It's been about 3 years total since I've worked with XenServer. Current setup and primary Xenserver node is running 6.0 (old...) early on, i really did not like the strangle-hold citrix had on the features and such, But I know later version are much better. I'm worried to upgrade to 6.1 - should i be? or should it be seemless and not break and Windows VM's ?

Anyways.. really looking into option for a new deployment and future build for current office needs... Already looked at Scale computing. Looks very good and pricing is subjective to the quality of product. nice!

I really like Xen Orchestra and features it presents for XenServer hosts. This was not available tool back when I first implemented xen server. Its really amazing the new tools available to us today....

Was thinking 2 Xen Server hosts with HA-Enabled (is this availble on FREE?) and using Xen Orchestra.

Local storage (SR) sounds nice on the hosts.. not sure if HA-Lizard (DRDB) is supported with Xen Orchestra.

So was thinking of a redundant HA-setup with some high-end Synology 2U units... using NFS storage as SR (rather than iSCSI). Due to storage visibility over network (ability to access actual storage VHD)

Would have a dedicated 10Gbe switch that would have servers connected(2 NIC interfaces - LACP) and also the NAS units.

And then the 2 servers directly connected with patch cable(s) for Xen Orchestra to work.

this is all conceptual....

We're just SPANNING away. Full speed ahead!
bahaha...

Well, this is about same time of year I go back to my home area for visit.. Yes, I grew up and lived in central new york (Syracuse area). Rochester was 1 hour from me.

I had the Synology NAS setup as Block Level storage for the Volume that serves out the ISCSI Luns. mehhhhh.

the complications! Lol.

This is why I was wanting to move to all new design and setup being that I already essentially have data on a centralized setup.

Could I get away with dual Synology 12-bay NAS units? (running in HA/replication).Probably

I was thinking about having 10Gbe backbone/interconnect for the NAS + The VM Node servers. So all that traffic rides on the 10GBE backbone and would not touch the 1Gbe switches.

Hello,

Unsure if anyone can help with this. I'm having an issue with grandstream phones and the PC port.

I have my network setup for LLDP, to automatically pass the voice VLAN to the phones upon boot-up (configured in router via DHCP). However, it appears that when I connect a computer to the PC-Port on the phone. The computer does not obtain an IP address. Almost as if the LAN & PC Port end up sharing the same voice VLAN. (Voice vlan is tagged).

If I reboot the phone, the computer gets an IP. but soon as the phone finishes booting and switches to the voice vlan, computer connected to PC port loses connectivity.

Phone works just fine though, It will boot-up and automatically switch to the Voice VLAN and have connectivity. But apparently locking out the PC Port (untagged data network)

Anyone have similar issue?

Router: MikroTIK
Switches: Cisco SG300's

Looking into some opinions here... Trying to get a customer of mine AWAY from dropbox, as they're essentially using it as distributed file system between their office locations.

They're building out a new office location which I'm taking care of the network setup and wifi and servers.

Recently went 100% MAC's as their locations (Real Estate).

The idea:

Setup 2015 Mac Mini (8GB, 256GB SSD). and run OSX Server.
Open Directory
All shares, etc.. the works..

Plan was to use Synology DiskStation 5-bay unit. 4-Disk RAID-10 array, 1-hot spare.

Volume1 - to pull down ALL their existing Dropbox data
Volume2 -- be large iSCSI LUN

Map iSCSI LUN to Mac Mini Server. (GlobalSAN iSCSI initiator)

use BOTH Thunderbolt connectors using TB to 1GBE adaptor. Directly connect to Synology NAS (LACP Bond) using IP address. So bypasses switch

Then NIC Card in Mac Mini connect to regular network using regular Data network subnet.

Create all data storage on the attached iSCSI Drive.

Use a regular dropbox or Google Drive account & install on the Mac Mini server. This would then point to the iSCSI Local drive and re-publish the data to dropbox or google drive

NOTE: This would be so another remote office or if needed, a windows client or Linux client access the company files via a dropbox or google drive account.

Right now they have ALL workstations running dropbox.... Dropbox kills CPU & Disk I/O and disk space.

had a webinar with Scale. Need to provide back assessment data before can see their proposal with cost. Will see.

Hey there,

This is a slight rant and frustration and looking for assistance. I'm sure it will be an absolute PISSING contest here on the current setup...

Issue:

Have windows 2008 R2 server with UNC File shares along with Roaming profiles

Company Size: over 100 employee's.

Recently CEO just leased new office space to move ~15 employee's to new location as our current building we're out of space for parking and growth...

I setup the network and all wiring at new office location.

IPSEC site-to-site tunnel between our primary office location & satellite office

Today, the CEO called me, then starting texting me blowing up my phone complained that the remote office users are not able to work at 'peak efficiency' due to the delay when accessing the company File Share network drive. Asked if we can put onsite server and backup. Asked if internet speed is issue or VPN is issue and asking how we are connected...
PS: Coax 100/10 connection.

I know the answer is to install a secondary domain controller at this Satellite office and setup DFS

issue:

Primary Domain Controller (main site) also does all the file sharing and GPO settings.

I would need to Setup DFS namespace and KEEP the SAME UNC paths. As we use Roaming profiles. Have about 1.5 TB of data. This consists of user profile data, and company file share data & client info.

Also note; we move employee's around the office ALOT. meaning employee's will get shifted around to different desks or departments at random times.

Employee's will 100% bitch that they're missing their sticky notes, or the time it takes for their Exchange email to download to local Outlook.... Employee's refuse to use and complain about the office365 webGUI. I essentially give them evil eye.. I would love to get rid of roaming profiles, but due to the way the workstations are used. it would be difficult. As users tend to save files to Documents or desktop... and we use 2X Application gateway server (Now Parallels Gateway server) to host client applications across network. So not have to install specific client software on each new employee computer.

