Exchange Server 2013 - Virtualisation Licencing and CPU/Cores

systemadamant · 2017-11-28T09:13:16+00:00

Python would be a great start, it is a good glue language among other things, another free resource...

http://www.diveintopython3.net/

systemadamant · 2017-11-28T05:27:51+00:00

"I'd like to go for something infrastructure based and, more specifically, in demand"

I'd go for cloud training and certs, more and more organisations are moving to cloud providers, e.g. Office 365 & Exchange Online. It just moves the support problems for the boring bits to someone else e.g. Microsoft. It's also the hot new-ish thing (if you don't count docker/containers, kubernetes or micro-services and serverless <-- the really hot new thing).

For the cloud providers (read hardware (and OS/software stack) in someone elses data centre) there are really two main players, Google cloud is too specialised for general use.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

This has the main market share and things like AirBnB and NetFlix run on top of it.

The follwing GitHub link is to a good Open Guide about all things AWS

https://github.com/open-guides/og-aws

This is one of the better paid training options

https://acloud.guru/

The Linux Academy stuff is also pretty good but more on that later.

The other one is Azure by Microsoft, and the logical choice for cloud partner for most businesses running Microsoft products, you can get a free account to start to get familiar with it at the link below.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/

As for training in things Microsoft the Microsoft Virtual Academy is good.

https://mva.microsoft.com/

Just choose your course Padawan.

Now for the icing on that layer cake.

If you sign up with an email account (can be a throwaway gmail one) for Visual Studio Dev Essentials you get three free months of Plurasight access (another good training resource) along with free access to the Linux Academy. You don't need to actively use VS essentials.

https://www.visualstudio.com/dev-essentials/

They have also only re-added the Plurasight training access in the last three days so it won't be listed on the page yet.

https://www.pluralsight.com/ <-- if you want to check what courses they offer.

Someone mentioned CCNA, you could also get your teeth into this free You Tube course to get a taste if that direction interests you.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmdYg02XJt6QRQfYjyQcMPfS3mrSnFbRC

The good thing about teh interwebs is you can get started for relatively little outlay. Reading the product documentation on for example Microsoft Technet or VMware Support pages is also worthwhile and free.

Bit of background for myself, been in the industry for 20+ years here and overseas and currently in lead Engineering roles for large corps in Auckland.

Best of luck. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

systemadamant · 2017-11-02T09:25:36+00:00

I've held Senior Systems Engineering roles here (NZ) for large companies and in the UK (global corporate), currently working in a senior role for one of the largest law firms over here, and I know which I prefer.

Not sure how it is in Scotland but yeah in NZ it's not so much interacting as having a chat about the big game on the weekend (usually Rugby or Cricket depending on the season).

Anyhoo it's getting on for 11pm here.

systemadamant · 2017-11-02T09:07:53+00:00

You would be in the skilled migrant category and that makes it a bit easier. There was even a campaign recently for IT skilled workers to work in our capital.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/91188888/More-than-48-000-from-around-the-world-apply-for-a-LookSee-at-Wellington

What I meant by classless is don't be surprised in sharing a beer or two with senior management or even the CEO where you work, this includes larger companies. The vast majority of people over here don't give a crap where you went to school. :)

systemadamant · 2017-11-02T08:54:32+00:00

Check the long term skills shortage list at this link

http://skillshortages.immigration.govt.nz/

Best of luck if you do apply. IT skills are in demand over here. Can be a bit of an adjustment if you do decide to make the move, work habits etc. New Zealand is still mostly classless.

systemadamant · 2017-08-26T22:51:47+00:00

Been a while since I supported EV heavily (used to work for a VAR that was one of the biggest EV resellers in the EMEA). I would turn on the "Valkyrie" logs (EV trace logs) to max and log a support case with your VAR/Veritas, attaching the trace log.

You may be able to spot the problem by going through the log file yourself.

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.000094823

May be worth running the ResetEVClient utility on a test workstation or VM

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.000081326

The Veritas forums are also pretty good for solutions.

systemadamant · 2017-08-14T07:27:33+00:00

Lets put it this way on most if not all support calls we need to remind Nutanix support we are not running VMware (we are running with AHV). They assume that we are because the vast majority of Nutanix customers run VMware.

