I have come across many scenarios where people have their BitLocker Information in AD, and then different funny situation happened along the way that I want to talk about in this blog post.

You will need to install the AD Toolkit or any of the MS Suites that include the NETDOM tool or run from a domain controller.

In our domain we have some machines named by user etc (I didn’t set it up that way, but they like it and it helps “personalise” their work experience.) If a staff changed occurred, the old techs would have to set up the new PC in AD with appropriate permissions, take the old PC off the domain, reboot, rename the pc, reboot, add the pc to the domain, and reboot again.

This tool makes renaming a PC in a domain a one-step process. It changes the name on the PC and in AD, then reboots the machine in 10 (or however many) seconds. No need to open the AD console, physically touch, or remote in to the old PC. The EU is warned with a popup and countdown to reboot.

This name change can be achieved by running the following from a command prompt:

netdom renamecomputer OLDPCNAME /newname:NEWPCNAME /userd:domain\adminaccount /passwordd:password /reboot:10

Note the double ‘d’ for the password parameter, it is needed.

More Info here:

• XP – 7 KB298593
• Windows 8 Technet

Storage is one of the most important aspects of our IT infrastructure.  In this day and age of virtualization it is even more important because our entire server infrastructure may be stored on a limited set of devices.

Of course that is a lot easier said than done, especially for smaller companies with limited IT budgets.  Even the simplest SAN devices can be expensive, and the temptation to save our virtual machines on direct attached storage often wins over the ability to live-migrate virtual
machines between hosts.

In April, 2011 Microsoft released the iSCSI Software Target 3.3 as a free (and supported) download, and suddenly iSCSI SANs were available to the masses.

While Hyper-V has made virtualization available to the masses, I feel the iSCSI Software Target has been one of the tools that has best enabled me to teach true datacentre virtualization to the masses, because after all without Live Migration and Failover Clustering virtualization is really limited to the capacity of a single box.

In Windows Server 2012 Microsoft has taken us one step further: The ISCSI Software Target is actually included in the box.  Enabling and creating a target is as simple as following the steps in this article.

Environment

As with most of my articles, the screen captures will be from servers in my production environment.  As with any technology, if you are going to play with this one I strongly suggest you do it in a lab environment before bringing it into your production network.

Target Server:

I have created a virtual machine called SWMITarget on one of my virtualization hosts.  The resource requirements are pretty simple… as it is not performing any other function, it seldom needs more than 512 MB of RAM; using dynamic memory I give it that as a minimum, but allow it up to 2048 (2GB) for a maximum… in case it really needs it.  I should mention that in a production environment I would never recommend virtualizing your SAN… try to pick up an inexpensive server with a bunch of good drives in it.

While I do not recommend this in most companies, For this environment I am using the same network as my production environment.  In a production environment I would recommend a separate network for the SAN environment for two reasons: security and bandwidth.  As my network is a closed loop with 10GigE switches neither is an issue.

The storage for the target is separated into two: a 40GB system disk attached to an IDE Controller for the Windows Partition, and a 150GB disk attached to a SCSI controller for the LUN (Logical Unit Number).  In reality I will have a Storage Pool of three 150GB disks for my production environment.  To learn about Storage Pools read my recent article Storage Pools

Host Servers:

Because the iSCSI security model will only expose its LUNs to a server (Initiator) that is pre-specified, you should know the IP Addresses of the servers that will be connecting to the shared storage before building the iSCSI Target.  I will be connecting two hosts to this target, and have checked their addresses: 192.168.0.9 and 192.168.0.10.  This could also be done by DNS Name or IQN (iSCSI Qualified Name), but IP is the easiest.

