windows server Archives - Apostolidis Cloud Corner

Azure VM | Add Multiple Data Disks v2

Pantelis Apostolidis — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 08:26:54 +0000

This is a new version of my previous script Add multiple managed disks to Azure RM VM

Changes:

- Shows the disk capacity of the VM and asks how many disks to add.
- Prompts for the size of every disk
- Checks for empty Luns to add the disks

# 1. You need to login to the Azure Rm Account

Login-AzAccount

# 2. The script will query the Subscriptions that the login account has access and will promt the user to select the target Subscription from the drop down list
 
$subscription = Get-AzSubscription | Out-GridView -Title "Select a Subscription" -PassThru
Select-AzSubscription -SubscriptionId $subscription.Id

# 3. The script will query the available VMs and promt to select the target VM from the VM list
 
$vm = Get-AzVM | Out-GridView -Title "Select the Virtual Machine to add Data Disks to" -PassThru

# 4. I set the storage type based on the OS disk. If you want to spesify somehting else you can cahnge this to: $storageType = StandardLRS or PremiumLRS etc.

$storageType = $VM.StorageProfile.OsDisk.ManagedDisk.StorageAccountType

# 5. Enter how many data disks you need to create

$VMdiskCapacity = ($VM.StorageProfile.DataDisks).Capacity
 
$diskquantity = Read-Host "How many disks you need to create? Max Capacity" $VMdiskCapacity "."

# 6. The script will promt for disk size, in GB

$diskSizeList = @()
for($i = 1; $i -le $diskquantity; $i++)
{
    $disk = (Read-Host "Disk " $i " Size")
    $diskSizeList += $disk
}
$diskSizeList

# 7. check for exisiting disks

$existinglun = @()
for($i = 0; $i -lt $VMdiskCapacity; $i++) {
    $existinglun += ($VM.StorageProfile.DataDisks)[$i].Lun
}

# 8. disks creation

for($i = 0; $i -lt $diskquantity; $i++)
{
$diskName = $vm.Name + "-DataDisk-" + $i.ToString()
$diskConfig = New-AzDiskConfig -AccountType $storageType -Location $vm.Location -CreateOption Empty -DiskSizeGB $diskSizeList[$i]
$DataDisk = New-AzDisk -DiskName $diskName -Disk $diskConfig -ResourceGroupName $vm.ResourceGroupName
for ($j = 0; $j -lt $VMdiskCapacity; $j++) {
    if ( $null -eq $existinglun[$j] ) {
        $nextLunIndex
        for ($k = 0; $k -lt $VMdiskCapacity; $k++ ) {
            $nextLunIndex = $k
            for ( $m = 0; $m -lt $VMdiskCapacity; $m++ ) {
                if ( $k -eq $existinglun[$m] ) {
                    $nextLunIndex = -1 
                    break 
                }
            }
            if ($nextLunIndex -ne -1 ) {
                break
            }
        }
        Add-AzVMDataDisk -VM $vm -Name $DiskName -CreateOption Attach -ManagedDiskId $DataDisk.Id -Lun $nextLunIndex
        $existinglun[$j] = $nextLunIndex
        break
    } 
}
}
Update-AzVM -VM $vm -ResourceGroupName $vm.ResourceGroupName

You can download the script from: https://github.com/proximagr/automation/blob/master/Add-DataDisks-DIffSize_v3.ps1

Pantelis Apostolidis

Pantelis Apostolidis is a Sr. Specialist, Azure at Microsoft and a former Microsoft Azure MVP. For the last 20 years, Pantelis has been involved to major cloud projects in Greece and abroad, helping companies to adopt and deploy cloud technologies, driving business value. He is entitled to a lot of Microsoft Expert Certifications, demonstrating his proven experience in delivering high quality solutions. He is an author, blogger and he is acting as a spokesperson for conferences, workshops and webinars. He is also an active member of several communities as a moderator in azureheads.gr and autoexec.gr. Follow him on Twitter @papostolidis.

