Posts made by PhlipElder

@emad-r said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:

@guyinpv

How about you build you own, I always loved the simplicity of WebDAV and WINSCP
Especially since you said 40 GB storage.

You can create 2 instances on Cloud VPS and enable private networking and backup files there, and let them access via WebDAV.

Therotically WebDav does support file locking, however you really need to dig deep in that protocol.

Its more RAW and simple and faster.

Check clients like CyberDuck for end users as well.

WebDAV is behind all SharePoint folder access via File Explorer. It works really well.

Why not go with SharePoint online? Check out/in, versioning, reviewer control, and offline capabilities work really well. We've been deploying and managing SharePoint since the 2003 days and any of our clients that adopted it are still using it.

Most modern document creation and editing apps support it and its features.

And, it's cheap.

As I recall, the CEO of DropBox is on the record for the lack of security in the product (read backdoors).

I'm impressed with their forthright business practices and openness with their platform right down to the DWGs.

I'm glad they've been publishing their stats. IIRC, they got a bit of grief from drive manufacturers when they started to publish their experiences?

While at Ignite Dell had their new R7415 AMD EPYC single socket based 2U there. There's also a 1U version in the R6415.

Because of the extra PCIe lanes available in the EPYC CPU setup along with the extra memory channels one can get close to dual-processor performance out of a single CPU setup. So, go 16 Core EPYC single socket, load up the needed memory and storage, and off you go.

I suggest having a boo at this setup. We are ...

@scottalanmiller said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):

@phlipelder said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):

@scottalanmiller said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):

@phlipelder said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):

@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):

Should I stick with 2 CPUs? We currently have 4 cores per CPU and 2 CPUs per server. I would be looking at increasing the core count, too. I don't think adding pCPUs would benefit me.

A pair of 6134 would avoid the Windows Server core tax. It’s tje nest bang for the GHz buck and our goto for most builds.

Need more pRAM then 6134M to gain access to 3TB per node.

That would reduce CPU performance though, in order to get access to RAM sizes above 600% of his current need, not much of a benefit.

I'm not sure I understand?

CPU performance will be impacted a little, which means workloads will run slower. With the only benefit being that in case he later needed a RAM increase of a completely absurd amount that would never, ever happen, he theoretically could do it.

While it sounds nice to have access to memory options greater than 1.5TB, it's not of any real world value to the OP, he doesn't need anywhere close to that. But having slower CPUs will affect him, even if just a tiny bit, in the real world every day that they own the server.

Okay, I understand. The 6134 series are equivalent to the 3/7 series in E5-2600 CPUs. They are lower core count higher GHz parts. We almost always deploy for GHz before core count unless business needs, and budget, allow for the top end processors that have both.

@scottalanmiller said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):

@phlipelder said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):

@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):

Should I stick with 2 CPUs? We currently have 4 cores per CPU and 2 CPUs per server. I would be looking at increasing the core count, too. I don't think adding pCPUs would benefit me.

A pair of 6134 would avoid the Windows Server core tax. It’s tje nest bang for the GHz buck and our goto for most builds.

Need more pRAM then 6134M to gain access to 3TB per node.

That would reduce CPU performance though, in order to get access to RAM sizes above 600% of his current need, not much of a benefit.

I'm not sure I understand?

@wrx7m said in Small colo infrastructure - rack layout feedback:

@gjacobse said in Small colo infrastructure - rack layout feedback:

@jimmy9008 said in Small colo infrastructure - rack layout feedback:

@pete-s
No in rack UPS?

not really needed in a Colo - as it will have (well it should anyway) Dual sourced feeds, and full facility UPS / Isolation / Generator.

Had an issue a couple times, several years ago, at a colo in Los Angeles. Redundant power systems failed and the generators didn't work. Yay!! So, I guess it depends on your budget and how much up-time you really need.

I find that data centre setups tend to skimp on the power side. We find out really quick that there's a problem when there's a cascading failure that eventually wipes the whole DC out.

Such as an ATS (Automatic Transfer Switch) failure and literally blows out taking the entire DC with it.

Another was the recent Azure outage caused by lightening striking a circuit that must not have been properly protected that in turn took out the A/C then boom. This one is actually a lot more common if one pays attention to outage news.

SuperNap (Switch) in Vegas is Tier IV Platinum with true A/B/C circuits throughout the facility. All three circuits are in different parts of the DC building they feed.

We have a Tier III here in the Edmonton region that can't get Tier IV because we only have one power source in this province. They have a similar setup to Switch though only A/B with isolated circuits all the way through to the multiple N+1 generators outside.

If it's too good to be true price wise there is a very good reason why that is so.

