My new Hyper-V Rig

We all want new toys, right? That excitement about opening the gifts … wondering what was inside … hoping for exactly what you want … the thrill of seeing the new toy. I remember my birthday and Christmas of many prior years; the excitement of the wrapped packages; the adrenaline as the wrappings are pulled off; the joy on my face as the new thing was in my hands. Those are the same feelings that we get into today. While I may be the one buying those gifts, the joy of opening everything I get from the places I order from.

In January, I read a blog entry (http://www.expta.com/2012/01/blistering-fast-windows-server-parts.html) by Jeff Guillet (pronounced GEE-yay for all of you) about his new Hyper-V server rig for his home lab. Reading through, I was really interested in building my own rig. I have my own machine right now. It has a Quad core processor with 12 GB of RAM and running Windows Server 2008 R2 from my TechNet licensing. This has allowed me to do some testing of systems like Exchange 2010, SQL Server 2005 and 2008, Windows Server, client virtual machines, and Windows Home Server. This rig has been pretty good at providing me what I need for testing but I have to run specific machines at differing times because of the processor and memory restrictions. I also have learned how to run machines on smaller footprints; something I can't tell is a good or bad thing.

Since reading this great article, I started in on my own certification path via the "60 Days to MCSE". In this endeavor, I realized that my current Hyper-V host was not large enough to use for this. I sat down with Rick Smith (@slegsmith) from my IT team at my day job to discuss what Jeff put together. The goal of this system was to utilize as much newer technology, have a minimum of 32GB of memory for virtual machines, and responsive drives for the virtual machines as well. In the end, Rick came up with some great hardware. I was lucky enough to have a case and power supply already but had to get motherboard, CPU, memory, and storage drives. Here is the order I made:

Part	Name	Quan	Price	Part Total
CPU	Intel Core i5-2500 3.3 GHz 6 MB Cache Socket LGA1155 Processor	1	$209	$209
MB	ASUS LGA 1155 - Z68 - PCIe 3.0 and UEFI BIOS Intel Z68 ATX DDR3 2200 LGA 1155 Motherboards P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3	1	$201	$201
RAM	Komputerbay 32GB ( 4 X 8GB ) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz DIMM with Low Profile Heatspreaders 240-Pin Dual / Quad Channel RAM Desktop Memory KIT 9-9-9-24 XMP ready	1	$179	$179
SSD	Samsung 830-Series MZ-7PC128B/WW 128GB SATA III MLC Internal SSD 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch MZ-7PC128B	2	$129	$258
HDD	Western Digital Velociraptor 600 GB SATA III 10000 RPM 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM 3.5 Inch Desktop Hard Drive - WD6000HLHX	3	$209	$627
	Pricing as of 6/21/12		Total	$1474

I finally got this system together in late May and I fell totally in love with this rig. I was able to put it all together and start building it with Windows Server 2008 R2 as a Hyper-V host. I could have built it with a "core" install but I have run into issues in management of "core" installs in the past. Once everything was installed, I was very impressed with the performance. To verify my person observations, I ran some performance tunes and got the following results:

Storage Performance Statistics

The Samsung SSD Mirror RAID statistics were:

The Velociraptor statistics were:

Memory and CPU Statistics

Memory Reads

CPU	Clockspeed In MHz	Product		Memory Type	Memory Timing	Memory Read in MB/s
Core i7-3960X Extreme	3300	Intel DX79SI	X79	Quad DDR3-1600	9-9-9-24 CR2	16788
Core i7-2600	3400	Asus P8P67	P67	Dual DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR1	16252
Core i5-2500	3500	My system	Z68 Int.	Dual DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR2	15813
FX-6100	3300	Asus Sabertooth 990FX	AMD990FX	Dual DDR3-1866	9-9-9-24 CR1	14202
Core i7-990X Extreme	3466	Intel DX58SO2	X58	Triple DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR1	14174

 

Memory Writes

CPU	Clockspeed In MHz	Product		Memory Type	Memory Timing	Memory Read in MB/s
Core i7-2600	3400	Asus P8P67	P67	Dual DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR1	18438
Core i5-2500	3500	My system	Z68 Int.	Dual DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR2	18134
Core i7-3960X Extreme	3300	Intel DX79SI	X79	Quad DDR3-1600	9-9-9-24 CR2	15095
Core i7-990X Extreme	3466	Intel DX58SO2	X58	Triple DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR1	12544
Core i7-965 Extreme	3200	ASUS P6T Deluxe	X58	Triple DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR1	12064

