You cannot connect multiple NICs to a single Hyper-V vSwitch without teaming on the host

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Can you connect multiple NICs to a single Hyper-V vSwitch without teaming on the host

Recently I got a question on whether a Hyper-V virtual switch can be connected to multiple NICs without teaming. The answer is no. You cannot connect multiple NICs to a single Hyper-V vSwitch without teaming on the host.

This question makes sense as many people are interested in the ease of use and the great results of SMB Multichannel when it comes to aggregation and redundancy. But the answer lies in the name “SMB”. It’s only available for SMB traffic. Believe it or not but there is still a massive amount of network traffic that is not SMB and all that traffic has to pass through the Hyper-v vSwitch.

What can we do?

Which means that any redundant scenario that requires other traffic to be supported than SMB 3 will need to use a different solution than SMB Multichannel. Basically, this means using NIC teaming on a server. In the pre Windows Server 2012 era that meant 3rd party products. Since Windows Server 2012 it means native LBFO (switch independent, static or LACP). In Windows Server 2016 Switch Embedded Teaming (SET) was added to your choice op options. SET only supports switch independent teaming (for now?).

If redundancy on the vSwitch is not an option you can use multiple vSwitches connected to separate NIC and physical switches with Windows native LBFO inside the guests. That works but it’s a lot of extra work and overhead so you only do this when it makes sense. One such an example is SR-IOV which isn’t exposed on top of  a LBFO team.

Unable to correctly configure Time Service on non PDC Domain Controller

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Introduction

Around new year, between the 31st 2016 and the 1st of January 2017 some ISP had issues with the time service. It jumped 24 hours ahead. This cause all kinds of on line services issues ranging from non working digital TV to problems with the time service within companies. That caused some intervention time and temporarily switching the external reliable NTP time server sources to another provider that didn’t show this behavior. Some services required a server reboot to sort things out but things were operational again. But it became clear we still had a lingering issue afterwards as we were unable to correctly configure Time Service on non PDC Domain Controller.

Unable to correctly configure Time Service on non PDC Domain Controller

A few days later we still had one domain, which happend to be 100% virtualized, with issues. As turned out the second domain controller, which did not hold the PDC role, wasn’t syncing with the PDC. No matter what we tried to get it to do so. If you want to find out how to do this properly for virtualized environment I refer you to a blog post by Ben Armstrong Time Synchronization in Hyper-V and fellow MVP Kevin Green Hyper V Time Synchronization on a Windows Based Network.

But no matter what I did, the DC kept  getting the wrong date. I could configure it to refer to the PDC as much as I wanted, nothing helped. It also kept saying the source for the time was the local CMOS (w32tm /query /source). I kept getting an error, we’re normally able to fix by configuring the time service correctly.

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Another trouble shooting path

The IT universe was not aligned to let me succeed. So that’s when you quit … for a coffee break. You relax a bit, look out of the window whilst sipping from your coffee. After that you dive back in.

I dove into the registry settings for the Windows time service in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time of a functional DC in my lab and the one of the problematic DC in the production domain.  I started comparing the settings and it all seemed to be in order. But for one serious issue with the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Security key on the problematic DC.

Trying to open that key greeted me with the following error:

Error Opening key

Security cannot be opened. An error is preventing this key from being opened. Details: The system cannot find the file specified.

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That key was empty. Not good!

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I exported the entire W32Time registry key and the Security key as a backup for good measure on the problematic DC and I grabbed an export of the security key from the working DC (any functional domain joined server will do) and imported that into the problematic DC. The next step was to restart the time service but that wasn’t enough or I was to inpatient. So finally I restarted the DC and after 10 minutes I got the result I needed …

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Problem solved Smile

Manage Your Brocade Fibre Channel Switch with recent Java & browser versions

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Introduction

I was in the process of setting up a new jump server a management station server virtual machine on Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V. The guest was also Windows Server 2016 (desktop install). That station needed to be used to manage some aging Brocade fibre channel switches. With the default setting and links this will give you some headaches and some solution require you to keep older and insecure browser or java versions installed. We’ll show you how to get GUI access to your FC switches without needing to do that so you can manage your Brocade Fibre channel switch with recent Java & browser versions. Well not all of them, but it can be done with IE 11 and Firefox 52.0.1 (at the time of writing).