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Add multiple managed disks to Azure RM VM

Pantelis Apostolidis — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 14:29:54 +0000

Add multiple managed disks to Azure RM VM

In this post I have created a PowerShell script to help add multiple managed disks to an Azure RM Virtual Machine.

The script to add multiple managed disks will prompt you to login to an Azure RM account, then it will query the subscriptions and ask you to select the desired. After that it will query the available VMs and promt to select the target VM from the VM list.

At this point I am checking the OS disk and define the storage type of the data disk. If we need to change the storage type we can check the comments at step 4. e.g. If the OS disk is Premium and you want Standard data disks.

The next step is to ask for disk size. You can check the sizes and billing here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/managed-disks-overview#pricing-and-billing

Finally it will ask for the number of the disk we need to create. After this input the script will create the disks, attach them to the VM and update it.

The Script:

# 1. You need to login to the Azure Rm Account

Login-AzureRmAccount

# 2. The script will query the Subscriptions that the login account has access and will promt the user to select the target Subscription from the drop down list
 
$subscription = Get-AzureRmSubscription | Out-GridView -Title "Select a Subscription" -PassThru
Select-AzureRmSubscription -SubscriptionId $subscription.Id

# 3. The script will query the available VMs and promt to select the target VM from the VM list
 
$vm = Get-AzureRmVM | Out-GridView -Title "Select the Virtual Machine to add Data Disks to" -PassThru

# 4. I set the storage type based on the OS disk. If you want to spesify somehting else you can cahnge this to: $storageType = StandardLRS or PremiumLRS etc.

$storageType = $VM.StorageProfile.OsDisk.ManagedDisk.StorageAccountType

# 5. The script will promt for disk size, in GB

$diskSizeinGB = Read-Host "Enter Size for each Data Disk in GB"

$diskConfig = New-AzureRmDiskConfig -AccountType $storageType -Location $vm.Location -CreateOption Empty -DiskSizeGB $diskSizeinGB

# 6. Enter how many data disks you need to create
 
$diskquantity = Read-Host "How many disks you need to create?"

for($i = 1; $i -le $diskquantity; $i++)
{
$diskName = $vm.Name + "-DataDisk-" + $i.ToString()
$DataDisk = New-AzureRmDisk -DiskName $diskName -Disk $diskConfig -ResourceGroupName $vm.ResourceGroupName
$lun = $i - 1
Add-AzureRmVMDataDisk -VM $vm -Name $DiskName -CreateOption Attach -ManagedDiskId $DataDisk.Id -Lun $lun
}

Update-AzureRmVM -VM $vm -ResourceGroupName $vm.ResourceGroupName

You can download the script from here: AddManagedDisks

Pantelis Apostolidis

www.cloudcorner.gr

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Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization | VM in Nested VM in Azure VM

Pantelis Apostolidis — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 09:49:40 +0000

Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization | VM in Nested VM in Azure VM

With the new Dv3 and Ev3 VM sizes Microsoft has released the Nested Virtualization, meaning you can simply have a Hyper-V VM inside an Azure VM. I have created a set of posts to explore the Nested Virtualization functionality. Of course nested virtualization is only supported in Windows Server 2016.

Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization

After my main Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization | Hyper-V VM inside Azure VM post, we saw two usage scenarios. One is running Hyper-V Replica and the other is running Web Server in nested VM on Azure. Now lets have some fun and try to run a VM nested inside a VM nested inside an Azure VM. As a fellow said, VM inception!

We will use again the nested VM that we created at the Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization | Hyper-V VM inside Azure VM post. First we need to run two commands, one command to enable the virtualization and one to enable the MAC address spoofing. More details you can find at the Nested Virtualization Microsoft article

Set-VMProcessor -VMName  -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true
Get-VMNetworkAdapter -VMName  | Set-VMNetworkAdapter -MacAddressSpoofing On

After running the above commands we can go to the Server Manger and add the Hyper-V role.

