Category Archives: Cloud Computing
Microsoft Private Cloud Training Labs | System Center 2012 Trainnig Labs | Private Cloud Guided Labs
Author: Zahir Hussain Shah, MVP, CISSP
Microsoft Private Cloud Training Labs for System Center 2012
In the month of March, 2012, I published a blog post for the Microsoft System Center 2012 Private Cloud Training videos from the Microsoft Private Cloud Jump-Start camp, which provided video series for the recorded session from the Microsoft Private Cloud Jump-Start boot-camp, and covered SC 2012 product suite.
And today I would like to share with some of the coolest discovery I made recently, where I had a chance to evaluate the Microsoft Private Cloud Training Labs for Microsoft System Center 2012 suite, these training labs provide you fast and enhanced method of experiencing the Microsoft System Center 2012 suite of products, and let you to quickly evaluate the products based on the activities and interactions for building and running Private Cloud as per the standard needs.
These labs open inside the browser, and guides you the steps which you have to take for finishing up each lab with the desired set of goals.
So lets go and sign up for Microsoft Private Cloud Guided Labs, and get all the knowledge you need to have to build your own Private Cloud with Microsoft System Center 2012 suite.
Resources:
- Download the System Center 2012 Evaluation
- Open the Microsoft Private Cloud Guided Labs
Cheers!
Learning PowerShell | Microsoft Script Explorer | PowerShell Help | Exchange PowerShell Guide | Active Directory Scripts | Windows 7 PowerShell | SharePoint PowerShell | System Center PowerShell | SQL Server PowerShell
Author: Zahir Hussain Shah | MVP Exchange Server, CISSP
Learning PowerShell has never been so easy and fast… Try Microsoft Script Explorer for Windows PowerShell (pre-release)…
This is going to be my AWESOME post, where I will be sharing with you about a new learning and operations optimizing release by Microsoft, it is Microsoft Script Explorer for Windows PowerShell, the current version is pre-release, and it provides a handy way to search for PowerShell resources for the different Microsoft products, e.g. Exchange Server, Active Directory, and etc, it provides pre-cooked material, like Scripts, and cooking recipes, like How-to Guides for various TechNet library resources.
Download it now, and you can install this on your PC (Windows XP / Windows 7) or directly on the Server, on Windows 7 it requires .NetFrameWork 4.0, which you can download from here.
After some initial working with Microsoft Script Explorer for Windows PowerShell, it really found it as a good training and learning resource, where it provides you a easy way to get to the whole world of PowerShell and Scripts, and on the other end, it provides you a way to script most of your operations task, and get things done in a more automated fashion.
So get set go, and get your PowerShell Explorer today!, for more information about MSE, check out this link
Let me also share some of the snapshot of the MSE here…
I hope you will enjoy reading this post
Cheers!
Microsoft System Center 2012 Training | Cloud Computing Training | SCVMM 2012 | Hyper-V Training | Hyper-V Cloud Computing | Microsoft Private Cloud
Author: Zahir Hussain Shah | MVP Exchange Server, CISSP
Take a Cloud Journey, and Build your Career with Cloud Computing expertise!
In the month of January, 2012, I posted a blog article, in which I shared Step by Step Video Training for Building Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V High Availability with Cluster Shared Volumes, this blog post provided a tremendous amount of information for building the Hyper-V Cluster on Windows Server 2008 R2 for making your VM work-loads Highly Available, which is a first-step for going forward with Cloud Computing, because Cloud Computing has always been expressed as a Journey, because it is not a product, which you just install in your network, and thats it, you have Cloud Computing now, but instead of this Cloud Computing is a world of Virtualization, Building Processes, Automation, providing Self-Service experience to your end-users, and efficiently using your computing resources, wherever and whenever you need them to provide different types of Cloud solutions with economics to your customers.
So without further putting texts here, lets directly jump straight towards the training, which will provide you end to end knowledge for building and running Microsoft Private / Public Cloud Computing solutions for you and your customers environment.
Recently, Microsoft arranged a online Microsoft Cloud Computing Jump-Start boot-camp, which took placed on Feb. 21-22, 2012, where the tons of tremendous knowledge transfer session conducted for Microsoft System Center 2012 family and Microsoft Cloud Computing offerings.
