Category Archives: IT Pro

100

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No this is not a cheap and reduced version of the movie 300. I do not resemble King Leonidas in anyway except perhaps in my defiance to those who want to coerce their will upon me in the data center forcing other solutions on me than what I deem best. To paraphrase it “This is Hyper-V!” But let’s get real, I’m Belgian so the Belgian chocolates (pralines) named after Leonidas are perhaps the most realistic link to the movie 300 I have and even then, when we need some pralines as a gift we manage to end up with a huge chocolate bunny. But I totally digress from the subject, having a high definition beamer and liking movies tends to invoke this. This blog is about 100; actually this is blog entry one hundred.

What can is say about it? I’m still blogging, which to me was one of the things I wanted to find out. Can I keep writing something worth reading? The first part I have answered myself but the second part, is it worth reading, that’s for my readers decide. So, if you have things to say about the blog, feedback to provide, opinions to share, by all means, please do. Let me know what you think. Is it useful, is it amusing? Or perhaps even both? If you feel like telling me, send me a mail via the contacts page, if you don’t mind voicing your opinions publicly just leave a comment to this blog or sound of on twitter to @workinghardinit

Thanks for reading Party smile

New KB Article 2494016 Related to Windows Server 2008 SP1 Hyper-V: Stop error 0x0000007a When Using CVS in Redirected Access

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Well not a day after my blog post Extra Info on Clustering & Hyper-V with Dynamic Memory When You Start With Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1on important hotfixes for Hyper-V clustering with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Microsoft releases a new hot fix for issue below. I’ll add it to the post to keep up to date.

Stop error 0x0000007a occurs on a virtual machine that is running on a Windows Server 2008 R2-based failover cluster with a cluster shared volume, and the state of the CSV is switched to redirected access

The KB article with instructions on how to get the hot fix is here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2494016/en-us?sd=rss&spid=14134

The scenario is detailed as follows:

Consider the following scenario:

  • You enable the cluster shared volume (CSV) feature on a Windows Server 2008 R2-based failover cluster.
  • You create a virtual machine on the CSV on a cluster node.
  • You start the virtual machine on the cluster node.
  • You move the CSV owner to another cluster node, and you change the state of CSV to redirected access.
  • The connection that is used for redirected access is switched to another connection when one of the following scenarios occurs:
    • The cable for local area network (LAN) is disconnected.
    • The related network adapter is disabled.
    • The connection is switched by using Failover Cluster Manager.

In this scenario, you receive a Stop error message that resembles the following in the virtual machine:

STOP 0x0000007a ( parameter1 , parameter2 , parameter3 , parameter4 )
KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR

Note

  • The parameters in this Stop error message vary, depending on the configuration of the computer.
  • Not all "0x0000007a" Stop error messages are caused by this issue.
  • You may also receive other Stop error messages when this issue occurs. For example, you may receive a "0x0000004F" Stop error message.

Extra Info on Clustering & Hyper-V with Dynamic Memory When You Start With Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1:

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Here’s a quick “heads up” if your starting to use or thinking about using Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for your Hyper-V clusters. The most common issues I’ve seen in the wild are:

  1. https://blog.workinghardinit.work/2011/04/01/kb2230887-hotfix-for-dynamic-memory-with-windows-2008-standard-web-edition-does-not-apply-to-without-hyper-v-editions/ This one is being worked on and the hotfix will be re-released to support the “Without Hyper-V” SKU of Windows Server 2008 SP2.  It’s a simple oversight but one that can be important when your Hyper-V clusters are filled with that SKU.
  2. We also got bitten by this one Déjà vu Bug: The network connection of a running Hyper-V virtual machine may be lost under heavy outgoing network traffic on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, but the hotfix was already available luckily.
  3. And than one to head and to read the TechNet forum about Cluster Validation Bug In Windows 2008 R2 SP1 – Disk has a Persistent Reservation on it. They are also working on a fix. I’ve written a blog post on this and I suggest you read it and also take note of the discussion in the TechNet forum.