CPU ZLib

CPU	Clockspeed In MHz	Product		Memory Type	Memory Timing	Calc Memory in MB/s
4x Core i7-965 Extreme HT	3200	ASUS P6T Deluxe	X58	Triple DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR1	214.2
6x Phenom II X6 1055T	2800	Gigabyte GA-790FXTA-UD5	AMD790FX	Unganged Dual DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR1	208.2
Core i5-2500	3500	My system	Z68 Int.	Dual DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR2	198.8
8x Xeon L5320	1866	Intel S5000VCL	i5000V	Dual DDR2-533FB	4-4-4-12	180.5
6x FX-6100	3300	Asus Sabertooth 990FX	AMD990FX	Dual DDR3-1866	9-9-9-24 CR1	176.3

CPU Queen

CPU	Clockspeed In MHz	Product		Memory Type	Memory Timing	Score
8x Xeon E5462	2800	Intel S5400SF	i5000V	Quad DDR2-640FB	5-5-5-15	41694
4x Core i7-965 Extreme HT	3200	ASUS P6T Deluxe	X58	Triple DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR1	37793
Core i5-2500	3382	My system	Z68 Int.	Dual DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR2	32064
8x Opteron 2378	2400	Tyan Thunder n3600R	i5000V	Dual DDR2-533FB	6-6-6-18 CR1	30782
6x Phenom II X6 1055T	2800	Gigabyte GA-790FXTA-UD5	AMD790FX	Unganged Dual DDR3-1333	9-9-9-24 CR1	27770

The tools I used were:

• AIDA - http://www.aida64.com/
• HDD Tune Pro 5.0 - http://www.hdtune.com/

I had started to build my SCCM environment but ran into time constraints before I was able to go to MS TechEd. After I returned home, I reinstalled the OS with Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate and just have to say "WOW!" Instead of running the 3 Velociraptors in a RAID or as separate drives, as I had with my initial install of Windows 2008 R2, I created a storage pool across the 3 drives with parity. This makes it act as a RAID but not using a RAID card and the through put was amazing; my IOPs were through the roof. Here are the different HDD Tune Pro results:

The Samsung SSD Mirror RAID statistics were:

 

The Velociraptor statistics were:

 

Clearly, the storage pool is the way to go for me in this build. I will blog again about how it is working in a few weeks.

Jared

UPDATED! PowerShell and MS TechEd - Downloading the Videos

As many of you have seen that attended TechEd, a majority of the videos from TechEd are posted now to the MyTechEd site via Channel 9. In the past, there have been some great folks making scripts to download all of the videos and 2012 is no exception. The two that are the best at what they do are great in and of themselves. I decided to mash them up for myself and love the results.

To be clear, much of the work has been done by Stefan Roth from http://blog.scomfaq.ch/ and Tim Nilimaa from http://infoworks.tv/. These guys came up with great scripts and I believe I used Tim's from last year to download all of the 2011 content. In looking over their offerings, both offered some great features. All I did was cut and paste, changed variables, and tested it to ensure that it worked. So here's my overview of their code.

Stefan created his code to read the session information from a text file that included the file extensions in the text file. He also placed the download into a try-catch that allowed him to write out the "missing" files into an error log that could be used to re-run and catch missing files. His file transfer mechanism was the direct file transfer from the hosting server which made it so you had to close the PowerShell window.

Tim created his version 1.2 code to read the session information from a text file where the session title is listed without file extensions. This allows for flexibility of downloading any file named properly with the session title based on the file extension, .wmv for videos and .pptx for PowerPoint decks. He also showed the status of all downloads based on the sessions in the file and the current file download while using an Async file transfer. This made cancellation via CTRL-C very easy.

What I did was took the Async file transfer and status system of Tim’s code and added it to Stefan's code with the try-catch. I also did some clean-up of a few things and made the pathing work for what I wanted, basically having the code drop the videos into a \Videos\ folder from where I direct the path to. If you want to download the PowerPoint files, just change the .wmv in the sessions file to .pptx and it should get the ones posted. I am looking to make a revision to the code to add in a variable that will say to download WMV, PPTX, or both files but that is not in here yet.