I just click next accepting all the defaults. One exception, I checked the NIC to use it for Virtual Switch.

Finally we have a Hyper-V VM that is nested inside a Hyper-V VM that is nested inside an Azure VM

Pantelis Apostolidis

www.cloudcorner.gr

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Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization | Hyper-V Replica on Azure

Pantelis Apostolidis — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 11:30:32 +0000

Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization | Hyper-V Replica on Azure

Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization

After the Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization | Hyper-V VM inside Azure VM post on how to create a Nested VM inside an Azure VM, I am following with how to have Hyper-V Replica on Azure.

To accomplish this we will use the Azure VM and the Nested VM from the Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization | Hyper-V VM inside Azure VM post. The first step is to create an identical pair of Azure VM and Nested VM to use for replica server. The only requirement is that the two Azure VMs must have network connectivity. As you understand we can have Hyper-V Replica between two Azure VMs at different Azure Regions using VPN.

Next, at both Azure VMs open the 443 port at both the NSG and the Windows Firewall. For more security we can add the Public IPs of the VMs as Source.

Since the VMs are not part of a domain we need to use Certificate based authentication for the Hyper-V Replica. We will use the New-SelfSignedCertificate command to create both certificates.

The certificate process

First we need to create a root CA certificate, so login at the first host and run:

New-SelfSignedCertificate -Type "Custom" -KeyExportPolicy "Exportable" -Subject "CN=myazurerootca" -CertStoreLocation "Cert:\LocalMachine\My" -KeySpec "Signature" -KeyUsage "CertSign"

Next, using the certificate Thumbprint of the root CA certificate, create two server certificates, one for each Azure VM. To accomplish this run:

New-SelfSignedCertificate -type "Custom" -KeyExportPolicy "Exportable" -Subject "CN=anothertestvm" -CertStoreLocation "Cert:\LocalMachine\My" -KeySpec "KeyExchange" -TextExtension @("2.5.29.37={text}1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.1,1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.2") -Signer "Cert:LocalMachine\My\6A7196D9759FC2F7C49D62E08FA7195310DE5EB7" -Provider "Microsoft Enhanced RSA and AES Cryptographic Provider"

New-SelfSignedCertificate -type "Custom" -KeyExportPolicy "Exportable" -Subject "CN=anothertestvm2" -CertStoreLocation "Cert:\LocalMachine\My" -KeySpec "KeyExchange" -TextExtension @("2.5.29.37={text}1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.1,1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.2") -Signer "Cert:LocalMachine\My\6A7196D9759FC2F7C49D62E08FA7195310DE5EB7" -Provider "Microsoft Enhanced RSA and AES Cryptographic Provider"

The next step is to open the Certificates mmc (Local Computer) and at the Personal container you will find the three certificates created above.

Right click each certificate and Export it, including the Private key, to a folder

Copy the certificates to the second Azure VM and import them. The root CA certificate needs to be imported to he Trust Root Certification Authorities and the other two to the Personal (or just use automatic placement).

Finally we need to disable the Certificate revocation check for Replication on both Azure VMs. To do this run the following command on both Azure VMs:

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Virtualization\Replication" /v DisableCertRevocationCheck /d 1 /t REG_DWORD /f

The Hyper-V Replica process

Lets start creating the Hyper-V Replica. Since Hyper-V Replica uses computer names, we need to use the host file to bind the Public IPs with the computer names. So, at the first Azure VM, open an elevated Notepad, browse to the path “C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc”, and open the “hosts” file. Enter the Public IP of the second Azure VM following by the computer name. Do the same at the second Azure VM.

After saving the host file, go to the Hyper-V Settings, go to the “Replication Configuration” and check the “Enable this computer as a Replica Server”. Then check the “Use certificate-based Authentication (HTTPS)” and select the certificate created before. Finally check the “Allow replication from any authenticated servers” and press OK. Do this at both Azure VM Hyper-V Servers.

