Monthly Archives: September 2014

Microsoft Exchange Hosting

Microsoft Exchange – No DNS servers could be retrieved from network adapter

The other day whilst virtualising an Exchange 2010 server from Hyper-V to VMware we found that mail routing outbound stopped working.

When looking in the event log we found;

Error ID: 16025

No DNS servers could be retrieved from network adapter %1. Verify that the computer is connected to a network and that the Get-NetworkConnectionInfo cmdlet returns results.

Continue reading Microsoft Exchange – No DNS servers could be retrieved from network adapter

veeam 2014 logo color tag

How to setup Veeam Direct SAN Backup over iSCSI – Unleash the Speed!

On twitter Rick Vanover posted this link, which intrigued me, giving your Veeam Server access to the VMware VMFS volumes for quicker backups. Sounds dangerous, or maybe it isn’t!

So I tried it, and I managed to cut my test backup times from 24 minutes to 12 minutes! Also the snapshots are removed from the VMs within seconds.

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1. Setup iSCSI initiator on your Windows Veeam server, and get the IQN info. Setup your NIC’s in the correct VLAN for the iSCSI access and with an appropriate IP address.

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2. On the storage device, allow access to the necessary volumes from your Veeam server. If possible, set it for read only access! (Here’s me setting up access for a Nimble Device).

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3. In the iSCSI initiator dialog box, add in the iSCSI discovery IP, and ensure all your volumes show.

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4. ****The Important bit**** Open disk part and enter the following “automount disable”

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5. Open up computer management and you should see that you now have disks showing from the Storage Array, for me, I had to click these to “Online” otherwise Direct SAN access wouldn’t work.

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6. Within Veeam I then changed my Backup Proxy settings to only use “Direct SAN” mode so that I could test it and ensure it was working.

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7. Run a backup and enjoy faster results, here’s my before and after shots (the second run I ran “Active Full” as the job is set to do reversed incremental).

Before;

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After;

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Dean (twitter)

Cisco CCNP Training Course – Day 5 – ROUTE

Forgive me for taking a few days off from blogging about my training course.

As you’ll guess I’ve done the 2 week course. It was very good, The Knowledge Academy provided a fantastic trainer in Darron Smith.

So onto my Day 5, its the big one in Route!! BGP!!!

Heres what we will cover;

  • BGP
  • BGP designs
  • BGP quick facts
  • BGP Connection Redundancy
  • BGP Topologies
  • BGP Packets
  • BGP Process
  • BGP Tables
  • BGP Path Selection

So lets dive in!!!!

Continue reading Cisco CCNP Training Course – Day 5 – ROUTE

Nimble Storage Array 660x495

Nimble Storage – How to update an array

In keeping with the whole Nimble is really to use theme, updates are the same,

lets take a look;

1. Open up your web portal to the Nimble Array, click on Administration and then Software.

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2. Click the download button, select the update needed, and the progress will be displayed.

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3. Now click the update button, Accept the EULA.

  • a health check will be performed ensuring both controllers can get to the correct LAN segments first;
  • Once passed the update will begin, going through 7 stages (some of the screenshots show these stages as well).

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5. Once completed you will see the below screen, listing the new firmware as current, and the old firmware as previous;

2014-09-15_15-37-06-0009Nimble

It’s that quick and simple we even do this for customers during business hours and touch wood we have yet to have an issue!

Dean