Download a .Zip file containing the PS1 and the sessions.txt file here.

I want to thank Stefan and Tim for allowing me to post this. Make sure to visit them at:

• Stefan Roth - http://blog.scomfaq.ch/
• Tim Nilimaa - http://infoworks.tv/

They have great information on their blogs about their PowerShell and much more. Check them out!

Jared

Updated: 6/21/2012 - 3:00 pm PT

I received a tweet from Brad Huffman (@bradhuffman). He stepped up and made some of the things I was planning to look at this weekend. Great job by Brad and I want to point people to his blog post at:

http://bradhuffman.com/wordpress/2012/06/21/teched-downloader-mashup-powershell-script/

This sort of community work is what community in the IT Professional world means. Great job again Brad!

Windows 8, the Mail App, and CA Roots

I know I am a big-time geek. I use my TechNet subscription from Microsoft and run many servers at home since I am not always very technical at my job as Director of IT. It is a management position, not a technical position. In setting up Windows 8 on my ASUS EP121, I wanted to use the Mail App to check on my personal mail accounts. I do have several and hoped to get the main boxes into the app. It has been a fight to get one account on and using a troubleshooting tool to get it done. Here's the info on all this …

As I stated, I have a TechNet account and run many of my own servers as testing grounds for Microsoft technologies. One of these servers is an Exchange 2010 system for e-mail. I also have my own Active Directory for my home network along with my own internal Certificate Authority for SSL Certificates. By importing the CA root, I can create certificates for my internal systems and websites. I implemented my own CA root and have my Exchange server utilizing it for its SSL certificates.

After installing the Consumer Preview of Windows 8, I tried to setup my personal Exchange account to the Mail App. After spending about 2 hours on the issue, I could not get a connection. I was tired of hitting my head against the wall and ended up connecting to my Windows 7 desktop using Outlook 2010. *sigh*

I was hoping that the Release Preview of Windows 8 and the apps would fix this. I was wrong. Hitting the forums and answers sites, I am finding I was not the only one. Many people fixed this by buying SSL certificates from a public CA like GoDaddy, Comodo or VeriSign. I was determined not to have to do this. If Microsoft wanted to support enterprise users, this is a need. They will want to use Win RT to connect to their work mail servers and many companies use their own CA.

After posting into the Answers forum, I got a PM from one of the forum moderators and a person working with Microsoft, either a vendor or Blue Badge. They wanted more information and to have me run some tools. In the course of several contacts, I did exactly what they asked and provided more and more logs. Eventually, they said that it was definitely a problem with my SSL Certificate and would I run Fiddler to look and see what the problem is. I installed the Beta copy of Fiddler for Windows 8 (v4.3.9.9 beta) and installed the Win 8 Loopback Extensions to capture the Metro app. Post installation of Fiddler and its add-on, I fired up Mail. To my amazement, it connected and synced my mail, calendar, and contacts. Everything was working as it should normally. A quick run through of my settings in Fiddler to ensure I was not ignoring SSL problems and a couple of other tests, I found myself with a working Mail app.

After reporting this to the forum moderator, I still not have heard anything from him other than "we are still working on the issue" posts. I find it an interesting solution to this issue. I wonder if this has anything to do with known SSL/HTTPS issues in MetroTwit on the Windows 8 Desktop. I also can say that the Metro IE will not pull up HTTPS pages properly but they work in the Desktop version of IE 10. I hope they fix some of these protocol oddities soon as the release to manufacturing is around the corner.

Jared

UPDATE 1: I also found that the Skydrive app does not work with Fiddler running and working for the Mail App in my case. More information on this issue is located at the Microsoft Answers Page on the issue.

A Quick Thought on Father’s Day

Father's Day … so many people think this is every day of the year, especially mothers in the world. This is a generated day by most of the gifts, sundries and greeting card people. While that might be, I still love these holidays!

Mother's Day and Father's Day were a pair of my favorite holidays. I did enjoy doing things for my mom and dad, getting them gifts and cards, taking them out to meals and, later in life, taking the time to spend with them on these and other days. It feels like we don't take the time with our parents and sometimes even try to avoid our parents.

