The Basics of the Windows Server 2008 Distributed File System (DFS)

Overview In this blog post, we’ll cover the basics of the Distributed File System (DFS) in Windows Server 2008, which offers users simplified access to a set of file shares and helps administrators easily maintain the file server infrastructure behind those file shares, including options for load sharing, replication and site awareness. Many File Servers … Continue reading The Basics of the Windows Server 2008 Distributed File System (DFS) →

Technical Articles and White Papers on SQL Server

I will be attending an advanced SQL Server training in a couple of weeks and the instructors recommended some pre-reading. I'm sharing here a subset of those recommendations that point to articles and white papers published by Microsoft, grouped by category:Database Storage TechNet Library Whitepaper: Physical Database Storage Design RAID Levels and SQL Server Books … Continue reading Technical Articles and White Papers on SQL Server →

Microsoft Partners: nominate your solution for a global award!

The 2009 Worldwide Partner Conference is coming later in the year (July 13–16 in New Orleans), but the WPC Awards program is already opened for nomination. If you are a Microsoft Partner with an awesome solution built on Microsoft technologies, it's time to start writing something up. Submissions for the Global Awards are open until April … Continue reading Microsoft Partners: nominate your solution for a global award! →

IT Administrator scripts, WMI samples and witty comments

Microsoft keeps a number of scripting examples at the Technet Scripting Center. These are mostly focused at administrators that need to write code every once in a while, as opposed to the MSDN references, focused mostly at full-time developers. If you are an IT Administrator and you have exhausted your ability to type one-liners to … Continue reading IT Administrator scripts, WMI samples and witty comments →

Installing Windows Server 2008 on a headless server from a USB disk

I am installing Windows Server 2008 on a new server that has no video card and no DVD drive. It's an interesting challenge to make that one work and I'm relying on using a bootable USB disk and unattend files. In my case, it turns out the server has a USB interface and using USB to boot is … Continue reading Installing Windows Server 2008 on a headless server from a USB disk →

Free eBook on Microsoft Virtualization Solutions

There is a new book on "Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions" by Mitch Tulloch with the Microsoft Virtualization Teams,available from Microsoft Press as a download. At 400 pages and 15MB, this PDF file covers Server Virtualization (Hyper-V), Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), Presentation Virtualization (Terminal Services), Application Virtualization (App-V), Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and User State … Continue reading Free eBook on Microsoft Virtualization Solutions →

Can you convert an MBR disk to GPT?

I got a question today: Can you convert an existing MBR disk to GPT? This is about the partitioning style of a disk, with MBR being the older one (limited to 2TB) and GPT being the newer one (going up to 18EB). Keep in mind that the GPT partitioning style is not recognized by all previous … Continue reading Can you convert an MBR disk to GPT? →

Step-by-step: Using the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target with Hyper-V (Standalone, Full, VHD)

Overview In this post, I will show all the steps required to run Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V with the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target. We will cover the specific scenario of a standalone Windows Server 2008 server (as opposed to a clustered one) on a full install (as opposed to a core install) and using a … Continue reading Step-by-step: Using the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target with Hyper-V (Standalone, Full, VHD) →

Using a SAN with DPM 2007

Data Protection Manager 2007 is a Microsoft solution that can protect the data in your servers. Combining VSS technologies with DPM-specific code, it provides an easy way to create consistent snapshots of your server’s data at regular intervals. You can later easily restore that data to any of those points in time. DPM understand different … Continue reading Using a SAN with DPM 2007 →

New Tolly Group report on the performance of SMB2

The Tolly Group, Inc. has just released a new 39-page report on the SMB2 performance improvements in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. Title: Enhanced Network Performance with Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 - Update Abstract: With the release of the Windows Vista client operating system and Windows Server 2008 network managers face … Continue reading New Tolly Group report on the performance of SMB2 →