Expanding a Windows Server 2008 System partition on a HyperV Guest

While building out some virtual machines for our ILM 2 Beta 3 environment...

We setup a few virtual machines 64 bit Windows Server 2008 SP 1 (since SP 1 is built in to the RTM) running on HyperV. Everything is very slick! Except we only set aside 16 GB for the virtual disk for the system partition. Despite installing SQL, SharePoint, and ILM 2 to another drive the system partition quickly filled up, and didn't have enough room for Visual Studio (even though I wanted to install it on another partition). All of these programs install a lot of stuff on the system partition no matter what I select. While moving the paging file freed up some space it wasn't enough.

Then of course someone went and reread the Windows Server 2008 requirements and they said minimum 10 GB recommended 40 GB. So we decided to go for 64 GB. But expanding your system partition is not all that straightforward.

Here is how:

4:21 PM

If the virtual disk needs to be expanded you need to ensure that there are no snapshots and that it is shutdown. If there are snapshots you will need to delete them. This deletion will require a disk merge to take place and will take a while

Highlight the VM and click settings

Navigate to the Hard drive you wish to expand

Then click Edit. On the choose action screen select expand. (if this is a fixed disk then you will need to do a convert)

Enter the new size and click finish Then wait a while

Next configure the VM to boot from CD/DVD

Configure the DVD to use a windows server 2008 WinPE iso image

Which can be obtained from here by downloading

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=94BB6E34-D890-4932-81A5-5B50C657DE08&displaylang=en

Before starting the VM realize that you only have a short window to tell it to boot from CD/DVD

So Connect to the VM before you turn it on

Within a few seconds it will prompt you to click any key to boot from cd or dvd

Then windows files will load if you are prompted to press ctrl alt delete then it didn't work shut down and try again

If you see this then you are successful. Wait another few seconds for the prompt to appear

Enter DiskPart by typing DiskPart at the command prompt

Select the disk you want (select disk 0) and confirm by typing detail disk

If you need help type list disk

Next select the right volume (select volume 1)

 

Then expand the volume by entering in how much larger to make it -- not the new size, but the difference between the current size and the new size

Then reboot by typing exit then hitting enter, twice (once to leave bootpart and then once to leave the WPE)

(If you want you can also change your boot order as this will eliminate a small delay in the boot process)

Then log on and confirm it is done

 

While I had fun uncovering the secrets of HyperV (thanks to Ian Henry for teaching me about WPE), the most valuable thing I did today was to play tee-ball and soccer with my eight year old daughter and my three sons.

The Experts Conference (TEC) -- the conference formerly known as DEC (Directory Experts Conference)

Well the results are in! A good number of Ensynchians have been selected to speak at The Experts Conference March 22-25, 2009 just outside of Las Vegas, NV. This will be my third time speaking at this event. They renamed it TEC because Gil Kirkpatrick and Company at Netpro have expanded the event to include a conference on Exchange Server. All three of these sessions were highlighted in the press release

Topic	Speakers
Rescue Your Identity Metasystem from Chaos: Using ILM 2 and SQL 2008 Analysis and Reporting Services	David Lundell and Brad Turner
Ride the Chaos through Proper Care & Feeding of Identity Metasystem Databases (ILM, CLM and RMS)	David Lundell and Paul Divan
Taking the next step in Clustering Exchange - Geoclustering with Exchange 2007	Scott Robinson

How to be a pro at Google

My friend and coworker, Brad Turner, once joked that if asked what search engine he used he would say "David Lundell". While I do have a way of phrasing my searches just so, I thought I would point everyone to some great lessons on how to be better at google. I learned about these from a former business associate, Gary Thede, now the President of Boost eLearning.

Check out the following 3 free lessons from Boost eLearning on how to be a pro at googling!

Their three free lessons are part of a bigger pack of 20 lessons. The lessons are all done in the same format: Intro, followed by an Overview, followed by the formula, a couple of lessons on application of the formula, a few tips on the limitations, a quick example for you to try (it doesn't connect you to google), and then a conclusion (see the tabs towards the top of the screenshot:

They have 3 free lessons: 1) Phrase Searching, 5) Wildcards, and 10) FileType Operator (see the above screenshot).

 

The complete list of lessons is here

http://www.boostelearning.com/lessons.htm

If Steve Ballmer wants live.com to be more competive with Google he could do worse than invite/entice Boost Elearning to develop something similar for live.com! I have not tested these techniques on live.com, only on google and just the techniques from the free lessons, but the rest of the lessons do look intriguing.

MIIS/ILM Error: System.BadImageFormatException

So I had MIIS 2003 SP 1 reporting to me that the format of my GalSync-Extension.dll is invalid. So I tried recompiling it -- no luck. Same error. The only MSDN article on this indicated that unmanaged code is being passed to the load method.