Another solution is to use the CLI naturally.

Manage Your Brocade Fibre Channel Switch with recent Java & browser versions

It’s OK to use the most recent Java version available. At the moment that I wrote this blog post that was Java 1.8.0.121. I can’t give guarantees other than that, but for now that does work.

Instead of navigating to http or https to just the IP address which will send you to https://x.x..x.x/switchexplorer you need to create a shortcut link to the following: https://10.30.2.2/switchexplorer_installed.html (or http://10.30.2.2/switchexplorer_installed.html if you have not enabled https on your switch).

Like this:

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I normally change the icon to the shortcut to indicate it’s pointing to a network device. I actually created some ico files based on an image of brocades Fibre Channel switches that I use for this. I just place then under C:\Programdata\BrocadeFC for safe keeping together with a cop of the short cuts. On the management station, I add them to the desktop for easy access. Below is a screenshot of my Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 (Desktop Experience) management station.

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But we’re not there yet. You need to go to Java configuration and select the Security Tab. Make sure Enable Java Content in the browser is enabled. Leave the security at high but don’t forget to add the IP addresses of your Brocade switch to the Exception Site List.

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You’ll need to add http or https or both depending on your situation. I think we can all agree we should go for https in this day and age.

In Firefox when you launch the shortcut you’ll get asked what app to use for opening this file.

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Make sure you point it to javaws.exe (in C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_121\bin) if that’s not the case.

clip_image007Also, check to “Do this automatically for files like this from now on” for faster access during normal operations.

In Internet Explorer allow the add-on “Java SE Runtime Environment 8 Update 121 from Oracle America Inc.” to run.

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When it comes to Chrome, this doesn’t’ work anymore. See https://www.java.com/en/download/faq/chrome.xml

When the application is launched, depending on the age of the fibre channel switch and the version of the firmware you’ll be greeted by a more or less harsh security warning.

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Check the “I accept the risk and want to run this application” or “Do not show this again for this app from the publisher above” depending on the case. This also allows for easy access the next time you launch the shortcut. The app will launch and you’ll be greeted by the login screen.

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Juts log in and there’s nothing more to it. You can now manage your FC switches from Firefox again.

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Hope this helps some of you out there that come across this issue.

Testing Compellent Replay Manager 7.8

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Testing Compellent Replay Manager 7.8

So today I found the Replay Manager 7.8 bits to download.image

As is was awaiting this eagerly (see Off Host Backup Jobs with Veeam and Replay Manager 7.8). So naturally, I set of my day by testing Compellent Replay Manager 7.8. I deployed in on a 2 node DELL PowerEdge Cluster with FC access to a secondary DELL Compellent running SC 6.7.30 (you need to be on 6.7).

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The first thing I noticed is the new icon.

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That test cluster is running Windows Server 2016 Datacenter edition and is fully patched. The functionality is much the same as it was. There is one difference and that if you launch the back upset manually of a local volume for a CSV and that CSV is not owned y the Node in which you launch it the backup is blocked.

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This did not use to be the case. With scheduled backup sets this is not an issue, it detects the owner of the CSV and uses that.

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Just remember when running a backup manually you nee to launch it from the CSV owner node in Replay Manager and all is fine.

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Other than that testing has been smooth and naturally we’ll be leveraging RM 7.8 with transportable snapshots with Veeam B&R 9.5 as well.

Things to note

Replay Manager 7.8 is not backward compatible with 7.7.1 or lower so you have to have the same version on your Replay Manager management server as on the hosts you want to protect. You also have to be running SC 6.7 or higher.

Wish list

I’d love to see Replay manager become more intelligent and handle VM Mobility better. The fact that VMs are tied to the node on which the backup set is create is really not compatible with the mobility of VMs (maintenance, dynamic optimization, CSV balancing, …). A little time and effort here would go a long way.

Second. Live Volumes has gotten a lot better but we still need to choose between Replay Manager  snapshots & Live Volumes. In an ideal world that would not be the case and Replay manager would have the ability to handle this dynamically. A big ask perhaps, but it would be swell.

I just keep giving the feedback as I’m convinced this is a great SAN for Hyper-V environments and they could beat anyone by make a few more improvements.