The first things I tried with the new Cisco UCS C200 M2 servers was the CIMC (Cisco Integrated Management Controller). CIMC is the remote out-of-band management solution (IPMI) provided with Cisco servers, it’s basically the same like HP iLO or Dell DRAC.

One of the biggest advantages is that CIMC is included for free, so there is no extra license you need for extra features like KVM or stuff like that.

After working some hours with the CIMC I was really happy, no problems at all everything worked as expected. From the design it’s like the Cisco UCS Manager but better . I think it is much easier to use and much faster (it’s not Java).

Keyfeatures

• Web based front-end
• KVM and Virtual media
• Change BIOS Settings
• Active Directory connector
• SNMP
• IPMI (Very interesting with the Bare-metal deployment in SCVMM 2012)
• SSH
• Health Monitoring

Today my two new virtualization nodes from Cisco arrived. For my Microsoft Hyper-V lab I needed two new nodes and I got a really good offering for two Cisco UCS C200 M2 High-Density Rack-Mount Servers.

The whole Cisco server series is optimized for virtualization and offers very cool features like a buildiin Cisco Integrated Management Controller (without extra charge) and Ciscos Extended Memory Technology which allows to use up to 192GB RAM.

Technical Specs

The Cisco UCS C200 M2 server is a high-density, 2-socket, 1 rack unit (RU) rack-mount server built for production-level network infrastructure, web services, and mainstream data center, branch, and remote-office applications.

• Up to two Intel Xeon 5500 or 5600 Series multicore processors
• Up to 192GB of industry-standard double data rate (DDR3) main memory
• Up to eight 2.5-inch or four 3.5-inch internal SAS or SATA disk drives; up to 8 terabytes (TB) total
• Built-in RAID 0 and 1 support for up to four or eight SATA drives; RAID 0 and 1 support for up to four or eight SAS or SATA drives with optional mezzanine card; and RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 support for four SAS or SATA drives and RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60 support for eight SAS or SATA drives with optional LSI MegaRAID card
• Two half length Gen 2 PCIe slots-one full height x16 and one low profile x8 PCI Express-two integrated Gb Ethernet ports, and one 10/100 Mbps Ethernet management port for accessing the controller
• Front- and back-panel interface with video, two USB, and serial port connections

More Information on Cisco.com

Hardware

The Hardware makes a really good first impression.

One of my next posts will be about the CIMC (Cisco Integrated Management Controller) which I really started to like.

In this clip from episode 100,Jimmy Ray and guest Jeff Silberman address the myths being portrayed by Cisco’s competitors, and demonstrates why it just doesn’t hold water. A must-see segment for you competitive types!

In the first post I wrote how you can enable SSH on the ESXi 5.0 host. In this post I show you how you can enable or activate SSH on the ESXi 5.0 hosts via the vSphere Client.

1. First start the vSphere Client
2. Select the ESXi host in the configurations tab
3. Select Security Profile
   
4. Click on Properties in the upper right corner and you will get the a popup with all the services on this ESXi 5.0 hosts. Select the SSH service and press the Options button.
   
5. Now you can start the services and set the startup options
   
6. press okay and you are done..

At the end of last year we had our Cisco UCS ordered and in your datacenter. In January we started the testing and made the Clusters ready for the production environment. In February we started the migration of our existing environment, mostly P2V and also some V2V migrations.

Here some interessting facts about our Cisco UCS and Hyper-V project.

• We use 12 Cisco UCS Blades this is like 10 HE of rackspace
• We migrated 45 Windows Servers and 47 Unix Servers in just one week
• We replace 2 racks of server with a half rack of two Cisco UCS Bladecenters
• We think we can replace 2-3 racks more with our two Bladecenters.
• At the end of this year we think we could replace 4-5 racks with 1/2 rack
• We still have a lot of physical and virtual server which will be needed to be migrated to the Bladecenter.
• We will get even more out of our Blade Servers by activting Hyper-V Dynamic Memory as a new feature of Hyper-V R2 ServicePack 1

This migration had a lot of positive influence on other things in the datacenter.

• we need now 4% less energie overall
• we need now 6% less cooling overall
• we need less space (1 and 1/2 racks at the moment)
• now our system administrator travel 50% less to the datacenter, because of hardware defects or other administrative tasks.
• We can deploy new servers in minutes instead of hours

I think all of this numbers (except the time we need to deploy new servers )will increase after the next migrations.

