Tag: Networking

May252015May 25, 2015November 1, 20181Commentby Thomas Maurer
CDN Consistent Device Naming

Cisco UCS supports Consistent Device Naming (CDN)

Posted in Cisco, Cloud, Hardware, Hardware, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Network, PowerShell, Private Cloud, Server, UCS, Virtualization, Web, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Work

Yesterday I posted about Cisco UCS supporting RDMA (SMB Direct) with firmware version 2.2(4b)B. Walter Dey, former Cisco Distinguished Engineer at Cisco informed me not only about the RDMA feature he also showed me that Cisco UCS now supports Consistent Device Naming which was introduced with Windows Server 2012. Consistent Device Naming (CDN) allows Ethernet interfaces to be named in a consistent manner. This makes Ethernet interface names more persistent when adapter or other configuration changes are made. To use CDN in Cisco UCS you need to run firmware version 2.2(4b)B. This will help to make it a lot easier to identify network interfaces used with Windows Server 2012 R2 and Hyper-V.


Feb132015February 13, 2015January 13, 20194Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Microsoft Exam 70-533 Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions

Passed Microsoft Exam 70-533 Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions

Posted in Active Directory, Certification, Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell, Private Cloud, Virtualization, Web, Work

A couple of weeks ago I passed Microsoft Exam 70-533 Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions, which is focused on implementing and designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure solutions such as Azure Websites or Azure Virtual Machines (IaaS). I think taking this exam and preparing for it was a great idea. Even if I have already done a couple of projects on Azure I still learned a lot during the preparation and you can find some of the best practices. Since Azure is a huge beast and the rapid deployment of new features, you will definitely find some new stuff you didn’t know before during the preparation for the exam. And of course taking new Microsoft Certifications early helps you to stand out in the IT Pro or Developer world. Of course passing exams alone does not make you an expert, but if you have know-how on a topic it’s is always got to have some kind of paper to prove it.

So what are the skills measured for this exam. The exam 70-533 focuses on 6 topics, Azure Websites, Virtual Machines, Cloud Services, Storage, Azure Active Directory and Virtual Networks. To my surprise I got a really good score on Azure Websites and of course Virtual Machines, since I used to run several of them on Azure. I also found out that Azure Active Directory is one of the parts I have to invest a little more.

Skills measured

Implement websites (15-20%)

  • Deploy websites
    • Define deployment slots; roll back deployments, configure and deploy packages, deploy web jobs, schedule web jobs
  • Configure websites
    • Configure app settings, connection strings, handlers, and virtual directories; configure certificates, custom domains, and traffic manager; configure SSL bindings and runtime configurations; manage websites by using Windows PowerShell and Xplat-CLI
  • Configure diagnostics, monitoring, and analytics
    • Retrieve diagnostics data; view streaming logs; configure endpoint monitoring, alerts, and diagnostics; monitor website resources
  • Configure scale and resilience
    • Configure auto-scale using built-in and custom schedules; configure by metric; change the size of an instance
  • Manage hosting plans
    • Create hosting plans; migrate websites between hosting plans; create a website within a hosting plan

Implement virtual machines (15-20%)

  • Deploy workloads on Azure virtual machines (VMs)
    • Identify supported Microsoft workloads; deploy and connect to a Linux VM; create VMs
  • Implement images and disks
    • Create specialized and generalized images for Windows and Linux; copy images between storage accounts and subscriptions; upload VHDs
  • Perform configuration management
    • Automate configuration management by using PowerShell Desired State Configuration and custom script extensions; enable puppet and chef extensions
  • Configure VM networking
    • Settings include reserved IP addresses, access control list (ACL), internal name resolution, DNS at the cloud service level, load balancing endpoints, HTTP and TCP health probes, public IPs, firewall rules, direct server return, and Keep Alive
  • Configure VM resiliency
    • Scale up and scale down VM sizes; auto-scale; configure availability sets
  • Design and implement VM storage
    • Configure disk caching; plan storage capacity; configure operating system disk redundancy; configure shared storage using Azure File service; configure geo-replication; encrypt disks
  • Monitor VMs
    • Configure endpoint monitoring, alerts, and diagnostics