When I was younger, I wanted a computer. Everyone seemed to have this toy that allowed them to play games, write their papers, and perform interesting functions. I did a lot of research and pulled information from my friends. In the end, I determined that I wanted to get a Commodore 64 as many of my friends have one. I PTSOPed the information and presented it to my father (PTSOP = Put That Stuff On Paper, one of his favorite sayings.). He read it all and we ended up going to Safeway … yes, Safeway … and purchased the system. My mother didn't even know that he was doing this. Little did both of them know where it could take me.

Now, I sit almost 30 years later writing this blog entry into OneNote 2010 on my ASUS EP121 tablet running Windows 8 RP. I am listening to a podcast on my Windows Phone and getting ready to head home and install Windows Server 2012 RC on my test lab to install SCCM2012 as well. I have worked as a Operations Manager at Microsoft and currently am Director of IT for a medical company. That initial purchase of a Commodore 64 has lead to my love of technology and given me a career. I encourage all parents, not just fathers, to support your children in their dreams. Support those dreams and encourage their growth and learning, even if it is not an area you understand.

I want to wrap up this post as an homage to my father. He passed on from this world in April of 2010 and I miss him each and every day. He supported me in a lot of things and in a lot of ways. He not only was there when I needed him, he was my mentor in a lot of ways. I continue to model myself in a lot of ways from his advice, both in my personal and professional lives. I have been told by family and friends that I am my father's son and I can't think of a better thing to be called. Thanks Dad and I miss you.

Jared

MS TechEd - A Sophomore Experience

Last year in Atlanta, it was my first year at MS TechEd. My eyes were wide like saucers as I ran around the facility, looking at all the newest things from Microsoft, trying to scribble notes furiously, taking pictures of the PowerPoints and running to the next session. I learned a lot then and took that to Orlando with me.

I have changed my outlook on what TechEd is to me. Last year, I was running around doing the things that a newbie does. This year, I sat back before I got here and really looked at what I wanted to accomplish: pass some tests, work more in the hands on lab, and network with other IT professionals from around the world including my friends in TheKrewe.

Sessions are good and I worked through the catalog finding the sessions that I want to attend in person. One advantage attendees get is the content, both the presentation decks and audio/slide/demo recordings are available soon after TechEd. After reviewing what we get after the conference, I feel I can get as much out of the recordings provided after the sessions as I can in person.

Testing for certifications at TechEd in Orlando has been a major learning experience for me. I had signed up for 3 tests while I was here, 2 that were free and one I paid for. In the end, I did not pass any of them but learned so much about testing and how to prepare for them. One of my past feelings about the certifications was that people could just study and pass the tests without having a lot of hands on experience. That viewpoint has been completely changed for me after two of my tests were in technologies I did not have time to personally review and play with the tech. I came out of both tests with reasonable scores but no where near passing. The last test was one in technologies I do work with a fair amount at home in my home lab. I scored better on this test but still it wasn't passing. For future testing, I need to set out a better learning plan and really work to setup labs where I can create the technologies that I am being tested on.

As I write this post on Thursday morning, I have not had the time in the labs as I wanted. After I finish this and have some lunch, my plan is to head into the lab and try a few of the labs. The tech behind the labs is amazing: large blade servers, huge fiber SANs, and Microsoft's Private Cloud that is creating and destroying VM's for each individual's labs. Watching the management systems go on the large hosts is fun and they have small thumbnails of all the VM's being used by the lab. Geeks and their toys.

The last thing is what I think tech conferences is really about: networking. This is not routers and firewalls; this is about meeting and creating friendships and connections with others in the technology world. I learned this at TechEd Atlanta and started creating some good friendships that continue all year long via social media technologies like Twitter, Facebook, and instant messaging systems. Taking the time to meet folks including just introducing yourself to people is some of the most important things you can do. Those connections can last more than the information from the sessions.

I am lucky to be in the unique position of affording MS TechEd personally and making this my vacation each year. Many folks come here paid by their companies or through others means. No matter how you get here, you need to get here if you support or utilize Microsoft technologies in your professional life. You will never regret the trip and the information you can take home and the connections you make!

Jared