Month: May 2009

Can It Really Be Spring?

If you’ve been reading my blog you must think I’m a miserable old sod.

Spring has been a bit of a washout so far.  It’s been unusually cold and … well … wet.

We’re coming up on a bank (national) holiday weekend and the sun is out.  It’s actually warm outside.  Birds are singing and busy gathering food for their offspring.  I’m heading south for the weekend so go do some wildlife photography on the Saltee Islands tomorrow.  I’ll be taking a walk as well to see if the Buzzard pair I found during the winter are nesting or not.  With any luck, they will be. But I can’t approach them because (a) it isn’t good for them and (b) it isn’t legal so I’ll be keeping my distance.

I’m 40 minutes away from finishing work for the week.  Despite what will be awful traffic I am looking forward to the drive.  The sun is out, it’s warm, I’ll have my window down to work on my trucker’s tan and I’ll have some good music up way too loud. I like it like this.  I hope it’s good where you are and that you enjoy the weekend.

Later!  Aidan.

EDIT #1:

That was a fun and full weekend.  I walked for miles and miles.  I spent a day on the cliffs of the Saltee Islands, stalked rabbits and pheasants and took loads of photos.

Saltee_Islands_040[1]

Microsoft Ireland SQL Event in Cork on 4th June

“The first part of this session is a detailed look at architectural changes to the Reporting Services 2008 product and how they might benefit your reports.

The second part of the session is a demo based walk through of the new Report Builder 2.0. Focusing on the flexibility of the Tablix Format and end user charting.

We will also be taking a sneak preview of some of the new map based reporting capabilities to be introduced in SQL 2008 R2 shortly.

Speaker: Bob Duffy

Bob Duffy is a 16 year veteran of database technologies having worked closely with many enterprise customers in Ireland and Europe around SQL Server, Business Intelligence and dot.net and chalked up over 250 successful projects. Bob is currently one of eighteen Microsoft Certified Database Architects Globally, is an active speaker for SQL Server and is on the working group for the new SQL 2008 “master” examination syllabus.

Date: 04 June 2009 19:00 – 21:00

Location: Imperial Hotel, South Mall, Cork

Register and learn more here”

Windows Server 2008 SP2 and MPIO

Tim Berk brought our attention to a couple of hotfixes for SP2 on Windows 2008 that will be relevant if you are using MPIO (dual path attached storage) for Windows Server 2008 servers.

KB967752: A Windows Server 2008-based computer that is connected to a storage device over MPIO paths does not restart

  • Consider the following scenario:
  • You are running a Windows Server 2008-based computer that is connected to a storage device over some Microsoft Multipath I/O (MPIO) paths.
  • A Microsoft MPIO Device Specific Module is enabled for these MPIO paths.
  • The storage device is configured as an iSCSI boot device or a Storage Area Network (SAN) boot device.
  • You install and then uninstall Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2.
  • You have installed hotfix 957316 on the Windows Server 2008-based computer.

In this scenario, the computer does not restart if the storage device is a boot device, or you lose access to the device if the device is a data volume.

KB957316: Disk I/O errors occur after you restore a failed MPIO path on a Windows Server 2008-based computer

Consider the following scenario:

  • You are running a Windows Server 2008-based computer that is connected to a storage device over some Microsoft Multipath I/O (MPIO) paths.
  • A Microsoft MPIO Device Specific Module is enabled for these MPIO paths.
  • A heavy load occurs on the storage device.
  • One of the MPIO paths fails. Therefore, some logical unit numbers (LUNs) fail over to another MPIO path.
  • You restore the failed MPIO path.
  • The computer tries to access the storage device.

In this scenario, disk I/O errors occur. This problem is more likely to occur when there are many LUNs.

Booting from and storing data on MPIO attached storage is becoming more and more common, e.g. blade servers and SAN.  Make sure you are covered in these scenarios, especially if using something like WSUS or Configuration Manager to deploy service packs.

Credit: Tim Berk.

HP Proliant Support Pack for Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta

HP released a support pack (8.16) that includes support for W2008 R2 beta.  The Support Pack includes all the drivers, management tools and management agents for optimal performance and manageability of HP Proliant servers.  I’ve seem sites that never use the Support Pack and they couldn’t manage their servers.  In fact, those sites tended to be pretty poor.  The software is free.  Heck, it’s part of the price of your server so use it!

“Windows Server 2008 R2 is being released in beta form by Microsoft. For HP customers who participate in the beta program for this product, download the white paper below for help on implementing the beta operating system on ProLiant servers. Official HP customer support for Windows Server 2008 R2 will be available when Microsoft releases the official version. 

Credit: Dan Taylor

VMware Tossing The Toys Out Of The Pram

I flashed over this headline this morning but didn’t read it.  I just read it on Scott Lowe’s blog and I’m stunned, but I shouldn’t be.  Basically, VMware aren’t allowing any competitors into their VMWorld conference.  Strangely, MS has always allowed VMware into TechEd.  Any ESX/Virtual Center user can clearly see ESX is geared mainly towards running Windows (even if it does have a larger OS support base than Hyper-V).

I’m pro-Microsoft so you can guess my reaction.  Heck, I liked ESX when I used it, I just prefer the manageability of Hyper-V when combined with VMM/OpsMgr, not to mention where things might go with Native VHD post-W2008 R2.

But when I read a post like the above from a pro-VMware (or at least neutral guy) like Scott Lowe then I’m sure VMware has gone too far.  But that shouldn’t really strike me as strange:

Come on VMware, grow up and start competing with your product.

Using Windows 7 Beta Still?

I got the below mail from MS.  They accidentally announced some wrong dates regarding Windows 7 pre-RTM dates.  Note that the beta build will start to auto shut down every two hours on July 1st of this year.  This is MS’s way to get you onto the RC build and eventually to buy the RTM build.

“Because you signed up to test the Windows 7 Beta, we recently sent you mail about the expiration dates for the Beta and Release Candidate. Unfortunately, we made a mistake.

We said the Beta would start shutting down every two hours on June 1, 2009. The correct date is July 1, 2009.

The rest of the dates in the mail were correct. Here’s a quick summary:

Version Starts Shutting Down Every Two Hours Expires
Beta July 1, 2009 August 1, 2009
Release Candidate March 1, 2010 June 1, 2010

 

We apologize for the error and any confusion it may have caused.

Thanks again for helping us test Windows 7.”