You can download or can watch all these sessions recording as follows:
Private Cloud Jump Start (01): Introduction to the Microsoft Private Cloud with System Center 2012
Private Cloud Jump Start (02): Configure & Deploy Infrastructure Components
Private Cloud Jump Start (03): Configure & Deploy the Private Cloud Infrastructure
Private Cloud Jump Start (04): Configure & Deploy Service Delivery & Automation
Private Cloud Jump Start (05): Configure & Deploy Application Management
Private Cloud Jump Start (06): Monitor & Operate Infrastructure Components
Private Cloud Jump Start (07): Monitor & Operate the Private Cloud Infrastructure
Private Cloud Jump Start (08): Monitor & Operate Service Delivery & Automation
Private Cloud Jump Start (09): Monitor & Operate Application Management
If you enjoy a 100-level strategic overview of the cloud, consider checking out this Cloud 101 Jump Start on March 13, 2012.
Let’s embrace the “Cloud”! 
Hyper-V Live Migration is not working | The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable | Cluster resource ‘Virtual Machine VM in clustered service or application VM failed | Virtual Machine VM failed to start.
Author: Zahir Hussain Shah | MVP Exchange Server
Applies to: Hyper-V Live Migration is not working | CSV is not accessible from passive cluster nodes| Validate Disk Failover failed | Failed to write file data on cluster disk 0 partition 1, failure reason: The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable | Virtual Machine VM live migration did not succeed at the destination | Cluster resource ‘Virtual Machine VM in clustered service or application VM failed | Virtual Machine VM failed to start.
Microsoft Hyper-V Clustering Recommendation and Best Practices for Live Migration and Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) – Quick Solutions Guide
This is my second blog post related to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Clustering for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 Clustering and High Availability, in my previous blog article for building Hyper-V 2008 R2 High Availability, in which I presented to you the links to a wonderful video series for building Hyper-V HA for creating Highly Available Virtual Machine work-loads with Hyper-V Live Migration and Cluster Shared Volumes.
In this article, I will walk you through the several post-implementation related issues and their resolution, which you may get encounter with your configuration and some of the best practices, for helping you to fix your problem, and get your highly available VMs running on Hyper-V Cluster.
Okay, now lets start here with each post-issue, I have seen occurs after Implementing Hyper-V Cluster with CSV and Live Migration, I will explain one by one.
1) Failed to write file data on cluster disk 0 partition 1, failure reason: The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable
By the way, it is not a post-implementation problem, but I would like to share this with you, this happened to me, while I was building my five nodes Windows Failover Cluster on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 for Hyper-V, this issue is related to Cluster Validation failure for Failover Disks, it happened to my newly attached CLUTER DISKs (LUNs), which I formatted and made offline before I ran Cluster Validation, but I got the failure that “The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable.”
Problem:
Failed to write file data on cluster disk 0 partition 1, failure reason: The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable corrupted and unreadable.
Resolution:
To fix this problem, I formatted all the disks, made them offline again, and re-run the Cluster Validation Test, and this time it turned out as passed!
2) Live Migration Best Practices and Post-Implementation Issues and their Resolutions:
In this section, I will guide you the best practices for fixing issues related to the Live Migration, after the post-implementation of Windows Failover Clustering for Hyper-V with CSV:
I. Recommended Cluster Network Microsoft Failover Cluster Settings:
Lets assume you got two networks physical cards in your Server, as follows:
LAN Connected Server VLAN
Cluster Heartbeat Network Cluster Network for Live Migration
In the Failover Cluster Manager, you have to set the below settings for both of them:
-
- image001
-
- image002
II. Recommended Cluster Network File and Printing and NetBIOS Settings:
As you know that disabling File and Printing Services and NetBIOS, for Cluster Internal Network, have always been a recommended practice, but with Live Migration and Hyper-V Clustering, it is required to turn on these both settings on the Cluster Network, which we will be using for Live Migration.
III. Refreshing Virtual Machine Configuration:
With my experience, while I saw that the Quick Migration was working but Live Migration was not working, so I gave a Refresh Virtual Machine Configuration from the Microsoft Failover Manager, and after that tried to give a live migration, and it worked, so you can say that after making any changes to VM (Highly Available) in Clustering, you should give Refresh to VM Configuration Cluster, so which tells the cluster that these are the changes made to the VM, and which directly interact with Clustering behavior of the VM.