Preparing the Target Server:
Although the iSCSI Software Target is included in the box, it is not installed by default.  It is a Role that has to be enabled:

1. From the Server Manager click Manage, and select Add Roles and Features.  This will launch the Add Roles and Features Wizard.
2. On the Before you begin page read the instructions and click Next>
3. On the Select installation type screen ensure that the Role-based or feature-based installation radio is selected and click Next>
4. On the Select destination server screen ensure that the Select a server from the server pool radio is selected, and under Server Pool select the server onto which you want to install the role, then clickNext>
5. On the Select server roles screen under Roles expand File and iSCSI Services, select File Server and iSCSI Target Software, then click Next>
6. On the Select features screen click Next>
7. On the Confirm installation selections page review the options and click Install.  Optionally, you could also select the Restart the destination server automatically if required box, but if you are only installing these roles then a reboot should not be necessary.

Now that the role is installed, you should now see the iSCSI option under the File and Storage Services tab.

Creating the iSCSI LUN

Before you actually create the iSCSI Target you first have to create the iSCSI virtual disk, and from within the New iSCSI Virtual Disk Wizard you will create the target.

NOTE: If you will be using this target for a Failover Cluster you may want to create a second virtual disk that is 1GB and add it to the same iSCSI Target.  This disk will be used as the disk witness (or Quorum Disk).

• From the Server Manager console navigate to the File and Storage Services tab.
• In File and Storage Services click on iSCSI in the navigation pane.
• In the details pane under iSCSI VIRTUAL DISKS click To create an iSCSI virtual disk, start the New iSCSI Virtual Disk Wizard.
• In the New iSCSI Virtual Disk Wizard ensure that your server is selected under Server, and the disk where you want to store
  the Target disk is selected under Select by volume.  Click Next>
• 
• In the Specify iSCSI virtual disk name screen type a name for the disk and click Next>
• In the Specify iSCSI virtual disk size screen enter the size for the target disk and click Next>
• In the Assign iSCSI target screen ensure the New iSCSI target radio is selected and click Next>
• In the Specify target name screen type a name for your target.  Remember that this target name will be integrated into the IQN which is replete with dashes… I strongly recommend avoiding them here!
• In the Specify access servers screen click Add... to open the Add initiator ID window.
  • Ensure the Enter a value for the selected type radio is selected.
  • In the Type: dropdown select IP Address
  • In the Value box type the IP Address of the first host that you want to connect, then click OK.

  NOTE: You will have to run this process separately for each server that you plan to add.

• In the Specify access servers screen click Add... to open the Add initiator ID window.
  • Ensure the Enter a value for the selected type radio is selected.
  • In the Type: dropdown select IP Address
  • In the Value box type the IP Address of the first host that you want to connect, then click OK.
• Before going forward make sure that all of the hosts that you want to access this target are listed in the Specify access servers list, then click Next>
• In the Enable Authentication screen click Next>.  While CHAP and reverse CHAP are options, I will not go into them here.  Because iSCSI is an open protocol, CHAP (Control Handshake Authentication Protocol) is the only authentication method available for iSCSI SANs, and it has not changed or advanced in over a dozen years.  As such it is not considered very secure.
• In the Confirm selections screen ensure that your selections are correct, and click Create.Once the wizard is complete you should see a results screen like this.  You can close it… your target is done!
• Accessing the Target:The iSCSI loop consists of two distinct parts – the Target, which is the device being accessed, and theInitiator, which is the server (or client) accessing it.  Every Microsoft OS that you might use in a business has the iSCSI Initiator software included… it is simply a matter of enabling it, and \once it is enabled it will start automatically every time your system reboots.

  NOTE: The following steps must be performed on each server that will be connecting to the iSCSI Target.

  To enable the iSCSI Initiator, simply search for iSCSI Initiator and run it.  You will get a dialog box that says:

  The Microsoft iSCSI service is not running. The service is required to be started for iSCSI to function correctly. To start the service now and have the service start automatically each time the computer restarts, click the Yes button.

