Posts

Showing posts from April, 2008

Achieved MCITP: Enterprise Administrator Windows 2008

Image
Woohoo!!! Today I passed the 70-647 exam, Windows Server 2008, Enterprise Administrator. Now I get to add some more alphabet soup to my signature (MCITP 2008 Enterprise Administrator). My unbroken streak of passed exams continues! This MCITP certification is equivilent to the MCSE credential for Windows 2003.If you're interested in the certification path, see this link: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/windowsserver/2008/default.mspx .

Great Question about FailOver Clustering in Windows Server 2008?

Q. What is really new about Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008? No service account - now uses a local system account No support for Parallel Attached SCSI (PAS), this allows for better hardware control and failover 16 nodes if you use a 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 Support for GPT disks, yes larger than 2TB disks are now supported natively Validate - ensure your systems are cluster ready and help you follow best practices 4 Quorum models, no more single point of failure for the quorum Majority quorum model Majority of Nodes Witness disk File Share Witness Improved IPSec, no more 7 minute timeout when failed over! Stretched clusters can have nodes in different network segments with various speeds Cluster Migration Tool - to help you migrate MMC 3.0 snap-in, no longer a seperate application Setup/install 2003 was 23 steps, now 3 steps. Yes I said 3 steps

How we Understand a Cluster

This is the good one I found on one of the MVP blog: Clustering terms made easy Clusters are Highly Available and should never be considered Fault Tolerant. Highly Available = is when I come anytime my wife calls me. Fault Tolerant = Marriage. You don't want to be married to you SQL/Exchange Cluster :) You do want it around whenever you need it though. Active/Active = when your cluster is too busy for its own good. Active/Passive = one worker, one manager, you decide which is which. Node = Clustered computer, could also be the worker who sits in a cube, not to be confused with Dude. Virtual Server = this is kind of like be on a telecom at work, only you are calling in from Hawaii and nobody knows. Quorum = Cluster=Quorum, Quorum=Clustering. Failover = the only time at work that you can fail and still be a hero. Failback = great way to get fired, let your server failover without you controlling it (Don't confuse with the above term). Cluster = when it fails, also known as a Clus

Script for Windows System Information

Last week for a small project to pull system info from 500 server, I used the following vbs script (found on google search as I not good in writing scripts) to pull WMI info for OS version, SP, Processor, Memory: On Error Resume Next Const ForReading = 1 Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set objTextFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile("c:\computers.txt", ForReading) 'Check the location of the file. strComputers = objTextFile.ReadAll objTextFile.Close arrComputers = Split(strComputers, vbCrLf) Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") For Each strComputer In arrComputers strComputer = arrComputers Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _ & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2") Set colSettings = objWMIService.ExecQuery _ ("SELECT * FROM Win32_OperatingSystem") For Each objOperatingSystem in colSettings Wscript.Echo "OS Name: " & objOperating

Installed Exchange 2007 today

Yesterday I install Exchange 2007 for a single domain and got an experience to a truly new messaging and colloboration solution. The administration and configuration doesn't match with Exchange 2003. I shall say its really different. There are lot of features which are new or enahanced to give a better messaging solution. This enable Mobile, desktop, remote, web, intranet and Internet users to colloborate and share message and emails in a well secure (Forefront securety come with Exchange 2007) manner. This was a long project initiated by one of my friend where he was not able to configure Exchange 2007. He called me for the help and I pulled out some time to reach him. I found few mistakes which he was doing in configuring SMTP traffic on his router and then creating send and receive rules in Exchange hub transport configuration. Overall I found it easy and installed and configured the product in less them 2 hrs of time. Nice experience again with a well built product by Microsoft