Download Windows Server 2012 RC

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Great News!

After the success of Private Cloud Jump-Start, now Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (aka Windows Server 8) Jump-Start Boot-Camp is on its way to us!

You can register for Windows Server 2012 Jump-Start here.

Details:

Windows Server 2012 Jump Start Details

Course: Windows Server 2012: Preparing for the Datacenter Evolution

Date/Time: June 20-21, 2012 from 9:00am 4:00pm PST

Where: Live virtual classroom (online from wherever you are)

Cost: FREE!

Target audience: IT Professionals and IT Decision Makers

Cheers!

Reblogged from Zahir Hussain Shah's | Exchange Server Blog:

Step by Step Troubleshooting of Microsoft Outlook Prompting for User Login Password, after a failed Live Migration of Domain Controller Virtual Machine, and the DNS Name Resolution Issues, while also discussing the Name Resolution and Domain Controller Best Practices for Virtualized Environments

With the above title of the post, we will also be discussing the following topics in the blog post:

• Hyper-V Live Migration Best Practices
• Virtualized Domain Controller Best Practices
• Domain Controllers and DNS Name Resolution Strategy in heterogeneous Domain Controller Environment

Recently, I came across an issue, where after a failed Live Migration of a Windows Server 2008 SP2 VM based Domain Controller (DC) on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V Server, caused serious problem for DNS Name Resolution, and since this Virtual DC was the primary DNS Server for all the Servers and clients, it also caused Microsoft Outlook to prompt the user passwords, whenever a user was opening Microsoft Outlook.

Problem: Live Migration Failure:

This Virtual DC was running on Windows Sever 2008 R2 Hyper-V Cluster, and at the time of performing Live Migration of this VM, the Live Migration failed at the source Hyper-V Server due to the fact that, VM was having an ISO image configured in the VM settings, which was located on the local C:\ drive of the Hyper-V host.

As a result of failing the Live Migration, VM stays at the same source Hyper-V Server, but its Virtual NIC settings got an error, and practically you can say that VM DC V-NIC association with the Hyper-V Physical NIC got broken, which resulted the VM lost connection to the Network.

Problem: Bad DNS Resolution and Microsoft Outlook Password Prompt for Users:
Okay, so we know now what happened to the DC VM, so to fix this problem without restarting the machine, I went to the VM properties, and set the Network to the same Hyper-V Virtual Network for the DC VM, and found that the VM came back online on the Network, so we were able to ping the DC, but later soon after that we found that Outlook users started complaining that, they are requested every time to provider user password, whenever they open Microsoft Outlook.

Nevertheless, as being a primary DNS Server and DC for authentication, after Live Migration Failure and resetting up of VMs network settings, it was noticed that, this DC as being a preferred DNS Server is no longer functional, means if you try to nslookup any name, it was getting failed, and also we found that the DNS Server service got stopped on the DC.

Okay now lets talk about Resolution to fix this problem, as its grown massively and affected all the clients and server for DNS Name Resolution and Outlook password prompts, which are quite annoying in nature.

Lets first discuss the Hyper-V Live Migration Best Practices:

I would recommend to always:

• Make sure that you dismount any ISO file attached to the Virtual Machine before hitting Live Migrate to other Hyper-V host, if your ISO file is not highly available, means if it cannot be accessed from the destination Live-Migration Hyper-V host.
• Your preferred DNS Server for Hyper-V Name Resolution and Authentication Server (DC) should bet set to the one, which is either on the different Hyper-V Cluster or Hyper-V Host, which will help you to be still in the game if your Live Migration fails or the DC VM fails.
• It would also be advisable to make sure that instead of pausing the VM, you always go for shutdown on Hyper-V, as a general good-practice.

Secondly to further discuss the above explained problems with regards to DNS Name Resolution and Microsoft Outlook password prompt for end-users, see the below guidelines:

Follow the steps to fix the problem in the order: (Note: We will try not to shut down the VM):

• After failing the Live Migration, the Network settings needs to bet setup correctly, means attaching the VMs NIC to the Hyper-V Virtual Network.
• Since now after doing the above setup, the VM will come on the Network, so either you can take RDP or from the Hyper-V Console, login into the VM, and try to START the DNS Server Service.
• After doing starting the DNS Server Service, you will see the NIC card of VM will be having a small warning sign, which will tell you that there is a problem with the Network Connectivity, so you can reset (Disable / Enable) the NIC of the VM.
• After the NIC resetting try to clear the DNS Cache and Register the machine in the DNS Server database, by ipchonfig /flushdns and ipconfig /registerdns.

So now, when you will open NSLOOKUP on the VM or on the other Servers / Clients, where this VM was having as preferred DNS Server, you will see the FQDN as the Server in the NSLOOKUP utility, and you can resolve the names.

Okay so now the DNS Name Resolution problem has been resolved, now we will go ahead and will try to fix the Microsoft Outlook password prompt issue, which caused due to the bad DNS Name Resolution issue:

You can follow the below steps to fix the Outlook password prompt issue:

Lets give a restart of one Exchange 2010 CAS Server at once, and once you will have both the Exchange 2010 CAS Server restarted, check for the below:

• Try to see the status of the Active Directory Replication, and give a repadmin /sycnall from the CMD with elevated administrative rights.
• Check for the Name Resolution from both Exchange 2010 CAS Servers.
• Since we didnt restarted the Exchange Mailbox Servers, try to go to them, and clear their DNS Cache and Register them back to the DNS Server with (ipconfig /flushdns, ipconfig /registerdns).
• o Everywhere you to make sure that you are able to resolve names, means the Server status at NSLOOKUP after the DNS Name Resolution steps performed, it should be okay.
• After giving the adequate time of AD Replication, you will find that Microsoft Outlook users are no longer asked for the password prompt, and they can open Outlook without any Windows Security dialog box.

