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Friday, August 24, 2012

New features in Windows Server 2012

Windows server 2012 has been released to the manufacturing. It will be available for general evaluation and purchase by all customers around the world on September 4 2012.

Here is the information on some of the new features in Windows Server 2012:-


Licensing


The Enterprise Licensing has been eliminated. There are only 4 license types in Windows 2012.  
  • Datacenter edition for highly-virtualized private cloud environments.
  • Standard edition for non-virtualized or lightly virtualized environments.
  • Essentials edition for small businesses with up to 25 users running on servers with up to two processors.
  • Foundation edition for small businesses with up to 15 users running on single processor servers.


Here is a comparison of various editions by server role.



Here is a summary of key features:-


Running instances


Running instances can exist either in a physical operating system environment (POSE) or a virtual operating system environment (VOSE).



Powershell

Windows Powershell has over 2300 commandlets as compared to 200 in Windows Server 2008


Task Manager

New Task Manager Window, shows more detailed information about each process/application


File System

New type of file system for File servers is called ReFS (Resilient File System). Max file size of 16 Exabytes and max volume size of 1 yottabytes (hardware restrictions still apply)


CPU and Memory limits

· There is no support for Itanium based processors
· Max logical processors: 640 (It was 256 in Windows Server 2008 R2)
· Max RAM: 4 TB (It was 2 TB in Windows Server 2008 R2)


Some new RDS features

a) Single Sign-On:  In Windows Server 2008 R2, it was possible to configure an RDS deployment so that users will need to enter their credentials only once when connecting to RemoteApps and hosted desktops. However, this configuration was very cumbersome. Windows Server 2012 dramatically simplified this by eliminating the need to use multiple certificates. It is also possible to use locally logged on domain credentials so that users connecting from managed devices can connect seamlessly without any credential prompts.
b) Email and web discovery of Remote Applications and desktops:  Users now can find the correct remote workspace to connect to by just providing their email address. This removes the requirement to remember a long website URL. In addition, Remote Desktop Web Access now supports other browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.


Changes to vRAM licensing

In its upcoming release of vSphere 5.1, VMware is getting rid of vRAM entitlements, which debuted with vSphere 5 and determine how much memory customers are permitted to allocate to virtual machines on the host, according to sources familiar with VMware's plans.


VMware will return to its previous CPU-based licensing model and will announce the move at VMworld when it unveils vSphere 5.1.
VMware did not respond to a request for comment on its decision to discontinue vRAM.


VMware is ditching vRAM in part to maintain its competitive edge against Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT), which is adding several enterprise-class features in its upcoming release of Hyper-V 3. Microsoft, which has labeled vRAM as a "vTax," has been using the model in a campaign to lure away VMware customers.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Part 3: VEEAM Backup and Replication v6 setup and config (Configuration steps)

This is part 3 of a 5 series post on VEEAM installation and configuration. In this section, I will show the configuration steps for VEEAM Backup and Replication v6.

Read my other posts on this topic:-
Part 1 (Introduction and Pre-requisites)
Part 2 (VEEAM Installation steps)
Part 5 (VEEAM Troubleshooting performance issues)

We will basically setup the following components:-

  • Add a vCenter Server.
  • Configure a VEEAM Backup Repository. 
  • Add a VEEAM Backup Proxy Server.
  • Remove a VEEAM Backup Proxy Server.
  • Configure SNMP settings for email notification.

a. Add a vCenter Server

If you do not have a vCenter Server, you can add your hosts individually. Adding a vCenter Server is preferred, because it makes VEEAM Backup and Replication VMotion-aware.

1. Open the VEEAM Backup and Replication console and on the home page click Add Servers.

2. On the next Window that opens up, click VMware vSphere.


3. On the next screen, enter the hostname or IP address of the vCenter Server.


4. On the next window, type an account with administrator privileges on the vCenter Server.


5. Review the settings and click Finish on the next screen.



b. Configure a VEEAM Backup Repository

1. Create a folder on the drive where you want to backup your VMs. In this example, I've created VEEAM_BACKUP folder on the V: of the VEEAM server itself.


2. On the VEEAM Backup and Replication Home console, under Backup Infrastructure right click the Backup Repository and click Add Backup Repository.



3. On the next window, type a suitable name for your Backup Repository. This is the name by which your Backup Repository will be recognized by VEEAM.



4. In the next window, choose Microsoft Windows Server as a type of Backup Repository.



5. In the next window, select the drive on which you created the backup folder.



6. Browse to the location of the backup folder on the selected drive (that is the folder that we created in step 1 above). In this window, you can also specify the Load control settings. For eg. if you have SATA drives for your storage, you may want to limit the number of concurrent jobs to 2 or 3 to avoid any I/O bottlenecks. Or if you have just one NIC card on the backup server, you can limit the incoming dataflow.



