Hey Folks,

So, we have a physical box (2008R2), with SQLServer. Today, we used Disk2VHD to virtualize this. Simple.

1. Turn off SQL Server Services.
2. Run Disk2VHD
3. Create a VM
4. Attach disks etc

That all went fine. The server is up and running. The application using the database on client machines over the network is fine and works. The old machine off and ready to be destroyed.

(The VM has the same MAC/IP etc)
The weird part... when physical was used, SSMS could be used from desktops to connect to the instances. Now after the above, that doesn't work. But everything else does. Turning the domain firewall off on the SQLServer VM resumes access from clients via SSMS...

So, how could that happen... doesn't P2V do an 'exact copy' process? It was applicable before, but now doesn't work...

Any ideas?

Best,
Jim

@dashrender said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

@jimmy9008 said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

Get the best price you can, within reasonable effort - it's a fair expectation from most companies.

Scott bills out at $250+/hr. If it takes him 2 hours to get a quote from Dell they are already $500 in the whole compared to xByte (where he can get a quote from their website in mins).

But it's really hard to believe that you could get an equal price, let alone superior price directly from Dell than you could from xByte, but in the interest of fairness, please post your quote so we can see them side by side.

I have seen HP for example, crush vendor pricing on single laptop/desktop purchases with their sales, but we aren't talking about sales, we're talking about a server purchase.

The purchase was waaaayyyy back. I will try to dig up the details tomorrow.

Yes, Scott would clearly cost far more than myself or others... Probably would be sensible to hand the quote/haggling to more economical employees once the spec an needs are detailed.

@scottalanmiller said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

@jimmy9008 said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

@scottalanmiller said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

@jimmy9008 said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

@shuey said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I got on a live chat this morning with xByte and will be getting a quote later today. Can't hurt to at least see what they have to offer and get a price ;).

I've always found that Dell beat xByte when its their end of quarter and end of year; you then get all new kit rather than refurbished. Of course you do have to haggle. From memory, Dell operate Feb - April = Q1, May - July = Q2, Aug - Oct = Q3 and Nov - Jan = their end of year... if you can wait until the last week of each you get great sales usually where they hit low prices to nail their targets.

Only for new, and he should not be considering new here, only refurb.

At these times of year, if you haggle well, you can get new for the same price as refurbished... why only consider refurbished here if you can get new?

Even if the price is identical, I'll take refurb no-haggle over haggle and go through all that crap any day. Dealing with Dell directly is a huge negative and unless it's actively cheaper, it's not a good deal. Refurb and new are the same gear. I've never seen or heard of new actually being cheaper. So unless it is actually cheaper and takes very little friction to make it so and doesn't deteriorate my existing relationships (playing the low price game over a few dollars is a good way to get bad deals from everyone long term) I wouldn't even consider it.

I disagree. This wouldn't necessarily be over a few dollars, and dealing with Dell directly is not difficult at all. Quite simple actually. Right time of year can save a lot of cash...

Why are you sabotaging business profits to keep those 'existing relationships' who are really actually ripping you off... Just so you don't have to 'haggle' - imo, sounds lazy.

You 'wouldn't even consider it' - what exactly? You won't consider getting the best deal for your company for a call with Dell. Sounds like a little bit of corruption in IT to me, where you are sacrifice profits to keep 'your relationships' happy. Didn't you post about that and similar in another thread lately... Hmmmm.

Get the best price you can, within reasonable effort - it's a fair expectation from most companies.

What board do you know that would be happy to pay potentially far more to keep your existing people happy... You'll probably say lots.

@quixoticjeremy said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@wirestyle22 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@quixoticjeremy If you could be a shitty scientist or a fantastic window washer, what would you choose to be?

Likely window washer.

All I do is clean Windows all day anyway!

@wirestyle22 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@quixoticjeremy If you could be a shitty scientist or a fantastic window washer, what would you choose to be?

Shitty window washer

@scottalanmiller said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

@jimmy9008 said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

@shuey said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I got on a live chat this morning with xByte and will be getting a quote later today. Can't hurt to at least see what they have to offer and get a price ;).

I've always found that Dell beat xByte when its their end of quarter and end of year; you then get all new kit rather than refurbished. Of course you do have to haggle. From memory, Dell operate Feb - April = Q1, May - July = Q2, Aug - Oct = Q3 and Nov - Jan = their end of year... if you can wait until the last week of each you get great sales usually where they hit low prices to nail their targets.

Only for new, and he should not be considering new here, only refurb.

