Cisco Nexus 1000V for Microsoft Hyper-V now available!

Cisco Cloud Networking and Services Platform team announced the availability of Cisco Nexus 1000V for Microsoft Hyper-V as a part of their hypervisor-agnostic cloud networking strategy. This represents a major milestone for the Nexus 1000V platform which already has more than 7000 customers. 

They are also shipping Virtual Services Gateway (VSG) and Virtual Network Management Center ( VNMC)  for Hyper-V. With this introduction, enterprise and cloud provider customers will be able to extend Nexus experience to Hyper-V virtual environments.

Industry Award    
The  Nexus 1000V is already a winner – Winner of Best of Microsoft TechEd 2013 award in the Virtualization Category.

Cisco Nexus 1000V for Microsoft Hyper-V Solution Highlights

• Advanced NX-OS features and associated partner ecosystem to Windows Server 2012
• Consistent operational model across hypervisors (vSphere & Hyper-V)
  Innovative network services architecture (via vPath) to support secure multitenant environments
• Tight integration with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) as well as support for PowerShell    

Cisco Nexus 1100 Cloud Services Platform also supports Nexus 1000V for Hyper-V to host VSM and VSG virtual appliances.

Features and Functionality

Note: Nexus 1000V feature-set will be consistent across all hypervisors

Pricing and Orderability
Nexus1000V pricing is consistent across hypervisors. Nexus 1000V for Microsoft Hyper-V is available in two editions:
•         Essential edition is available at no-cost
•         Advanced edition (includes VSG for Hyper-V) is available at $695/CPU

Resources
•       Cisco Nexus 1000V for Hyper-V external cisco.com page:
http://www.cisco.com/go/1000v/hyper-v/
•       Cisco Nexus 1000V Public Community:
https://communities.cisco.com/community/technology/datacenter/nexus1000v/
•       Cisco-Microsoft partnership page:
http://www.cisco.com/go/microsoft/

Video: How Aston Martin uses Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012

Find out how luxury car maker Aston Martin uses System Center 2012 and Windows Server 2012 to accelerate efficiency in this interesting video case study.

Click here to view case study.

Interesting changes in Windows Azure services

Here are some interesting changes to the Windows Azure services as of June 3, 2013:

1. The following services to be billed by the minute versus being billed by the hour:
   a. VMs, Web Roles and Worker Roles
   b. SQL Server and BizTalk Server running in Virtual Machines (no longer rounding to the nearest hour and no minimums).

   Windows Azure is the only cloud provider today that bills you by the minute!

2. The billing will stop for stopped VMs. No need to delete instances to manage and reduce compute costs.
3. Reduced rates for MSDN subscribers when they use Windows Azure VMs.
4. Public Endpoint Access Control Lists (ACLs) for VMs
5. More Gateway Device Options when setting up Windows Azure Virtual Network: Citrix, F5 and WatchGuard.
6. Windows Server 2012 R2 will be available after preview (also to be added to Virtual Machines Image Gallery, as a pre-built image).
7. SQL Server AlwaysOn will be demo’ed during TechEd- to be generally available later this year for Virtual Machines. 

DOHA EVENT: Data Availability in the Hybrid Cloud Era

Below is an invitation to a joint event between Qatar Datamation Systems, Microsoft, Commvault and HP focusing on Data Availability in the Hybrid Cloud.

It is time to re-think your IT investment and infrastructure to address the exponential growth and availability of data, there is a compelling need for a strategic alignment of the backup recovery, archiving and disaster recovery.
See beyond today and focus on sustained business operations that can withstand threats and pitfalls that befall today’s business establishment.
We are honored to invite you in collaboration with Commvault, Microsoft, and HP to demonstrate the approach for the unified Data Protection & Availability across the software, hardware and cloud stack. We will share our thoughts on what are ahead and compelling insights into investing in the business outcomes and the concept of the Hybrid Cloud Data Protection.

Date:
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Time:
8:30 AM – 1:30 PM
Venue:
Sharq Village & SPA

Agenda:

08:45 – 09:30     Registrations & Welcome Refreshments
09:30 – 09:45     Keynote
09:45 – 10:45     Commvault: The exponential way forward in Data
                          Protection
10:45 – 11:00     Coffee Break
11:00 – 12:00     Microsoft: Realizing the Hybrid Cloud With Windows
                          Azure & SQL
12:00 – 13:00     HP: The Converged Storage Approach
13:00                 Lunch

Creating a shortcut to change the default audio device in Windows

Most of us use multiple audio devices. Sometimes its a headset, at other times it’s the default laptop speakers, and at other times it might a speaker system connected to your docking station or even a webcam microphone.