@pete-s said in Small colo infrastructure - rack layout feedback:

@phlipelder said in Small colo infrastructure - rack layout feedback:

@pete-s If the runs are not fibre look into 10GbE certified ultra-thin patch cables. We've started using them for all of our data centre deployments as they save a huge amount of space. There's some really good but expensive VELCRO rolls for tying things up. We've picked up a box or two of VELCRO thin and wide plant ties each. Same stuff as the computer ones in black but a tenth of the price. So what if they're green. ;0)

PDU cables rated for 240V are freaking huge and a bear to manage. I'd bundle and run them straight down the middle then to the sizes and up to their position on the PDUs L/R. That's a bit more cabling to deal with, but it would keep the sides clear for the nodes to be pulled without messing around with getting the PDU cables out of the way. Think W for the cable bundles one left and one right.

EDIT: Make sure the PDU cables support a native locking mechanism at the PDU side at the very least.

Great info! I didn't know about the thin patch cables but they look great.

I'll think about what to do with the PDU cables though. Power supply is actually redundant for both nodes so it's not a big problem to unplug one cable to pull out a node and then put it back.

I'm of the mind that if I can do something so as to not reduce redundancy on a setup I'll take that route.

One nice thing about the heavy gauge PDU cables is they tend to hold the bend. So, I'd L bend the cable at the PSU leaving the run about 2" to 2.5" away from the PSU to allow for that time when one would need to be replaced.

I've had to work on rack setups where the folks that wired it up didn't really think things through including myself when setting them up for the first few run throughs.

Simplicity and ease of access are the two primary guiding principles. Oh, and a nice tidy set of runs too.

@scottalanmiller said in Hot Topics for MangoCon 2019:

@phlipelder said in Hot Topics for MangoCon 2019:

I'm thinking a well stocked conference room would be the cat's meow for a smaller-ish conference.

I'd be more than happy to contribute as we're focused on SMB/SME.

Topic ideas?

As far as presentations go for me?

• SMB/SME IT Business Pearls - The ups and downs of building a SMB/SME IT Support Practice
• Server Systems and Fabrics: Building for workloads - Baselining and Building
• Server Hardware: Firmware horror stories
• Hyper-Converged: All things HCI focused
• What's in a Lab: Building on a budget
• Active Directory: Designing for Security and Flexibility
• Group Policy: Lock things down without user complaint
• Windows File & Print: Configuring for security and flexibility
• Remote Desktop Services: Baselining and Designing for user workloads (standalone and farm)
• PowerShell: Got lots of scripts to share and tools guidance
• Windows Cluster: Hyper-V, Storage Spaces, Storage Spaces Direct
• Windows Admin Center: Monitoring
• Monitoring: Telegraf, InfluxDB, and Grafana S/U for Windows

The above is off the top.

I've done a lot of this one over the last year or two:

• Business and Personal Security: Protecting your data, resources access, and identity

How'z that for a start?

I'm thinking a well stocked conference room would be the cat's meow for a smaller-ish conference.

I'd be more than happy to contribute as we're focused on SMB/SME.

@pete-s If the runs are not fibre look into 10GbE certified ultra-thin patch cables. We've started using them for all of our data centre deployments as they save a huge amount of space. There's some really good but expensive VELCRO rolls for tying things up. We've picked up a box or two of VELCRO thin and wide plant ties each. Same stuff as the computer ones in black but a tenth of the price. So what if they're green. ;0)

PDU cables rated for 240V are freaking huge and a bear to manage. I'd bundle and run them straight down the middle then to the sizes and up to their position on the PDUs L/R. That's a bit more cabling to deal with, but it would keep the sides clear for the nodes to be pulled without messing around with getting the PDU cables out of the way. Think W for the cable bundles one left and one right.

EDIT: Make sure the PDU cables support a native locking mechanism at the PDU side at the very least.

@gjacobse We have a tower beside our house that is isolated from the house to prevent a dual-ground situation.

All cables that run into the house are completely isolated to prevent anything jumping in.

We had a client in Edmonton that had a fax modem and a fax service running on a PC. When we set it up the POTS line was grounded prior to running into the PC. Somewhere along the way something was moved around and the POTS line in from the wall got plugged in to the PC modem directly.

An active storm had a strike against the pole in the alley and sure enough besides the boom scaring the carp out of folks the PC was dead. When we opened it up the controller chip on the modem was literally blown out as was the chipset chip under the heatsink. Time for a new PC!

@dustinb3403 said in Dell Perc H710P 1GB:

Does the Perc H710P 1GB raid controller have a battery backup option I'm just not seeing?

I think all of Dell's PERC series RAID controllers are NVRAM for Cache? Meaning, no need for a cache battery module.