At these times of year, if you haggle well, you can get new for the same price as refurbished... why only consider refurbished here if you can get new?

Just watched GoT S07e06.

@networknerd said in Using In-Memory Databases, Anyone?:

• They actually point out in the podcast that they had the best success with in-memory databases on local storage or SAN (NAS not a good choice) and that ethernet was the networking avenue of choice.

Not sure what this means... not that I know about this, but, if its in memory, its in... memory, right? So, what does it have to do with local storage, SAN, or NAS?

Anyway, other databases load what is used frequently in to memory so its quick to access. Its why lots of places would build an SQL server with a ton of RAM - so that SQL can put what is used often in to RAM (fast) and keep it available... right?

@shuey said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I got on a live chat this morning with xByte and will be getting a quote later today. Can't hurt to at least see what they have to offer and get a price ;).

I've always found that Dell beat xByte when its their end of quarter and end of year; you then get all new kit rather than refurbished. Of course you do have to haggle. From memory, Dell operate Feb - April = Q1, May - July = Q2, Aug - Oct = Q3 and Nov - Jan = their end of year... if you can wait until the last week of each you get great sales usually where they hit low prices to nail their targets.

Read the post, interesting. Don't agree on every single point, but yes - corruption does exist.

•Taking kick backs from salespeople in order to ensure a sale

I don't agree with that one, personally. Once I have done analysis, research, reviewed products, and have selected the best product for my organisation based on our needs - i'd then contact sales for whatever company I've decided to use. At that point where I ask for a quote, should they decide to take me to dinner, buy me drinks, or even something a little bigger - hell yeah! The decision is made already, that sweetener wont help - but they don't know that. Their problem.

They don't know the sale is already approved by me, so if they feel they have to 'ensure a sale', let them!

For a lab, you can also get additional space by altering the setup here.

CSV1 on Node1 & Node2.
CSV2 on Node2 & Node3.
CSV3 on Node3 & Node1.

You now have more space that can be used, whilst still keeping a redundant copy of all data available.

@dashrender said in 1Gbps Fibre Internet Access:

They are also a carrier, buying in carrier quantities. For them, it's probably better to manage a single SKU of 24 port switches (or whatever it is) instead of all different sizes. Plus they probably get a great price from the vendor for buying hundreds or thousands of the same unit.

Yes, this makes sense. I will have to take what they supply anyway, as its the end of their line and they can use whatever they want to provide me the one interface to use that line - its just a shame its 48 when I only need 1.

@jaredbusch said in 1Gbps Fibre Internet Access:

@jimmy9008 said in 1Gbps Fibre Internet Access:

@dashrender said in 1Gbps Fibre Internet Access:

It's their ballgame. As they are providing the equipment they get to decide what they use.

I suppose you could ask them to provide something smaller.

Is the 1u a problem for you?

It seems odd to me that they aren't providing their own tack for their own equipment.

In my case, my ISP installed their own wall mounted quarter rack plus USP at the DMARC location.

It takes up a fair amount of space but in my case it's not an issue.

Not an issue, we have the space - just find it a waste to have so many ports when we only use one.

From the thread, I can see its usual, so at least I know.

AT&T puts in this big ass overkill Cisco router for their fiber hand off. think it is a 3U beast. But it only has 4 ports on it, so there is that.

I shall count my blessings then

The line is nowhere close to being done yet though; Openreach don't seem to be able to figure out what they are doing!

@dashrender said in 1Gbps Fibre Internet Access:

It's their ballgame. As they are providing the equipment they get to decide what they use.

I suppose you could ask them to provide something smaller.

Is the 1u a problem for you?

It seems odd to me that they aren't providing their own tack for their own equipment.

In my case, my ISP installed their own wall mounted quarter rack plus USP at the DMARC location.

It takes up a fair amount of space but in my case it's not an issue.

Not an issue, we have the space - just find it a waste to have so many ports when we only use one.

From the thread, I can see its usual, so at least I know.

Hi folks,

We're getting a 1 Gbps Fibre line installed. I've never had one before, so a quick question on equipment if I may...

The fibre comes from Openreach to an ADVA FSP150CP. That's expected. Same as our 100 Mbps fibre line.

The ISP (HSO) plans to install an Huawei S3700-28TP to connect to the ADVA, and present us 1 x 1GbE port to then use the line, by connecting that to our firewall. I expected that...

My question is, we only need to use one port to access the line from our firewall. Isn't a 28 port S3700-28TP excessive?