    UPDATE: The hotfix for issue 3 has become available today, April 26th 2011 as announced on the TechNet forum here:

    A hotfix is now available that addresses the Win2008 R2 service pack 1 issue with Validate on a 3+ node cluster. This is KB 2531907. The KB article and download link will be published shortly, in the mean time you can obtain this hotfix immediately free of charge by calling Microsoft support and referencing KB 2531907.   Update 27/05/2011 Here is the link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2531907/en-us?sd=rss&spid=14134

An other one that I haven’t seen in the wild is:

Windows Server 2008 R2 installation may hang if more than 64 logical processors are active. There is is a workaround and a hotfix for this one.

Issue: When you try to install Windows Server 2008 R2 on a computer that has more than 64 logical processors, Windows Setup may stop responding in one of the following operations:

  • Initialization of Windows Setup
  • One of the two restarts that are required to complete Setup

Cause: This issue occurs because of an error in the Network Driver Interface Specification.This issue occurs because of an error in the Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) driver.
When a computer has more than 64 logical processors, the NDIS driver does not correctly handle some operations. Therefore, the computer encounters stop responding issues and other system failures.

I don’t have any nodes under my care who have more than 64 logical processors so that’s why I guess Smile But with ever more cores available you it’s bound to happen in the near future.

Update 2: To keep me busy this KB article was released within 24 hours of me posting this blog on a BSOD with CSV and redirected access for witch a hot fix is available

Stop error 0x0000007a occurs on a virtual machine that is running on a Windows Server 2008 R2-based failover cluster with a cluster shared volume, and the state of the CSV is switched to redirected access

The KB article with instructions on how to get the hot fix is here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2494016/en-us?sd=rss&spid=14134

The scenario is detailed as follows:

Consider the following scenario:

  • You enable the cluster shared volume (CSV) feature on a Windows Server 2008 R2-based failover cluster.
  • You create a virtual machine on the CSV on a cluster node.
  • You start the virtual machine on the cluster node.
  • You move the CSV owner to another cluster node, and you change the state of CSV to redirected access.
  • The connection that is used for redirected access is switched to another connection when one of the following scenarios occurs:
    • The cable for local area network (LAN) is disconnected.
    • The related network adapter is disabled.
    • The connection is switched by using Failover Cluster Manager.

In this scenario, you receive a Stop error message that resembles the following in the virtual machine:

STOP 0x0000007a ( parameter1 , parameter2 , parameter3 , parameter4 )
KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR

Note

  • The parameters in this Stop error message vary, depending on the configuration of the computer.
  • Not all "0x0000007a" Stop error messages are caused by this issue.
  • You may also receive other Stop error messages when this issue occurs. For example, you may receive a "0x0000004F" Stop error message.

BriForum Europe 2011 & The Experts Conference Europe 2011

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Great news from the educational & conference front. First of all, I’m attending BriForum in London, United Kingdom in May (http://briforum.com/Europe/index.html).  That’s good news, normally we’d have to pop over the big pond to go to that one, so this is pretty neat. And timely, due to some prospecting I’m doing for Disaster Recovery,  Business continuity, application aware storage in a virtualized environment It’s a good match and I hope to get in to some educational discussions about the challenges we all face. Some of the storage vendors we’re interested in are there as well so there is certainly some potential to make it a good experience.

And just recently confirmed that The Experts Conference is coming to Europe. TEC2011 Europe will be held in Frankfurt, Germany from October 17th to October 19th 2011. This conference is high quality and created to fill the needs of the most experienced users, which is one of the reasons I would like to attend. The more you learn & grown the more you bump into the next level of challenges and being able to learn form high level content and interact with experienced speakers and attendees who are dealing with the same issues can be very rewarding. Attendees of TechEd have a way to measure the level of the sessions, well, they are all supposed to be Level 400 only. Quest is hosting this, so they certainly should be able to round up the expertise.  I’m going to make it to the new “track” at this conference and that’s “Virtualization & Cloud”. More information can be found here http://www.theexpertsconference.com/europe/2011/virtualization-cloud-training/overview/

The timing of these conferences is pretty good. As I said we’re doing a lot of prospecting right now and hope to get a lot of information from attending these. For anyone interested why I attend conferences and why I think they are valuable see mu blog post on this subject https://blog.workinghardinit.work/2010/06/05/why-i-find-value-in-a-conference/