System Center 2012 Products doesn't Appear on WSUS

While checking the WSUS Products and Classifications i noticed that some products as the System Center Service Manager is not listed, also i noticed that the System Center 2012 R2 Products are not listed at all even with the latest updates (I am running WSUS on Windows server 2012 R2).

Upon checking the Microsoft Update Catalog on the Internet, i noticed that Service Manager is not listed/published on the Catalog as well, this explains why SCSM updates are not listed in the WSUS. For the current state WSUS is not designed to give SCSM under Products and Classifications as its not yet under the Catalog.

As for the System Center 2012 R2, they were just released less than 2 month ago and the next expected Rollup Will be mostly in the first quarter of 2014. I double checked with Microsoft Support team and they replied back that the Product team is working on WSUS hotfix/Service Pack/Release..........etc that might list the 2012 R2 Products.

Recommended links for WSUS

1. Microsoft Update Catalog: http://catalog.update.microsoft.com
2. Deploy WSUS 2012 and 2012R2 in your organization: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852340.aspx

   

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Two DNS Records with same IP Address. Aging and Scavenging problems with DHCP Lease duration !!

Aging and Scavenging is very crucial and important for Active Directory Integrated zone, it should be carefully planned and configured. We recently faced a problem when a System Admin reported to me having two DNS records having the same IP address in the DNS Active Directory Integrated zone.

The first thing that came to my mind was to check the Scavenging settings however they both (Refresh and Non-Refresh) seem to be fine compared to the DHCP release time. Always remember that the main rule for this setting is that the Non-Refresh Interval + Refresh Interval should be greater than the DHCP release time. You can tweak it depending on your network, IPs availability and how busy is your network with computers in and out but always keep in mind this main equation.

The second thing to check was the DHCP scope properties and specifically the DNS Tab. Upon checking this setting i noticed that Dynamically Update DNS only if requested by DHCP clients is selected as shown below.

It should be noted that with this above setting, only if the client initiate a request to renew or release by maybe using the ipconfig /release command, then the DNS record will be updated or removed from the DNS zone. As per Microsoft Support advice, in most circumstances, the DHCP client won't initiate the DHCP release request (The client is just removed from the network) and the DHCP and DNS integrated zone won't notice that this client is removed and they still think that this client is online.

After the DHCP lease duration ends, the DHCP server will get this IP back and another client may get this same IP and register itself with the same IP. Now remember the main equation we mentioned earlier, since the Aging and Scavenging time didn't end (They are greater than the DHCP lease), the result will be two records with the same IP address in the DNS zone.

The Solution to this issue is to ensure the DNS record is deleted once the Lease time is reached, we need to change the setting in the image above (Scope Properties - DNS) to Always Dynamically update DNS A and PTR Records.

After changing this setting you will need to restart both DHCP server and DNS server services.


Reference Link:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/networking/archive/2008/03/19/don-t-be-afraid-of-dns-scavenging-just-be-patient.aspx

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User Login is very slow on Virtual Machines connected to Broadcom Network cards !

A weird behavior was noticed on few Hyper-V host machines, these machines are mainly Dell Rack servers as the powerful R720 Model. These servers came with mix of Network adapters (based on your configuration) as the Broadcom built in adapters and extra Intel cards. The behavior noticed was that Virtual machines that are connected to the Broadcom NICs has poor performance and user login takes several minutes on these specific machines. VMs connected to the Intel Network card login normally and has better performance.

When I moved the VMs connected to the Broadcom NICs to the Intel NICs they behaved normally and users can login much faster. I then tried to move the VMs on the Intel Cards to Broadcom and we got the poor performance. We concluded it must be something related to the Broadcom Network card.

Troubleshooting steps:

1. Updating the Broadcom NICs to the latest driver. Still No change.
2. We compared the options/Properties of Intel Card vs. Broadcom card and it was noticed that Transmit buffers in Broadcom was 200 vs 500 in the Intel cards, I tried changing it to match the Intel settings. Still No change.

Resolution:

After several investigations, the problem turned out to be in the VMQ setting which was enabled on both Broadcom and Intel. When it was disabled on the Broadcom card, the VM worked perfectly. Looks like the Broadcom card is not compatible with the VMQ feature.