We deal with medical claims & billing... as FYI. Lots of emails and bouncing around between applications.

Any idea's of how I can migrate from file shares to a DFS name space setup? From there I know I can deploy a smaller Windows 2008 R2 or 2012 server (Action pack Subscription), and then fire up the DFS...

NOTE: This leased office space we will only be there for about 1 year..... waiting on new 112,000 square foot office space to be finished.

Before he complained of budget......

Further to complicate. Wont spend the $$ needed for new infrastructure (servers). Want to move everything to Scale computing setup... Everything is 'eggs in one basket'. Constantly banging head against wall here. And they just posted 7m gross revenue for 2015yr

I want to run.

@scottalanmiller

That's 'jimmy johns' fast. Nice!

its just the auto-detect fields. Using Adobe Pro I presume?

Will need to manually add text box area's.

copy and paste is your friend, Be sure to rename the titles

@scottalanmiller

Hi Scott -thanks for the follow-up. I've moved on from that company; hence my absence. Moved back to Upstate NY area.

@stacksofplates

Thank you for clarification.

Once snap is stored / saved to location - can a full VM be recreated from that snap taken?

What if the original VM disk (.qcow2) was destroyed or lost (say failure). Could the VM be recreated from that said snap taken? (Restored from snap save location)

Essentially, Trying to find a way to completely backup KVM's within a production environment. As most snapshots will take larger space on the originating VM storage location. Have snaps offloaded to a NFS Share -- less expensive storage than the originating VM location

Snaps be stored for life on the NFS - and can restore from snapshot or roll-back. As would like to use these Snapshots for production within or for Xen Desktop....

As trying to find a production replacement for XenServer - due to storage virtual disk limitations. can only have 2TB vdisk assigned to any VM at any time. The storage repository or iSCSI LUN can be of any size, but am capp'd at 2TB for a VM disk...

its love at first sight for Xen Orchestra integration for XS (Snapshots, rolling/delta, etc) But the storage limitation kills me..

Sorry for gettint off topic! Just trying to show my proof of concept and need for said snapshot script.

@stacksofplates

Very nice!

Question:

I'm looking to setup a oVIRT engine + node setup. I think this script will help, as Ideally, i do not want to store my snapshots on the primary VM storage (iSCSI). Would rather have them be saved to a secondary storage location (NFS) location.

how would I modify your script to specify another storage location? I do not see the argument where to modify the snap location

I need to spin up our WSUS server (VM) again and re-point the GPO policies..

I had issue with the workstations not taking the GPO setting, was not picking our internal WSUS server. Tried via IP address and hostname within the GPO policy setting (For both boxes). http://IP http://hostname

even tried without http:// for the setting.....

But this was probably due to going back to original issue of non unique machine GUID/SID's.

But anyways, definitely have WSUS as a separate VM instance

Gotcha

Its just the fact the new clone image, when pulled down to a new workstation; it'll boot-up to the OOBE setup. Rather than take to Desktop / logon screen as currently does on our current image. And due to it being the OOBE; this is when the SID will be created.

I tell you, the thing I really want, is the ability to give the computer a computer name during the mini setup so I don't have to waste a reboot doing that inside Windows. hell, if I could join the domain during that same mini setup, that would be awesome too. There were ways to allow this in the past, but they definitely weren't simple.

I completely agree with you here...

@Dashrender
Thank you so much!

We're on the same page :). That is what my mindset was and will be testing.

We use Roaming profile/Folder redirection -- so all user files and data will be just fine.

Starting from today, I'm going to work create a new deployment image for new computers we deploy. I'll pull down an existing image, run the sysprep and then create a new image of this

Question:

Even after I make the clone image after running the sysprep. This will absolutely guarantee a unique GUID for each and every freshly cloned computer after fact?

Greatly appreciate you pointing this command out to me. As before I tried to create sysprep using the unattend.xml configuration.

@Dashrender

Understood! We have a documented set username/password for the local machine logon.

I'll be testing this on a fresh workstation I have here and create a new clone image for deployment.

@Dashrender

As for sysprep, JB and I both don't use the unattend.xml, we simply run sysprep /oobe /generalize /shutdown - this allows the machines to detect new hardware and generate a new SSID. Adding this to our deployment setup is pretty painless.

Thank you for this key detail here. I will work to add this to our deployment as well.

can I pull down one of the images to a new workstation. run the sysprep /oobe /generalize /shutdown command, and then re-clone the machine?

Or this command need to be ran on all newly cloned workstations? Then ofcourse, afterwards update hostname and set domain.

@PSX_Defector

Very much understood and learned about SysPrep and such. However, the domain and environment has worked beautiful.

This patch/update just broke part of the GPO policy -- otherwise, the user profile was fine. It broke their Aero desktop, loaded classic theme.

It also broke BGinfo from being applied (Have .VBS commands that runs at logon). Pulling update restored their normal aero desktop, and BGinfo applied again.

meh, just feel like a beat dog today. dealing with some stupid issues from people all week. one of the sayings "cant fix stupid"

one of those "R YOU SERIOUS?!" have had that all week, lol.

But nonetheless. Uninstalling the update KB3159398 resolved the issue. Once removed and workstation restarted, GPO policies apply normally.

as I did gpresult option and reviewed the html file output. Was clearly showing the GPO policies were not applied when KB3159398 was installed. After the removal, the GPO policies were being shown as applied on gpresult.

Microsoft had just pushed out some very questionable patches/updates the past 2+ months. More so, dealing with them on consumer side. This one took the cake this morning in a SMB environment.

Luckily, Only effected a very small set of workstations.