Microsoft

Windows Server 2012 Features: SMB and DAC

February 18, 2013 Randy Muller Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

New to Server 2012 is the Server Message Block (SMB) 3.0 protocol. The SMB 3.0 protocol provides access to files, printers, and serial ports, as well as handling the transfer of files between different systems. SMB is not backwards-compatible – the best performance obtained is between Windows Server 2012 servers or with Windows 8. One great feature of SMB is when using it with clustering and replication. Clustering in Widows Server 2012 can now be done with SMB which means you no longer have to use a Storage-area Network (SAN).

4 More Windows Group Policy Tips and Tricks

February 14, 2013 Mark Mizrahi Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

Group Policy Objects and their templates are store in SYSVOL, a storage area under the Windows directory. This has been the storage area as far back as I can remember. The old replication engine that handles (among other things) the replication of SYSVOL is File Replication Service (FRS). This engine has been problematic. Microsoft admits that a SYSVOL that has a lot of GPOs is overweighed and becoming a possible problem for Replication.

Windows Server 2012 Features: Hyper-V Replicas and Live Migration

February 11, 2013 Randy Muller Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

Hyper-V Replica provides asynchronous replication of virtual machines (VMs) from a Hyper-V host or cluster to a remote Hyper-V host or cluster to provide business continuity and fail-over recovery. This new, built-in feature tracks write operations on the source Host or cluster and replicates them to the destination host or cluster so that both VMs are in constant lockstep. If the local VM fails (or if an administrator manually fails-over) the remote replica assumes its place. All of this happens without having any specialized storage or networking hardware requirements.

4 Tips and Tricks for Microsoft Windows Group Policy

February 7, 2013 Mark Mizrahi Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

There exists a need to properly read, deploy, and examine the results of Group Policy. By its architecture, Group Policy Deployment to the Clients or Servers can be erratic and latent, or even non-existent throughout your Enterprise Organization, frustrating Administrators who are rolling out the Group Policy to Client or Server computers. To help mitigate this behavior, I compiled these insights into a two part series from real-world examples, experiences, and fixes that have worked for me. I know that these Tips and Tricks will work for you, too.

Windows Server 2012 Features: PowerShell 3.0 and Hyper-V

February 4, 2013 Randy Muller Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

The latest, and perhaps the most significant, version of Windows Server was released in September 2012. What makes this release so significant is not just the new interface and default installation, but the enhanced Windows PowerShell, support for new hardware (which means increased performance, reliability, scalability, security, and storage options). The new virtualization enhancements have greatly increased not only the scalability of Hyper-V but performance and enterprise adoptability as well. In short, Windows Server 2012 helps you transform your IT operations to reduce costs and deliver a whole new level of business value has hundreds of new features and enhancements spanning networking, storage, user experience, cloud computing, and more. This six part series will look at twelve fantastic features of Windows Server 2012.