Next go to the Hyper-V manager, right click the Nested VM and choose “Enable Replica”. Enter the name of the second Azure VM and select the certificate.

I just used the defaults at all the next screens and finally press finish to enable the replication.

Once the replication is enabled you will see the “Replication enabled successfully” message and the Status will change to “Sending Initial Replica”.

After a very short period of time, the VM will complete the initial sync.

Pantelis Apostolidis

www.cloudcorner.gr

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Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization | Hyper-V VM inside Azure VM

Pantelis Apostolidis — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 11:36:05 +0000

Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization | Hyper-V VM inside Azure VM

Microsoft Azure Nested Virtualization

At the first port, we will create a Hyper-V VM inside an Azure VM and have Network and Internet Connectivity.

Lets get started. First of all we will need a Dv3 or Ev3 VM and for best Nested Virtualization performance make use of SSD Managed Disks. I created a D4s_v3 Standard (4Cores, 16GB Ram, SSD managed disks) and I attached a 1023GB SSD Data Disk for performance.

Now remote desktop to the VM to add the Hyper V Role. From the Server Manager, add Roles and Features and add the Hyper-V role

Since this is an one NIC VM select the NIC to create the Virtual Switch

Change the default Store location to the SSD Data Disk, in this case the E: drive.

Finally wait for the installation to complete and reboot the VM. After the VM reboots, Remote Desktop and open the Hyper-V manager. Now we have Hyper-V inside an Azure VM.

Lets create a VM. You can download a Trial Windows Server 2016 from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2016 or use your Subscription (MSDN, EA, etc).

I created a VM Called NestedVM01, with 4GB Ram using the Trial Windows Server 2016 ISO

After the VM creation setup the Windows Server 2016 with all defaults and login.

The first thing to notice is that the Network Interface does not have a valid IP address, since Microsoft Azure will not provide one. In order to have the Nested VM to have Network connectivity we need to use NAT.

First change the Virtual Switch to “Internal network”

At the Host’s Network interfaces, open the vEthernet NIC and add a static IP, only IP & Mask

Now we will need PowerShell, since we cannot configure NAT form the GUI.

Open the PowerShell (still at the Host Azure VM) and run

New-NetNat –Name NVMNat –InternalIPInterfaceAddressPrefix 192.168.168.0/24

The result:

After that we can provide the Nested VMs with IPs form the 192.168.168.0/24 range. So login to the Nested VM and add an IP fron the Range and for Default Gateway add the Host’s IP.

For DNS add your AD DNS or a Public DNS server just to have internet.

Now from the Nested VM you can ping the Host:

And also browse the Internet:

Stay tuned, on my next post we will see how we can make the Nested VM a Web Server, a hidden Web Server in a VM inside an Azure VM!

Of course this Features opens the door for many more features to test, like Hyper-V Replica, Containers, etc, that we will see in future posts.

Pantelis Apostolidis

www.cloudcorner.gr

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Auto-Shutdown Hyper-V free with UPS

Pantelis Apostolidis — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 19:33:37 +0000

Auto-Shutdown Hyper-V free with USB UPS

This post is about how to Auto Shutdown Hyper-v core with UPS using PowerShell and also send email notifications based to UPS battery level.

Recently i installed a Windows Hyper-V 2012 R2 server (the free version) but my UPS doesn’t support Windows Core. No problem, we have PowerShell!! after some search on various sites – blogs – etc i end up creating the following script. It checks the battery status every 3 minutes, using WMI and when the battery drops below 50% is sends the shutdown signal. As long as you set the VMs to save on shutdown you are OK!

I also added a simple mail notification before the shutdown.

