Transparent Hyper-V VLANs now supported with HP NIC Teams

Using VLANs in Hyper-V virtual machines has always been a bit messy with HP’s teaming sofware, aka HP Network Configuration Utility for Windows Server 2008 R2. Until now a lot of steps had to be taken:

1.       Prepare trunk/channel between Hyper-V host and core network switch(es) and add all possible VLANs

2.       Create NIC Team with HP NCU

3.       Create VLAN’s on the NIC Team

4.       In Network Connections additional NICs are created which each represent one VLAN.

5.       Create a Hyper-V Virtual Network connected to an external network adapter representing a specific VLAN and remove tick in front of Allow management operating system to share this network adapter because we don’t want to see even more NIC’s under Network Connections.

6.       Add VLAN id to virtual network adapter in Virtual Machine, start the machine and add an IP address to the virtual network adapter that belongs to that VLAN.

Step 2

Step 3

A NIC Team with VLANs is recognized by a V in front of the team name.

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Recently HP upgraded NCU to version 10.10.0.0 (9 Sep 2010). Apart from additional support for a new Converged Network Adapter (CNA), one of the notable improvements is that it now formally supports VLANs created in Hyper-V Virtual Machines.

The help file that goes with the new NCU version states that a new VLAN Promiscuous property allows a team to pass VLAN tagged packets between virtual machine and external networks only when there is no VLAN created on that team in the Host operating system. If a team is assigned to a virtual machine, the NCU disables the VLAN button to prevent VLANs from being created on the team in the host operating system. This property is available only on Windows 2008 x64/R2 and only when the Hyper-V role is installed.

VLAN Promiscuous is disabled by default.

If the VLAN Promiscuous property and the VLAN button on the NCU GUI are mutually exclusive. If one is selected or configured, the other is hidden or disabled.

If Hyper-V is installed and VLANs are created on the team in the host operating system, the NCU either hides the VLAN Promiscuous property or disables it.

Step by step Installing SCDPM 07 on windows server 2008

In older Days i posted this i hope it is useful

Step by step Installing SCDPM 07 on windows server 2008

1- Get an up-to date server, and check that the storage is attached to the computer.

2- Using Command line Install SIS Components (cmd>start /wait ocsetup.exe SIS-limited /quiet /norestart),

Check the installation by checking the presence of the registry key [HKLM\System\current control set\services\sis], mostly appear after restart pocess

3- From Features, Install .net framework 3.0
4- Installing Windows Power Shell 1.0

5- Install IIS 7.0 with the following Components:

(Static content, Directory browsing, Default document, HTTP errors, HTTP re-direction, ASP.Net, . Net extensibility, ISAPI Extensions, ISAPI Filters, Server Side Includes, Windows Authentication, IIS 6 management compatibility.)

6- Install DPM2007.

a. The DPM Installation Screen.

b. The license agreement screen.

c. The welcome screen.

d. The pre-requisites check screen.
e. The pre-requisites check summary screen.

f. The user and company information screen.
g. The SQL server information screen.

h. The SQL Service account and Password screen.

i. Choosing Microsoft Updates screen.
j. Customer Experience improvement Program Screen.

k. Installation Progress screen.

l. Installation finalizing screen.

7- Install the following KB:
a. 970867

b. 968579

c. 963102

8- Install feature pack

8- Install service pack 1

I hope that you find this useful

I posted earlier in 2009

Some Notes for SCDPM 2007

1- DPM server must be a dedicated server and can’t be installed with SCOM MS or DC.


2- In Production environment Microsoft recommends to install DPM 07 on a windows server 64 bit OS.

3- DPM can’t protect non NTFS Partitions, also Partitions less than 1 GB as VSS won’t be able to take backups for partitions less than 1 GB

4- DPM doesn’t support ia64 OS

5- The remote instance of SQL server can’t be on a DC

6- If you will install SQL manually, you must create the instance “MS$DPM2007$”, and install DPM on it.

7- It is recommended that DPM have a dedicated SQL server

The New Smart Start 8.7 With a Bug,……………………….

I wrote on 23/11/2011

Smart Start 8.7  With a Bug

I just need to share with you a bug in the new version of the smart start 8.7 whether it is x86 or x64.

I was trying to use the new SmartStart Release 8.7 with a USB-Key. i created a bootable USB-Key like all other versions of smartstart in the smartstart maintenance menu. The Key is working and booting correctly.

And I added the ISO files embedded in the same Flash drive, as shown in figure,

When we choose to install the OS. you have to choose the location of the ISOs,as shown

 but we cannot choose anything. You cannot write the location by hand and you cannot choose the location by clicking through the folders, as shown in the following figure,

This is an Issue found on the New smart start 8.7, which is not found in the previous version 8.6.

Here is the images related to the 8.6 version

From where you just double click the Folder”usb0” and you find the ISO files.

The solution for this point is to use 2 flash drives, one having the bootable USB-Key and the other having the ISO files.

For more information related to this issue I would like to share the link for the Proliant servers community issues

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-ML-DL-SL/SmartStart-8-7-mount-problems/td-p/4788280

HP - Microsoft Forge Four Year Cloud Pact

HP - Microsoft Forge Four Year Cloud Pact


HP (NYSE:HPQ) Enterprise Services and Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) have joined forces to offer global public and private cloud services, a four-year deal that will offer packaged bundles of HP and Microsoft gear and through which HP will resell Microsoft Office 365.


The two tech titans said Thursday that the goal of the pact is to bring customers into the cloud and help them make the shift from capital IT expenses to operational expenses.


For private cloud deployments, HP will offer Microsoft cloud productivity applications like Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Lync Server 2010 as a service from HP data centers as part of its HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Messaging, HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Collaboration and HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Real-Time Collaboration.


For public cloud, Microsoft will offer Microsoft Office 365 and other collaboration and productivity tools.


And on the hybrid cloud side, HP will resell Microsoft Office 365 with HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Messaging, HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Collaboration and HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Real-Time Collaboration.


HP and Microsoft will also share engineering resources to collaborate to deploy, support and enhance the joint solutions. Initial availability is expected this month in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia.


"This alliance with HP not only broadens Microsoft's geographic reach, it gives customers maximum flexibility to choose a cloud computing solution that meets their organization's specialized messaging and collaboration needs," said Mark Hill, vice president, Enterprise Partner Group, Microsoft, in a statement.


The HP partnership comes on the heels of Microsoft offering a bit of insight into Office 365's momentum since it launched in June. While Microsoft hasn't disclosed actual sales numbers, the company said that 90 percent of Office 365 customers are small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.


The two companies have teamed up in the past for cloud computing initiatives. Roughly a year-and-a-half ago HP was revealed as one of the inaugural partners for Microsoft's Windows Azure platform appliance, a private cloud box with public cloud attributes. The agreement would have Windows Azure platforms hosted in HP data centers. To date, that partnership hasn't come to fruition.


The most recent cloud pairing is also two years after the two tech big dogs teamed up for a cloud computing stack. In January 2010, HP and Microsoft launched a new technology stack collaboration for the data center into which the two companies vowed to pump $250 million over three-years with cloud computing as a major focus. The framework integrated Microsoft gear like Exchange Server, SQL Server and Hyper-V with HP's server, storage and networking hardware.

Copied from CRN