AWS Cloudwatch – watch out for outdated EC2config

I configured a Windows instance on AWS to start reporting logs and performance counters into their AWS Cloudwatch for centralised overview.

The day after I had started monitoring I found that it was consuming loads of CPU and memory and thus not normal,

Screen Shot 2016-07-14 at 12.01.01

Going into the instance, which took a while as it was so sluggish, I found that the EC2Config service was going berserk and I had to kill it.

Screen Shot 2016-07-14 at 10.53.59

Looking at the properties of the EC2 you can see that it was 2.2.12.30 and far from the version available today.

Screen Shot 2016-07-14 at 11.12.56

So if you want to enable Cloudwatch make sure that you first update the EC2config to be sure that your server will survive the burden of monitoring  ?

Firmware update of NIC makes team go degraded

I have been doing some maintenance on a Hyper-V environment and patching with Windows updates and also firmware for the hardware.

The hosts was Dell R730 with former Broadcom and now Qlogic 10 Gbit NIC´s. There are 4 10 Gbit NIC´s on every host and they are set up with one team for management and one team for VM´s.

I have done firmware update before but now there was a new version that I wanted to apply.

It tock a while before I realised that the NIC`s had changed name and thus that was why the teams was degraded, we had some discussions and the Networking guy checked his configuration more than once and we also verified the cabling on the server and then after a while I realised that the NIC actually had changed name and once adding the correct NIC´s to the teams the status changed to normal!

Screen Shot 2016-06-23 at 10.33.14

So when doing maintenece please check the status after updating firmware or the battle with the networking guys can end in misery on your side 😉

MAP 9.0 Beta has been released

This morning a new beta of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning toolkit has been released and now it is version 9.0

This beta release of the MAP Toolkit helps increase the agility and cost effectiveness of deploying the latest Microsoft technologies. It also enhances usage tracking to include accounting for Remote Desktop Services as well as Server and Cloud Enrollment licensed deployments. MAP 9.0 beta additionally helps organizations assess their environment for Office 2013 and Office 365, track usage of Windows Server 2012, Lync Server 2013, SharePoint Server 2013, Exchange Server 2013, System Center Configuration Manager 2012, and SQL Server 2012. The Windows Azure assessment report has also been updated to include the latest Azure sizing.

I have upgraded my 8.5 to 9.0 Beta

Screen Shot 2013-11-12 at 10.32.58

and when going from the 8.5 to 9 you can upgrade the database, if you have a MAP version 7 there is no possibility to upgrade to 8.5 or 9.

Screen Shot 2013-11-12 at 10.33.10

If you want to get the beta you can sign up at the connect site at this link.

Installing vSphere vCenter 5.1 on Windows 2012

I have tested to install the new VMware ESXi 5.1 in a VM on my Macbook pro, next step was to get the vCenter 5.1 working on Windows 2012.

I downloaded the evaluation ISO from technet and when using the Easy Install I got an error trying to install the OS on the VM, as you can see on the screendump I get a licensing error, my first thought was that it was an error with my iso download and I then downloaded it again but the error persisted.

When I try to set up a new VM without the Easy Install I get the license agreement without error and could deploy the VM without any errors. Did I say that I am using the latest fusion 5.0.1

So to continue with the install, when the OS is upp and running I also need to download/install .net 3.5 (this is not by default available in win 2012 so I need the Media or an Internet connection). This as the .Net 3.5 is a requirement when installing vCenter.

Then I run the simple install from the media that will install the vCenter server, Single sign-on and Inventory service together.

When the installation is finished everything seems to be installed but the vCenter service will not start. It complained about a service that it depended on that was not existing.

I investigated a bit and the Protected Storage Service was deprecated in windows 2008 and only in read-mode and I could not find it for Windows 2012. So I wanted to remove the dependent services.

So how to do this, I type sc config vpxd depend= “” to remove all dependencies and then I typed sc start vpxd and the service took a bit to start but eventually it got to a running state.

Then I installed the vSphere Client and tried to log in and when the client opened I added the vSphere host without any issues.

Now when I got this running I will continue to install PowerCLI 5.1 and test it with PowerShell 3.0

 

 

HP Bladesystem Virtual Connect FW update 3.17

Ett par veckor sen har detta dykt upp men det kan ändå poängteras och sägas en gång till att det kommit en uppdatering till Virtual Connect och specifikt för FlexFabric och Flex-10 VC-moduler som man har i sitt bladchassi.

Uppdateringen som går att läsa mer om här avhjälper en del besvärande buggar och det referas även till två pdf dokument där man kan se vilka fw och rompacks man bör ha på sina blad/oa och även de drivrutiner som bör appliceras för att få så störningsfri drift som möjligt.

Trevligt FW-helg
//N