$batterystatus = (get-wmiobject -class CIM_Battery -namespace "root\CIMV2").EstimatedChargeRemaining
DO
{
 start-sleep -seconds 180
 $batterystatus = (get-wmiobject -class CIM_Battery -namespace "root\CIMV2").EstimatedChargeRemaining
 $batterystatus
 } While ($batterystatus -gt 50)
$login = "username"
$password = "password" | Convertto-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force
$credentials = New-Object System.Management.Automation.Pscredential -Argumentlist $login,$password
Send-MailMessage -Body "UPS Started - Server will shutdown in 5 minutes" -From mail@domain.com -To mymail@domain.com -Subject "Power Loss - UPS Started" -SmtpServer mail.domain.com -Credential $Credentials
shutdown /s /t 300

Feel free to use my script and also edit at will based to your needs

Pantelis Apostolidis

www.cloudcorner.gr

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File Server in-place Domain Migration

Pantelis Apostolidis — Thu, 19 May 2016 13:00:15 +0000

File Server in-place Domain Migration

When migrating to a new domain a major part is the file server, especially if there are a lot of data and different permissions.

Thankfully Microsoft has a very helpful tool called SubInACL. This tool can be used to read and update security permissions and is much helpful for file server in-place domain migration. The tool can be downloaded here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=23510

But after searching a lot there is not a specific guide that someone has followed and worked. So I started testing and came up with the following steps that worked for me:

Open an elevated Command Prompt window and navigate to the folder containing the subinacl.exe
Export the permissions of the drive’s root:
subinacl /noverbose /output=C:\permissionsE.txt /file E:
Export the permissions of the all subfolders and files:
subinacl /noverbose /output=C:\permissionsEsub.txt /subdirectories E:
Copy the contents of the “permissionsE.txt” to the start of the “permissionsEsub.txt” file.
Open the “permissionsEsub.txt” file and replace the old domain name with the new domain name.
View the shares:
net view computername
Export the shares’ permissions:
subinacl /noverbose /output=C:\shares.txt /share \\computername\fileshare
Disjoin and join the Server to the new domain
Import the NTFS permissions
Subinacl /playfile C:\permissionsEsub.txt
Import the shares’ permissions:
Subinacl /playfile C:\shares.txt

Some commends from the field

The export process is very fast but the import process takes much longer time.
The subinacl process is single threaded (uses only one core) so in order to speed up the whole process you can split the permissions file and run it multiple times on different command prompt windows. Every subinacl.exe will create a single process that will use one core so if you have four cores create four processes.
The import process completely removes the permissions and applies the new ones. So no User IDs will stay at the files/folders.

Pantelis Apostolidis

www.cloudcorner.gr

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Add AlwaysOn AG to SQL Failover Cluster Instance

Pantelis Apostolidis — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 19:11:07 +0000

SQL Failover Cluster with AlwaysOn Availability Groups

Πάμε τώρα για το τελευταίο κομμάτι του lab, να προσθέσουμε AlwaysOn Availability Group στο υπάρχον SQL WSFC.

Add AlwaysOn AG to SQL Failover Cluster Instance

Για αρχή πρέπει να ενεργοποιήσουμε το “AlwaysOn High Availability” setting και στα δύο Nodes του υπάρχοντος Cluster. Εδώ να τονίσουμε πως η επιλογή υπάρχει μόνο στη Enterprise έκδοση και όχι στην Standard. Ανοίγουμε λοιπόν το SQL Server Configuration Manager / SQL Server Services / SQL Server (NAME) , δεξί click Properties και στην καρτέλα “AlwaysOn High Availability” επιλέγουμε το “Enable AlwaysOn Availability Groups”. Με το που θα πατήσουμε Apply θα μας ενημερώσει ότι η αλλαγή θα περάσει στον SQL στο επόμενο restart.

Δεν κάνουμε restart.

