Posts made in May, 2012

Good question; if you ever ping a DNS name for a node in your corporate environment which is running IPv4, then the Windows 2012 NAT64 and DNS64 kick into action. So what happens – well simply really First, the DNS64 server checks if there is an IPv6 address registered in the corporate DNS servers for the requested machine Assuming no IPv6 address is located within a few milliseconds, a second request is sent to the corporate DNS servers, this time requesting the IPv4 address of the requested machine This address let’s assume is returned as 10.5.1.191 The NAT64 service is asked to create an IPv6 mapping for this to offer back to the requester. First the IPv4 address is converted to Hex as follows 10.5.1.191 becomes 0a.05.01.bf This is then reduced to 2...

Cool Stuff – this just hit the TechNet Gallery; created by Bart Timmermans from Inovativ, added some really cool new features to the awesome Orchestrator 2012 product. This is how Bart introduces this pack on TechNet – Grab it HERE  I hope Bart will keep developing this IP, as it would be really good to see even more activities added to this pack; User Mailbox management comes to mind. Fantastic work regardless. This integration pack is an addition on the already available Exchange Mail and Exchange calendaring integration packs. This IP will allow you to automate all (or at least most of them) Exchange (2010) related management tasks. For example: Adding and removing mailbox permissions Changing the Quota of a mailbox. Mailbox database and DAG...

Deploying the Private Cloud process pack requires a number of pre-requisites to be in place and fully working. In this LONG post I will cover all the key points, but I will assume that you have already deployed working services for Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, Orchestrator and Service Manager; if so, then grab the download for the RTM of the Cloud Services Process pack, and follow along as we get this deployed The steps we will covered are: VMM and SCOM Pro Integation Service Manager Management Packs Service Manager Connectors Cloud Services Runbooks for Orchestrator Cloud Service Process Pack installation Sounds simple right… let’s see if you can keep up   Virtual Machine Manager Connectors VMM and SCOM support a rich integration...

In this post I am going to cut back on screen shoots, and just focus on the main points, if you need deep dives, use the comments and ill try to help, and of course I can strongly recommend the top class guides by fellow MVP Niall Brady which are very technical with tons of great hints and tips. We will  hit the bullets that offer the road map to what I am installing on the servers, and why. At the end of this post we should have the basics all in place across the globe to start getting some work done and focusing on the objective. Server Prep Before I get on the the Configuration Manager installations, this is a little house keeping which needs to be taken care of first, nothing to technical. This should be installed on the 3 servers, just for kicks, and to...

Continuing on the Best Practice band wagon for Orchestrator, this time we will take a peek at the ever sensitive workflows which glue the Runbook’s together. These are all pretty sensible, but none the less, darn right important to get documented, as getting everyone on the same page at the start is always good thing, and far better than having to come back later and sort out what might be an ugly mess. Workflow So what is workflow  – simply the process of getting stuff moving; passing data from one place to another, and making sure its all safe. Obvious really, right? We’ll lets consider some of these… Embedded Credentials One pretty neat option offered in almost all the activities is the ability to deliver some credentials to execute a process...