KB Article 2522766 & KB Article 2135160 Published Today

At this moment in time I don’t have any more Hyper-V clusters to support that are below Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. That’s good as I only have one list of patches to keep up to date for my own use. As for you guys still taking care of Windows 2008 R2 RTM Hyper-V cluster you might want to take a look at KN article 2135160 FIX: "0x0000009E" Stop error when you host Hyper-V virtual machines in a Windows Server 2008 R2-based failover cluster that was released today. The issue however is (yet again) an underlying C-State issue that already has been fixed in relation to another issue published as KB article 983460 Startup takes a long time on a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer that has an Intel Nehalem-EX CPU installed.

And for both Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM and SP1 you might take a look at an MPIO issue that was also published today (you are running Hyper-V on a cluster and your are using MPIO for redundant storage access I bet) KB article 2522766 The MPIO driver fails over all paths incorrectly when a transient single failure occurs in Windows Server 2008 or in Windows Server 2008 R2

It’s time I add a page to this blog for all the fixes related to Hyper-V and Failover Clustering with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for my own reference Smile

Free Support Rant

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I blog and help out in news groups because I like to share ideas, solutions and help out when and where I can. I’m active on twitter because I enjoy the discussions, the out loud thinking and the reflection we all get of just throwing ideas, conclusions, opinions, experiences and knowledge in a pool of diverse but very skilled passionate IT Professionals and Developers.

It is not always easy to share information. The potential complexity of environments that may well have other issues and restrictions in combination with the vast amount of possible configurations and designs, both valid and ill advised, make it near to impossible to cover all eventualities. If one of my blog posts does not contain the answer to your specific problem or does not apply to your particular situation, do not complain & moan about it, let alone demand of me to come up with a solution. What is written here are bits and pieces of information which I choose to share because I think they have some value and can help other people out.  I do this in my own time. Really, I am not paid to blog, research technologies or build labs. I do this out of my own interest and because I enjoy it and it has value to me in my own work. I work a lot of hours “for a boss” and those are not always the most esoteric. When you read my “About” page you’ll read the following:

I’m still in the trenches with my boys and gals. Empty suits or hollow bunnies are neither wanted nor needed. In IT you live by the sword and you die by the sword. There is no hiding when you mess up, all our mistakes are in plain sight of everyone using what we build.

That is my reality and I live by it. Perhaps others should try this.  I’ve seen to many ICT “gods” come down from heaven for a short while pushing their latest religion or product. Loudly proclaiming it is the truth and the only way forward. Failure to achieve success is always due to a lack of faith with us subjects, our (at best) mediocre skills or because we have to wait and see the benefits,  much later in time, but we need to keep the faith. When the shit hits the fan those gods are back on the Olympus, pushing daggers into the back of us infidels who couldn’t make it work. No thank you. I think the people I work with know the  strengths and weaknesses of both my self or my solutions. I have however never ever left them out in the cold when something didn’t work out as planned or when things failed. Yes, eventually things, big and small, do fail. How you try and prevent that as much as possible and how you deal with it when it happens is what makes a huge difference. That’s where my professional responsibilities lie, not with some Microsoft bashing, impolite, wannabe who thinks insulting me is a good approach to getting me to solve their issues with a Microsoft product. You know the type, they open a pack of “M$ Sucks Quick Mix” to try and get some “Instant credibility” and fail miserably, they even fail at asking for help.

I am not your free support desk, your dedicated Microsoft technology research engineer or trouble shooter. I’m an IT Pro with a busy job. I think certain people out there need to learn that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Don’t be a “jerk”.

<rant>

Hyper-V Team at Microsoft Rocks

The Hyper-V team at Microsoft and the Belgian Hyper-V contact at Microsoft are a very communicative and responsive group of people. Every time I have brought a need, a question or a problem to their attention they take it up and deliver a solution, an answer or a fix respectively. An example of this can be found in this blog post https://blog.workinghardinit.work/2010/01/29/microsoft-really-listens-enhances-nvspbind/ on functionality they added to nvspbind on our request.

More recently we ran into an issue with the Windows 2008 SP2 SKUs “Without Hyper-V” which I blogged about in KB2230887 Hotfix for Dynamic Memory with Windows 2008 Standard & Web edition does not apply to without Hyper-V editions?. I also brought this to the attention of John Howard. The reply was swift and positive. The Dynamic Memory owner Serdar was on the case and working with the Windows Sustained Engineering group to provide a re-release of the hotfix so it would support those “Without Hyper-V” SKUs. This has been fixed now as announced on the TechNet forum thread here, just scroll to the latest post. The only negative point here is that they forgot to mention it on the blog post and that you now need to call them to get the hotfix, why this is, I do not know.

UPDATE: As of 24 hours the hotfix is downloadable again http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2230887 (v2).

Over the years I’ve been impressed with what they delivered with Hyper-V out of the box. They’ve had some issues but they recognized them early and fixed ‘m fast. It has been a pleasure working with this technology for the last three years and I am now enjoying the benefits of Dynamic Memory with Windows Server 2008 SP1. All I can say that if you have a genuine interest in the technology and communicate clearly and politely with Microsoft personnel they are very engaged to help you. I’m pretty pleased Smile.

Microsoft Offers Operations Manager Community Evaluation Program (2012 CEP)

At TechEd 2011 Microsoft announced the OpsMgr 2012 Community Evaluation Program (CEP) and are now inviting everyone to apply to take part in this in the public Beta time frame. They position a CEP as follows:

Many of you are likely familiar with Microsoft TAP’s, Technology Adoption Programs, where a small pool of customers partner with our engineering teams to preview and provide feedback on pre-beta software. TAP participants provide our engineers with some early guidance and validation of next generation software, prior to us releasing publicly-available beta software. TAP is a great program, but it starts very, very early on and usually fills up quick (and waay before beta). The OpsMgr 2012 TAP has been very active in helping us with early builds, but it is unfortunately full.

The Community Evaluation Program (CEP) has recently been created to provide a broader range of customers with an in-depth experience with our upcoming beta software.

Essentially, a CEP is an organized way of bringing our subject matter experts (SMEs) from our product teams, our community (like MVPs and experienced users) and those interested in taking a deep look at our v.Next software for evaluation and preparation for deployment purposes.

This is good news, we’ got SCVMM2012 Beta running in the lab, it will be nice to get our ands on SCOM 2012 Beta as well. For an overview of the Operations Manager 2012 CEP, take a look at TechNet blog post http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2011/06/02/now-enrolling-for-the-operations-manager-2012-cep.aspx and the OM12 CEP overview datasheet.

If this is to your liking you can get all the information you need here and follow this link to apply for the CEP Apply for the OpsMgr 2012 CEP. Somewhere in June the accepted participants will get the SCOM2012 topic schedule & access to the CEP discussion forums. If you have questions on all this you can send them to [email protected].