can be backed up this way in the future imagine having a writer for Biztalk that will protect all needed items , or Oracle / Domino and other 3rd party applications.

For a license point of view i dont know if it requre a enterprise ML or a standard one so protection VMM wouldnt require a Enterprise ML for SQL , but time will tell on that one.

Microsoft have provided a new VSS writer for Virtual Machine Manager 2012 that Data Protection Manager can use

So on our protection group we can select the VMM Express Writer

Setup the protection group

And as we are used to with DPM Sucess !

On the Virtual Machine Manager we can see that the VSS writer now calls SQL and create a backup of the configuration database

And before we break anything we verify that the backup is Complete and OK.

Lets detatch

and then delete the database in the filesystem

And verify that the Virtual Machine Manager is “broken”

Go into recovery select latest recovery point for the VMM Backup

And we can see that we want to recover the VirtualManagerDB

And as we have broken the running install we will replace/overwrite with recovery to original instance

And we can see the list of items for the recovery

and 20 seconds later we have Sucess

And in the eventlog we can see that the database have been restored

And SQL agrees

Then we close and open the Virtual Machine Manager interface again.

Sucess ! no overcast clouds are still here , nice detail that VMM recovers without service restart or anything.

SCUG.dk User Group Meeting: Session update

Ronni Pedersen — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:23:39 GMT

The scheduled breakout session on “Deploying Windows 7 using MDT 2012 and ConfigMgr 2012” with Johan Arwidmark, wil be replaced with the following session:

Title:
Inside Windows 8 – Deployment Tools Update

Abstract:
What’s new in Windows 8 Deployment - Join Johan Arwidmark guiding you through the new features, including Windows 8 WDS, ADK, WinPE 4.0, Performance Assessment and much more.

Speaker:
Johan Arwidmark | Chief Technical Architect | Knowledge Factory

System Center User Group Meeting - October 2011
http://scug.dk/content/SystemCenterUserGroupMeeting-October2011.aspx

Data Protection Manager 2012 beta 2 (Protecting Sharepoint 2010)

Flemming Riis — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:10:00 GMT

One highly requested feature is the ability to backup and restore sharepoint server , Microsoft have improved their sharepoint support in Data Protection Manager 2012 and added support for single item level recovery without having to restore the whole content database this will give a faster recovery.

The procedure for creating the backup havent changed from DPM2010 and i can highly recomend Mike Resseler’s 3 step blog post with setting up the 2010 part

http://scug.be/blogs/scdpm/archive/2010/03/11/sharepoint-2010-protection-in-dpm-2010-part-1.aspx

Current limitations as pr beta 2 (subject to change)

· Item-level recovery for items in Filestream databases will not be optimized.

· Tape recovery will not be optimized.

· DPM does not support item-level recovery for SharePoint sites using Variations. For more information about Variations, see Variations overview.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27216 beta2 and documentation download

On the sharepoint server after DPM Agent Installation , run ConfigureSharepoint.exe –EnableSharepointProtection , this will prompt you for a account that is Sharepoint Administrator

Create a protection group and add the Sharepoint install (here everything is located on one server) and let the first backup complete

DPM = Sucess

DPM will index the sharepoint content once a day , so there can be some delay in restore selection showing all content this can be foced with

get-ProtectionGroup dpm10.demo.local |get-datasource |where-object {$_.type –like "*sharepoint*"} | start-createcatalog , this will index the backup

If we then delete the document

then we can go into DPM and restore the item

When we select recovery

Since the original farm is running we will Recover without the using recovery farm

The new party trick is that DPM2012 will mount the content database from the replica on the Data Protection Manager server, this will save a significiant ammount of data transfer , but require that the replica being recovered from is located on disk (not sure if that will change as we go closer to RTM)

And we have our document back.

We can then on the Sharepoint Server see that DPM have attached a database to the local instance and then run the export / import commands on sharepoint to recovery the data, if we are fast enough we can see the database being mounted over the network to the DPM server.

Data Protection Manager 2012 (Protecting Hyper V Guests)

Flemming Riis — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:11:00 GMT

One of the great features in Data Protection Manager is the ability to protect virtual machines without having to install agents, this will though HyperV and VSS create a backup of the virtual machine.