Through trial and error we found the solution: stop and start the MicrosoftIdentityIntegrationService. If that doesn't work try a reboot.

I just got pranked by Laura Hunter

Laura Hunter is perpetuating a prank that according to Wikipedia has reached such mainstream acceptance that Youtube pranked all of its visitors on April 1st of this year.

Only Laura has pulled off this prank with such utter geekiness!

You'll probably need help to solve this one. Try this link

Good one Laura!

No spoilers just some hints and links that may spoil it!

SQL 2008: Processor or Server/CAL

Congrats to the SQL Server team for shipping 2008. It looks like a great product. Congrats as well for keeping the licensing costs the same and adding a new option with the web edition.

One question that many still have in mind is how to license SQL server. Processor licensing allows unlimited users and devices, whereas a server license allows unlimited users or devices as long as they have a CAL. Server CAL can be much cheaper than Processor license or it can become much more expensive.

Many ILM customers also have this question, and while the product team pushes you to processor licenses and says that if you want to go Server/CAL you need 1 CAL for each user that will connect directly to the SQL server (in case it does other stuff, or your ILM admins like to run unsupported queries under the hood) for each Management agent (how in the world did 1 device -- the ILM server -- become multiple devices and need many CALs? -- Maybe under some sort of multiplexing scenario since the data is getting pushed to other places) each situation will be different.

So I have developed a formula and a table to help you figure this out

Per Processor Licensing Costs =
Cost Per Processor * # of Servers * Avg CPUs per Server

Server + CAL Licensing Cost =
Cost Per Server * # of Servers + Cost Per CAL * # of CALs

Break Even Formula
# of CALs = (Cost Per Processor * Avg CPU per Server - Cost Per Server) * # of Servers/Cost Per CAL

As you can see the break even point between Server/CAL and Processor comes down to a ratio between CALs divded by the number of servers vs Processors (not cores, but physical packages) divded by the number of Servers. (Remember that one CAL allows one user or device to access an unlimited number of licensed servers -- you don't have to buy a CAL for each server you want to access. See http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/d/f/2df66c0c-fff2-4f2e-b739-bf4581cee533/SQLServer%202008CompareEnterpriseStandard.pdf)

Using the sample licensing costs from Microsoft's site

Edition	Workgroup*	Standard	Enterprise
Per Processor	$         3,700	$       5,737	$     23,911
Per Server	$            730	$         885	$       8,487
Per CAL	$            146	$         162	$          162

 

Using these sample numbers (and your costs maybe different)

 

Break Even Points in terms of CALs per Server vs CPU/Server
	Workgroup	Standard	Enterprise
CPUs/Server	CALs/Server	CALs/Server	CALs/Server
1	25	30	95
2	51	65	243
4		136	538
6			833
8			1,128
10			1,424
12			1,719
14			2,014
16			2,309
18			2,604
20			2,900
32			4,671
64			9,394

 

10 SQL Enterprise Edition servers with an average of 2 quad core processors (that is still just two processors for licensing purposes) and I have less than 2430 (243x10) devices or users to license and am likely to maintain these ratios than Server/CAL should be cheaper than processor licensing. 20 processor licenses at $478,220 and 10 server licenses $84,870 plus $393,350 cost the same. Hiring more people and/or acquiring more devices might tip the balance, but acquiring more SQL servers or adding processors to existing boxes could counter that.

As you can see this is really an enterprise wide decision how will I license SQL servers for my organization.

What to do about users coming in from the web, well you can use processor licensing for those SQL servers or you could go with the web edition for $15 per processor per month. What about data on internal servers? Replicate it to the web edition server! SQL to SQL communication does not require a CAL.

Remember that "SQL Server 2008 Web may be used only to support public and Internet-accessible Web pages, sites, applications, and services."

In terms of features it is comparable to Workgroup edition, so none of the high availability features like clustering or mirroring are supported, only log shipping. There are several minor differences in the functionality of Web vs Workgroup

No ad hoc reporting through report builder, in service broker it can only be a client and its development tools come from SQL Express Management studio.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645993.aspx

IDM in pop culture

Some days I am amazed at how deeply the identity management concepts have penetrated into popular culture:

"Mr Big Stuff, who do you think you are?" clearly relates to an authentication issue or authorization issue.

"Won't get fooled again" by the WHO is clearly making a reference to a Certificate Revocation List, now that I have revoked your certificate you won't be authenticated again.

One area where pop culture is still shockingly uninformed still need help is in asset protection. I guess the authors of many forlorn love songs wish they could have used Rights Management Service and issued a use license that did not contain the permission to "Steal my heart" and "Break my heart."