Virtualized Domain Controller Best Practices:

In past, I published a blog post Best Practices for Running Virtualized Domain Controller, today in addition to all the best practices explained in that blog post, I would like to add the few down:

If your Primary DC (preferred DNS Server) is a Virtual Machine, always try to run it on a Standalone Hyper-V Server, because sometimes the failure of either the Hyper-V Cluster or DC VM can cause problem for either of them. I know Im saying for not to make DC VM Highly Available, but at the same time, I also seen from my practice experience, moving primary DC to Hyper-V Cluster will be a problem, when the enter Cluster is down, and when Cluster will try to come up where the DC (primary DNS Server) is not available, you could end-up with the cluster will not come online easily.

Try to virtualize the DC VM as an Additional Domain Controller but not for the primary and preferred DNS Server.

Domain Controllers and DNS Name Resolution Strategy in heterogeneous Domain Controller Environment

• As we said above, try to keep the VM based DCs (VM) as the secondary DNS Servers, because in some circumstances brining a VM based DC come online can cause problem for the entire environment, where brining an Physical DNS Server and DC is relatively handy, because all you need the network connectivity and the server should be up and running.
• From the prospective of bringing entire Datacenter down for some major power maintenance, it would be highly recommended to have Physical Domain Controller for all primary DNS Name Resolution and Active Directory Authentication needs.

I hope with the steps explained in this article, it will greatly help you to fix your DC Authentication and DNS Resolution issues after the failed Live Migration of DC VM, also you can take advantages of the various best practices outlined in this article for DNS Name Resolution Strategy and DC Virtualization for Hyper-V environments.

Cheers!

Microsoft Risk and Health Assessment Services for Microsoft Exchange

Recently I came across Microsoft Risk and Health Assessment Program for Microsoft Exchange Server, this program provides a high level risk assessment and health-checking services to Microsoft Exchange users to assess their investment (environment) for any possible risk associated to it, and minimize the risk to the acceptable level.

You can read more about this program here.

All you need to know about Microsoft Lync Server and Unified Communications

It is giving me great pleasure to publish this blog post, because with this blog post, Im gona share all the information you need to know for becoming the Microsoft Unified Communications Expert! Recently Microsoft Gulf Dubai arranged a UC Boot-Camp in the month of March, 2012, where unfortunately I couldnt attend due to some official engagements, but later I received the an e-mail from the boot-camp team, regarding the technical content availability, which is extremely outstanding for knowing the ins and out of Microsoft Lync 2010 Server.

Microsoft Lync and Enterprise Voice Integration:

With my early days of making myself familiar with Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS), I faced immense difficult for understanding the OCS and Enterprise Voice Integration, and for this I had to put hard efforts to get things easy for me, but Im glad that today the contents we are gona see here, will make you UC expert with exactly what you need to know, and all the content is made by Microsoft itself, so it is great stuff for fulfilling your Lync Server and Enterprise Voice knowledge hunger!

There will be following list of presentations and white-papers related to Microsoft Lync Server and Voice Integration, you can download all from the here:

I hope you will like this blog post, and the content provided here for Microsoft Lync and Enterprise Voice integration.

Cheers!

Export your Print Server Queue Data to CSV

Recently I received a request to export Network Shared Printers queue related data from all our Windows Print Servers located in the different locations, to an MSExcel (CSV) file format, where this request also included vast majority of printer queue related data, including Printer IP Address (Port), Share Name, Location, Driver Version, and etc And when I looked at the native Windows functionalities to provide this information, then I come to know that Windows Server Print Management Console doesnt provide much information, especially for the Port Details (IP Address), which is the essential part of maintaining printer queue related data.

Well after doing some initial research, I came across a wonderful blog post from Christowles, for sharing a PowerShell Script for remotely gathering Printer queue data from Print Server using WMI.

This script will connect to the remote Windows Print Server over WMI protocol, and finds all the locally installed printer queues, and then export the below table filed data to CSV file to the printer script directory:

You can download this PowerShell script from my SkyDrive.

Okay, so now lets see how it grabs data remotely from Print Server:

1) Download the Script from my SkyDrive Account.

2) Execute the script from the Windows PowerShell (You can add PowerShell to Windows 7 with Windows 7 Administrative Tools).

3) Upon executing this script, it will ask you for the Server Name, provide the server name, so script will connect remotely to grab all the data for you.

Once data gathering will be done, it will notify you on the PowerShell screen about the exported CSV file in the script directory.

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post, as it helps a lot to maintain the record about the network shared printers, and at the event of disaster for rebuilding the print server.

It is my great pleasure to publish this post about Processor Query Tool availability! Processor Query Tool (PQT) helps you finding the SPECint 2006 value for Exchange Mailbox Role Calculator, where it allows you to quickly see the list of all servers that have been tested by the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) with the same processor model you plan to deploy and the rate values produced by each of those tests.

You can download PQT from here.

Read more about PQT at MSExchangeTeamBlog.

Cheers!

Recently Microsoft Exchange Team published a blog article on MET blog describing the insights about OAB network bandwidth sizing and utilization, this is a great resource with respect to both initial planning and solution sizing days, and as well as routine performance monitoring and enhancement, where an Exchange Administrator can look at his growing OAB size and see the appropriate network bandwidth required for his clients to download the OAB over slow network links.

Cheers!