Now I started to write a series of blog posts about installing Microsoft Hyper-V R2 on the Cisco UCS system:

• Cisco UCS Hyper-V Cluster – Part1
• Cisco UCS Hyper-V Cluster – Create Hyper-V Image for Blade Servers – Part 2
• Cisco UCS Hyper-V Cluster – Install Blade Servers – Part 3
• Cisco UCS Hyper-V Cluster – Configure Blade Servers – Part 4
• Cisco UCS Hyper-V Cluster – Configure Hyper-V Networks – Part 5
• Cisco UCS Hyper-V Cluster – Create Hyper-V Cluster – Part 6
• Cisco UCS Hyper-V Cluster – Add Nodes to Hyper-V Cluster – Part 7
• Cisco UCS Hyper-V Cluster – Add Hyper-V Cluster to SCVMM – Part 8
• Cisco UCS Hyper-V Cluster – Important Updates for the Hyper-V Cluster – Part 9

Microsoft Hyper-V and the Cisco UCS Bladecenter are a powerful team. The UCS Virtual Hardware takes alot of complexety from the hypervisor in your case Hyper-V. You don’t need NIC teaming and stuff like that. Thats is making it very easy to deploy Hyper-V Clusters. And with the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager you can save a lot of time in managing your clusters, hosts, virtual machine and also in P2V and V2V migrations. Since Microsoft SCVMM supports Windows Powershell you can also do a lot of scripting automation. And with the release of the new Version of SCVMM (System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012) this will even get better for deploying new virtual machines, services and even public and private clouds.

We started with Microsoft Hyper-V R2 Servers before the release of Service Pack 1. We think we can even get a lot more out of your systems with the new Dynamic Memory feature for Hyper-V which comes in Service Pack 1.

At the end we think choosing the Cisco UCS, Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager for our datacenter was the best choice we have made, in terms of costs and technology.

For a documentation I changed the background color of my Windows Server 2008 R2 to
white. After I finished my documentation I wanted to change the colors back to
the default Windows Server Background Color. I realized that this was not a
default Color to choose. But you can set the color by enter the RGB values.

The RGB values for Windows Server 2008 R2 Desktop are:

Red = 58
Green = 110
Blue = 165

In our Hosting enviroment we are now using MS SQL Servers for our back-end. But there are still some MySQL Server left which store some data. Now since we do a lot of automation with Windows Powersehll I wrote a function to run MySQL querys with Powershell.

First you have to install the MySQL .NET Connector or just copy the MySql.Data.dll from the MySQL.

You can now load this:

With DLL File:

 [void][system.reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom("C:\myscript\MySQL.Data.dll")

or if you have installed the MySQL .NET Connector:

 [void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("MySql.Data") 

Now basiclly this function does everything for you:

Function Run-MySQLQuery {
<#
.SYNOPSIS
   run-MySQLQuery

.DESCRIPTION
   By default, this script will:
    - Will open a MySQL Connection
	- Will Send a Command to a MySQL Server
	- Will close the MySQL Connection
	This function uses the MySQL .NET Connector or MySQL.Data.dll file

.PARAMETER ConnectionString
    Adds the MySQL Connection String for the specific MySQL Server

.PARAMETER Query

    The MySQL Query which should be send to the MySQL Server

.EXAMPLE
    C:\PS> run-MySQLQuery -ConnectionString "Server=localhost;Uid=root;Pwd=p@ssword;database=project;" -Query "SELECT * FROM firsttest" 

    Description
    -----------
    This command run the MySQL Query "SELECT * FROM firsttest"
	to the MySQL Server "localhost" with the Credentials User: Root and password: p@ssword and selects the database project

.EXAMPLE
    C:\PS> run-MySQLQuery -ConnectionString "Server=localhost;Uid=root;Pwd=p@ssword;database=project;" -Query "UPDATE firsttest SET firstname='Thomas' WHERE Firstname like 'PAUL'" 

    Description
    -----------
    This command run the MySQL Query "UPDATE project.firsttest SET firstname='Thomas' WHERE Firstname like 'PAUL'"
	to the MySQL Server "localhost" with the Credentials User: Root and password: p@ssword

.EXAMPLE
    C:\PS> run-MySQLQuery -ConnectionString "Server=localhost;Uid=root;Pwd=p@ssword;" -Query "UPDATE project.firsttest SET firstname='Thomas' WHERE Firstname like 'PAUL'" 

    Description
    -----------
    This command run the MySQL Query "UPDATE project.firsttest SET firstname='Thomas' WHERE Firstname like 'PAUL'"
	to the MySQL Server "localhost" with the Credentials User: Root and password: p@ssword and selects the database project

#>
	Param(
        [Parameter(
            Mandatory = $true,
            ParameterSetName = '',
            ValueFromPipeline = $true)]
            [string]$query,
		[Parameter(
            Mandatory = $true,
            ParameterSetName = '',
            ValueFromPipeline = $true)]
            [string]$connectionString
        )
	Begin {
		Write-Verbose "Starting Begin Section"
    }
	Process {
		Write-Verbose "Starting Process Section"
		try {
			# load MySQL driver and create connection
			Write-Verbose "Create Database Connection"
			# You could also could use a direct Link to the DLL File
			# $mySQLDataDLL = "C:\scripts\mysql\MySQL.Data.dll"
			# [void][system.reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom($mySQLDataDLL)
			[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("MySql.Data")
			$connection = New-Object MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlConnection
			$connection.ConnectionString = $ConnectionString
			Write-Verbose "Open Database Connection"
			$connection.Open()