Implement cloud services (15-20%)

  • Configure cloud services and roles
    • Configure instance count and size, operating system version and family, upgrade and fault domains, ACLs, reserved IPs, and network access rules; configure local storage; configure dedicated and co-located caching, local and cloud configurations, and local disks; configure multiple websites; configure custom domains
  • Deploy and manage cloud services
    • Upgrade a deployment; VIP swap a deployment; package a deployment; modify configuration files; perform in-place updates; perform runtime configuration changes using the portal; scale a cloud service; create service bus namespaces and choose a tier; apply scalability targets
  • Monitor cloud services
    • Monitor service bus queues, topics, relays, and notification hubs; configure diagnostics

Implement storage (15-20%)

  • Implement blobs and Azure files
    • Read data; change data; set metadata on a container; use encryption (SSL); perform an async blob copy; configure a Content Delivery Network (CDN); implement storage for backup and disaster recovery; configure Azure Backup; define blob hierarchies; configure custom domains; configure the Import and Export Service
  • Manage access
    • Create and manage shared access signatures; use stored access policies; regenerate keys
  • Configure diagnostics, monitoring, and analytics
    • Configure retention policies and logging levels; analyze logs
  • Implement SQL databases
    • Choose the appropriate database tier and performance level; configure point in time recovery and geo-replication; import and export data and schema; design a scaling strategy
  • Implement recovery services
    • Create a backup vault; deploy a backup agent; back up and restore data

Implement an Azure Active Directory (15-20%)

  • Integrate an Azure AD with existing directories
    • Implement DirSync, O365 integration, and single sign-on with on-premises Windows Server 2012 R2; add custom domains; monitor Azure AD
  • Configure the Application Access Panel
    • Configure single sign-on with SaaS applications using federation and password based; add users and groups to applications; revoke access to SaaS applications; configure access; federation with Facebook and Google ID
  • Integrate an app with Azure AD
    • Web apps (WS-federation); desktop apps (OAuth); graph API

Implement virtual networks (15-20%)

  • Configure a virtual network
    • Deploy a VM into a virtual network; deploy a cloud service into a virtual network; configure static IPs; configure internal load balancing; design subnets
  • Modify a network configuration
    • Modify a subnet; import and export a network configuration
  • Design and implement a multi-site or hybrid network
    • Choose the appropriate solution between ExpressRoute, site-to-site, and point-to-site; choose the appropriate gateway; identify supported devices and software VPN solutions; identify networking prerequisites; configure regional virtual networks and multi-site virtual networks

Preparation

To prepare for the exam I used several different resources such as Microsoft Virtual Academy, TechNet, Channel9 and of course Microsoft Azure it self. I also found some great community blogs which have some link summaries:

If you are going to take this exam I wish you good luck.

Update: Microsoft retired some of the Azure exams and replace them by new ones. One of the is the AZ-100 series, which will give you the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator, and is addressing the 70-533.


Apr042014April 4, 2014April 4, 20140Commentby Thomas Maurer

Microsoft Azure Update at Build 2014

Posted in Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Office365, PowerShell, Private Cloud, Software, System Center, Virtualization, Web, Web, Windows, Windows 8.1, Windows Phone, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012 R2, Work, Xbox

At the Build Conference 2014 Microsoft already announced a lot of new stuff for the whole Microsoft or IT ecosystem. There is absolutely no time to cover all the changes and announcements Microsoft has made in the past 2 days. So I will just focus on the things I care about.