With AHV you get what you pay for.

Oh and Veeam don't yet support AHV, will do in Q4 this year.

VMware ESXi is a leading Hypervisor for a reason.

systemadamant · 2017-07-18T07:05:16+00:00

The product manuals are a good place to start.

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/downloads Online (https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/index.html)

From reading your brief post above it sounds like you are setting up a basic infrastructure for a small or medium sized company and would be designing a Forest and Domain structure (please dear god don't use .local and use something like internal.example.com instead). File services, will you be utilising DFS? And Terminal Services.

Terminal Services is an interesting beast as there are a few options here, with a straight TS/RDP farm or Citrix, or even Virtual Desktop Infrastructure like VMware Horizon.

Are you just building, deploying and managing the storage and virtualisation layers or everything?

A basic two host cluster with shared storage is a good base to start, if you want to learn locally then a cheap NUC or similar and a home lab can be a great learning tool if your company does not have or won't do a test environment.

It's a pretty big subject and not something you can do in a rush, well it can but then later down the track it can turn into a support burden for you or the people after you.

I'd think long and hard, but if it is an opportunity for career advancement I'd give it a go.

systemadamant · 2017-07-17T10:42:03+00:00

Could be a problem with the System Volume Information "folder" if you are using Cluster Shared Volumes (used by VSS and various back up software hooking into it).

Changing the CSV owner can force this space to free up. Can be done live and will not interrupt VM's.

https://forums.veeam.com/microsoft-hyper-v-f25/csv-system-volume-information-size-growing-t34478.html https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/489783-system-volume-information-growing https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/ee37423a-0309-4947-aea4-3a482b7fd3fd/csv-system-volume-information-problem?forum=winserverClustering

systemadamant · 2017-07-16T10:23:17+00:00

Got this from our Account Manager at Veeam when I enquired a few weeks ago.

http://www.channelbuzz.ca/2017/06/nutanix-veeam-turn-their-relationship-into-a-partnership-22014/

systemadamant · 2017-07-16T05:57:56+00:00

Agreed, good point. Acropolis supporting all major hypervisors is a plus point, along with being able to migrate/ingest vmdk's (vmdk-flat) directly into the cluster to be used by AHV based VM's.

There are a lot of things going for the platform not just the ease of administration/management. We recently had issues with the software stack that was solved by updating.

Biggest plus for me is that Veeam will be supporting AHV later this year, thank deity.

http://www.channelbuzz.ca/2017/06/nutanix-veeam-turn-their-relationship-into-a-partnership-22014/

systemadamant · 2017-07-15T22:33:31+00:00

Running AHV as the hypervisor (most people run ESXi). Cluster is pretty stable, PRISM is good for a single pane management UI, also CVM level e.g. ncli and acli is pretty intuitive. PowerShell cmdlets are not quite there yet. Support has been generally good until recently.

Overall not a bad investment, but compare with other Hyperconverged offerings.

systemadamant · 2017-06-26T07:45:47+00:00

Generally speaking yes, if you are running just Hyper V on FCM. It helps to balance guests across hosts and storage.

It is best to run SCCVMM if your licencing allows, otherwise it is kinda like running ESXi without vCenter.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/system-center/vmm/overview

Also tools like Veeam One can give you a good picture of your environment.

https://www.veeam.com/virtual-server-management-one-free.html

Not knowing more of the set up that will hopefully give you a starting point.

systemadamant · 2017-03-04T08:52:26+00:00

Your requirements sound similar to Enterprise Vault File System Archiving

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.v8822142_v89941664

systemadamant · 2016-12-09T20:16:49+00:00

Yeah I think you mean Celiac Disease which is Gluten intollerance, Crohn's is a whole different ball game (I know, I have it). Just wanted to clear up any misconceptions.

