#2012R2 Archives - MARKSWINKELS.NL

New eBook: Supercharging Hyper-V Performance

Keeping a healthy infrastructure and avoiding unnecessary problems doesn’t have to be super complex. You can get better performance out of your system without spending a lot of time and money on upgrades, but rather focus getting the most out of what you have.

If you’re a system administrator who’s looking to get better performance on your Hyper-V environment that won’t cut into your weekends and family time, we’ve got a great new eBook for you:

Supercharging Hyper-V Performance for the Time-strapped Admin by Paul Schnackenburg

Grab your copy here:

Here’s what you can expect from this eBook:

A practical guide to finding and fixing issues in storage, CPU, memory, and network components
Instructions on how to use Windows Performance Monitor and PAL to monitor your virtualized environment
Advice on how to plan hosts, VMs, storage, networking and management for maximum performance.

We’ve set up a table of contents page to help you navigate sections if you are an experienced system administrator. Alternatively if you are a relatively new to Hyper-V infrastructures you can work your way through the whole guide for a complete overview. It’s up to you!

We hope this guide gets you closer to a healthier Hyper-V environment!

How to: Initialize, format and label disks during OSD Task Sequence in SCCM 2012 R2

During a task seuence in Microsoft SCCM 2012 R2, the operating system and applications are installed on the C: drive in most situations. But in some deployments, you definitely want to create more disks. For example, you want to create a D: and E: partition for storing some other data. Maybe for Microsoft SQL or Exchange installation, databases, logfiles or just some other data.

The following script will do all these steps for you during the task sequence. The script initialize, format, partition and label the disks for you….fully automated! 🙂

## Set CD-ROM from E: to X:
Set-WmiInstance -InputObject ( Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_volume -Filter "DriveLetter = 'E:'" ) -Arguments @{DriveLetter='X:'}

$disks = Get-Disk | measure
If($disks.Count -eq 2)
{
## Initialize all new disks
Initialize-Disk 1
## Format and rename disks
Get-Disk | where {$_.Number -eq "1"} | New-Partition -UseMaximumSize | Format-Volume -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel Data -Confirm:$false
## Set drive letters (D: - Data, E: - Backup)
Get-Disk | where {$_.Number -eq "1"} | Get-Partition | where {$_.PartitionNumber -eq 2} | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter D
}
elseif($disks.Count -eq 3)
{
## Initialize all new disks
Initialize-Disk 1
Initialize-Disk 2
## Format and rename disks
Get-Disk | where {$_.Number -eq "1"} | New-Partition -UseMaximumSize | Format-Volume -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel Data -Confirm:$false
Get-Disk | where {$_.Number -eq "2"} | New-Partition -UseMaximumSize | Format-Volume -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel Backup -Confirm:$false
## Set drive letters (D: - Data, E: - Backup)
Get-Disk | where {$_.Number -eq "1"} | Get-Partition | where {$_.PartitionNumber -eq 2} | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter D
Get-Disk | where {$_.Number -eq "2"} | Get-Partition | where {$_.PartitionNumber -eq 2} | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter E
}
else
{
exit
}
exit

The script first checks how many disks are attached to the server.
If there is only one disk attached, you’ll have only a C: drive available after the deployment.
If there are 2 disks attached, you’ll have a C: and D: drive avalailable after the deployment.
If there are 3 disks attached, you’ll have a C:, D: and E: drive available after the deployment.

The CD-ROM drive will alse changed from E: to X:.

SCCM 2012 R2 SP1 CU1….Why are my task sequences not visible?

This week I’ve upgraded a SCCM 2012 R2 environment to Service Pack 1 with update CU1. After the upgrade, I noticed that not all my task sequences (deployment) where available after PXE boot. Why is that? Is this a ‘new feature’ or just a ‘bug’? After some Troubleshooting I’ve figured out that there’s a strange thing in my deployments!

As you can see in my example I’ve created a collection with 3 deployments active. After PXE boot a virtual machine, only the first deployment is available?!?! :S The other two deployments are also active, but not available…

When we go to the properties of the other two deployments, and change the schedule 1 day back in the time, the deployment became available!! Very strange behavior, but this is the only ‘solution’ I’ve figured out!

Update Rollup 1 for System Center 2012 R2 available

Microsoft released Update Rollup 1 for System Center 2012 R2 with updates and fixes for Virtual Machine Manager, Data Protection Manager and Operations Manager.

Components that are fixed in this update rollup

• Data Protection Manager (KB 2904687)
• Operations Manager (KB 2904678)
• Virtual Machine Manager (KB 2904712)

System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager Toolkit Now Available!

The Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager Toolkit contains fifteen downloadable tools to help you manage and troubleshoot Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager. The following list provides specific information about each tool in the toolkit.

Note: Items with an * are new in the R2 Toolkit and require Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager for full functionality.

Server Based Tools:

• DP Job Manager – A tool that helps troubleshoot and manage ongoing content distribution jobs to Configuration Manager distribution points.
• Collection Evaluation Viewer – A tool that assists in troubleshooting collection evaluation related issues by viewing collection evaluation details.
• Content Library Explorer – A tool that assists in troubleshooting issues with and viewing the contents of the content library.
• Security Configuration Wizard Template for Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager – The Security Configuration Wizard (SCW) is an attack-surface reduction tool for the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. Security Configuration Wizard determines the minimum functionality required for a server’s role or roles, and disables functionality that is not required.
• Content Library Transfer – A tool that transfers content from one disk drive to another.
• Content Ownership Tool – A tool that changes ownership of orphaned packages (packages without an owner site server).
• Role-based Administration Modeling and Auditing Tool – This tool helps administrators to model and audit RBA configurations.
• Run Metering Summarization Tool – The purpose of this tool is to run the metering summarization task to analyze raw metering data

Client Based Tools:

• Client Spy – A tool that helps you troubleshoot issues related to software distribution, inventory, and software metering on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
• Configuration Manager Trace Log Viewer – A tool used to view log files created by Configuration Manager components and agents.
• Deployment Monitoring Tool – The Deployment Monitoring Tool is a graphical user interface designed help troubleshoot Applications, Updates, and Baseline deployments on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
• Policy Spy – A policy viewer that helps you review and troubleshoot the policy system on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
• Power Viewer Tool – A tool to view the status of power management feature on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
• Send Schedule Tool – A tool used to trigger a schedule on a client or trigger the evaluation of a specified DCM Baseline. You can trigger a schedule either locally or remotely.
• Wakeup Spy – A tool that provides a view of the power state of Configuration Manager client computers and which operate as managers or manages.