  • Prior to the Build Conference Microsoft announced that Windows Azure will be renamed to Microsoft Azure. This will show how Microsoft is not only building on top of the Windows platform, they also have opened up for other platforms an solutions a long time ago. One example for that maybe was the announcement of supporting Oracle Software in Microsoft Azure around a year ago.
  • Mark Russinovich announced some great new changes to Microsoft Azure IaaS. You can now capture and deploy images, you can Puppet and Chef as well as PowerShell DSC support, to configure you server environment. An this is great for developers, some of the features will show up directly in Visual Studio. Microsoft also did some work on the Networking site which was really important, for example you can now change the subnet for Virtual Machines.
    Microsoft Azure Announcements
  • Microsoft also launched a lot of new preview features like Azure Cache and a lot more. What I love the most is the new Microsoft Azure feature called Azure Automation. Azure Automation allows you to automate the creation, monitoring, deployment, and maintenance of resources in your Azure environment using a highly-available workflow execution engine. Orchestrate time-consuming, error-prone, and frequently repeated tasks against Azure and third party systems to decrease time to value for your cloud operations. This is basically Service Management Automation (SMA), which was released with System Center 2012 R2 as a on premise version, now running up in Microsoft Azure. For those how haven’t heard about SMA, SMA is a new automation engine and Runbooks in Service Management Automation and Microsoft Azure Automation are Windows PowerShell workflows.
    Microsoft Azure Automation
  • Microsoft also release a new preview of the Microsoft Azure portal. Since Microsoft released a huge number of new features in Azure, the “old” management portal didn’t really fit the requirements anymore. The new Azure management portal helps you to be much more organized and is using a lot of new concept like “blades” to help you navigate through your Azure environment. The new dashboard also gives you a quick overview about the Microsoft Azure datacenters and there service status, and the new touch friendly dashboard also allows you to customize it for your need. You can check it out on portal.azure.com
    New Microsoft Azure Portal
  • I am not a developer but I was really impressed what Microsoft did for developers. They are just generating a huge numbers of new opportunities with their new platforms not only in Microsoft Azure using IaaS, mobile Services or PaaS, Microsoft also announced a new concept of Universal Apps which allows developers to write apps which run on Windows Phone, Windows and Xbox One. Some days ago Microsoft also showed the new Kinect v2 hardware which I hope developers will use to write some really cool stuff. If we have a lot back at Microsoft Azure, what I really liked about the new Portal is the  integration of Team Foundation Server or “team projects”.
    Microsoft Azure Team Projects

This are just a few of the cool new things Microsoft announced at Build 2014, there is a lot more which is definitely worth to talk about.


Mar192014March 19, 2014March 19, 20140Commentby Thomas Maurer
PowerShell NetAdpater Advanced Property

Hyper-V Network Virtualization NVGRE: No connection between VMs on different Hyper-V Hosts

Posted in Cloud, Hosting, HP, Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, Private Cloud, ProLiant Server, Server Core, System Center, Virtual Machine Manager, Virtualization, Windows Azure Pack, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012 R2, Work

I have worked on some project with Hyper-V Network Virtualization and NVGRE, and today I have seen an issue with Encapsulated Task Offloading on some HP Broadcom Network adapters.

 

Issue

I have Hyper-V Hosts running with 10GbE Broadcom Network Adapters (HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 530FLR-SFP+ Adapter) with driver version 7.8.52.0 (released in 2014). I have created a new VM Network based on Hyper-V Network Virtualization using NVGRE. VM1 is running on Host1 and VM2 is running on Host2. You can ping VM2 from VM1 but there is no other connection possible like SMB, RDP, HTTP or DNS. If you are using a NVGRE Gateway you can no even resolve DNS inside those VMs. If VM1 and VM2 are running on the same Hyper-V host everything between those VMs works fine.

Advanced Driver Settings

If you are using Server Core, which you should by the way, you can use the following command to check for those settings:

 
Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name <NICNAME>

PowerShell NetAdpater Advanced Property

 

Resolution

The Broadcom Network adapters have a feature called Encapsulated Task Offloading which is enabled by default. If you disable Encapsulated Task Offloading everything works fine. You can disable it by using the following PowerShell cmdlet.

 
Set-NetAdapterEncapsulatedPacketTaskOffload -EncapsulatedPacketTaskOffloadEnabled $false -Name <NICNAME>

After that connection inside the VMs started to work immediately, no reboot needed.