We were right into Star Wars books, the original canon Legends, when the new stuff started to come up.

Initially I didn't know that Disney had broken off from the old canon to create an entirely new storyline so there was a lot of confusion as both my daughter and I have read most of the Legends series.

Our favourite character old/new canon is Thrawn. Timothy Zahn is a phenomenal writer and instrumental in setting off the storm of original canon (Legends) based books. The collaboration between the authors of the various series was neat to see. They worked hard to stay loyal to the timelines and technology lines.

As far as the movies go, there's a lot there that needs to be filled in. Some aspects look like pulls from Legends while others are completely off the bend like the method Han received his last name in Solo.

On the To Do list is to pick up the new canon books, especially the Timothy Zahn Thrawn books, and start reading to see where things are coming from.

As far as Rei goes, her Force powers are mythical in nature. That's one thing the new canon follows with the old: There's always to be a balance in the Force between Light and Dark. Thus, her Force senses and abilities are easily on par with Kylo Ren and with development easily with Snoke.

I thoroughly enjoyed Rogue One and Solo though I was disappointed with the naming scene. Solo's cousin is one nasty dude in Legends. I also enjoyed both mainstream movies. The kids and I have watched all six original movies many, many, many times, and same with the new ones.

So long as the new canon book authors and the movie makers work hard to keep things together, like the iron hold Lucas had on the original canon for the first ten or more years, we should see much of the backstory developed in book form which in turn will help future movies as right now they are essentially writing the story on the fly.

Oh, and there are a lot of YouTube backstory type videos on the movies that can really help. We have spent a good chunk of time digging into them. The Fandom WookiePedia on the new Canon is also quite helpful.

Via the ActiveDir list:

https://github.com/CarlWebster

There are some amazing scripts in there for ADDS but also for XenApp, NetScaler, Citrix, and others.

Site: https://carlwebster.com/downloads/download-info/active-directory-2/

@dbeato said in Get User Last Login from Windows:

On a domain, it is kinda of hard to get the accurate logon date if you have multiple DCs and the attribute syncs randomly as users connect through Different DCs in that same manner even if you had only one DNS Server setup.

If there are several sites then one can run the poll against the local DC by running the script there.

It should be able to be tweaked to poll all DCs in the forest if need be. I've not had a need to.

In the same domain where replication is not delimited by WAN Link timing the results should be pretty accurate no matter the DC count.

@scottalanmiller We use this script to check user activities as we're not always updated when users are gone in high churn environments among other uses:

Mohamed Garrana's script here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/216fe6ec-84de-4516-9110-12cc0a7ea9b0/is-there-a-way-to-add-the-last-login-timedate-in-ad-to-an-excel-column

EDIT: Just saw the lack of AD. Peer-to-peer makes this a challenge.

@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):

Should I stick with 2 CPUs? We currently have 4 cores per CPU and 2 CPUs per server. I would be looking at increasing the core count, too. I don't think adding pCPUs would benefit me.

A pair of 6134 would avoid the Windows Server core tax. It’s the best bang for the GHz buck and our goto for most builds.

Need more pRAM then 6134M to gain access to 3TB per node.

@obsolesce said in Need SSL cert - What's next best?:

@marcinozga said in Need SSL cert - What's next best?:

Can you put reverse proxy in front of that appliance and automate certs on proxy?

Hmm, perhaps. I didn't think of that, but there are other services besides https that the proxy would need to pass through to the server then. Is that possible? Users would access the https stuff over web browser, but agents on their computers would be trying to connect to the same server.domain.com over some custom port, lets say 52274 for example.

Split the DNS by setting up machine.domain.com internally with a blank A record to the machine’s IP. That keeps the cert situation tidy.

@obsolesce
www.gogetssl.com
Cheap like borscht.

@scottalanmiller said in Outlook 2016 Export to PST Missing a Lot of Data:

We have an Office 365 account with Outlook 2016 attached and we need to archive the entirety of a mailbox to a PST file. When we do so, the PST is very large, 8GB or bigger. And it gets some stuff. But loads of emails are missing, too.

Outlook is configured to download all, not headers or anything like that. Cached Mode is on, and retention set to all. Slow link detection is off. Folders have been updated.

And yet still, we can go into a folder in the Inbox, and it still says "Click here to download more from Exchange" or whatever. If we click that, email shows up. Navigate away and back, and it is black again. Export it, and it is blank.

How can you get Outlook to get all of the email, not just some?

On-premises we'd run the Export-Mailbox PoSh in the Exchange Console. Is there an ability to do that in O365 (all of our hosted mailboxes are third party)?

Another option would be a MAPI sync tool that could do a full pull. EDIT: Veeam is da bomb. :0)