			# Run MySQL Querys
			Write-Verbose "Run MySQL Querys"
			$command = New-Object MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlCommand($query, $connection)
			$dataAdapter = New-Object MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlDataAdapter($command)
			$dataSet = New-Object System.Data.DataSet
			$recordCount = $dataAdapter.Fill($dataSet, "data")
			$dataSet.Tables["data"] | Format-Table
		}
		catch {
			Write-Host "Could not run MySQL Query" $Error[0]
		}
		Finally {
			Write-Verbose "Close Connection"
			$connection.Close()
		}
    }
	End {
		Write-Verbose "Starting End Section"
	}
}

You can use this Powershell function like this:

run-MySQLQuery -ConnectionString "Server=localhost;Uid=root;Pwd=p@ssword;database=project;" -Query "SELECT * FROM firsttest"

If you wanna run more than one command you could do something like this:

$connString = "Server=localhost;Uid=root;Pwd=p@ssword;database=project;"

[array]$sQLDings += "SELECT * from project.firsttest"
[array]$sQLDings += "UPDATE project.firsttest SET firstname='Thomas' WHERE Firstname like 'Paul'"
[array]$sQLDings += "SELECT * from project.firsttest"

foreach($sQLquery in $SQLDings) {
	run-MySQLQuery -connectionString $connString -query $sQLquery
}

If you need more information about Powershell and MySQL Mark Alexander Bain wrote a blog post about this.

And if you need a local MySQL Server on your machine to test this, you could use Microsoft Platform Installer to install MySQL and other cool Webtools.

This is a little Overview how you can license Windows Server 2008 R2 in a Hyper-V Environment. One of the biggest advantages  of Hyper-V over VMware are the included Guest OS Licenses. For example if you buy a Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter license (of each CPU of your physical Server) you can deploy unlimited Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Virtual Machines on this Host.

This Overview should help you understand how this works.

If you need more infos you can find this here.

This is a quick note how to use nslookup.exe.

Start nslookup and check for domain

C:> nslookup
Default Server:  ns1.corp.pepsi.local
Addresse:  10.10.20.1
> thomasmaurer.ch
Default Server: ns1.corp.pepsi.local
Addresse: 10.10.20.1

Name:    thomasmaurer.ch
Address:  217.26.52.30
>

Change Nameserver for search querys

> server ns2.corp.pepsi.local
Default Server: ns2.corp.pepsi.local
Addresse: 10.10.20.2
>

Set a query type (ex. A,AAAA,A+AAAA,ANY,CNAME,MX,NS,PTR,SOA,SRV)

> set type=mx
> thomasmaurer.ch
Server: ns2.corp.pepsi.local
Address:  10.10.20.2

thomasmaurer.ch MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mx2.mail.genotec.ch
thomasmaurer.ch MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mx1.mail.genotec.ch
mx1.mail.genotec.ch   internet address = 217.26.49.141
mx1.mail.genotec.ch   internet address = 217.26.49.140
mx2.mail.genotec.ch   internet address = 217.26.49.139
mx1.mail.genotec.ch   internet address = 217.26.49.142
>

nslookup.exe help

Commands:   (identifiers are shown in uppercase, [] means optional)
NAME            - print info about the host/domain NAME using default server
NAME1 NAME2     - as above, but use NAME2 as server
help or ?       - print info on common commands
set OPTION      - set an option
    all                 - print options, current server and host
    [no]debug           - print debugging information
    [no]d2              - print exhaustive debugging information
    [no]defname         - append domain name to each query
    [no]recurse         - ask for recursive answer to query
    [no]search          - use domain search list
    [no]vc              - always use a virtual circuit
    domain=NAME         - set default domain name to NAME
    srchlist=N1[/N2/.../N6] - set domain to N1 and search list to N1,N2, etc.
    root=NAME           - set root server to NAME
    retry=X             - set number of retries to X
    timeout=X           - set initial time-out interval to X seconds
    type=X              - set query type (ex. A,AAAA,A+AAAA,ANY,CNAME,MX,NS,PTR,SOA,SRV)
    querytype=X         - same as type
    class=X             - set query class (ex. IN (Internet), ANY)
    [no]msxfr           - use MS fast zone transfer
    ixfrver=X           - current version to use in IXFR transfer request
server NAME     - set default server to NAME, using current default server
lserver NAME    - set default server to NAME, using initial server
root            - set current default server to the root
ls [opt] DOMAIN [> FILE] - list addresses in DOMAIN (optional: output to FILE)
    -a          -  list canonical names and aliases
    -d          -  list all records
    -t TYPE     -  list records of the given RFC record type (ex. A,CNAME,MX,NS,PTR etc.)
view FILE           - sort an 'ls' output file and view it with pg
exit            - exit the program