Τώρα για να γίνει η αλλαγή στο δεύτερο Node πρέπει να κάνουμε manual failover για να σηκωθεί το service της SQL. Όπως είχαμε κάνει και στο τέλος του προηγούμενου Post, όταν εγκαταστήσαμε το δεύτερο SQL Node, από το Failover Cluster Manager κάνουμε move το SQL Server Role στο δεύτερο Node. Τώρα άμα ανοίξετε το SQL Server Configuration Manager θα δείτε ότι το SQL Server service έχει γίνει stop και το SQL Server service τρέχει στο δεύτερο Node με ενεργοποιημένο με το AlwaysOn. Τέλος ξανακάνουμε move το SQL Server Role στο πρώτο Node.

Στη συνέχεια πάμε να βάλουμε τον τρίτο server στο υπάρχον Windows Failover Cluster. Ανοίγουμε το Failover Cluster Manager από το πρώτο Node (Win2012R201 στο lab) και πατάμε Nodes / Add Node…

Ξεκινάει ο Wizard, πατάμε το πρώτο Next και στο Select Servers επιλέγουμε τον τρίτο server (Win2012R203 στο lab) και πατάμε Next.
Για να περάσει το verification πρέπει ο server να έχει ήδη το Failover Cluster feature, κάτι που στο lab υπάρχει από το template.

Μιας και αυτό το Node δεν θα είναι ουσιαστικά μέρος του Failover Cluster αλλά το θέλουμε μόνο για το AlwaysOn, επιλέγουμε να μην κάνει τα validation test και να μην βάλει storage.

Τώρα πρέπει να σιγουρεύουμε ότι δεν θα προσπαθήσει το Cluster να σηκώσει την SQL στο τρίτο Node που θα είναι για το AlwaysOn.
Αφού προστεθεί το Node στο Cluster πρέπει να πάμε πρώτα στο Failover Cluster Manager / WSFCcomputername (sqlclus.sqllab.int για το lab), επιλέγουμε από τα Cluster Core Resources στο Server Name το computer name του sql cluster (sqlclus για το lab) και δεξί click properties.

Πηγαίνουμε στο Advanced Policies tab και απόεπιλέγουμε το τρίτο Node, όπως στην εικόνα

Στην συνέχεια στον SQL Server Ρόλο, δεξί click properties και να επιλέξουμε preferred owners τα δύο πρώτα Nodes μόνο.

Το ίδιο κάνουμε και για τα δύο Cluster Disks

Τώρα κάνουμε μια τυπική εγκατάσταση SQL Server 2012 στο τρίτο Node, με τα ίδια settings που κάναμε και για το Cluster, με τη διαφορά ότι θα κάνουμε Stand Alone Setup και όχι Cluster και πρέπει να δώσουμε διαφορετικό instance name γιατί το Default instane (MSSQLSERVER) υπάρχει στο Cluster. Επίσης δίνουμε έναν δίσκο στο Server με ίδιο γράμμα με αυτό που έχουν οι servers στο Cluster για την SQL. Στο lab είναι F:.

Αφού ολοκληρωθεί η εγκατάσταση ενεργοποιούμε το AlwaysOn κι εδώ από το SQL Server Configuration Manager και κάνουμε restart το SQL server service.
Επίσης σε αυτό το σημείο να αναφέρω ότι επειδή χρησιμοποιούμε ένα Named instance, κάθε φορά που ξεκινάει το SQL Server service καταχωρεί ένα SPN record το οποίο χρειάζεται για να μπορέσουν οι εφαρμογές να κάνουν authenticate με τον SQL Server. Για να μπορέσει να γίνει αυτό πρέπει το account που τρέχει το SQL Server service να έχει δικαίωμα να διαβάζει και να γράφει serviceprinipalnames στο Active Directory. Στο lab χρησιμοποίησα Domain Admin account οπότε το SPN καταχωρείται σωστά.