The options in the Advanced tab are self-explanatory.

7. On the next window, you'll see the settings for vPower NFS. vPower NFS enables running virtual machines directly from the backup files. Its a feature thats highly recommended. 
Specify the folder for the vPower NFS cache. As explained earlier, this cache is used to store all the changes to the VM while it is running from the backup files. So depending upon the changes and number of VMs that you will test for Instant Recovery, you might want to leave atleast 50-60 GB space for this folder.



8. Review the settings in the next window and click next. You can import any existing backups to the VEEAM database if you want to in this window.



9. Wait for the repository to be created and configured. Click Finish when done.



c. Add a VEEAM Backup Proxy Server

1. On the VEEAM Backup and Replication Home console, under Backup Infrastructure right click the Backup Proxy and click Add VMware Backup Proxy.




2. In the next window that opens up, click Add New...




3. Enter the hostname or IP address of the VEEAM Backup Proxy Server.



4. On the next window, type an account with administrator privileges on the Backup Proxy Server.



5. The next window will inform you that the "transport" component would be installed on the Backup Proxy Server. Click Next.



6. The VEEAM Backup Proxy Server components will be pushed and installed onto the Proxy server. Wait for the installation to complete and click next.



7. Click Finish to complete the install.




8. After the installation is done, you can modify the settings for Transport Mode. You can also set the SSL Encryption at this screen. 


You can also set the number of maximum concurrent tasks for the Backup Proxy Server. As a rule of thumb, for every 2 CPU cores, VEEAM adds 1 concurrent task. So, for a quad core system, VEEAM would recommend max 2 consurrent tasks. You can, of course, modify these settings.


9. You can set the way Backup Proxy Server accesses the datastores.



10. In the next window, you can specify the settings for Traffic Throttling.



11. Click Finish to complete the installation.



d. Remove a VEEAM Backup Proxy Server

It might sometimes be necessary to remove a VEEAM Backup Proxy Server. For e.g. you decide to change the Backup Proxy Server to some other host, or you decommission the Backup Proxy Server. Follow the steps below to remove a previously configured Backup Proxy Server from your VEEAM farm.


1. To remove a Backup Proxy Server, you would first have to disable it. 
Select Backup Proxy under Backup Infrastructure. On the right hand side right click the Backup Proxy server and select Disable.



2. Once the Proxy has been disabled, right click the Proxy again, select Remove and click Yes.



3. After you have deleted the Proxy, goto the Servers section, right click the Proxy Server that you wanted to remove and click Remove Server.



4. Click Yes on the next window to confirm the removal.



5. Click OK on the next Window.



e. Configure SNMP settings for email notification


1. On the VEEAM home page, click Tools-> Options.




2. In the window that opens up, check the box for "Enable e-mail notification"



3. Enter the following:-

i. Hostname or IP address of the SMTP server.
ii. Your or generic e-mail address.
iii. Recipients e-mail address (multiple recipients should be separated by semicolon)



This completes the Part 3 of the 5 series post on VEEAM installation and configuration. In the next post, I will show how to create backup policies.


Part 2: VEEAM Backup and Replication v6 setup and config (Installation steps)

This is part 2 of a 5 series post on VEEAM installation and configuration. In this section, I will show the installation steps for VEEAM Backup and Replication v6.


In this guide, I installed VEEAM on a Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machine. The client wanted to save the cost of a physical server, plus they did not had many VMs to be backed'up so I guessed that a VM would suffice their needs. (In the part 5 of this series I will show you the performance issues that I faced while running VEEAM on a VM and the steps that I took to resolve them.)


1. Double click the Veeam_Backup_Setup_x64.





2. Click next to start the installation.

3. Accept the license agreement.


4. Enter the path of the license file.


5. Select the options that you want to install.


6. Select the options for SQL database installation. I went with the default option to install a new database.


7. Specify the VEEAM Backup and Replication service account settings. This account should be a member of local administrators group on the local server and it would have the database owner rights to the VEEAM Backup and Replication database.


8. Specify the location for Catalog and vPower NFS data. vPower NFS folder is used to hold any changes that will be written any time you have Instant Restored VM's. Generally 50-100 GB of free disk space is recommended.


9. Click Next and on the next window, click Install to begin installation.





10. Click Finish to complete the installation.




This completes the VEEAM installation steps. Next, we will configure the newly installed VEEAM software.

Click here to go to Part 3 (VEEAM Configuration)


Part 1: VEEAM Backup and Replication v6 setup and config (Introduction and Pre-requisites)

This is part 1 of a 5 series post on VEEAM installation and configuration. In this section, I will talk about the pre-requisites that are need for setting up a VEEAM Backup environment.

