SQL Server Archives - Page 2 of 3

Aug142013August 14, 2013August 14, 20131 Commentby Thomas Maurer

Mark your calendars for Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2

Posted in Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Private Cloud, SQL Server, System Center, Virtualization, Web, Windows, Windows 8.1, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012 R2, Work

Microsoft just announced that Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 will be available on October 18th.

So mark your calender for the new r.eleases and check out my blog posts about the new Features

Mar292013March 29, 2013March 29, 20131 Commentby Thomas Maurer

Microsoft Server Posterpedia Windows 8 App

Posted in Active Directory, Cloud, Exchange Server, Hyper-V, Intune, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Office, Office365, PowerShell, Private Cloud, Sharepoint, SQL Server, System Center, Virtualization, Web, Windows, Windows 8, Windows Server, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Work

I know for a lot of people this is not something new, but in the courses I presented in the past weeks I always mentioned this great Windows 8 App called Server Posterpedia.

Server Posterpedia is an interactive app that uses technical posters as a reference for understanding Microsoft technologies. This app includes all the reference posters from different Microsoft Server Technologies such as Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, Exchange or Windows Azure. The great thing about this App, you can not only checkout the different posters and zoom in, if you click on a specific topic for you get directly linked to the right TechNet article. This can help find some TechNet references really easy and fast.

You can get Server Posterpedia for free in the Windows Store: Server Posterpedia

Dec162012December 16, 2012December 16, 20120 Commentby Thomas Maurer

2012: A Year of Microsoft Milestones

Posted in Cloud, Events, Fun, Hardware, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Office, Office365, Private Cloud, SQL Server, Surface, System Center, Virtualization, Web, Windows, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012, Work

2012: A Year of Microsoft Milestones

Jun222012June 22, 2012January 7, 20199 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

MCSE: Private Cloud

Posted in Certification, Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, Private Cloud, SQL Server, System Center, Virtualization, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Work

Yesterday I passed the Microsoft exam 70-246: Monitoring and Operating Private Cloud with System Center 2012. And I can now finally call myself a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert for Private Cloud or MCSE: Private Cloud.

The new (reborn) Microsoft Certifications MCSA (Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate) and MCSE (Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert) were first shown at the Microsoft Management Summit this year.

At the moment there are the following certifications public

Private Cloud (System Center)

MCSE: Private Cloud

For the MCSE: Private Cloud you have to do the following

MCSA: Windows Server 2008 or MCSA: Windows Server 2012
70-247: Configuring and Deploying a Private Cloud with System Center 2012 or 70-659: TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization (until January 2013)
70-246: Monitoring and Operating Private Cloud with System Center 2012

Windows Server

SQL Server

Now I am not the first one here in Switzerland who passed these exams, for example Marcel Zehner and Michel Lüscher did the exams at exams at MMS 2012 in Las Vegas and they got the results last week. Congrats guys ;)

Dec032011December 3, 2011December 3, 20112 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Slipstream SQL Server 2008 SP2 for SCCM 2012

Posted in Microsoft, SQL Server, System Center, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008 R2, Work

The Release Candidate version of System Center Configuration Manager 2012 requires MS SQL Server 2008 SP2 with Cumulative update package 6. Now this can be a little annoying and will hopefully change to SQL Server 2008 R2 in the RTM version.

Now if you want to install MS SQL Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 R2 you need at least a install media with SP1. Now this post shows you how you can integrate Service Pack 2 into the install media of SQL Server 2008.

Copy the SQL Server 2008 install media to C:\SQLServer2008withSP2
Download and copy the SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2 files to C:\temp

Now you can run the following commands:

SQLServer2008SP2-KB2285068-IA64-ENU.exe /x:c:\SQLServer2008withSP2\PCU
SQLServer2008SP2-KB2285068-x64-ENU.exe /x:c:\SQLServer2008withSP2\PCU
SQLServer2008SP2-KB2285068-x86-ENU.exe /x:c:\SQLServer2008withSP2\PCUrobocopy C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\PCU c:\SQLServer2008withSP2 Setup.exe
robocopy C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\PCU c:\SQLServer2008withSP2 Setup.rll
robocopy C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\pcu\x86 C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\x86 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dll
robocopy C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\pcu\x64 C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\x64 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dll
robocopy C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\pcu\ia64 C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\ia64 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dllecho PCUSOURCE="C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\PCU" &gt;&gt; C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\x86\DefaultSetup.ini
echo PCUSOURCE="C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\PCU" &gt;&gt; C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\x64\DefaultSetup.ini
echo PCUSOURCE="C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\PCU" &gt;&gt; C:\SQLServer2008withSP2\ia64\DefaultSetup.ini

After you have done this you can install the MS SQL Server
After you have installed it, you still need to download and install the Cumulative update package 6 for SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2

More about SQL Slipstreaming on Peter Saddow’s MSDN blog post.

Oct132011October 13, 2011October 13, 20111 Commentby Thomas Maurer

VMware VirtualCenter Server service does not start automatically after reboot

Posted in Microsoft, SQL Server, Virtualization, VMware, Windows Server, Work

We had a problem with our VMware VirtualCenter Server service which did not start automatically after a server reboot. This could be a problem when the VMware VirtualCenter Server service starts before the MSSQL Server.

Now the solution to solve this problem is to add a dependency to the VMware VirtualCenter Server service.

The VirtualCenter Server service is dependent on the following services:

SQL Services
ADAM Services (when using linked mode in vCenter Server 4.x)

How to create a service dependency:

Open the services.msc
Check out the name of the service you want to add as dependency
open the Registry Editor (regedit)
Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vpxd
Double-click the DependOnService key and add the Service name using the name of the Service in our case MSSQLSERVER
In the Services window, open the service properties for the service VMware VirtualCenter Server.
In the Dependencies tab, verify the VMware VirtualCenter service is listed as depending on the service.

In Windows Server 2008 or later you could also set VMware VirtualCenter Server service to startup type Automatic (Delay):

Click Start > Run, type services.msc, and click OK.
Right-click on the VMware VirtualCenter Server service and click Properties.
Change the startup type from Automatic to Automatic (Delay).

More Information on this: VMware KB

Apr142011April 14, 2011April 14, 20111 Commentby Thomas Maurer

Microsoft WebMatrix and Microsoft WebPlatform Installer

Posted in Cloud, Hosting, HP, IIS, Internet Explorer, KTSI, Microsoft, School, Silverlight, Software, SQL Server, Visual Studio, Web, Web, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Server, Work

For a project at KTSI we needed a platform to quick deploy PHP and MySQL applications. There are a lot of solutions out there in the web, for example XAMPP. After testing some options I had a closer look at the Microsoft WebPlatform Installer and Microsoft WebMatrix. Those two tools do exactly what I need. With the WebPlatform Installer you can easily install a local instance of IIS Express with ASP.NET, PHP, MSSQL and MySQL support with in 5-10 minutes.

But the coolest tool in my opinion is WebMatrix. Webmatrix lets developers create, manage and deploy Web Applications very very easy. And if you need to to more Webmatrix lets you also work with Visual Studio on the same project.