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Educational Episodes: Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI)

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Microsoft SQL Server High Availability: Always On Availability Groups VS Failover Cluster Instances. What to choose and when?

Microsoft SQL Server is the backbone of many businesses, but when it comes to high availability, which path should you take: Always On Availability Groups (AG) or Failover Cluster Instances (FCI)?

Turn two VMware vSphere hosts into a full-blown cluster without breaking the bank, in 5 minutes and 5 easy steps

Security, privacy, and performance have always been a priority for many businesses even over the limitless scalability offered by the cloud. Join us for a new video, on how to transform two on-prem VMware vSphere hosts into a bulletproof high-availability (HA) cluster for improved cost-effectiveness, high VM performance and enhanced security, in 5 easy steps.

What is V2V (Virtual to Virtual)?

V2V in Focus: What’s virtual-to-virtual migration all about? Learn what V2V is, why it matters, and how it works. Check out reasons for migration, hot vs. cold migration, and tools like StarWind V2V Converter.

StarWind SAN & NAS as Hardened Repository for Veeam B&R

Ransomware is a global threat, and the best answer to it is to have immutable backups. Veeam’s Hardened Backup Repository is an efficient and cost-effective solution, but it can require some effort to configure. StarWind simplifies the process, allowing you to easily set up an immutable backup repository with just a few clicks.

ESXi is free… So why would you buy an ESXi anyway?

Most admins know that VMware offers Free and Evaluation versions of their hypervisor. However, there are still some nuances that explain why people would actually buy ESXi.

How to Convert Hyper-V to VMware VM

VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V are among the most popular type 1 enterprise hypervisors. However, their VM formats are incompatible, and it is not uncommon for users to look for an easy way to migrate a virtual machine from one hypervisor to another.

Windows Server 2022 Hyper-V VM Licensing

Software and feature licensing is often complex, requiring in-depth expertise to be licensed correctly and efficiently. Microsoft ecosystem is no exception.

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Ubuntu: Manage your SQL Server from Linux

We will see how to install and use tools to manage your SQL Servers. We will use the version 13, who is compatible with Ubuntu. You can use these drivers from SQL Server 2008 to 2016, and it’s compatible with Azure SQL Database too.

Choosing ideal mini server for a home lab

Yesterday I saw a blog post in Homelab subreddit discussing what Intel NUC to choose. I have spent quite some time recently to choose the right server for my homelab expansion and I have considered a lot of options.

I was also looking at Intel  NUC as many other fellow IT professionals, but luckily last month I read on Tinkertry.com that Supermicro had just released new Mini-1U SuperServers – SYS-E300-8D and SYS-E200-8D.  I had some discussions with my colleagues and other people on Reddit and TinkerTry and I came to the conclusion that if you are aimed to run home lab for virtualization Intel NUC shouldn’t be considered. I believe SuperMicro is a new king on the market of mini servers for home lab.

  • Oksana Zybinskaya
  • August 9, 2016
  • 3 min to read

Shared virtual hard disks in Hyper-V 2016

A new feature called VHD Set for Hyper-V in Windows Server 2016 has been introduced by Microsoft. It allows sharing virtual hard disks between several servers in order to implement guest cluster easily without using complex technologies such as NPIV, virtual HBA, or virtual SAN.

The HTML5 Web Client Fling

VMware has long stopped adding newly released features and functionality into the old С# client in hopes to push their customers into using the vSphere Web Client.  However, even by restricting new features only to the Web Client adoption has been slow – partly due to change, no one likes change, but mostly due to the slowness and the overall sluggishness that is experienced using the flash-based vSphere Web Client.

How to Deploy Switch Embedded Teaming (SET) Using SCVMM 2016?

With the release of Windows Server 2016, Microsoft is introducing a new type of teaming approach called Switch Embedded Teaming (SET) which is a virtualization aware, how is that different from NIC Teaming (LBFO), the first part it is embedded into the Hyper-V virtual switch, that means a couple of things, the first one you don’t have any team interfaces anymore, you won’t be able to build anything extra on top of it, you can’t set property on the team because it’s part of the virtual switch, you set all the properties directly on the vSwitch. This is targeted to support Software Defined Networking (SDN) switch capabilities, it’s not a general purpose use everywhere teaming solution that NIC Teaming was intended to be. So this is specifically integrated with Packet Direct, Converged RDMA vNIC and SDN-QoS. It’s only supported when using the SDN-Extension.

  • Oksana Zybinskaya
  • August 3, 2016
  • 5 min to read

Microsoft’s Server Management Tools Now Supports Windows Server 2012

New Server Management Tools (SMT) suite now on supports Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2, as it has been recently announced by Microsoft.

SMT includes a collection of well-known tools, such as Task Manager, Registry Editor, Event Viewer, Device Manager and Control Panel. Windows Update has been also added to that list few months ago. The difference is that now these tools actually are services housed in Microsoft’s Azure datacenters. Organizations must set up an on-premises gateway (which is called “server management gateway” by Microsoft) in order to use them.

“All SMT tools, except Windows Update and Device Manager, will now work with Windows Server 2012 R2 and 2012,”- Microsoft.

Deploy an Azure VM from a generalized image in Azure RM portal

Microsoft Azure provides a way to deploy Azure VM from the Marketplace or from a generalized image. When you deploy the Azure VM from the Marketplace, no customization is deployed. You have to configure the operating system as your master. When you have several Azure VMs to deploy, the customization of each system can be time consuming. A lot of companies have a master or a baseline image in a VMDK for VMWare, in a VHD(X) for Hyper-V or in a WIM image. In this topic we will see how to create a generalized image from a single Azure VM and how to deploy Azure VM from this generalized image.

vSphere Replication traffic isolation

vSphere Replication has proved to be a great bonus to any paid vSphere license. It is an amazing and simple tool that provides cheap and semi-automated Disaster Recovery solution. Another great use case for vSphere Replication is migration of virtual machines.

Instant Clone functionality in VMware Horizon 7 – how quickly and efficiently it works

As far back as at VMworld 2014, VMware announced VMware Project Fargo technology, also broadly known as VMFork. It allows to make a working copy of a running virtual machine on VMware vSphere platform very fast.

  • Oksana Zybinskaya
  • July 21, 2016
  • 3 min to read

VMware’s EVO:RAIL fail as a lesson for Microsoft’s Azure Stack

As we know, VMware’s first attempt in the field of hyperconvergence, the EVO:RAIL, was a good quality software product set, which nevertheless failed because of the licensing policy. Specifically, it demanded that buyers acquire new vSphere licences, with no exception for existing vSphere users who liked the idea of adopting hyperconverged infrastructure.