x86 Windows Server 2008 TS Gateway Migration To x64 Windows Server 2012 RD Gateway

Introduction

I was working on a little project for a company that was (still) running TS Gateway on a 32 bit  x86) version Windows 2008. The reason they did not go for x64 at the time of deployment was that they then used Microsoft Virtual Server as their virtualization platform and had been for some years.

In a number of posts I’ll be discussing some of the steps we took. You are reading the first one.

  1. x86 Windows Server 2008 TS Gateway Migration To x64 Windows Server 2012 RD Gateway
  2. Installing & using the Windows Server Migration Tools To Migrate Local Users & Groups
  3. TS/RD Gateway Export & Import (Fixing Event ID 2002 “The policy and configuration settings could not be imported to the RD Gateway server "%1"" because they are associated with local computer groups on another RD Gateway server”)

In those early days of W2K8 they had not yet switched to Hyper-V. As an early adopter I was able to show the the reliability of Hyper-V, so later they did.

One of the drawbacks of using Microsoft Virtual Server was that they could not use x64 guest VMs and that’s how they ended up with x86, which was still available for a server OS for W2K8. Since then they have move to Hyper-V and now also run Window Server 2012. Happy customers! So after more than 5 years of service and to make sure they did not keep relying on aging technology it is time to move to Windows Server 2012 RD Gateway and reap the benefits of the latest OS.

The Migration

Their is no in place upgrade from a x86 to an x64 OS. So this has to be a migration. No worries this is supported. With some insight, creativity and experience you can make this happen. The process reasonably well documented on TechNet, but not perfectly, and your starting point is right here RD Gateway Migration: Migrating the RD Gateway Role Service. These docs are for Windows Server 2008 R2 but still work for Windows Server 2012. Another challenge was we needed to also migrate their custom website used for the employees to check whether their PC is still on and if not wake it up or start it up remotely.

There are some things to take care of and I’ll address these I some later blog posts but I want you to take to heart this message. While an in place upgrade of an 32 bit X86 operating system to X64 version of that OS is not possible that doesn’t mean you’re in  a pickle and will have to start over from scratch. For many scenario’s there are migration paths and this is just one example of them, or better two combined,TS Gateway and a Website.

The Dilbert Life Series – A Bad Manager’s Priorities

As usual the normal disclaimer applies: don’t take yourself to seriously. Relax Smile

Where great managers can make a serious difference in many ways to both the success of a company and to the personal achievements of their employees the opposite also happens. Many types of managers exist. Dealing with or even controlling them, depending on whether you live above or under them is well documented. The aim of that is to get the best out of the resources and people available. The better the managers, the better this will work out. Perfection is not of this world and you won’t have the best possible manager for every possible position. That’s a given, just like they won’t have the best possible employee or consultant for every job or project. So there is no need to get emotional about it or expect perfection before calling something good. There is however one type, the bad manager, that should not be controlled. They should be dealt with in only one way which is termination. If that’s not possible you need to get as far away from them as possible. Mind you the latter is only an option if you’re a subordinate employee. If, as a boss you run away from bad subordinate manager than you really need to reconsider your career choices.

Me, Myself and I

A bad manager will never choose you over his or her own priorities, nor will they put the organizations needs first. The first is by definition. Don’t take it personal. The company does not exist for your needs. The second is more problematic as the organization’s needs are priority one. Let’s take a look their priorities in order of declining importance as determined by experience.

  1.  Me, myself and I. This is normal and it applies to everyone. But there is more to this than just plain self-interest. People who are given or rise to power, have a strong tendency to put their own needs and interests above those of others. Your manager’s ambitions & agenda (professional, personal and financial) will always take precedence of any need you might have. They need to fill their treasury and the pressure to “live up to expectations” of their overlords is on.
  2. Reputation. Managers need to be seen & act as very reliable, trustworthy persons who can get results. With some luck they are. But we all know about “perception is reality”. This is true until you hit the ground after jumping of the 36 floor because you pretend you can fly. Whether a bad manager actually delivers anything is irrelevant as long as the perception is there. Office politics are part of the game and they don’t take prisoners. Your boss is going to be more prone to protect his or her reputation than to protect yours. That’s why managers get pissed off about even only a perceived loss of reputation. In the dog eat dog world they’ll even ruin your reputation if and when needed as they can’t be seen as the root cause of problems. They’ll blatantly steal your work and take credit for all that goes well in the same way. You’re an expendable asset and you should never forget it.
  3. Their superiors. This is both hierarchical and functional. It’s not only the fact that a lot of people feel the need to please others for whatever reason. It is also just self-interest (promotions, ego) and self-preservation. So realize that your managers will almost always choose to follow their bosses or the peers they fear or need in order to gain a stronger or more favorable position with them. Yes, they will do so even if it is bad for the company or organization. This holds a warning: if you’re a functional superior to your managers than you’re a threat and they might try to get rid of you.
  4. Customers. You can forget about being more important than the needs of the customers. Whether these are external or internal customers is irrelevant. Your managers job is to serve the need of the customers. Your managers will not get ahead if he doesn’t serve their needs.
  5. The team. Yes the team, the assets are more important than you. As long as managers can have the team do what needs to be done, they have a way of serving the above priorities, which are more important. In that respect the ability of a manager to keep the team running is paramount. They’ll feed the teams just enough to keep them alive, hopeful enough to carry on and will challenges them to keep them sharp. Keep ‘m mean, lean & hungry.
  6. You. Sure you have some skills they needs. If not they might keep you around just to add another FTE to the head count in order to proof the importance or the weight of their jobs. So he won’t kick you most of the time and will even throw you a bone every now and then. Good doggy. But you know that saying “People are our biggest asset?” It’s a lie, especially to them.