Μπορούμε πλέον να ξεκινήσουμε την διαδικασία να βάλουμε την βάση μας σε AlwaysOn Availability Group.
Από το active node του WSFC ανοίγουμε το SQL Management Studio και συνδεόμαστε στο SCL Cluster Instance, στο LAB “SQLFCI”. Πρώτα κάνουμε ένα backup την βάση μας, μιας που είναι προαπαιτούμενο για να προχωρήσουμε. Παίρνουμε το backup και το κάνουμε restore στο τρίτο Node, Win2012R203 στο lab αλλά προσοχή, επιλέγουμε στο restore Options / Recovery state / RESTORE WITH NORECOVERY

Αφού ολοκληρωθεί το restore η βάση θα πρέπει να έχει δημιουργηθεί και να είναι σε (Restoring…)

Μετά πηγαίνουμε στο πρώτο Node, Win2012R201 στο lab, SQL Management Studio, στο “AlwaysOn High Availability” και με δεξί click στο Availability Groups πατάμε “New Availability Group Wizard…”

Ανοίγει ο Wizard και μετά το πρώτο next δίνουμε Availability group name

Στο επόμενο βήμα επιλέγουμε την βάση που θέλουμε να βάλουμε σε Availability Group

Στο επόμενο βήμα πρέπει να ορίσουμε replicas. Έχει ήδη το SQFCI, και μάλιστα μας ενημερώνει ότι επειδή είναι Failover Cluster Instance δεν υποστηρίζει automatic failover. Αυτό σημαίνει ότι όταν χάσουμε όλο το Cluster (SQL Cluster Instance) θα πρέπει να πάμε στο τρίτο Node (Win2012R203 στο lab) στο SQL management studio / AlwaysON High Availability / Availability Groups / και με δεξί click πάνω στο “AG Aname” κάνουμε manual failover.

Κάνουμε connect στο τρίτο Node, Win2012R203\MSSQLAG

Αφού προστεθεί και ο Win2012R203, επιλέγουμε Readable Secondary και ανάλογα την χρήση επιλέγουμε Synchronous ή όχι Commit. Όπως είπα και στην αρχή του πρώτου Post, “Η ιδέα είναι να έχουμε ένα SQL Flailover Cluster στο Primary Site και στο υπάρχον Cluster να προσθέσουμε ένα AlwaysOn Availability group για το DR” η χρήση του Availability Group είναι για DR Site για να αποφύγουμε latency στο Commit το αφήνουμε unchecked. Έτσι θα έχουμε asynchronous commit και θα αποφύγουμε το latency με ένα “φόβο” για Data Loss τη στιγμή που θα χρειαστεί Failover.

Τέλος πατάμε Next.

Στην επόμενη καρτέλα επιλέγουμε το «Join only” αφού έχουμε κάνει ήδη restore την βάση, και πατάμε Next

Στην καρτέλα validation αγνοούμε το warning για τον Listener, θα τον δημιουργήσουμε μετά

Και πατάμε Finish για να δημιουργήσει το Group

Σε αυτό το σημείο μπορούμε να δημιουργήσουμε Listener, ο οποίος θα είναι multi-sunet, δηλαδή θα έχει μια IP από κάθε subnet.

Αν έχουμε περισσότερα από ένα Azure VMs στο Always ON θα χρειαστούμε έναν Internal Azure Load Balancer. O Load Balancer θα έχει για backend pool τα Azure VMs που συμμετέχουν στο Always ON Availability Groups. Αυτό που πρέπει να προσέξουμε στο load balancing rule είναι να ενεργοποιήσουμε το Floating IP (Direct Server Return). You don’t need Session persistence. Για probe χρησιμοποιούμε την 59999.

Ορίζουμε την IP του Load Balancer στο Cluster με το παρακάτω PowerShell script. Αυτό το script θα επιτρέψει στην cluster IP να παντάει στο load balancer. Το τρέχουμε στο active node του failover cluster.