This is one of the many “smaller” features that completes the systemcenter suite of products , Hyper V and Virtual Machine Manager enables flexible automates virtulization and Data Protection Manager enables best of class backup of Windows Guests in the same HyperV Cluster.

Just one more reason to evaluate HyperV , Virtual Machine Manager and Data Protection Manager

First we need to make sure that we have the DPM agent on all our HyperV Hosts so we can protect resouces in a cluster (the same feature set is now available in DPM 2012 for stand alone hyper-v hosts.

Create a Protection Group and browse though the cluster to the resource you want to protect.

Setup protection goals and transfer the data for the first backup

and lets transfer some data to the guest

And head back into the Data Protection Manager and Create Recovery Point

and Create Recovery Point for Short Term Protection

and or backup is running

and we can see that a backup will transfer the data moved into the guest instead of a full copy of the guest (this is new on stand alone hosts)

And we can see our VHD file for the guest in our recovery options and we are able to drill and and restore individual items if needed

Data Protection Manager 2012 beta 2 (Disaster Recovery of Data Protection Manager Server)

Flemming Riis — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 20:08:00 GMT

This post will cover the disaster recovery of Data Protection Manager Server , there are a few ground rules that needs to be followed.

NEVER ever loose your tapes (duh)

ALWAYS keep a backup of the configuration database

ALWAYS keep a domain controller alive , and keep a backup of a domain controller with Windows Backup so it can be restored if everything else is gone.

If we loose our data protection manager server due to hardware issues flood earthquake or fonzie attack we need always to keep our data on tape a copy on a different Data Protection Manager with the DPM to DPM backup feature.

In this senario we will kill the Data Protection Manager server and recover data from tape only, i use the exellent filesteamer from http://www.cristalink.com awesome for testing and for long term recovery to disk.

DPM uninstalled and all data deleted, remember if you need to rebuild the operating system you need to call the server the same as before the rebuild.

We then need to start the installation of Data Protection Manager

This setup used the local sql database so for testing we will create a new sql instance for the Data Protection Manager Server

And we will use the default file paths for install

After install we dont have any recovery points as all our data is located on tape and we have lost our configuration database

Go to Management and Libaries

Select Rescan for Data Protection Manager to scan for tape devices

Yes please.

When the tape libary is connected after rescan we can see the tapes but not whats on them

We then need to perform a detailed inventory

After the detailed inventory the tapes now shows as inported with label the tapes was created with

If you know what tape the data protection manager configuration database is on in the newest version run the “Recatalog imported media”

Yes please , this will take time

But very fast on a test setup with a virtual tape libary

We can then see the Data Protection Manger server and recovery points for the configuration database

Data Protection Manager cant restores its own database directly so it needs to be restored to a network location

And we can only restore locally as we have no agents connected to the Data Protection Manager server (but we need to db locally)

Here we will just restore the Data Protection Manager configuration database

And Data Protection Managers trade mark “Sucessful” as usual

There are differnt ways to connect the database i prefeer just to stop all Data Protection Manager services

Detatch the database from our clean install

Copy the database files from the restore to C:\restore (example)

Attach the database files

And reboot the data protection manager server

After reboot we can now see that Data Protection Manager knows the tapes

And the agents is connected again and we can restore from mutiple sources.

There is some housekeeping that needs to be run after this but this will get you up and running and start restoring data

Data Protection Manager 2012 Backup Configuration Database

Flemming Riis — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 20:21:00 GMT

There is one thing that cant be said to many times about Data Protection Manager (regardless of version) ALWAYS backup the configuration database and when you have created one backup create another one.

DPMBackup.exe this can be schedules with windows task scheduler to create backup and then move of the Data Protection Manager server so if there is a hardware failure you will be able to recovery the database fast and start restoring data.

DPMBackup –db –targetlocation C:\DPM will create a backup of the local database instance and place the bak file in C:\DPM

The DPMBackup calls SQL and creates a regular SQL to file backup.

Or you can on the locally Data Protection Server select the databases and place then in a regular protection group , you need to ensure that to goes to tape on a regular basis.

If possible i prefeer to add one additional Data Protection Manager and use that to protect other Data Protection Managers Configuration Databases , so push a agent to the Data Protection Server

And add the SQL database

and set a retention range that fits your enviroment , short retention should be fint this is only to help if the database gets corrupt or the Data Protection Server vanishes into thin air.