  Click the Yes button.  The iSCSI Initiator Properties box will come up.  To connect to your target:

• In the Target box (in the Targets tab) enter the IP address of your Target Server, and click Quick Connect…If your initiator connects successfully to the target it should take only a second or two for the Quick Connectwindow to appear with the successful acknowledgement (see screen capture).  If it takes longer than more likely than not something went wrong.  Make sure that the IP address of the Target is right, and if it is then go back into the Target and confirm that you correctly entered the IP address of the Initiators.
• Click Done
• In the iSCSI Initiator Properties box navigate to the Volumes and Devices tab and click Auto Configure.  You should get entries for your LUNs that look like this:There will be one entry for each disk that you connected to the iSCSI Target.
• Click OK.NOTE: The following steps must be performed on only one server that will be connecting to the iSCSI Target.
  • Open the Disk Management console (right-click in the bottom left corner of the screen and click Disk Management).
  • There should be disks that are offline and unallocated – if you created two then there will be two, and so forth.  Right-click on the disks and bring them both on-line.
  • Right-click on one of the disks and select Initialize Disk.  All of the uninitialized disks should appear.  Ensure they are all selected and click OK.
  • Right-click on each disk and create a simple volume, and format them.

  If you were to return to the iSCSI Initiator Properties now, select the Volumes and Devices tab and click Auto Configure again, you would get entries that look like this:

  

  However this step is unnecessary.

  You’re Done!

  Okay, you aren’t quite done, but you have created your iSCSI Target, and connected your hosts to it.  In my next article I will show you how to enable and configure Failover Clustering, how to make your existing virtual machines highly available, and how to create new Highly Available Virtual Machines.

   

Storage Pools are a new feature in Windows Server 2012 that at first glance (at the terminology) may look like  software RAID arrays that have been around for years, but are really a new concept, or at least several generations of advancement on the old concept.  They give us the ability to use disks of different sizes and bus types and create a single ‘pooled disk.’

While Storage Pools are easy to create and use, the technology under the hood is quite complex, and certainly years ahead of anything we had seen before.  Storage Pools leverage the power of virtual hard disks and ‘thin provisioning in order to deliver ‘on demand’ storage.

Let’s create a scenario in which we see the true value of Storage Pools:

Someone in your organization is working on a virtual server that will start small but will necessarily grow over time.  They request 185GB of storage for their VM.  Because of the importance of the project they request the fastest solid-state drives (SSDs) available.  You have one 64GB drive available immediately, but the part is on backorder and will take several weeks to get in.

Rather than simply installing the disk into a server and provisioning the VM onto that disk, you connect it, create a Storage Pool, and add the disk.  You then create a virtual disk on the Storage Pool, and then create a volume on that pool.  You should now have a volume of about 63GB (formatted capacity) ready to allocate to the VM.  The project proceeds.

A few weeks later you receive your new SSDs, and not a minute too soon because the VM is growing.  You install the new disks into the server, and from the Storage Pools screen in Server Manager you add the new drives to the pool, expand the virtual disk, and then extend the volume.  Within minutes you have the 200GB volume (on SSDs) that was requested.

Let’s extend beyond the single server though.  You may need an iSCSI SAN, but do not have the budget for it.  Rather than make do without, you take a NAS (Network-Attached Storage) or JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) appliance which are both much less expensive, and create your Storage Pool using those disks.  Then from within Windows Server 2012 you use the iSCSI Software Target to start creating LUNs on the appliance, thus creating the SAN device you couldn’t afford.

The hardware

I will preface this by saying that for servers I always strongly recommend server-grade hardware.  However sometimes we do not have the budget for the best hardware, and we have to use what is available.  Storage Spaces are supported on any type of drive you can connect to your computer, be it SATA or IDE, SCSI or SAS, iSCSI, or USB.  With that being said, if you are going to use your Storage Space for failover, only SAS and iSCSI are supported by Microsoft.  However it is even possible to create a Storage Pool of USB keys, as long as they are connected to your computer.

Creating your Storage Pool

1. From within Server Manager click on the File and Storage Services workspace.
2. In the navigation pane select the Storage Pools context.
3. To the top-right of the Storage Pools workspace click on the TASKS drop-down and click New Storage Pool…

1. In the Specify a storage pool name and subsystem window name your pool, and select the group of available disks that you will use and click Next.