$ClusterNetworkName = "" # the cluster network name (Use Get-ClusterNetwork on Windows Server 2012 of higher to find the name)
$IPResourceName = "" # the IP Address resource name
$ListenerILBIP = "" # the IP Address of the Internal Load Balancer (ILB). This is the static IP address for the load balancer you configured in the Azure portal.
[int]$ListenerProbePort = "59999"

Import-Module FailoverClusters

Get-ClusterResource $IPResourceName | Set-ClusterParameter -Multiple @{"Address"="$ListenerILBIP";"ProbePort"=$ListenerProbePort;"SubnetMask"="255.255.255.255";"Network"="$ClusterNetworkName";"EnableDhcp"=0}

Στην περίπτωσή μας, ο Listener θα έχει μια IP από το FCI cluster & μια από το AlwaysOn subnet on Azure.

Σε μια εγκατάσταση που όλα τα SQL Instances είναι single ένας Listener χρησιμεύει για common name, ώστε να οδηγεί κάθε φορά τις εφαρμογές στο σωστό server.

Τέλος να πούμε ότι η διαχείριση του Failover Cluster SQL Instance γίνετε μέσω του Windows Server Failover Cluster Manager, όπως π.χ. το manual failover, όπως είδαμε και στο προηγούμενο post. Ενώ η διαχείριση του Always On High Availability γίνετε από το SQL Management Studio.

Αν έχετε πρόβλημα στην δημιουργία του Availability Group τρέξτε το εξής script:

#To create the [NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM] account, run the following in a query window:

USE [master]
GO
CREATE LOGIN [NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM] FROM WINDOWS WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE=[master]
GO 

#To grant the permissions to the [NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM] account, run the following in a query window:

GRANT ALTER ANY AVAILABILITY GROUP TO [NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM]
GO
GRANT CONNECT SQL TO [NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM]
GO
GRANT VIEW SERVER STATE TO [NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM]
GO

Pantelis Apostolidis

www.cloudcorner.gr

The post Add AlwaysOn AG to SQL Failover Cluster Instance appeared first on Apostolidis Cloud Corner.

Configure NTP on Windows Server (Time Server)

Pantelis Apostolidis — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 09:39:08 +0000

A simple command to configure NTP on a Windows Server is:

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:pool.ntp.org /syncfromflags:MANUAL

sc stop w32time

sc start w32time

To add more than one NTP servers:

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:”0.pool.ntp.org 1.pool.ntp.org” /syncfromflags:MANUAL

To check the status of the time service:

w32tm /query /status

You can find more NTP peers at: http://www.pool.ntp.org/

Pantelis Apostolidis

www.cloudcorner.gr

The post Configure NTP on Windows Server (Time Server) appeared first on Apostolidis Cloud Corner.

Volume Shadow Copy Error 0x800423f4 | VSS Backup error

Pantelis Apostolidis — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 07:56:50 +0000

There are many times that VSS can be a PITA! Trying to backup a HyperV VM or jsut an application and have VSS errors. There are many troublesooting options most of them doing partial job and probable wont fix any errors. The below command set from microsoft almost everytime solves the VSS problems. Actually it re-registers the VSS.

Open an elevated command prompt session

CD to WindowsSystem32 (depending on the version of the OS many dll’s will fail to register, you can ignore them)

Net stop vss

Net stop swprv

regsvr32 ole32.dll

regsvr32 vss_ps.dll

Vssvc /Register

regsvr32 /i swprv.dll

regsvr32 /i eventcls.dll

regsvr32 es.dll

regsvr32 stdprov.dll

regsvr32 vssui.dll

regsvr32 msxml.dll

regsvr32 msxml3.dll

regsvr32 msxml4.dll

Reboot your server.

After reboot, open a command prompt and run:

vssadmin list writers

Ensure that all your writers are displayed w/o errors.

FInally retry your backup

Pantelis Apostolidis

www.cloudcorner.gr

The post Volume Shadow Copy Error 0x800423f4 | VSS Backup error appeared first on Apostolidis Cloud Corner.