Unfortunately, switching between the various audio devices can be tedious as you need to change the Windows “default device” or the “default communications device” each time for both recording and playback.

Today we’re going to see how you can create simple shortcuts on your taskbar that let you effortlessly switch between audio devices.

The three shortcuts you see in my little “Audio Control” custom toolbar let me switch between by Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000 headset, Internal Speakers and Logitech c920 HD webcam microphone. Here’s how I created these shortcuts:

Note: I have tried this on Windows 8, but I am pretty sure it will work on Windows 7 too.

1. Download the NIRCMD utility and extract it to a folder on your computer, let’s call it C:\NIRCMD

2. Open your Windows Playback devices (Right click on your speaker icon on the taskbar).

Note the names of each of the devices you need to change. You can click on Properties to view the correct name. You will need the exact same name for the NIRCMD command to work. If you have two devices with the same name (example: “Speakers”) you will need to rename one of them so that they are unique. Click Properties if you need to rename devices.

Note the names in a text file for easy copy-paste.

In my case, the three playback device names are:

• “Headset Earphone”
• “Speakers”

3. Do the same with recording devices. Note the names in a text file. In my case the names of my 3 recording devices are:

• “Headset Microphone”
• “Microphone”
• “C920 Microphone” (renamed)

4. Now open the C:\NIRCMD folder, create a new batch file for each device, let’s call them SPEAKERS.BAT, HEADPHONE.BAT, and WEBCAM.BAT

5. Use similar commands as below for each of the BAT files. Use the device names you copied earlier.

SPEAKERS.BAT

@ECHO OFF
C:\NIRCMD\NIRCMDC setdefaultsounddevice "Speakers" 2
C:\NIRCMD\NIRCMDC setdefaultsounddevice "Internal Microphone" 2
C:\NIRCMD\NIRCMDC setdefaultsounddevice "Speakers" 1
C:\NIRCMD\NIRCMDC setdefaultsounddevice "Internal Microphone" 1

HEADSET.BAT

@ECHO OFF
C:\NIRCMD\NIRCMDC setdefaultsounddevice "Headset Earphone" 2
C:\NIRCMD\NIRCMDC setdefaultsounddevice "Headset Microphone" 2
C:\NIRCMD\NIRCMDC setdefaultsounddevice "Headset Earphone" 1
C:\NIRCMD\NIRCMDC setdefaultsounddevice "Headset Microphone" 1

WEBCAM.BAT

@ECHO OFF
C:\NIRCMD\NIRCMDC setdefaultsounddevice "Speakers" 2
C:\NIRCMD\NIRCMDC setdefaultsounddevice "C920 Microphone" 2

Notes:

• The “1” in the NIRCMD command line argument indicates that the device is set as “Default Device”. A “2” in the command indicates that the device will be set as a “Default Communications Device” (useful for Skype, Lync etc).
• The device name string should be EXACTLY the same that is defined in Windows.

6. Test each batch file by double clicking on them and observing if the default device changed.

7. Create a folder "Audio Control” for your custom toolbar. Your NIRCMD folder should look like the below now.

7. Inside the Audio Control folder, create three shortcuts to the batch files that you created in step 5. Click Change Icon in the shortcut file properties if you want to change the icons like I have done.

8. Right click on an empty space on your taskbar and choose New toolbar.

9. Choose the C:\NIRCMD\Audio Control folder. You now have an awesome new Audio Controls toolbar.

You will appreciate the one-click ease with which you can now change your default audio device in Windows. Leave a comment and let us know your feedback!

Backup to Cloud Part 3: Using Windows Azure Recovery services with System Center Data Protection Manager 2012

With the announcement of the Windows Azure Recovery Services Preview, you can now backup data to Windows Azure using the Windows Backup Agent or from DPM 2012 using the DPM Backup Agent.

We explored how to backup data using the Windows Agent in a previous post.

Now, let’s see how we can use System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 (DPM 2012) to backup data to Windows Azure.

