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Interesting.  I was searching for my MVP Profile today to find it under Virtual Machine and NOT under Management Infrastructure ;).

It turns out that my classification was changed when I was re-awarded the MVP award.

So, now I am a Virtual Machine MVP!

Works for me :)

In May 2009, I worked with Infinite Group Inc. and conducted a virtualization assessment for all state community colleges in the State of Mississippi.  In particular, I was asked to create a set of best practices as guidance to use for virtualizing Active Directory.

Since most Windows based network services rely on Microsoft Active Directory, virtualizing this role requires careful consideration. In particular, the following elements must be carefully planned:

• Time Synchronization
• Fault Tolerance
• High Availability
• FSMO Role Positioning

Time Synchronization

All Active Directory services are dependent on the time in some way. For services such as authentication and eventing, and licensing, the relationship is obvious. For other services such as updating, the relationship may not be so obvious.

In virtualizing servers, most if not all elements are virtualized and not physical. This includes the processor. The way that the time is maintained is in accordance with processor ticks. Most physical clocks or time keeping devices are imprecise to some degree. It is very difficult to maintain precise and accurate time without there being some degree of a time skew which requires periodic adjustments to correct for accuracy in time keeping.

In the case of virtualization, virtual machines require a mechanism to adjust or translate the virtual processor ticks and synchronize them with some time source. This skew is more apparent in virtual machines than in their physical counterparts and therefore these adjustments occur more often.

Time Synchronization is one reason that it is not recommended to have Active Directory services deployed in an entirely virtualized environment.

Fault Tolerance

In any Active Directory deployment, more than one server with the Active Directory Domain Services role deployed is recommended for fault tolerance. In fact, at least 2 Domain Controllers are recommended as a best practice for every Domain deployed in an Active Directory forest. The reason for this is to ensure that more than 1 server exists at any given time with a copy of the Active Directory database.

Since Active Directory technology is designed such that every domain controller installed is as authoritative as their neighbors. This phenomenon is called multi-master. The term multi-master itself is normally used when referring to Active Directory replication which is the process of copying changes within the Active Directory database from one domain controller to another.

In the case of virtualization, typically one domain controller in every domain should be configured as a physical server to ensure fault tolerance in the event of a failure.

High Availability

Virtualizing of Active Directory does have the distinct advantage of indirectly enabling an Active Directory domain controller to be configured as highly available.

If only physical servers would be used, there is no practical way to make an Active Directory domain controller highly available. To achieve this functionality, the Active Directory database and log files would require careful placement within highly available file share resources which vastly increase the complexity of an environment.

Active Directory domain controllers which have been installed on a virtual server may be installed on a cluster with the virtual machine itself being the highly available workload. This effectively allows Active Directory domain controllers to become highly available quite easily.

FSMO Role Positioning

At a basic level, Active Directory domain services make use of a multi-master model. There are however several Active Directory functions or roles which must be tied to a particular server and cannot be shared amongst all domain controllers. These are referred to as flexible single master operations (FSMO) roles.

In addition to the database and log files, Active Directory requires that these roles be in service and available for communication. If some of these roles are configured on a virtual server, it is recommended that the server not contain any critical workloads other than Active Directory domain services.

The reason for this is because if the virtual server were to fail and not be quickly recoverable, the FSMO roles contained on it would need to be seized by some other Active Directory domain controller server. This process is not clean and if the failed server were to ever be recovered, there would be meta data remaining that pertains to Active Directory which is no longer valid. The recommended course of action to re-establish the server into service would be to reinstall the operating system, rejoin the domain, and then add the Active Directory domain services role and allow it to replicate with other Active Directory domain controller partners. Only once this is done, should any FSMO roles be transferred back to the server.

In the case of a virtual machine, the process of rebuilding or provisioning a new server can be only a few minutes which is a significant improvement over the time needed to bring a physical server back into service.

The recommended course of action for the failed virtual server would be to decommission it as this is no longer useful to rejoin the domain and the repercussions of deleting a file are significantly less than maintaining an expensive physical server asset while not in use.

I have been in IT for some time now and am a fairly decent troubleshooter.

Yesterday, I was working to resolve a network connectivity issue in my lab.  I have a PC/Server with an onboard Intel 882567LM PCIe Gigabit Ethernet controller and an 8-port D-Link 10/100 switch which has worked faithfully for years.

I know I need to change my cables and switch to gigabit but to date…

I have power issues where I live and have a UPS for all of my computer equipment but one never knows…

I must have moved the Ethernet cable to the switch at one point and forgotten about it because connection to this server used to work fine…

I eliminated the switch, port, cables, as potential culprits one by one… 

Electrically, the NIC even appeared to be sending/receiving signals.  I had given up on the NIC and was about to replace it when just for the heck of it, I unplugged the Ethernet cable from the switch and moved it to my Linksys router.

