System Center 2012 R2 – DPM – Failed Disk Recovery

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So we had a failed iSCSI target on our production DPM server and as the NAS unit was a bit old decided to upgrade it.

New unit was installed and iSCSI Target was mounted and disk was added to DPM.

The old disk was still there with status “Missing”

All Protection Group members were also marked as “Volume Missing” Continue Reading

Create a Custom View for NPS in Event Viewer in Windows Server

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We use radius –  Network Policy Server (NPS) to authenticate wireless clients and wanted to create a custom view for NPS in Event Viewer in Windows Server.
Sucessful and failed events are logged into the Windows Security Log, howevere there are other events logged in here which can make it time consuming to search through for just NPS events.
Searching the internet gave a few interesting pointers but the problem seemed to be filtering by task category was not as straightforward as you would think.

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DPM – Upgrading System Centre DPM 2012 to 2012 R2

System Center DPM 2012

Because we planned to implement a new Hyper-V Cluster using Windows Server 2012R2 we had to move to SCVMM 2012 R2 but in order to do this one of the steps we needed to complete was Upgrading System Centre DPM 2012 to 2012 R2.

I have detailed the steps I took below, there may be some differences for your specific configuration but you will get a good idea.

Firstly, there is a list of SCDPM build numbers here;
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4058.list-of-build-numbers-for-system-center-data-protection-manager-dpm.aspx

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Office 365 – Bulk Assign Licences

Office 365 logo

Office 365 logo

 

So, in Office 365, how do you bulk assign licences to users.

I had a search around and could only really find examples using CSV file imports, what I wanted to do was pull the information in directly from Active Directory.

Whilst looking around I found the Get-ADUser cmdlet available through RSAT.

This cmdlet pulls out information from AD relating to accounts etc.

Using the -Filter command you can limit this to a specific OU.

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Office 365 and Exchange 2007 Mail Flow Issue for Sub Domain

Office 365 logo

Office 365 logo

I have recently had an Office 365 and Exchange 2007 Mail Flow Issue for Sub Domain. We have our primary users on [email protected] and have setup Office 365 to process mail for [email protected] .

The setup for Office 365 went extremely smoothly (with a lot of help from a friend – you know who you are J.P.) and I have integrated Office 365 with our on-premise Active Directory using ADFS and Synchronization Service Manager for Single Sign On.

However when a user,  [email protected] tried to send an email to [email protected] using the on-premise Exchange 2007 the mail was not delivered.

User [email protected] could send email to [email protected] without any problems, but again a reply from [email protected] was not delivered.

I investigated further on the Exchange 2007 Server and found that in Queue viewer there was an Unreachable Domain queue with emails which could not be delivered. Continue Reading

System Center DPM 2012, Exchange Server 2010 and Eseutil.exe

System Center 2012 - Eseutil

System Center 2012

I recently had an issue where System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 was constantly reporting Replica Inconsistent on my Exchange Server 2010 Protection Group for the relevant Storage Groups, upon investigation I was pointed towards Eseutil as being a possible cause.
Basically if there is a mismatch between the versions of Eseutil on the Exchange Server and on the DPM Server then the replicas will appear to be inconsistent.

This can occur if you install a Service Pack on Exchange.

So the solution is to copy the version of Eseutil.exe and ese.dll from your Exchange Server to your DPM Server;

<Exchange Install Path>\bin\eseutil.exe to <DPM Install Path>\bin\eseutil.exe

<Exchange Install Path>\bin\ese.dll to <DPM Install Path>\bin\ese.dll

This should then solve the Replica Inconsistent problem, after a Consistency Check.

Full details and further information can be found on the following

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/91198fbb-3016-4571-b83c-0ece920588ed#bkmk_EseutilEse

HTC 8x Windows Phone 8 Review

HTC 8x

HTC 8x

I have just upgraded my HTC Radar Windows Phone 7.5 (reviewed here – http://wp.me/p21EuP-40) to a nice new HTC 8x Windows Phone 8 and thought I would give it an initial review.

Upon unboxing HTC’s latest smartphone and toe in the Windows Phone 8 marketplace I was very impressed with the sleek design – I went for the Black version as it is all one colour and is more discreet than the brightly coloured versions.

Having used this phone for a few days now I have compiled the following list of my favourite features and enhancements; Continue Reading

Windows XP Error – “Windows cannot display Windows Firewall settings”

I still support some Windows XP clients and when these clients have been visiting certain sites that they maybe shouldn’t have I get the following Windows XP Error – “Windows cannot display Windows Firewall settings” as shown below;

 

Windows XP Error

Windows XP Error

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Nortel WSS 2382 CSR Creation & SSL Installation Instructions

Connecting to the Nortel WSS 2382 

You will first need to connect to your Nortel WSS 2382 (WSS).

Nortel WSS 2382

Nortel WSS 2382

I used putty for this task to connect to the Management IP of the WSS
Once logged in, you must use the

enable

command to use the following commands. Continue Reading

System Center VMM 2012 Admin Console Crashes Every Hour

I recently came across a strange situation where the System Center VMM 2012 Admin Console crashes every hour.

There were 2 Errors displayed in the VM Manager Event Log;

Error : 19999

Error : 1

I carried out all possible configuration checks on the Hyper-V hosts and the VMM Server;

I checked the SPN settings using Setspn.

I updated the Nic Drivers and the Broadcom Software

I checked and changed how the SQL and VMM Manager and Agent Services log on.

I reassociated the Hyper-V hosts

I validated the Failover Cluster

I re-installed SCVMM 2012 (several times)

I removed all links between SCVMM 2012 and SCOM 2012

It was only after I had re-installed SCVMM 2012 for the umpteenth time that I tried to refresh the Library and this was when I saw the errors occur! Continue Reading