Prerequisite:

1. Install System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 Service Pack 1 with all latest updates.

2. IMPORTANT: Follow part 1 if this post to create a backup vault on Windows Azure, and to create a self-signed certificate from the computer that you installed DPM on.

Steps:

1. From the computer running DPM, open your Windows Azure Management Portal. Go to Recovery Services and click on the vault you created in part 1.

2. On the right, click Download Agent.

3. Choose the agent that works with DPM and install it on your DPM server.

4. Open the System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 DPM Administrator Console. Click Management in the left pane. Click on Online in the left pane.

5. Click Register.

6. Select the certificate that you created in part 1. Then select the corresponding vault on Windows Azure. Click Next.

7. Choose an internet proxy if needed. Click Next.

8. If you are running Windows Server 2012, you have the option of setting internet bandwidth throttling. This option is unavailable in Windows Server 2008 R2. Click Next.

9. Choose a folder for temporarily holding recoverable items during a recovery. This is more like a staging area and you need enough space as the size of data that you anticipate recovering in parallel. Click Next.

10. Choose a passphrase for encrypting your data. Make sure you save your passphrase in a safe place or you will not be able to restore your data. Click Register.

Your DPM server is now registered with Windows Azure.

You can now configure backup jobs to backup to cloud. The steps to configure these jobs are similar to normal backup jobs, except that you choose Windows Azure as your backup destination.

See also

• Windows Azure Backup Preview Part 2
• Windows Azure Backup Preview Part 1

Released: Amazon Web Services Management Pack for SCOM!

Amazon has announced the launch of the  System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) Management Pack for Amazon Web Services (AWS)!

Whether on-premises or in the AWS cloud, this SCOM Management Pack (MP) allows organizations running their Microsoft-based workloads at AWS to monitor their AWS resources directly in the Operations Manager console to essentially provide a true “single pane of glass

What make this Management Pack unique are couple of things. First, it is can separate the server (Operating System) from the AWS Instance (Virtual Machine). Secondarily,  this creates a logical monitoring and reporting mechanism that can intelligently identify where a problem or error state exists, either in the AWS cloud or the serverOS/application running within AWS.

Image Courtesy: Amazon.com

Automatically changing the Windows power plan

I use a Toshiba Dynadock u3.0 to connect my Windows 8 laptop to dual displays, printer, mouse & keyboard, webcam, etc and sometimes when I resume my computer from a Standby state, the displays do not work and I have to restart the computer.

One workaround is to unplug the Dynadock before you resume the computer from standby and re-plug it in once the computer has resumed.

An even better workaround is to create a custom power plan that does not cause the computer to go to standby when connected to AC power. However, if your computer is managed by an organization they might enforce a “preferred” power plan through group policy, which causes your custom power plan to be overridden, leaving you with the same problem.

Today we explore how we can create a custom power plan and create a simple scheduled task that will ensure your custom power plan remains enforced regardless of your organization’s enforced power plan. Bear in mind, that depending upon what privileges your administrator has provided you on your desktop, this method may or may not be effective.

1. Create a custom power plan that does not put your computer on standby. Set this as your current power plan. I’m calling my power plan Dynadock.

2. Open the Command Prompt and type powercfg /list. Note the GUID of your Dynadock power scheme (highlighted below). You will need this in the next step.

3. Open Task Scheduler (you can search for it on the Start menu/screen. Look under Settings in Windows 8)

4. Click Create Task on the right pane.

5. Choose the options on each tab as follows

On the Triggers tab, click New

On the Actions tab, click New

Action: Start a program

Program/script: C:\Windows\System32\powercfg.exe

Add arguments: /setactive <GUID>
(where GUID is the text you copied earlier in step 2)

Click OK

Review the other tabs and make changes if needed, the default settings should be ok.

Supply your username and password when prompted and you are all set!

What you have just done is creating a scheduled task that runs every hour to change your power scheme back to your own custom power plan, even if the system reverts back to the “preferred” plan.

Update (27-May-2013): If you use your Windows Domain account for the scheduled task, the job will stop running once your change your password. A simple way to fix this is to open Task Scheduler whenever you change your password and update the new password, or simply use a local account with admin privileges which will not be required to change password by group policies.

Windows Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) General Availability (GA)!

Windows Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering hit general availability worldwide today.