Jan232014January 23, 2014August 27, 20184Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Sort Network Adapter via PowerShell

Sort Windows Network Adapter by PCI Slot via PowerShell

Posted in Cisco, Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, Server, UCS, Virtualization, Windows, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Work

If you work with Windows, Windows Server or Hyper-V you know that before Windows Server 2012 Windows named the network adapters randomly. This was a huge deal if you were trying to automate deployment of servers with multiple network adapters. And of course Hyper-V Servers normally have multiple network adapters. In Windows Server 2012 Microsoft had some different ways how this was fixed. First there is CDN (Consistent Device Naming) which allows hardware vendors to integrate the names so the OS can pick them up and the second one being the possibility of Hyper-V Converged Fabric which is basically making our lives easier by having less network adapters.

Well a lot of vendors have not integrated CDN or you have some old servers without CDN support. Back in May 2012 before the release of Windows Server 2012 I wrote a little Windows PowerShell script to sort network adapters in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 by using WMI (Configure Hyper-V Host Network Adapters Like A Boss). Now for a Cisco UCS project I rewrote some parts of the script to use Windows PowerShell in for Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2 and Hyper-V.

First lets have a look how you can get the PCI slot information for network adapters, luckily there is now a PowerShell cmdlet for this.

 
Get-NetAdapterHardwareInfo

Now lets see how you can sort network adapters via Windows PowerShell.

 
Get-NetAdapterHardwareInfo | Sort-Object Bus,Function

This will get you a output like this:

Sort Network Adapter via PowerShell

Lets do a little loop to automatically name them:

$prefix = "NIC"
$netAdapters = Get-NetAdapterHardwareInfo | Sort-Object Bus,Function
$i = 0
 
foreach ($netAdapter in $netAdapters){
 
$interface = $netadapter | Get-NetAdapter
$old = $interface.Name
$newName = $prefix + $i
$interface | Rename-NetAdapter -NewName $newName
$i++
Write-Host "Rename" $old "to:" $newName
 
}

So this names all the network adapters to NIC1, NIC2, NIC3,…

So lets do a PowerShell function for this:

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
# Powershell Sort-NetworkAdapter $Rev: 748 $
# (c) 2014 Thomas Maurer. All rights reserved.
# created by Thomas Maurer
# www.thomasmaurer.ch
# last Update by $Author: tmaurer $ on $Date: 2014-01-04 14:07:36 +0100 $
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
 
function Sort-NetworkAdapter {
<# .SYNOPSIS This sorts and renames network adpaters by PCI slot .DESCRIPTION This sorts and renames network adapters sorted by PCI slot .EXAMPLE Sort-NetworkAdapter -prefix vnic -StartingNumber 0 This renames als NICs to vnic0, vnic1, vnic2,... .EXAMPLE Sort-NetworkAdapter -prefix nic -StartingNumber 1 This renames als NICs to nic1, nic2, nic3,... .PARAMETER prefix The Prefix of the network adapter name .PARAMETER StartingNumber The Number of the first network adapter #>
[CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess=$True,ConfirmImpact='Low')]
param
(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$True,
ValueFromPipeline=$True,
ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$True,
HelpMessage='Which prefix you want to use?')]
[ValidateLength(1,20)]
[string]$prefix,
 
[Parameter(Mandatory=$False,
ValueFromPipeline=$True,
ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$True,
HelpMessage='Which Starting Number you want to use?')]
[int]$startingNumber = 1
)
 
begin {
write-verbose "Get netadpaters and sort them"
$netAdapters = Get-NetAdapterHardwareInfo | Sort-Object Bus,Function
}
 
process {
 
write-verbose "Rename netadapters"
 
foreach ($netAdapter in $netAdapters){
 
$interface = $netadapter | Get-NetAdapter
$old = $interface.Name
$newName = $prefix + $startingNumber
#$interface | Rename-NetAdapter -NewName $newName
$startingNumber++
Write-Host "Rename" $old "to:" $newName
 
}
}
}

Now you can run this by using Sort-NetworkAdapter for exmaple:

Sort-NetworkAdapter -prefix NIC

or

Sort-NetworkAdapter -prefix NIC -StartingNumber 0

You can also get this script from the Microsoft Technet Gallery or Script Center.