Getting started with Data Protection Manager 2012 Beta 2 (Central Console)

Flemming Riis — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 20:01:32 GMT

One of the new features in Data Protection Manager 2012 Beta 2 is the Central Console based on Operations Manager 2007/2012 , this have enhanced the feature set from the old management pack to include direct links to the Data Protection Manager servers though the DPM Remote Administration and filters and comon tasks for day to day operation of Data Protection Manager.

This blog post will cover the basics of the installation and features , if time permits a update will follow with the Service Level integration where we can only get alerts if backup fails over a period of time, so a reboot that will cause a job til faile once wont fail the resource if the following jobs complete without errors , this will reduce the signal/noise level and help report back to the business side of view.

This is in my opinon a very stong feature giving total overview of your Microsoft enviroment and is a must install if you have the Operation Manager license.

Installation is as with all of Data Protection Manager very fast and easy , so on the Operations Manager server start the installer and select DPM Central Console

Install Central Consle Server and Client Side Components

Let the installer do it magic for a short while.

And then import the management packs on the Operations Manager , note that the Management Packs is located in Microsoft DPM not Microsoft Data Protection Manager

Import the management pack

Sucess

And we can see the Data Protection Manager 2012 views and folders being created

The management pack for Data Protection Manager have a discovery targeted at windows servers that runs every 12 hours looking for new seed servers (that have Data Protection Manager Server installed)

Once a day at 12am the detailed discovery runs the Data Protection Server versions and then twice a day all other discovery runs pr default.

So if a new server is being added to the Data Protection Manager server it will take some time before they show up in the Operations Manager Console , all discoveries can be overridden if you want faster discovery

If a error occurs (here a database have been forced offline) we can see the monitor causing the alert and troubleshooting tips , if we select troubleshoot to get additional information

And then the new Data Protection Manager console opens with a filtered view so we only get the infomation we need

If operations want to start a backup job then can select the datasource and “Create Recovery Point”

There is currently only disks on the test setup so we only have the options to create short term , and after creation we can open the console and look at the job

And again the Operations Manager Console opens the Data Protection Manager Remote Console and sets the correct filter so we only get the information we need

Getting Started with Data Protection Manager 2012 Beta 2 (Remote Administration)

Flemming Riis — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:18:00 GMT

One of the new features in Data Protection Manager 2012 is the improvements in administration , this is the basic part install the Remote Administration and “point” to one Data Protection Manager Server at a time , handy for smaller inviroments where you dont want to logon to the Data Protection Manager server or switches between mutiple for administrator , again this is a very straight forward setup but i try to show a feature at a time even if its very simple

Install DPM Remote Administrator

45 seconds later we are ready to use the console

And we can connect to the server we prefeer , note that SQL needs to be open in the inbound firewall on the Data Protection Manager server you are connecting to

And there is full access to the Data Protection Manager interface

And you can also push agents from the new Remote Administration feature.

Getting Started with Data Protection Manager 2012 Beta 2 (Remote SQL Installation)

Flemming Riis — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 19:11:51 GMT

One of the many new features in Data Protection Manager 2012 Beta 2 is the ability to host mutiple Data Protection Manager SQL databases on the same SQL server.

Locally on the SQL server the DPM install wizard needs to be run or the sqlprepinstaller , SQL 2008 R2 Update 4 or up are supported

Install is almost instant and leaves the DPM Remote SQL Prep files in

On the Data Protection Manager Server we need to start the installer

And we need to set “Use an existing instance of SQL Server” and type in credentials administrator access on the SQL server and Windows machine , and “Check and Install”

SQL Browser needs to be started on the remote server this is not enabled pr default

After prereq check have completed its next for install

And we can see that the database files are greyed out due to selection of remote sql install.

And the installer does it job (not the SQL Server 2008 R2 is already installed)

And as always the color of DPM is Green for sucessfull install , and off to a quick repeat on a different DPM server

And we can see that one Data Protection Manager config database have been created pr DPM Instance

Microsoft recomend dedicated SQL server for hosting the database , granting full access for the computer account for each DPM server helps with arguments against this.