Furthermore, to eliminate price as a discussion when comparing to the competition, namely Amazon, we made a new pledge to our valued customers. Quite simply, we will match AWS prices for commodity services such as compute, storage and bandwidth. We may charge less, but never more.

“If you had concerns that Windows Azure was more expensive, we’re putting those concerns to rest today.”

Steven Martin, Operations GM – Azure

The reason is simple. We want to remove price as part of the equation. We’d rather compete on the services we provide and the complete vision of the Microsoft Cloud OS which provides rich:

• Infrastructure services
• Platform services
• Hybrid scenarios (move VMs from your datacenter to Windows Azure and back. Use common technologies across private & public clouds (Active Directory for identity, System Center for Management, Hyper-V for virtualization, .NET for development)

Furthermore, based on customer input, we are also announcing two new higher capacity virtual machines:

1. A four virtual processor VM with 28 GB of memory
2. An eight virtual processor VM with 56 gigabytes of memory!

These configurations enable workloads with increasing compute demands.

Oh, and BTW, yes, Azure IaaS runs 100% on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.

Finally, it should be noted just how fast Azure is growing. Bill Hilf is quoted as saying that Azure is growing at the rate of 1,000 customers A DAY and today supports over 200,000 active customers.

Backing up to the Cloud: Windows Azure Backup Preview – Part 2

This is a continuation  of my earlier post on Windows Azure Backup Preview.

In the previous post, we discussed how you can generate a self-signed certificate using makecert.exe on the server from which you intend to backup. If you want to backup from multiple servers, you need to export the certificate you generated on the first server along with the private key and import it into the Personal store of the other computers that you intend to backup from. Windows Azure identifies which online backup vault to upload to using this certificate. You can use the same certificate on computers in different networks, domains or workgroups.

1. Upload the certificate by clicking Manage Certificateon the Windows Azure Management portal.
2. Download and install the backup agent on your server. Currently, the agent supports Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 Essentials and System Center 2012 SP1 Data Protection Manager. You will find the download link on the right pane.

   

3. The Windows Azure Management portal gives you download links to agents for Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 Essentials and System Center Data Protection Manager. However, Scott Guthrie’s blog post mentions support for Windows Server 2008 R2, while a Microsoft employee suggests that WS2008R2 support might be added in coming months.

   I have personally installed the Windows Azure backup agent on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and it worked flawlessly (although it will need installation of more prerequisites, like Windows Management Framework updates, PowerShell, etc)

   

4. Installation is fairly straightforward. Having PowerShell installed is a prerequisite. The Windows Azure backup agent is updated via Windows Update.

   

5. Open Windows Azure Backup using the icon placed on the desktop. On the right pane of the Windows Azure Backup console, click Register Server.
   
6. Configure the proxy if needed.
   
   
7. On the next screen browse for and select the self-signed certificate you created in Part 1of this post.

   
   Click the Register button. The wizard will then proceed to fetch the backup vaults from Windows Azure.

8. Select the Backup Vault you created.
9. On the next screen, enter a passphrase to encrypt your backup with. This ensures confidentiality of the data you backup to Azure. Make sure you save the passphrase in a safe location.

   

10. Click Register and you are now ready to configure backups for this server.

  Scheduling a backup

1. Click on Schedule Backup in the right pane of the MMC console.

   

2. Select the items you need to backup.

   

3. You can use Exclusion Settings to exclude certain file types from being backed up. Click Next.

   

4. Set your backup frequency/schedule on the next screen. You can choose the days the backup should run and at what time. You can execute up to 3 scheduled backups per day.

   

5. Click Change Propertiesif you wish to set network throttling settings, to optimize bandwidth usage during working hours.
   
   

   Click OK and Next.

6. On the next screen, choose your retention settings.

   The more older backups you retain, the more storage you will consume on your Azure subscription.

7. Click Next, review your configuration and click Finish to create the job.

The backup will start running according to the schedule.

On the Windows Azure Management Portal, you can see the servers you are backing up, the storage consumed and more information about your protected items.

Here’s a screenshot of Windows Azure backup agent running on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

If you want to backup beyond just files, and you want to use Windows Azure Backup with applications like SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint, etc you need System Center 2012 SP1 Data Protection Manager. I will write a post on how to make this work as time permits.

See also

• Windows Azure Backup Preview Part 1
• Windows Azure Backup Preview Part 3