Server 2012 Hyper-V Failover

 I won't get into to much detail on the various types of  failover possible with Server 2012 Hyper-V. I just wanted to show how simple the failover of replicated machines is.

The first image shows the failover options on the machine with the running virtual machine, notice the "Planned Failover".

 On the replica server we have "Failover" and "Test Failover". Test Failover creates a copy of the replicated VM and mounts it to test the viability of the VM. "Failover should only be used when the source VM becomes unavailable.

 Running a "Planned Failover" first runs through a Prerequisite check to make sure all is well. A check mark chooses whether to start the replica after the failover.

 It is always nice to see green check marks assuring that things are going well.

The Source VM has been successfully failed over and the replica has been started. Now you can change the network settings to configure access to the failed over VM.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice how the options have changed on the replica Server. They now are what they were on the source Server. This allows you to perform a planned failover back to the original source Server.

Server 2012 Hyper-V Replication

     One of the most exciting new features of Server 2012 is Hyper-V Replication. This post will include a basic tutorial on getting that feature working. In my test setup I have a Server 2012 that was upgraded from Server 2008R2. This Server hosts a VM of my SBS2011 production server. The upgrade from Server 2008R2 vent very smoothly and it was nice to not have to start from scratch.
    The second Server 2012 was built from scratch and the only role added was Hyper-V. The method that I chose for authentication was Kerberos since both Hyper-V Hosts were member servers. After following the steps to enable replication for a particular VM everything I tried resulted in Authentication failure. Looking at the Hyper-V logs on both machines I found numerous event ID 14050 errors.
Failed to register the service principal name 'Microsoft Virtual System Migration Service'.
Failed to register the service principal name 'Microsoft Virtual Console Service'.
Failed to register the service principal name 'Hyper-V Replica Service'.
After searching for possible causes and solutions many of them listed in the following wiki http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1340.hyper-v-troubleshooting-event-id-14050-vmms.aspx
I also made sure that I had at least one network adapter not being used by Hyper-V and made sure that I had Static IPs for all adapters with the proper DNS entered in their configuration. Still no success, I decided to add DNS and Directory Services roles to the primary Hyper-V Server. I did this for a couple of reasons, one being the fact that it always boots before my primary domain controller secondly I wanted another DNS server to allow Internet browsing when I have the SBS2011 VM down for any reason.
    Viola, Not sure why but my 14050 errors were gone on both 2012 servers, replaced by 14052 events stating successful registration of SPNs as well as 29290 events about updating of Firewall Rules. So onto replication!! The following screenshots show the basic process.

 

Right click on the machine that you want to replicate and select Enable Replication.

 

Click on specify Replica Server, browse and chose Server.

 

 

 Specify Replica Server Port and Authentication Method.

Chose VHDs to replicate, I unselected  a couple due to disk size and the fact that they weren't crucial to this test. Note... you can only make the choice when enabling replication. You can't add them later without starting the process over.

Chose recovery Points.

 Chose how to transfer initial image. I  chose send initial copy over the Network, all 500 gig of it. When to start the replication is also set here.

 Summary and click finish, hopefully no errors.

 At long last No Errors!!

 The VM shows up in the replication Server.

 Replication Status, Initial replication took only about 2.5 hours for 500 Gig. I was impressed.
I will be posting more on other features such as Failover.

KB2596911 Breaks Sharepoint and Backup on SBS08

Another update that breaks SharePoint and Backup on SBS08 this time. A similar update related failure with the same results occurred some time ago on SBS2011. The fix is very similar just a different path On SBS08. The Path on 08 is C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN, the path on 2011 is \14\bin. The command that needs to be run from that path at an administrative command prompt is

PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures

The result after running it should be

Successfully completed the SharePoint Products configuration.
Total number of configuration settings run: 6
Total number of successful configuration settings: 6
Total number of unsuccessful configuration settings: 0
Successfully stopped the configuration of SharePoint Products.
Configuration of the SharePoint Products has succeeded.

On the 08 Server that I had the problem on I also had to restart the SQL vss writer service.

Command line error exporting CompanyWeb SBS 2008 or SBS2011

Some of us are great at command line syntax and some of us are not. Cut and Paste to the rescue for those of us aren't. What a shame that sometimes cutting and pasting to avoid problems sometimes causes them instead. During a recent SBS 2003 to SBS2008 migration the client was a heavy user of CompanyWeb. Most migrations that I have done the client did not even have a clue as to what CompanyWeb was, so frequently I did not have to go through the tedious steps of Migrating CompanyWeb. This particular customer needed it Migrated and Imported into the new CompanyWeb site. I went through all the steps to migrate the content database and create the OldCompanyWeb site as a secondary site succesfully. When I tried to backup the newly created site using cut and pasted command line from the Microsoft Migration White Paper I got "Command line error" and stsadm usage intructions.