Getting Started with Data Protection Manager 2012 Beta 2 , Single File Restore

Flemming Riis — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 21:53:00 GMT

One of the many new features in DPM 2012 is the ability to restore single files from a vhd backup , this feature was available in DPM 2010 (ref : http://scug.dk/blogs/dataprotectionmanager/archive/2010/08/29/restoring-single-files-within-hyper-v-guests-protected-with-data-protection-manager-2010.aspx) but that required a decicated hardware unit for running DPM this have been improved in DPM 2012 so there is no longer a requirement for that , so we can run DPM from within a HyperV guest and still be able to recover single files from full vhd backups.

This can help reduce the hardware cost in a distributed enviroment where we have the Tape drive located centrally but still want to be able to do quick restores locally.

Download link for beta 2 http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27216

We need to start with setting up a protection group , so lets select a server through the HyperV Cluster , and as you can see the DPM10 we are sitting on now is running within the same HyperV Cluster

And name our protection group , dpm is running virtual so there is no tape drive attached so we only have the disk option.

and we will stick with the defaults just for this test

and we need to allocate some space

And we will replicate the data now so we have something to recover from.

And lets create the group.

and as always sucess and DPM goes hand in hand

And in our running jobs we can see the first replica being created.

Sadly there is no hardware VSS in the lab so we need to live with redirected access until the backup is done , Microsoft please consider to enable the hardware VSS provider for your iscsi server to work with DPM.

And we have a backup to restore from

When you go to recovery and drill down to the VHD , Windows driver installer will pop up

And there will be a new storage HBA installed

and when to drill down again you can see the drive being inserted

the drive is visible in diskpart

and from the disk administrator but should not be touched from other than the DPM admin interface

and lets go back to drilling down the interface

Until we get a single file to restore

Recovery of single items needs to be recovered over the network to a machine with a dpm agent installed

or as here the dpm server itself.

and we are ready to restore.

Small file so recovery is almost instant , one more reason to love disk to disk backup

And we have the file restored.

This was a short intro to one of the many greate features in Data Protection Manager 2012 beta 2.

Getting started with Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta 2 (VMM Clustering)

Flemming Riis — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 22:28:25 GMT

One of my new favorite features of Virtual Machine Manager 2012 is the ability to cluster the Virtual Machine Manager Server and Libray so a single host failure wont impact the ability for VMM to function , this also make improves of the uptime at patch windows , as we can move the VMM to the passive node patch and rinse repeat

This short introduction will go though the steps to setup clustering on SQL and VMM but due to limited hardware resources it will be configured a non clustered Microsoft ISCSI Target.

This is a walkthrough there are room for improvement (multiple network cards , proper SQL design , SPOF) , so its meant as a short demo on how easy the cluster enablement of Virtual Machine Manager is

VMM require Windows Failover Clustering with a cluster running before installation of Virtual Machine Manager.

First we need to create the ISCSI targets for the 2 VMM nodes and the 2 VMM SQL Server Nodes , again this is testing so the ISCSI goes on the same network as all other traffic not something that will do for production or large scale testing, but this is a playground so we can cut some corners.

And we need some disks for the clusters , we just adding a quorum and a data disk on both the SQL and VMM cluster

And we need to present the disks the the iscsi targets.

And then we are ready to form the Windows Clusters and get ready for SQL and Virtual Machine Manager Installation

On each of the 4 machines we need to configure iscsi and connect the drives before starting the cluster installation.

And create a Qourum and Data drive for the SQL installation

And verify on the second node that the luns are visible.

And enable Windows Failover Clustering Feature on the VMM and SQL nodes.

Add both nodes for creating the cluster

And let the cluster validation wizard do the work for you to ensure that the cluster can be formed

And we are ready to form the cluster , we have one networking warning due to no redundancy of the network setup again for testing we can live with it.