Oct082013October 8, 2013June 29, 20208Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Test-NetConnection PowerShell Portscan

SuperPing – PowerShell Test-NetConnection

Posted in Cloud, Microsoft, PowerShell, Private Cloud, Virtualization, Windows, Windows 8.1, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012 R2, Work

With Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012, R2 Microsoft released PowerShell v4 with new PowerShell modules and new PowerShell cmdlets. One of them is the new Test-NetConnection cmdlet, which does replace some simple network tools like Ping, Traceroute, port scanner, and more.

First, if you just run Test-NetConnection, this will check a Microsoft edge server and will tell you if your internet is working or not.

PowerShell Test-NetConnection

You can also ping other servers.

Test-NetConnection Ping

If we have a closer look at this cmdlet, we can see that we can do much more.

get-help get-testnetconnection

What we can do is something like a port scan. In this example, I check if the RDP port is open on my webserver. Which is hopefully not ;-)

Test-NetConnection thomasmaurer.ch -CommonTCPPort RDP

Test-NetConnection PowerShell Portscan

You can also check for not so common ports by using the -Port parameter and entering the port number.
Another thing you could do would be a simple traceroute.

Test-NetConnection thomasmaurer.ch -TraceRoute

Test-NetConnection PowerShell Traceroute

If you want to do a ping -t you could use the following command

while ($true) {Test-NetConnection -InformationLevel Quiet}

Ping -t with PowerShell

I hope this helps you a little :)

Find more networking PowerShell cmdlets in my PowerShell Networking cheatsheet.


Sep012013September 1, 2013July 1, 20181Commentby Thomas Maurer
SCU2013

Speaking at System Center Universe Europe 2013 and hopefully meeting Carl

Posted in Cloud, Events, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft MVP, PowerShell, Private Cloud, Speaking, System Center, Virtual Machine Manager, Virtualization, Web, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Work

Only two weeks left until the System Center Universe Europe 2013 starts. The session and event preparing really starts now and there is still some work to be done. I already did a interview with the guys from System Center Universe where I talked about the event and my sessions, and two weeks ago the session list with all the abstracts were released. I will have the change to speak in three sessions about Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

Here my session list:

What's new in Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V (German)

Together with Carsten Rachfahl (MVP Virtual Machine) I will talk about the new features in Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V, such as Live Migration compression, Shared VHDX and of course a lot more. 

SCVMM Networking: From Zero to Hero in two hours - Part 1/2 (English)

Are you ready for a deep-dive in System Center Virtual Machine Manager Networking, which covers the concept of Logical Switches, NIC Teaming, Hyper-V Converged Networking, Network Virtualization, the integration of the Cisco Nexus 1000v, Virtual Firewalls or IPAM into Virtual Machine Manager. Then this is the place to be, virtualization astronauts Damian Flynn, Kevin Greene, Michel Lüscher and Thomas Maurer are going to talk about the advanced networking topics in System Center Virtual Machine Manager. See you in Space. 

SCVMM Networking: From Zero to Hero in two hours - Part 2/2 (English)

Are you ready for a deep-dive in System Center Virtual Machine Manager Networking, which covers the concept of Logical Switches, NIC Teaming, Hyper-V Converged Networking, Network Virtualization, the integration of the Cisco Nexus 1000v, Virtual Firewalls or IPAM into Virtual Machine Manager. Then this is the place to be, virtualization astronauts Damian Flynn, Kevin Greene, Michel Lüscher and Thomas Maurer are going to talk about the advanced networking topics in System Center Virtual Machine Manager. See you in Space.

I am really happy to have the honor to speak at this event and with other great speakers. If you not already have, make sure you register for the event on systemcenteruniverse.ch

Even Carl from Catapult Systems is trying to get a ticket:



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    Thomas Maurer

    My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team (Cloud + AI) 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.

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