Microsoft Exchange Server licensing is rather simple. You can choose between two Exchange licenses: Standard (up to 5 mailbox databases) Enterprise (up to 100 mailbox databases) Standard and Enterprise only differ in the number of supported databases! Feedl free to use Exchange DAG with Exchange Standard and Windows Server Standard! To license your clients, you have to purchase a Client Access License (CAL) for each user or device that accesses your Exchange server environment.

Since september 2015, the latest version of HP StoreOnce backup system software is available. The latest release 3.13.0 is available for HP StoreOnce VSA, 6500, B6200 multi-node and all single node systems running software version 3.x. This also applies to some D2D 2500, 4100 and 4300 single-node backup systems running software versions 2.x. Make sure that you take a look into customer notice c03729283 for details on performing the conversion.

While upgrading a rather old (but very stable) Veeam Backup & Replication 6.1 installation to 8.0 Update 3 (with intermediate step to 6.5), I ran into a curious error. Right after the welcome screen, this error message Patrick Terlisten/ vcloudnine.de/ Creative Commons CC0 appeared. A closer look into the BackupSetup.log (you can find this log in the %temp% dir. Just enter %temp% into the Explorer address bar) resulted in this very interesting log entry:

Last week, my colleague Claudia and I have ported a HP ProVision configuration to HP Comware. Unexpectedly, it wasn’t routing or VLANs or OSPF that caused headaches, it was a Wake-on-LAN (WoL). Depending on the used tool, the magic packet (which wakes up the computer) is a broadcast (255.255.255.255) or a subnet-directed broadcast (e.g. 192.168.200.255). So it was important to know what tool the customer used. This is how HP ProVision implements subnet-directed broadcasts:

Important note: It seems that vCenter Server Appliance updates revert the changes. Please check the settings after each update! The VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) can act as a remote syslog destition for ESXi hosts. This is very handy for troubleshooting and I really recommend to use this feature. But VMware ESXi hosts can be really chatty and therefore it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the free disk space of the VCSA.

To be honest: I’m lazy and I have a wife and two kids. Therefore I have to minimize the costs of my lab. I have a physical lab at the office and some VMs running on Microsoft Azure. Azure is nice, because I only have to pay what I really use. And because I’m only paying the actual use, I start the VMs only when I need them. Inspired by this very handy Azure VM wakeup & shutdown script, I decided to write my own script (yes, I invented a wheel again…).

Building networks in the cloud is sometimes hard to understand. A common mistake is to believe that all VMs can talk to another, regardless of the owner, and that all VMs are available over the internet. Some basics about Cloud Service Endpoints and Virtual Networks When we talk about Microsoft Azure, a Cloud Service Endpoint is the easiest way to access one or multiple VMs. A Cloud Service contains resources, like VMs, and it’s acting as a communication and security boundary.

DataCore describes in their Host Configuration Guide for VMware ESXi some settings that must be adjusted before storage from DataCore SANsymphony-V storage servers will be assigned to the ESXi hosts. Today, for ESXi 5.x and 6.0, you have to add a custom rule and adjust the advanced setting DiskMaxIOSize. For ESX(i) 4 more parameters had to be adjusted. But I will focus on ESXi 5.x and 6.0. You need to adjust these settings for each host that should get storage mapped from a DataCore storage server.

When you install DataCore SANsymphony-V (SSV), you will be asked during the setup to allow the installation of some special drivers. DataCore SANSymphony-V needs this drivers to act as a storage target for hosts and other storage servers. Usually you have three different port roles in a DataCore SSV setup: Frontend Ports (FE) Mirror Ports (MR) Backend Ports (BE) Frontend (FE) ports act only in target-only mode. These ports will be disabled, if you stop a DataCore storage server.

One of my longtime DataCore customers has started a project to replace their current DataCore storage servers and backend storage with new hardware. In opposite of the current setup, the newly installed backend storage is now FC-attached. The customer has selected Nexsan E-Series E32V, E32XV and E48V storage systems in combination with DataCore SANsymphony-V10. Who is Nexsan? The question should be: Who is Imation? Nexsan was founded in 1999 in Derby, England, but was aquired by Imation in December 2012.