And we need a name for the soon to be formed cluster

And the wizard is forming the cluster for us

And on the SQL node we needs to start the SQL Failover Cluster Installation

We need SQL Database Engine and Management Tools

And we need a name for the clustered SQL Server

Default is that we create a new cluster and let the install add the resources needed

And we need a cluster drive for install

And a ip address for the SQL part of the cluster

And we need to ensure that we use Latin1_General_CI_AS for Virtual Machine Manager database

And the we are waiting for the install to proceed

And Sucess

And on the 2nd node we need to start the installer to ensure that we have a 2nd node to failover to if the hardware breaks down

And we need to ensure that we install to the right instance

And waiting

And Scuess we now have a running SQL cluster

On the VMM nodes we need to setup the shared storage and start the failover cluster wizard as we did on the SQL servers

And we need a name for the base part of the cluster

We need to install WAIK on both nodes before we start with the VMM install

VMM detects that its running on a cluster and ask if we want to install into a cluster to ensure HA incase of hardware failure

Default install location for the application

And we need to point to our newly created SQL Cluster for placement of the database

And we need a name for the VMM Cluster itself

And for VMM HA a domain account and AD bound encryption key is a requirement

Library shares needs to be created manually after VMM Instal

And we are installing.

Success

On the second node we need to run the VMM installer , this will detect that VMM is already installed as HA and can then add the 2nd node to the cluster

The Wizard picks up the SQL information so no interaction is needed (exept for next)

We need to enter the password for the service account

And the installer is doing its job

And Success time to test

When starting the VMM Client we need to use SCDVMMCLUSTER and not the local nodes in the cluster

And we can see that we have connection to the cluster and we now have a VMM infrastructure with no single point of failure

Getting started with Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta 2 (Monitoring)

Flemming Riis — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:50:02 GMT

Microsoft have provided updated management packs for Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager 2012 , this intro will cover the basics to get running and start monitoring of the Virtual Machine Manager , I will follow up with a post drilling down more of the features and testing PRO tips.

First off we need the basic in place , so adding Windows Server Operating System and Windows Clustering and SQL

The management packs are located in the Management Pack directory on the Virtual Machine Manager server.

If some part is missing like IIS here resolve will fix that and you can proceed.

importing the management packs is usually fast , make sure to deploy in testing first to see the impact of the installed MP if IIS/SQL MP is new in the installation there will usually be a lot of alarms to deal with before drilling down into Virtual Machine Manager.

And verify that everyone have been imported successfully

We need to deploy agents on the Virtual Machine Manager Server and the HyperV hosts in the environment

Find the machines that needs the Operations Manager Agent.

Verify that the agent have been successfully installed

And manually set “Allow the agent to act as a proxy” on both the Virtual Machine Manager Server and all Hyper-V hosts

System Center Virtual Machine Manger needs the Operations Manager Console to sent PRO tips and integrate with Operations Manager

So on the Virtual Machine Manger install the User Interfaces from Operations Manager and remember to patch the console with the same Culminate Update you have running on the Operations Manager Server

Go into Virtual Machine Manager and System Center Settings Operations Manager Server

We need a run as account for connecting to Operations Manager , I use the default management account in the test enviroment

Then we need to connect to the Operations Manager - Root Management Server

And Operations Manager need account with admin rights to the Virtual Machine Manager Server

PRO tips is enabled pr default so we can get hints flowing so we know what to move around

For now I don’t have Analyses Services running in the test environment so no weather forecasting will be available

Verify that the Operations Manager Connection have been created successfully

And in the Virtual Machine Manager Console we can see that we are connected to the Management Group and Root Management Server

And in Operations Manager we can see that the internal connectors are created

Lets see the alerts we got from the monitoring after installation.

CA01 and the other machines are not yet installed buy powered on so Virtual Machine Manager reports the Clients Tools for not running.

This was a short walkthrough of the installation of the integration between Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager

Awarded Microsoft MVP 2011

Ronni Pedersen — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 07:55:15 GMT

1st July 2011, I received an email from Microsoft and I am delighted to share that I have been awarded “Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) 2011” for the fourth consecutive year in System Center Configuration Manager.

I would like to thank everyone of you who have supported me in any form especially my friends, family, colleagues, community partners, MVPs, MVP Lead and the Configuration Manager team at Microsoft in Redmond.

The following is the content copied from the announcement email…

Dear Ronni Pedersen,

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2011 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Configuration Manager technical communities during the past year.

The Microsoft MVP Award provides us the unique opportunity to celebrate and honor your significant contributions and say "Thank you for your technical leadership."

Toby Richards
General Manager
Community & Online Support

Getting started with Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta 2 (Adding Hosts)

Flemming Riis — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 21:33:28 GMT

After install of the Virtual Machine Manager we need to add hosts to the fabric.