Eureka!  There was a hardware incompatibility between the switch and network card…

I guess still after all these years, I am still running into simple issues…  Now that I have seen it, into the bag of experience it goes ! ;)

We have a slight change of venue next week.  The topic for our presentation has also changed.  OWSUG will be hosting our monthly meeting at Algonquin College, exact location details will follow.  Based on the popularity of Edwin’s session at TechDays, I asked him to present for OWSUG.  He will team with Colin this month.

SQL Server for the Accidental DBA
So your SQL Server DBA just left and your manager instantly promoted you to be the new DBA. You do not have any clue at all about SQL Server and where to start. This session will give you a high-level overview of what SQL Server is and what you need to know to get yourself started in your new, forced career

Mr.  Edwin  Sarmiento , MCP MCDBA MCAD MCSD MCT MCTS MCITP:DBA MCSA

Edwin Sarmiento works as a SQL Server DBA for The Pythian Group in Ottawa, ON in Canada. Prior to joining Pythian, he was a senior systems engineer/DBA for Fujitsu Asia Pte Ltd in Singapore and is responsible for maintaining 200+ servers and databases for a global client in 10 countries.  He is very passionate about technology but has interests in music, professional and organizational development, leadership and management matters when not working with databases.  He lives up to his primary mission statement - "To help people grow and develop their full potential as God has planned for them” 

Discovering the Azure Platform for Web Server and Database Administrators

Do you manage IIS/Apache web servers or SQL Server/MySQL databases?  Do you need an infrastructure and skill-set to meet the needs of a small business with a small budget and/or the needs of a multi-millionaire dollar web property requiring high availability, load balancing, clustering and geographic redundancy?  Microsoft is about to go live with its highly scalable and affordable cloud-based platform for Windows computing, storage, data access and application services.  From its preview release in 2008, this platform has shown lots of promise, but how much does it cost, can you run Apache or MySQL on it, what can you use it for and how do you manage it?  Come and discover the answer to these and other questions…

Colin Melia is the Principal Architect for DreamDigital and the CTO of Imparta. 

He has been a hands-on Architect and entrepreneur for 17 years having led the creation of award-winning desktop-based immersive business simulation technology, cloud-hosted web/S+S solutions and workflow-driven BI systems as well as creating the first streaming video community site with Windows Media.  He has worked in the finance, telecoms, e-learning, Internet communications and gaming industries, with his business solutions recently in use world-wide at companies like HP, O2, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft & Reuters.  He has done conference speaking for Microsoft and makes frequent presentations at IT community groups as well as serving on various committees. Being British, he’d like you to know that it’s you that has the accent :P

2 weeks ago, I was in St. Johns Newfoundland doing 2 back-to-back presentations on Windows 7 both for the St. Johns Memorial University as well as for their local IT PRO user group. 

These presentations are part of the Windows 7 Springboard Technical Expert Panel (STEP) presentations series to increase awareness of the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system.

The presentations were very well received.

Because I was going to actually be in St. Johns for less than 14 hours from landing to take-off, the local IT PRO contact Atul “Sunny” Anand could not resist taking me out to see the local sights which was awesome!

I was at the Easternmost tip of North America, a fact I learned just then.  I saw some military forts used in war days and a spectacular view of the island from one of its’ highest points. 

Then, Atul took me out on George street to Trapper Johns where I was to be sworn in as an honorary Newfandlander. 

The ceremony involved pounding down some rum shooters called Screech while yelling some incomprehensible sentence which took me five times to get right.  I was told the story of how the Newfoundlanders came by this rum as a trade with Jamaicans who wanted the cod fish.  Finally, I had to kiss a cod fish and it was done, I was made an honorary Newfoundlander valid for 5 years… :)

See below:

I was on vacation last week and missed this event.  The event was led by Ben Cavanagh (VP), Paul Tondreau (event coordinator), Islam Gomaa (study group admin), and Colin Melia (visiting executive).

Thanks to our OWSUG execs for another job well done.

With another capacity another capacity attendance of approximately 60 members, the presenter Wes McDonald rocked the house!

Next month on December 17, we have Kirk Munro an Ottawa local Powershell MVP and Windows 7 STEP member who will give a presentation on Server 2008 R2 and Powershell.  The exact details of the presentation will be released with the newsletter and on the http://owsug.ca website early in December.

Come one, come all!

Maybe it is silly I know, but I think it is awesome that Microsoft packaged a copy of Windows 7 as a commemorative edition to thank the Beta Testers. 

Here is a scan of what the box looks like below:

I thought this was cool.

Brad