How many DFS-N namespace servers do you need?

Introduction Whenever you’re deploying Windows Server DFS-Namespaces, you will need to figure out how many servers will be required. Since I moved to the role of DFS-N PM, I noticed that the specific information on how many namespace servers you need is something that isn’t clearly posted anywhere. Although we never really had any problems … Continue reading How many DFS-N namespace servers do you need? →

Windows Storage Server 2008 and the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.2

I am glad to share that Windows Storage Server 2008 (WSS 2008) and the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.2 have been released to the Microsoft OEM partners. This is the successor to Windows Storage Server 2003 (WSS 2003) and Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (WUDSS 2003). I have been working closely with some of … Continue reading Windows Storage Server 2008 and the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.2 →

Using the Windows Server 2008 DFSUTIL.EXE command line to manage DFS-Namespaces

The most common administration activities related to DFS-Namespaces can be performed using the “DFS Management” MMC. This will show up under “Administrative Tools” after you add the DFS role service in Server Manager. You can also add just the MMC for remote management of a DFS namespace server. You will find that in Server Manager, … Continue reading Using the Windows Server 2008 DFSUTIL.EXE command line to manage DFS-Namespaces →

Understanding Windows Server 2008 DFS-N by analyzing network traces

1 – Overview This blog post details the behavior of Windows Server 2008 DFS-N (Distributed File System - Namespaces) clients by looking at network traces. The main goal here is to show the interaction between a DFS-N client, a domain controller, a namespace server and a file server.These traces were taken using Network Monitor 3.3 beta … Continue reading Understanding Windows Server 2008 DFS-N by analyzing network traces →

New White Paper on Hyper-V and SQL Server Consolidation at Microsoft

A new white paper on how Microsoft IT is combining Hyper-V and SQL Server has just been published. This comes from a team that provides thousands of SQL Server instances for internal applications. It includes a lot of interesting new information, including results of specific tests they performed to evaluate their options. This is something … Continue reading New White Paper on Hyper-V and SQL Server Consolidation at Microsoft →

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) →

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) →