Practical Technology

InfraDog has a new feature being released today (Android, iOS to follow next week): VMware integration! I've been playing around with the final beta for the last 24 hours and have learned a number of interesting things about the new feature and the app in general. Adding the vCenter is super easy - on the management point software just add the vCenter hostnames, and it automatically picks up any attached hosts.  Push to cloud, done. Once on your device, it functions much like the regular server options, but you now have new tasks available (maintenance mode!) and an 'instances' section that populates with the VMs on that host. Clicking on a VM gives you server-like info with a few new options: remote console (view-only) and new tasks (the usual VMware soft/hard power options). I had one small UI complaint, but it turned out to be PEBKAC (PEBSAF?).  See below, because I enjoy embarassing myself in public. From the main screen you hit 'System'.  This gives...

A few ways to solve, but I'm posting the cause in the hopes that it'll be easier to find. The root cause is one of two things: One, the cable modem/provider taking a snap of the first MAC address and essentially refusing to provide DHCP to other devices after that, or Two, the method of acquiring DHCP causes the device to become blacklisted by the DHCP server. I'm ruling out #2 in my case because once I spoofed the MAC of my PC (the first item I connected) and then disconnected the PC/power cycled devices - the router immediately got DHCP. Anyways, the actual cause might just be a 'first device gets DHCP', in the sense that the vast majority of consumers will either connect a wireless router, or a single device - not a dumb switch like I did to increase my options. To verify this, I powered everything off, plugged the cable modem LAN direct into the router's WAN port My provider is TekSavvy, the cable modem is a Thomson DCM476, the router is a WRT54GLv...

I would preface this with the fact that I am not able (do not want) to reproduce the issue, but after discussions with our very experienced network guy (20 yrs) and another senior analyst, this is what we came up with. Further, this could just be due to an old version of OpenE, or issues with our old switch stack.  If you would like to discuss otherwise, I am happy to hear from the experts. TL;DR: If you have a 'whitebox' SAN that uses the Linux bonding driver in ALB mode, DO NOT make any kind of L2 changes on the SAN switch without shutting everything down first.  Also, patch your ESXi like ASAP. We have an old legacy SAN (OpenE), it has two NICs that each connect to our old Netgear switch stack (one per switch).  Up until now, no issues with the unit.  Earlier this week I was adding a LAG to the switch stack as part of our new SAN deployment - the LAG did not utilize any active ports, and for a few hours seemed to be functioning just fine. Then I get a...

I should note that I am posting this because a number of large companies/providers did not have any sort of clear answer for us on this, and in some cases had incorrect recommendations.  Hopefully this helps you - if anything in this post is incorrect, PLEASE comment below with your sources. Initially We went back and forth for months on this...are you SURE we need Enterprise?  Cuz Enterprise is super duper expensive (STD=10k, ENT=75k) compared to Standard. Up until now our answer has been "Yes, you need it because Enterprise is the only version that supports clustering, and our application must have HA capabilities."  Semi-wrong!  Microsoft recommends against clustering BizTalk hosts, unless you have a technical reason for it (some adapters require clustering).  They actually recommend the 'scale out' method (moar servars!), and here is how that is done.  Note the sub-points (a,b,c) are direct quotes from MSDN. BizTalk's 3 main functions 1. Recei...

A friend of mine has been very busy lately - the last few years, in fact - and I've found out just what he's accomplished.  I would note right off the bat that I am not being paid for this, just helping get the word out on an app that could be a game-changer for many of you SMB folk. Since we live in a 'TL;DR' (too long; didn't read) kind of world I will cut to the chase, then paste in my 7-day InfraDog journal.  If you are in SMB, do not have server monitoring in place, and want cheap insurance on common IT blunders that cost you business credibility and money, just do the 30-day free trial.   Do it .  I don't have actual figures on post-trial pricing, but I understand it is extremely (read: can't afford not to) affordable to keep going after the 30 days are up. Setup is almost comically easy if you're familiar with traditional monitoring solutions (SCOM, Nagios).  Step 1, download and install the management client onto a single server/PC of your ch...

Just a place to note what I'd like to do over the life of the car.  At the end of the car's life, would be a great deal of fun to convert it to a V8, but for the sake of fuel economy, a turbo-four will always do better.  L/100 is completely relevant and important since we have a car budget, not a money tree. Phase 1 Make car reliable and safe, bring maintenance schedule into line.  Fix oil leaks.  Fix rust. Phase 2 Go MS!!  Get MS3x incl. GM IAT, MAP, WBO2. ~$1000 Phase 3 Gauges, additional sensors. ~$500 Phase 4 Find a donor car - 2001-2005, swap over drivetrain! ~$1000-2000 Old ideas... Phase 1 Make the car 100% reliable and safe, bring maintenance schedule into line.  Get a feel for what 'normal' is (compression test/leakdown test).  Fix the rust issues (DIY).  Additional undercoating?  Fix oil leaks. (Pretty sure rear main is leaking again...do dye test) Phase 2 Remove weak points such as the differential, ECU, in...

Before you even start with your BizTalk 2010 configuration (not the same thing as the install), you need MSDTC communicating perfectly with the BizTalk SQL server. Environment specs: Server 2008R2 SP1, deployed from VMware template, SID not changed Cmd: msdtc -install Add application server role, all DTC options Set MSDTC service to auto Start MSDTC service If you deviate from that, MSDTC will never work.  This can probably be applied to anything using MSDTC, but can't guarantee that. If you just install the application server role and DTC options - MSDTC WILL NOT WORK.  It will appear to, but you'll be chasing ghosts. If you are already in that position, follow these steps: Remove app server role and DTC options. cmd: msdtc -uninstall Remove reg entries around MSDTC (see the first link under 'Sources') Reboot Follow steps above. I spent a long time figuring this out, hope it helps someone else. You can test using the following Microsoft...