Our existing 100 Mbps Fibre line uses an 8 port Juniper between our firewall and the ADVA and takes up only a little room... It seems excessive to have a 1U switch sitting in my rack for 1 port. Is it? Shouldn't they be providing me with a much smaller device here like the Juniper...

Best,
Jim

@emad-r said in virtualize all the things... ?:

@jimmy9008 said in virtualize all the things... ?:

@scottalanmiller said in virtualize all the things... ?:

@emad-r said in virtualize all the things... ?:

Imagine you want to patch ESXi, and you are connected via VPN VM running in that same ESXi host. And we dont have like 300 servers, more like 1-2 server per site. so you understand how difficult it can become.

No, I still don't understand. You are talking about adding another server to accommodate the VPN. So you are talking purely about consolidation as a concern, which it is, and not at all about virtualization as a concern (which it is not.)

Agree. Makes no sense. Move the VPN VM to another host before updating the original.

What if you only have 1 enterprise grade server in one site ? and you can just purchase another 3000$ server cause you ran out of budget, but you can get the AM1 AMD platform for 300$ and make it VPN server

Many ways to crack it. For example, VPN in. Set your firewall to allow remote connections from your current external IP address (not great, but possible).

Do the work. You have the VPN for when it's up, and rule through firewall if it doesn't come back up. After patch finished, remove the firewall rule... Of course, i'd not personally do that, I'd have a second host for multiple reasons anyway...

But you don't need the physical VPN server. Why have another kit at all for a rare chance it won't come back up... If it doesn't, you probably have other issues.

@scottalanmiller said in virtualize all the things... ?:

@emad-r said in virtualize all the things... ?:

Imagine you want to patch ESXi, and you are connected via VPN VM running in that same ESXi host. And we dont have like 300 servers, more like 1-2 server per site. so you understand how difficult it can become.

No, I still don't understand. You are talking about adding another server to accommodate the VPN. So you are talking purely about consolidation as a concern, which it is, and not at all about virtualization as a concern (which it is not.)

Agree. Makes no sense. Move the VPN VM to another host before updating the original.

@emad-r said in Windows restore from system image (Windows 7 Professional):

@g-i-jones @Dashrender

Really? When was the last time you install Windows 7? It took over 5 hours to install all the updates.

In I.T bench world, you can tick the option to install updates automatically, and give the client the machine and it will install updates by itself. No one has to babysit the whole thing (unless you really love that person you are helping).

Also I love system image modder by the name of murphy78, what he does is incorporates Windows 7 updates in the base installation image, without corrupting anything.

Yeah, can do this but every so often expect the call: "My PC that you repaired yesterday is so slow." - They won't appreciate it's doing a bazillion updates. IMO - should get to them up to date and ready.

@dashrender said in Windows restore from system image (Windows 7 Professional):

@jimmy9008 said in Windows restore from system image (Windows 7 Professional):

@dashrender said in Windows restore from system image (Windows 7 Professional):

@jimmy9008 said in Windows restore from system image (Windows 7 Professional):

Use Veeam Agent for Windows. Entirely free.

1. Install.
2. Create Recovery Image.
3. Backup to USB.
4. Remove failing HDD, add new HDD.
5. Boot to Bootable USB with the Veeam Recovery Image applied (Rufus is good for that - also free).
6. Inset restore USB and select it in Veeam Recovery.
7. Let it recover...
8. Done!

Easy. Works time after time.

Just for clarification - this is a three drive solution as well.

Veeam Agent won't care how many drives. You do the backup and image. Replace one, two or all three. Won't matter.

That's not what I mean.

To use Veeam - you need three total drives.
drive 1 - original
drive 2 - place to store the backup image (you can use any number of different software packages to do this)
drive 3 - replacement drive that you will restore the image onto.

This is what my third post suggests, just using Clonezilla instead of Veeam, and @Breffni-Potter mentioned.

Yes, makes sense. Read what you typed differently.

@dashrender said in Windows restore from system image (Windows 7 Professional):

@jimmy9008 said in Windows restore from system image (Windows 7 Professional):

Use Veeam Agent for Windows. Entirely free.

1. Install.
2. Create Recovery Image.
3. Backup to USB.
4. Remove failing HDD, add new HDD.
5. Boot to Bootable USB with the Veeam Recovery Image applied (Rufus is good for that - also free).
6. Inset restore USB and select it in Veeam Recovery.
7. Let it recover...
8. Done!

Easy. Works time after time.

Just for clarification - this is a three drive solution as well.

Veeam Agent won't care how many drives. You do the backup and image. Replace one, two or all three. Won't matter.