Monthly Archives: January 2013

Cluster Aware Updating – Cluster CNO Name 15 Characters (NETBIOS name length) GUI Issue

Posted on by
2

There seems to be a small bug in the Cluster Aware Updating GUI when the cluster name exceeds 15 characters. In our example we’ll look at a cluster with the name XXXCLUSSQLSERVERS or xxxclussqlservers.test.lab. We’ll try to connect to that cluster to do some cluster aware updating.

Click on the dropdown arrow and select our cluster

image

 

Once selected, click “Connect”

image

 

Now we’re greeted by this little message

image

No, you didn’t make a typo as you selected the cluster from the drop down list. You also know that your cluster is up and running. So what happened? Well, the GUI queries AD and returns the CNOs it finds. Those are limited to the NETBIOS name and as such maximal 15 characters long. In this case the name is XXXCLUSSQLSERVERS and this gives a CNO of XXXCLUSSQLSERVE, which is not found as a cluster.

The fix is easy and simple. Just type in the cluster name. XXXCLUSSQLSERVERS and voila. You can connect and are on your way.

image

Let’s see if the FQDN is accepted as well, shall we? And yes, the below screenshot proves this.

https://blog.workinghardinit.work/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/image43.png

Conclusion

So this is not a problem once you know this Smile. The CAU GUI returns the cluster CNO name and that’s the NetBIOS name which can be only 15 characters long. Selecting it in CUA to connect to the cluster doesn’t work. You need to fill out the complete name. As we demonstrated the CAU GUI does also accept a FQDN. To prevent running into this issue consider not making your cluster names longer than 15 characters as then the CNO and the cluster name will be identical and is a smart thing to do as you’ll avoid possible duplicate CNOs trying (and failing) to be created or other bugs Winking smile.

In PowerShell you always submit the cluster name so you don’t hit this issue. Perhaps the GUI drop down list could translate the CNOs into the actual cluster names?

System Center 2012 SP1 Available Volume Licensing Service Center

Posted on by
Reply

Yes, it’s available … so here we go …

image

First thing on the agenda is SCOM 2012 SP1. After that we’ll see If we miss SCVMM 2012 SP1 at that much at all. It’s something we’ll look at for network virtualization, power optimizations & private cloud. We left SCOM/SCVMM behind to get the tremendous value of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V High Availability clustering and haven’t looked back since. PowerShell filled up any holes we had nicely and we are very happy with what Windows Server 2012 delivers.

A New Year and it came with a Microsoft MVP Renewal for 2013

Posted on by
7

I’m a January 1st MVP. That means that on the 1st January I get an e-mail that brings news of a renewal or not … so apart from celebrating the new year relaxing a bit we also keep an eye on our inbox. This is what arrived just now:

Dear Didier van Hoye,
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2013 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Virtual Machine technical communities during the past year.
The Microsoft MVP Award provides us the unique opportunity to celebrate and honor your significant contributions and say "Thank you for your technical leadership."

Mike Hickman
Director
Community Engagement
Microsoft

Great news to start the new year with. While you get the MVP reward for contributions over the past year to the community I must say that being active in the community is a very rewarding endeavor in itself. For my job I need to figure out a lot of things and I like to share them, including my mistakes, for the benefit of all. Sharing means communication, which leads to questions and discussions that help all of us gain a better knowledge of how things work. It’s not one way traffic. They say there is no better way to learn a subject that to teach it or write a book on it. I think that holds true. Heck, “just” doing a presentation on one subject helps. There’s a constant stream of new capabilities and options that can be leveraged to achieve our goals and being able to discuss these with so many experts from different environments makes a lot of difference in wrapping our heads around it all.

It also helps me be better at my job. So it also helps my employers. In that respect I have very good bosses. They invest in their people without hesitation. They don’t fear the possibility that we might leave for greener pastures. Instead they focus on getting the best out of us and support this actively. Pretty smart and we all gain something from this, as this makes for a very nice green pasture to stay on and they get knowledgeable, motivated employees.

I’m very happy and I’m looking forward to seeing many of my fellow MVPs in Redmond in February for the 2013 MVP Global Summit. Last year’s summit was very educational. It was also a blast to meet so many people in real life for the very first time and talk shop. Thank you all for the opportunities, the challenges and the continuous learning journey.

To conclude I wish all my community buddies and readers a wonderful and happy 2013!