We are adding hosts that are running in the same domain , a later post will show provisioning of bare metal servers to running Hyper-V hosts

To add hosts to the Virtuel Machine Manager we need to either create a RunAs account or enter credential with enough rights to install agents on the remove systems , depending on your security level a named account that have local admin rights for all Hyper-V hosts will do , or credentials can be entered when needed

So lets quickly create a user and assign needed rights.

To avoid to much work by hand we crate a new GPO for the OU containing the Hyper-V Hosts

Find a name we can recall

Leverage GPP and update local group with the newly create service account

and after a gpupdate /force we can verify that our service account now have local admin rights on the hyper-v hosts

So back to the Virtual Machine Manager Console and Create Run as Account

and the run as is ready for action.

there is a lot of flexible options for adding hosts , here we just searching for hosts starting with SCDHV

and we have some host ready for action.

and we will install the agents , please note that if earlier version of the VMM agent have been installed it needs to be removed before install of VMM 2012 Beta

a nice little detail is that VMM will enable Hyper-V if the role is not enabled on the hosts again saving us a few steps until we are ready for end-end deployment of new hyper-v hosts

And we have 4 hosts ready for action in our new standalone Virtual Machine Manager 2012 beta install.

Getting started with Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta 2 (Install)

Flemming Riis — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 22:09:04 GMT

To get started testing VMM2012 beta there are two options , Microsoft have provided a full vhd almost ready to run , or you can install the bits yourself , this small getting started guide will follow a manual install process but below is link to VHD and Install procedure from Microsoft , most of this guide is very basic so but can be scrolled though fast

This getting start guide is a step-step version of http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg610617.aspx

Deploying System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012 by Using a VHD

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg610688.aspx

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta – Evaluation (VHD)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=76002803-4fe8-4573-a76d-6b2b11adfe58

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012 Beta Documentation

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=F7C174F2-1D39-4FED-9778-3F41B84F744B

We need a virtual machine to run VMM from , this will “just” be a another virtual machine running on in this case a stand alone box , but it might as well be inside a cluster but many people prefeer to know where their VMM server is running so they don’t have to hunt for it in case of trouble.

Microsoft sizing guide says 4gb recommended with less than 150 hosts , here we are going to place SQL and VMM on the same box so ill double just to keep smooth runnings

VMM needs to be able to access the VMM hosts so make sure to use a network where it will be possible to access the Hyper-V hosts

We will create a data drive for SQL and VMM later so for now keep a reasonable boot size

and install on Windows 2008 R2 SP1 as 2008 R2 and 2008R2 SP1 is the only supported guest os

Windows Install (cant wait until VMM is running so we don’t need to do this manually)

as this will be a stand alone edition Standard Edition will do just fine

and we will wait a bit for Windows Install to complete

And its time for a domain join.

We need a service account for VMM for media sharing and HA , this should be a domain user with local admin rights on the VMM server

add the servicevmm01 account to the local adminstrator group on the guest that will host the Virtual Machine Manger

and to verify that rights are correct I prefeer to logon and install VMM with the service account

Time to install WAIK as a prereq for VMM

Select destination and next to start install of WAIK

For this part we will use a local installed SQL server.

Install SQL Database Engine and Management Tools

and select instance root location

I change the collation to Latin1 CI_AS to avoid possible collation trouble with danish locales but from what I can see its supported to run any collation as long as its CI/AS

make sure that the vmm service account have access to the SQL server

and its time to wait again

Start Install

Select VMM Server and VMM Administrator Console

No keys are needed during beta

and select a location for VMM install

Enter credentials for creating the database here we use the service account for vmm as it a stand alone installation

and enter service account again for running vmm , this standalone will just use local encryption keys , we will cover AD based keys in a later post

Moving Library off the boot drive

and waiting for a bit

and the VMM Server is ready for action

and we are ready to create/manage our fabric , stay tuned.

IT-Experts and Colabora User Group Meeting: Exchange and Lync

Ronni Pedersen — Tue, 24 May 2011 19:26:00 GMT

Our friends over at it-experts and the Colabora User Group is hosting a full day event with focus on Exchange and Lync (in Danish) , for registration and agenda please have a look at http://colabora-juni2011.eventbrite.com/

System Center Updates Publisher 2011 has released!