5. Select the physical (or in this case virtual) disks that you would like to add to your pool and click Next.

6. On the Confirm selections page click Create.

It will not take very long, and you will get a message that you have successfully created a Storage Pool.  Before you close the dialogue box, notice that near the bottom there is a checkbox asking if you want to create a virtual disk when the wizard closes.  Select this checkbox and then click Close.  The New Virtual Disk Wizard will come up automatically.

7. In the New Virtual Disk Wizard select your newly created Storage Pool onto which to create the virtual disk, and then name the disk as you would.

8. In the Select the storage layout screen you are asked to select between Simple, Mirror, or Parity.

Simple: data is striped across the disks, maximizing the capacity and increasing throughput, but without offering any redundancy thus decreasing reliability.  You are not protected from disk failures.

Mirror: data is duplicated on two (or three) disks which increases reliability, but reduces capacity.  A mirror requires at least two disks to protect from a single failure, and five disks to protect from two simultaneous disk failures.

Parity: data and parity information are striped across the disks, increasing reliability but reducing capacity.  It requires at least three disks, and cannot be used in a failover cluster.

9. In the Specify provisioning type screen you can choose either thin-provisioned (your virtual disk starts small and grows as needed) or fixed-provisioned (your virtual disk is created as the fully provisioned file).

10. In the Specify the size of the virtual disk page enter the size of disk, and from the drop-down list select the unit of measurement – megabytes, gigabytes, or terabytes.  Click Next.

On the Confirm selections screen verify that your settings are right and click Create.  This process should not take very long.

Once again, at the bottom of the View results page we have a checkbox, this time asking if we want to create a volume.  Leaving this checked will bring up the New Volume Wizard.

The wizard will look a little different than it did in Server 2008, owing to the fact that you can now provision storage both locally and remotely.  On the first screen you select the server and the disk; on the second screen you select the volume size (which cannot exceed the size of the disk); you then assign a drive letter or, if you prefer, a directory to mount it to (or don’t assign a letter at all); finally you select the file system, unit size, and volume label.  On the last screen you confirm your selections and click Create.

The volume will not take long to create, and you are now done.  You can navigate to Computer in Windows Explorer and your newly provisioned drive is ready to use!

Growing your Storage Pool

Creating it is one thing, but let’s now see how easy it is to extend the volume by adding drives.

When we navigate back to our Storage Pools workspace in Server Manager we see that our newly created pool is there; we also see (under Physical Disks) that we have two 64 GB disks that are unused (thus primordial).

1. Right-click on your storage pool and click Add Physical Disk…
2. Your available disks will be listed.  Select the ones you wish to add and click Next.
3. In the VIRTUAL DISKS context on the Storage Pools workspace right-click on your virtual disk and click Extend Virtual Disk…
4. In the Extend Virtual Disk window enter the desired new size and click OK. 
5. Now you are going to change the context to the Volumes workspace.  Right-click on the volume that you created and click Extend Volume.  Notice when you click on the volume the Disk is listed as belonging to a Microsoft Storage Space Device.  It lists the capacity, both allocated and unallocated, as well as the status and virtual disk name.
6. The Extend Volume window looks identical to the Extend Virtual Disk window.  Enter the new size and click OK.
7. Extending the volume only takes a few seconds, and when you are done you will see that the capacity has been extended. 

If you want to double-check, go to Windows Explorer and navigate to Computer in Windows Explorer and (once you hit refresh) your newly extended drive is ready to use!

Conclusion

Storage Spaces are going to revolutionize the way we (as administrators) think about storage.  We can now hot-add drives to volumes and extend them in seconds and not hours, and because there is no downtime involved we will not have to do any of this after hours.

Going forward we are going to stop thinking about the disk as the main storage unit of storage in our environment, but rather it will be one piece of the equation.  Our volume sizes will not be limited to the size of a disk, but what we need, whether that be measured in gigabytes or terabytes.

Add to the fact that we are not tied to any specific architecture, and you will see very quickly that our storage costs and complexity will drop – even as we add features like mirroring, failover disks, and parity.