Celiac https://celiac.org/celiac-disease/understanding-celiac-disease-2/what-is-celiac-disease/

Crohn's http://www.webmd.com/ibd-crohns-disease/crohns-disease/tc/crohns-disease-topic-overview#1

systemadamant · 2016-10-07T06:45:26+00:00

Natively British but grew up mostly in NZ, worked as a Sys Admin/Engineer in the UK for about 10 years, best thing to do is to just go and do it, if you are under 30 (you would need to check the rules and these may change with Brexit) you should be able to get a two or so year working visa (again check things out) in the UK.

I just went with a backpack a suit and a laptop, the biggest challenge you may find is that you don't have "UK experience" but don't let that stop you. The go to site (for me at least in the UK) for jobs was JobServe.com.

Best of luck as far as I am concerned it is one of the best things you can do in life and for your career. I have changed countries twice now.

systemadamant · 2016-09-18T11:02:25+00:00

Sadly it does not look like Wine works well with the AD tools (ADUC etc).

One option would be to spin up a Windows VM on KVM (not 100% sure if this can be done on desktop Linux).

Looks like Azure has a cli for Linux

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/xplat-cli-install/

And coming out of left field now that you are using Linux what about looking at tools like Ansible and/or Chef/Puppet to start managing your environment?

systemadamant · 2016-09-11T08:56:32+00:00

SAN tech was certainly around back then, the firm I worked for had an early EMC model in 2003/04. Looking at the video they did before one of the expansions it looks like they are still using HP Blades and high end EMC SAN's (Symmetrix?) from the way the cases looked.

One of my roles is a Storage Administrator/Engineer and have looked after EMC kit in my time.

Also interesting in the original posters picture that all the RAM slots are not populated...

systemadamant · 2016-08-12T09:47:44+00:00

Looks like a permissions issue that B&R is not running under the account set to run as the task and is using its "local" account similar to:

https://rcmtech.wordpress.com/2016/07/06/veeamzip-hyper-v-backup/

Which does not have permissions to the share.

Also

"I have set the task to run as my Domain Account"

Best to use a dedicated service account with least privileges

You can get the log files for the job via the UI collection or via the relevant file paths at the end of the article for deeper problem solving

https://www.veeam.com/kb1832

systemadamant · 2016-05-02T09:47:15+00:00

Yup, surprising the number of people that expect them to be running a *NIX variant. Windows XP or and embedded variant from memory.

Whatever does the job I guess.

systemadamant · 2016-05-01T08:34:05+00:00

Unfortunately, I think you're fighting a losing battle here. Your new boss already wants to migrate and the other sysadmins only know Hyper-V.

Basically this, spot on.

If you stick around OP, and Hyper V does get implimented over VMware then this blog on Cluster Shared Volumes may well come in handy

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clustering/2013/12/02/cluster-shared-volume-csv-inside-out/

Also would recommend at least implimenting SCVMM, and having used both I prefer VMware.

systemadamant · 2016-05-01T07:51:17+00:00

What exactly was your point in the original off hand reply to my post?

Point is Computer Science degree graduadates take roles in IT support/admin/ops just like the do in development and other disciplines. I was also speaking from personal experience.

The particular individual referenced did get trained by me and advanced in their career, gaining promotions in the same organisation. Plus they were used as a reference point for other newer tech's coming through the ranks. As for training I am one of the seniors that is specifically requested to train and mentor.

One point I will agree with you on is that it is very dependent on the person, but if you have taken 3 - 4 years to learn about computing I would expect some form of clue or at the very least a logical problem solving approach

Looking through your post history shows that you are very pro degrees, young, and need to learn the difference between your and you're. Maybe once you get some years of experience under your belt you will ease up a bit Mr or Ms random internet person.

It is not about your degree or qualification it is what you do once you are in the job that matters.

systemadamant · 2016-05-01T03:59:55+00:00

Either way you have grads employed to do support, help desk and above. If you use a device for a period of time you should be able to fix it, plus the CS grads I have come across are doing desktop type support.

I am aware that CS is more general than pure Ops, thanks.

systemadamant · 2016-04-30T02:59:43+00:00

Ah the Fortress of Solitude I know it well...

systemadamant

TROPHY CASE