Ronni Pedersen — Tue, 24 May 2011 19:18:59 GMT

Jason T. Lewis has just announced the release of System Center Updates Publisher 2011. Read the announcement here.

I’m happy to announce that we have released System Center Updates Publisher 2011 to the web today. This release was primarily driven by customer feedback over the past year. It all started last year at MMS (2010) where we got a lot of great feedback regarding the existing product. Out of that feedback a plan was created to greatly improve the product for both customers and partners. Updates Publisher 2011 is packed full of new features and additions with just a few of them listed below.

New in System Center Updates Publisher 2011

Simpler setup with no database installation

An improved user interface that allows better control of managing software updates

Improved applicability rule authoring experience

Improved performance when importing and managing software updates

The ability to create software update bundles

The ability to define prerequisite and superseded updates as part of a software update definition

A new “Automatic” publication type with which Updates Publisher 2011 can query Configuration Manager to determine whether the selected software updates should be published with full content or only metadata

A new Software Update Cleanup Wizard that you can use to expire software updates that exist on the update server, but are not in the Updates Publisher 2011 repository

To download and learn more about SCUP from TechCenter visit here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/bb741049.aspx

Over the next few weeks come back to the blog for a series of screencast cover all aspects of Updates Publisher 2011.

Recover deleted Exchange 2010 mailbox with Data Protection Manager 2010

Flemming Riis — Sun, 15 May 2011 14:15:00 GMT

This post will show how to recovery / restore a mailbox that have been deleted from exchange and is past the mailbox database retention period for keeping deleted mailboxes, the senario here will be that the user have been delted in Exchange and AD and enough time have passed to the mailbox have been purged from Exchange Store but we still have a valid backup on disk/tape where the mailbox is present

In the demo I have set the Keep Delted Mailboxes for one day so let exchange cleanup after myself.

For testing purpose the Keep Deleted Mailboxes have been set to 1 day

To delete the mailbox and user select the mailbox in the interface and “Remove”

And Accept the deletion

Verify that the mailbox is deleted and found under disconnected mailbox.

When we look at the recovery selections for the mailbox database the user mailbox is visible from the older backups

after the mailbox have been deleted and we look at the recovery points the mailbox is no longer visible , for this post we need to find a recovery point where the mailbox we are looking after is still on tape/disk.

Fast Forward 24 hours

and our mailboxes are nowhere to be seen.

We then need to create a recovery database to be able to restore the mailbox database without overwriting the production database

We use New-Mailboxdatabase with the –Recovery to create the database syntax below in the technet article

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee332321.aspx

on the dpm server we need to find a recovery point where the mailbox is shown recovery selection for the database

Start the recovery of the database

Recovery to a Exchange server so we can use Exchange powershell to complete the restore of the mailbox

Select target server and the recovery database we have created earlier

and hit Recover to start the restore

Test databases are fast to restore

The following are the restore that needs to be initiated from powershell to get the data back

If we go a get-mailboxstatistics –Database Restore we can see the mailboxes present in the mailbox database that have been restored

to restore the mailbox to a different user we need to use AllowLegacyDNMismatch

New-MailboxRestoreRequest –Sourcedatabase Restore –SourceStoreMailbox “mailbox01” –TargetMailbox Administrator –AllowLegacyDNMismatch –Targetfolder Restore

Syntax for New-MailboxRestoreRequest below on technet article

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff829875.aspx

and to verify that the restore have completed use get-mailboxrestorerequest

and though owa/outlook we can see the mailbox being restored to the Restore folder.

SCUG.dk User Group Meeting, April 2011

Ronni Pedersen — Tue, 03 May 2011 19:17:09 GMT

Friday the System Center User Group Denmark hosted a System Center focused event held in Copenhagen.

The main goal for this event, was to show some of the most important news and updates from the Microsoft Management Summit 2011 in Las Vegas, to User Group Members that didn’t attend MMS.

The event was very popular and we’ve received lots of great feedback. Around 65 user group members showed up for this full event day.

PowerPoint slides from the event can be downloaded here, and all the pictures from the event are available on the link below.

Thank you all again for supporting this event and for all your great feedback.

2011 - System Center User Group Meeting (April)

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