 After doing web searches for my particular error all that I found were work-arounds using backup and restore vs. Import and export or removing the -includeusersecurity switch. I did not want to risk trashing the new site by using a work-around, so I tried using the export funtion without the –includeusersecurity switch. It worked, so I decided to manually type the switch, much to my suprise that worked as well. I have no idea what was being copied over when cut and pasting but it was something it didn’t like in the last line of the command. Hope this helps other command line challenged users.

SBS 2011 to Migrate or Start Fresh

     The time has come again for all of us lucky SBS fans to think about how to tread in the minefield known as the SBS migrations. The advent of virtual machines has given us an excellent test bed for various different scenarios and also a means to protect ourselves and our clients from " migrations gone wrong" and all the joy that comes with them. If my first try from SBS 2008 to SBS 2011 would have been on a client network, they probably would not be a client anymore. They certainly would not have been happy with me.

   Since my wife plays the role of irate customer very well, my home network is a great place to hone my skills. Minimal impact and disruption to the end user is always the goal. With that being said, what kind of options do we have to achieve this.

1. Microsoft White Paper on a live network ( a path fraught with hidden disasters lurking around every bend)
2. A Jeff Middelton swing migration (excellent stuff, protects the client network from the hidden disasters since most work is done offline from the production network. I don't think he has his SBS 2011 scenarios available yet.) There is a cost for the Swing Kits.
3. A Microsoft or Swing Migration done virtually.( a path with no impact on the live network, should something blow up.)
4. Fresh install. (depending on how many users )

  My first attempt will be a Microsoft White Paper done virtually to keep me out of trouble. The adventures continue here http://bnwinc.blogspot.com/p/various-migration-adventures.html

Restoring from WHS to Hyper-V

So, after backing up a server over the internet with WHS and Hamachi, why not try and restore it to a Hyper-V virtual machine. I always thought it would work, but had never verified the process first hand.
With this in mind I created a new Hyper-V machine with the proper amount of disk space for the image of the server that I had backed up.
I connect to the machine and boot off the WHS restore disk, I get to the point where it tells me what devices have been detected and it shows several disks but no network devices. Without a network connection there will be no way to restore to the VHD. You can't put drivers on a thumbdrive because the Virtual machine won't be able to find it. Although here is a link on how extract the drivers out of vmguest.iso http://www.windeploy.co.uk/blog/index.php/2009/10/extracting-hyper-v-r2-drivers/ . I tried to add another drive to the machine with the extracted drivers, but it still didn't find them. I searched some posts and found a few where they suggested that you add a legacy network adapter. I tried that, making sure to link it to the adapter connected to the network. I continued with the restore and this time it showed an emulated network adapter. It still would not find the WHS box. I cleared the server name and re-entered it. This time it asked for a password and found the server. I then chose what backup to restore and started restoring the backup of the remote physical machine to my Hyper-V server. I am not sure what kind of throughput I got with the emulated legacy adapter, it wasn't blazing and the connection said 100 meg.
So a couple of hours later, my 30 gig remote server had found a new home as a virtual machine on my Hyper-V box. It booted first try and installed integration components without a hitch.

Robocopy and Windows Server Backup

 　　　　　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 The recent bad update that supposedly only affected Windows 7 64 bit machines can also affect 64 bit Server machines. A Customer had a symptom of no incoming mail and had remote support looking at their Server. They could not see certain files so they suggested that the customer reboot. After the reboot the server would not boot into windows in safe or regular mode. Remote support  had me go out and take a look. There was no blue screen when it rebooted, but I tried the AVG fix for update 3292 anyway. It had no affect so I assumed that this was not the problem. There was some concern the customer that the system may have been hacked by a disgruntled ex employee, so I went into save data and restore system mode. I booted up with the SBS install disk and connected an external drive. I used repair mode to get to a cmd prompt and used robycopy to copy 2 groups of data that would have been newer that the last backup. I then restored the entire system to the 8th at 8:00 pm. It still would not boot. They mentioned that that they started having issues on Monday the 6th so I restored the system to Thursday the 2nd at 8:00 pm. It still would not boot. I tapped f8 and managed to get into the advanced startup menu and chose to disable automatic restart on system failure. This time after a couple of mins sitting there I finally got a BSOD. The stop error was c0000135 unable to locate component.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 After doing some research on that error I found that it was AVG afterall. I tried the fix again, no success. I then found on a post outside of AVG that some users had deleted or renamed the AVG directories and were then able to boot. I booted up with the install disk again and got into the cmd prompt. I renamed 2 AVG directories, one in Program Files and one in Program files (x86). I was then able to boot, however the system was still sluggish, so I rebooted into safemode. I then renamed the hidden folder C:\$AVG and rebooted. Now all seemed to be well. I copied back the newer data that I had backed up and downloaded and performed repair installs of AVG and AVG Admin.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Some of my fun with Windows Server Backup propmted me to create a page with screen shots to make some of the "next" buttons a little less scary to click on. I hope to have it up quite soon.