IV. CSV- Cluster Shared Volumes behavior:
When you add CSV in the Microsoft Cluster Failover Manager for the support and funtionlity of Live Migration, you see a different behavior of these disk, as compare to the other type of storage on the Cluster Nodes, and over time, I have seen some misconception and misguided assumptions about these CSV LUNs, so let me explain the expected behavior of CSV LUNs on the Cluster nodes as follows:
a. Online / Offline: CSV LUNs will only be online on the Current Owner of the LUNs in the Cluster, e.g. as shown in the below image that only disk three is online and disk 1, disk 2 are both offline, is because that the Cluster Node 1 is the current owner of the DISK 3, and thats why it is showing here online, and both DISK 1, and DISK 2 are offline.
b. Reserved: When you add at LUN to Cluster as CSV, the Disk as become Reserved, means that it will only work for Windows Server 2008 R2 CSV functionality, where it is allowed for file-level locking, not the disk level.
c. Accessing CSV LUNs from Windows Explorer and over NetBIOS SMB session:
After adding the CSV LUNs to the Failover Cluster Manager in the CSV Tab, you will start seeing the below behavior in the C: drive of the Cluster Nodes, and when you will double click on the ClusterStorage, it will get buys, but will let you go inside the folder after sometime, depending on your Network speed and server performance, but as per expected functionality, you should be able to open this folder on all cluster nodes.
Additionally, while it is taking time to opening the folder, if you try to open the same location over SMB NetBIOS session, it will open it bit fast, but make sure that you enabled the File and Printer Sharing and NetBios settings on the Cluster Network, and others. E.g. \172.16.55.1c$ClusterStorageVolume1.
V. Same Hyper-V Virtual Network Settings on all Hyper-V Nodes in the Cluster:
Lets assume that we got five cluster node setup for Hyper-V clustering, and before building the cluster, as recommended we installed the Hyper-V role on these five cluster nodes, and as part of configuration, we will be creating Virtual Network in Hyper-V for VMs to communicate to the reset of the Network, and therefore we created a Network called Server-VLAN, and for allowing the any type of Migration, whether its a quick migration, live migration or VM move, it is required that you keep the same Virtual Network name on all Cluster (Hyper-V) nodes, because when the Virtual Machine moves in case of Live Migration with VM Configuration file, when the second node where you try to make the VM online, the migration process tries to open and make online the VM with the pre-configured VM configuration parameters, where if the Network Name would be different or the same name of Virtual Network (Server-VLAN example) is not there, VM migration and making the VM online will fail.
I hope with the all above explained as a best practices, will help you to make your Hyper-V High Availability Implementation a success project.
Cheers!
Install Windows Server 2008 R2 Cluster for Hyper-V | How to build Hyper-V Clustering | Hyper-V Live Migration | Hyper-V Cluster Shared Volumes | Create Hyper-V VM from Failover Cluster Manager | Hyper-V Quick and Live Migration – Hyper-V Training Video
Author: Zahir Hussain Shah | MVP – Exchange Server
Step by Step Video Training for Building Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V High Availability with Cluster Shared Volumes, Pass-Through Disk and Managing Hyper-V VMs from Windows Server Failover Cluster Manager snap-in
Being a Microsoft Exchange Server Solution Architect and MVP, we all can see the Hyper-V as product getting mature day by day, and its fast growing usage at every level of business sector, and as initially Hyper-V introduced himself as a Hypervisor for Testing / RnD VM based Servers, and a Virtualization Layer for its competitors, but with the recent fast growth of the product, and changes the people perception, now Microsoft Hyper-V is being used as a Production Hypervisor, and many Application and Systems Developers started making their products to run over Hyper-V, which is indeed a success of Hyper-V in the todays Information Technology world.
As long as Microsoft Exchange Server is concerned, so I’m pleased to inform you that Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is officially supported over Microsoft Hyper-V, and for information, please read my below posts:
http://zahirshahblog.com/2011/12/19/microsoft-exchange-server-2010-virtualization-support-compatibility-with-different-hypervisors-microsoft-hardware-and-application-virtualization-support-for-microsoft-windows-server-and-microsoft-e/
http://zahirshahblog.com/2011/12/25/exchange-server-2010-virtualization-virtualize-microsoft-exchange-2010-with-hyper-v-installing-exchange-server-2010-on-hyper-v-how-to-virtualize-microsoft-exchange-server-2010-with-hyper-v/
Let’s back to the Hyper-V, in this blog post, as it sounds with the blog post name, I will be provide you training video for “Step by Step Video Training for Building Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V High Availability with Cluster Shared Volumes, Pass-Through Disk and Managing Hyper-V VMs from Windows Server Failover Cluster Manager snap-in”, created by Matt McSpirit as part of his screencast at Microsoft TechNet – TechEdge.
Matt divided this screencast into four video, which are linked as follows:
Ø Hyper-V R2: Building a Hyper-V R2 Cluster : Part I
Ø Hyper-V R2: Making Highly Available VMs : Part II
Ø Hyper-V R2: Introducing Cluster Shared Volumes : Part III
Ø Hyper-V R2: Failover & Live Migration : Part IV
I hope this blog post and Matt’s screencast will help all of you, who wants to start with Hyper-V HA and Live Migration, it really works…
Cheers!
