2012: A Year of Microsoft Milestones
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
For the MCSE: Private Cloud you have to do the following
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 😉
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.
More about SQL Slipstreaming on Peter Saddow’s MSDN blog post.
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:
How to create a service dependency:
In Windows Server 2008 or later you could also set VMware VirtualCenter Server service to startup type Automatic (Delay):
More Information on this: VMware KB
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.
To install SQL Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 R2 you need a slipstream version of SQL Server 2008 with integrated Servicepack 1. At the moment you can’t download SQL Server 2008 with integrated SP1, so you have to create your own slipstream version.
1. Copy your original SQL Server 2008 source media to c:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1
2. Download Service Pack 1 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=66ab3dbb-bf3e-4f46-9559-ccc6a4f9dc19. The three architectures of Service Pack 1 should be included, the package names are as follows:
- SQLServer2008SP1-KB968369-IA64-ENU.exe
- SQLServer2008SP1-KB968369-x64-ENU.exe
- SQLServer2008SP1-KB968369-x86-ENU.exe
3. Extract the packages as follows:
SQLServer2008SP1-KB968369-IA64-ENU.exe /x:c:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\PCUSQLServer2008SP1-KB968369-x64-ENU.exe /x:c:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\PCUSQLServer2008SP1-KB968369-x86-ENU.exe /x:c:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\PCU4. Copy Setup.exe and Setup.rll from the PCU extracted location to original source media location
robocopy C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\PCU c:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1 Setup.exerobocopy C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\PCU c:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1 Setup.rll5. Copy all files not the folders, except the Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dll, in c:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\PCU\<architecture> to C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1 \<architecture> to update the original files.
robocopy C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\pcu\x86 C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\x86 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dllrobocopy C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\pcu\x64 C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\x64 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dllrobocopy C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\pcu\ia64 C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\ia64 /XF Microsoft.SQL.Chainer.PackageData.dll6. Determine if you have a defaultsetup.ini at the following locations:
- C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\x86
- C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\x64
- C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\ia64
If you have a defaultsetup.ini, add PCUSOURCE=”{Full path}\PCU”.
NOTE: The {Full path} needs to be the absolute path to the PCU folder. If you will just be running from local folder it would be C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1. If you will eventually share this folder out, {Full path} would be \\MyServer\SQLServer2008_FullSP1.
See question #11 here if you would like to use a relative path.
[SQLSERVER2008]
;SQLSERVER2008 Configuration File…
PCUSOURCE=”{Full path}\PCU”
[SQLSERVER2008]
If you do NOT have a defaultsetup.ini, create one with the following content:
;SQLSERVER2008 Configuration FilePCUSOURCE=”{full path}\PCU”
and copy to the following locations:C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\x86
C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\x64
C:\SQLServer2008_FullSP1\ia64
This file will tell the setup program where to locate the SP1 source media that you extracted in step 3.
7. Now run setup.exe as you normally would.
More Information can be found on this msdn blog. Thanks to Peter Saddow.
- Use the MS SQL Server Management Studio
EXEC sp_dboption 'XXX', 'trunc. log on chkpt.', 'TRUE'CHECKPOINTDBCC SHRINKFILE ('XXX_Log', TRUNCATEONLY)EXEC sp_dboption 'XXX', 'trunc. log on chkpt.', 'FALSE'GO
- (replace XXX with the database name)
My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team and engage with the community and customers around the world. I am located in Switzerland. I am focusing on Microsoft technologies, especially cloud and datacenter solutions based on Microsoft Azure, Azure Stack and Windows Server.
Opinions are my own.