How to deal with this?

The above is always true in a lesser way for all individuals and as such also for managers. The big difference is that the balance has totally shifted to the dark side with really bad ones. In essence you have a couple of options. Grow a pair of balls and make sure you have some power as well, play the same game and get them terminated. If your upper management is worth their pay they might be way ahead of you and that will bet the end of it for you. If it has to come from the bottom realize that this is not easy. Terminating a manager from lower in the hierarchy always upsets the powers that be. To them such an event is highly disconcerting and visions of guillotines, tar, feathers and pitch forks pop up. Another option is to take evasive maneuvers. You could do so by moving laterally or vertically in the organization out of harm’s way. Last but not least. Leave. Yes, that might not be fair on you and what you already accomplished at the company but life is not fair and is certainly too precious to put up with the above. In the end you must know your opponent and know yourself. Perhaps you can live with them and there are various ways of dealing with various types of managers, who all have their weaknesses and strengths. It’s a personal decision, but a real bad manager, that’s something you really can do without and shouldn’t tolerate ever, for your own health and well-being.

If You Can, You Should Attend TechEd 2013 Europe

It’s that time of the year again, when TechEd is coming closer. I’m attending the European Edition in Madrid, Spain. But I can guarantee you I will be on line a lot during the USA edition as well. At be attending the USA edition this year if I could but work, time and budget wise I can’t make that happen. This isn’t because the European edition is less, absolutely not. The reason is that at MMS2013 in Las Vegas last month we got the heads up that Microsoft will start talking publicly about the new version of Windows and I’m game for that. Windows Server 2012 is the best Windows version ever but I know what I’d like to see in there to make it even better. I’m kind of curious if anyone at MSFT follows my thinking on this subject. I hope so!

TechEdEU_250x250_7

So yes I’m a TechEd advocate, you bet! If you want to know why, read my blog post here on https://blog.workinghardinit.work/2010/06/05/why-i-find-value-in-a-conference/.

Come and learn amongst your peers, network with them and industry experts. To become competent and gain expertise you are going to have to get out there and expose your ideas, insights and thinking to your peers around the globe. That’s how it works. To those who dismiss quality conferences like this I can only say that you are wrong. To those who claim it’s a paid holiday I can only say that to a liar all other men are liars and to a thief all other men are thieves.  Enough said. Invest in knowledge and competence development, it will pay of better than some extra thousands of € in the bank!

So if you can please join me and attend TechEd. It’s a blast and a tremendous learning experience. I never ever miss attending TechEd, not even at times it wasn’t easy for me to do so. You can register here. I hope to see you there!

SMB Direct RoCE Does Not Work Without DCB/PFC

Introduction

SMB Direct RoCE Does Not Work Without DCB/PFC. “Yes”, you say, “we know, this is well documented. Thank you.” but before you sign of hear me out.

Recently I plugged to RoCE cards into some test servers and linked them to a couple of 10Gbps switches. I did some quick large file copy testing and to my big surprise RDMA kicked in with stellar performance even before I had installed the DCB feature, let alone configure it. So what’s the deal here. Does it work without DCB? Does the card fail back to iWarp? Highly unlikely. I was expecting it to fall back to plain vanilla 10Gbps and not being used at all but it was. A short shout out to Jose Barreto to discuss this helped clarify this.

DCB/PFC is a requirement RoCE

The more busy the network gets the faster the performance will drop. Now in our test scenario we had two servers  for a total of 4 RoCE ports on the network consisting of a beefy 48 port 10Gbps switches. So we didn’t see the negative results of this here.

DCB (Data Center Bridging) and Priority Flow Control are considered a requirement for any kind of RoCE deployment. RDMA with RoCE operates at the Ethernet layer. That means there is no overhead from TCP/IP, which is great for performance. This is the reason you want to use RDMA actually. It also means it’s left on it’s own to deal with Ethernet-level collisions and errors. For that it needs DCB/PFC other wise you’ll run into performance issues due to a ton of retries at the higher network layers.

The reason that iWarp doesn’t require DCB/PCF is that it works at the TCP/IP level also offloaded by using a TCP/IP stack on the NIC instead of the OS. So errors are handled by TCP/IP at a cost: iWarp results in the same benefits as RoCE but it doesn’t scale that well. Not that iWarp performance is lousy, far form! Mind you, for bandwidth management reasons,you’d be better of using DCB or some form of QoS as well.

Conclusion

So no, not configuring  DCB on your servers and the switches isn’t an option, but apparently it isn’t blocked either so beware of this. It might appear to be working fine but it’s a bad idea. Also don’t think it defaults back to iWarp mode, it doesn’t, as one card does one thing not both. There is no shortcut. RoCE RDMA does not work error free out of the box so you do have the install the DCB feature and configure it together with the switches.