Read my other posts on this topic:-
Part 2 (VEEAM Installation steps)
Part 3 (VEEAM Configuration)

1. Pre-requisites

Here are the pre-requisites for setting up the VEEAM Backup and Replication v6:-

Hardware
CPU: x86/x64 processor
Memory: 1024MB RAM (2048MB RAM when using local SQL Express installation).
Hard disk space: 100 MB free disk space.
Network: 1Gbit/sec recommended due to backup performance considerations.

OS
Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the following operating systems are supported:
• Microsoft Windows XP SP3.
• Microsoft Windows 2003 SP2.
• Microsoft Windows Vista SP2.
• Microsoft Windows 2008 SP2.
• Microsoft Windows 2008 R2.
• Microsoft Windows 7 SP1.

                         

SQL
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or Microsoft SQL Server 2008. If you do not have one, the Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager setup will install Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express SP4.

Software
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 or later.
Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.1 or later. If not installed, the MS Windows installation disk to set up IIS.
For IIS 7 and later, the default set of IIS components, Windows Authentication and IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility must be selected.
Browser: Internet Explorer 7.0 or later, Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or later.
Microsoft Excel 2003 or later (to view report data exported from Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager


NOTE: Folks who are already familiar with VEEAM, or those who do not want to go in details about the software, can skip this further sections of this part and go directly to part 2 (VEEAM installation and configuration).


2. VEEAM Editions

VEEAM comes in Standard and Enterprise editions. Here's a feature wise comparison of the two editions.




2. VEEAM Components

The Veeam Backup server uses the following services and components:-

Veeam Backup Service is a Windows service that coordinates all operations performed by Veeam Backup & Replication such as backup, replication, recovery verification and restore. Veeam Backup Service runs under the administrator account with the Log on as service right granted.

Veeam Backup Shell provides the application user interface and allows user access to the application's functionality.

Veeam Backup Manager is activated by Veeam Backup Service at startup of every job. Veeam Backup Manager controls the jobs to be performed according to the set job parameters.

Veeam Backup SQL Database is used by Veeam Backup Service, Veeam Backup Shell and Veeam Backup Manager to store data about the backup infrastructure, jobs, sessions and so on. The database instance can be located on a SQL Server installed either locally (on the same machine where the Veeam Backup server is running) or remotely.

Veeam Backup Catalog service is a Windows service that manages guest OS file system indexing for VMs and replicates system index data files to enable search through guest OS files. Index data is stored in the Veeam Backup Catalog – a folder on the Veeam Backup server. The Veeam Backup Catalog service running on the Veeam Backup server works in conjunction with search components installed on Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager and (optionally) a dedicated Microsoft Search Server.

Veeam Backup PowerShell Snap-In is an extension for Microsoft Windows PowerShell 2.0. Veeam Backup PowerShell adds a set of cmdlets to allow users to perform backup, replication and recovery tasks through the command-line interface of PowerShell or run custom scripts to fully automate operation of Veeam Backup & Replication.

Backup Proxy Services. In addition to dedicated services, the Veeam Backup server runs a set of backup proxy services (for details, see the Backup Proxy section).

Backup Proxy: To take the workload off the Veeam Backup server, Veeam Backup & Replication uses a backup proxy. The backup proxy is an architecture component that sits between data source and target and is used to process jobs and deliver backup traffic. As the data handling task is moved to the backup proxy, the Veeam Backup server becomes a “point of control” dispatching jobs to proxy servers.
The role of a backup proxy can be assigned to a dedicated Windows server (physical or virtual) in your virtual environment. To optimize performance of several concurrent jobs, you can deploy a number of backup proxies. In this case, Veeam Backup & Replication will distribute the backup workload between available backup proxies.

                                    

Backup Repository: A backup repository is a location used by Veeam Backup & Replication jobs to store backup files, copies of VMs and metadata for replicated VMware VMs. Technically, a backup repository is a folder on the backup storage. Use of a backup repository eliminates the need in multiple locations for storing backup files and simplifies creation of jobs – you configure a backup repository once and use it constantly.
You can choose one of the following repository types:
• Windows server with local or directly attached storage
• Linux server with local, directly attached storage or mounted NFS
• CIFS (SMB) share

Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager: Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager is an optional component intended for distributed enterprise environments with multiple backup servers. Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager federates Veeam Backup servers and offers a consolidated view of these servers through a web browser interface. You can centrally control and manage all jobs through a single pane of glass, edit and clone jobs, monitor job state and get reporting data across all backup servers.

Veeam Backup Search: Veeam Backup Search is used to search guest OS files in backups. If you frequently need to search through a great number of backups, it is recommended to configure the Veeam Backup Search.

U-AIR Wizards: Universal Application-Item Recovery (U-AIR), enabled by the Veeam vPower technology, allows you to recover individual items from any virtualized application. For such applications as Active Directory, Microsoft SQL and Microsoft Exchange, U-AIR is a wizard-driven process – that is, you can recover necessary items from applications using application-specific wizards.