Reference Links:

1. High Ping Latency in Hyper-V Virtual Machines: http://www.flexecom.com/high-ping-latency-in-hyper-v-virtual-machines/
2. Slow Network Access Within Virtual Machines - Broadcom and Hyper-V: http://fundamentallygeek.blogspot.com/2012/11/slow-network-access-within-virtual.html
3. VMQ feature http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg162704(v=ws.10).aspx

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How to Update Lync 2013 Standard Backend Database ?

Microsoft Releases frequent Cumulative updates for Lync 2013 servers and Most of these updates requires updating the Lync 2013 SQL Backend database. In this article I will discuss how to update the SQL Express backend database after installing a new Lync 2013 Cumulative update or specific Rollup that requires DB version update.


First to check the status of the Database after installing the cumulative update and whether you need an update, you need to run the below two commands from elevated Lync Power Shell.

1. PS C:\> Test-CsDatabase -ConfiguredDatabases -SqlServerFqdn servername.domain.com | FT DatabaseName, ExpectedVersion, Installedversion        
2. PS C:\> Test-CsDatabase -CentralManagementDatabase | FT DatabaseName, ExpectedVersion, InstalledVersion

The Output will be something similar to that (This is the output of the second command on one of my deployments)

DatabaseName        ExpectedVersion      InstalledVersion

     ------------                   ---------------              ----------------

         xds                             10.13.2                    10.13.1
          lis                                 3.1.1                      3.1.1

 

As you can see there is a difference between the expected and installed value in the XDS database.

 

To update the Database we need to run the below commands in sequence:

 

1. Install-CsDatabase -ConfiguredDatabases -SqlServerFqdn FEBE.FQDN -Verbose
2. Install-CsDatabase -CentralManagementDatabase -SqlServerFqdn CMS.FQDN -SqlInstanceName DBInstanceName -Verbose

 

 

After that we need to enable CsMobility service and Run Bootstrapper as follows:

 

1. Enable-CsTopology
2. Bootstrapper.exe
3. Reboot the server.

 

This should take care of updating the backend DB and you can double check by running the previous Power Shell again and ensure both expected and installed versions are the same.

Reference Links:

Lync 2013 Cumulative Update List

http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2013/03/26/lync-2013-cumulative-updates-list.aspx

Lync Server Resources

http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/p/links.aspx


 

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UAG 2010 SP4 Released to support Windows 8.1 and IE 11

Good news for all Microsoft UAG 2010 users, Service Pack 4 (SP4) was released officially yesterday to support Microsoft Latest Operating system Windows 8.1 and Internet Explorer 11 (IE 11). This new SP4 provides other important features as the support of Remote Desktop Connection RDC 8.1 and the Remote Apps published from Remote Desktop session Host on Windows 2012 or 2012 R2.

The Link to download the Latest SP4 is as follows:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41181


For More details about features and fixes included in this Service Pack, please check the following link:

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2861386


Service Pack 4 includes some other fixes as well as stability and performance enhancements, I will give it a try and hopefully it will be smooth operation.

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Why DPM can only take offline backup for some VMs under Hyper-V 2012R2 Host ? Need SCSI !!

I published a recent article on migrating/moving VMs from 2008R2 to 2012R2 Hyper-V host (you can check it at http://itcalls.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-to-migratemove-virtual-machines.html ), after successfully moving these VMs we faced another problem trying to backup them. We were using the latest DPM 2012R2 and we noticed that it added these VMs as offline only and for some reason it can't take online backup of them.

After some investigation we noticed an error on the hyper-v host with Event ID 10103 (check below image) which clearly mention that backup will fail because this VM doesn't have a SCSI controller.

So the solution was just to add a SCSI controller even if its connected to nothing, after that online/hot backup was taken smoothly without any problem.

So what was the problem ?

I discussed this issue with several Microsoft support personnel and It turned out that online or hot backup for a VM in 2012R2 Hyper-V host requires mounting a new VHD in the VM and then dismounting it later. Since only the SCSI controller can mount/support hot plugging of virtual disks, it became clear why we need this SCSI controller.

Old version of Hyper-V didn't work this way,  it required that the Hyper-V host mount the guest VHD as part of the backup process which is something Microsoft didn't like as it increase the surface of attack on this host.

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How to Migrate/Move Virtual machines from 2008R2 Host to 2012R2 Host ?

We were recently working on a project with my team to move and migrate several 2008R2 virtual machines from 2008R2 SP1 Hyper-V Host to the latest Hyper-V 2012R2 host and we faced a lot of troubles since the old import and export is not working anymore and not supported.

Hyper-V Virtual machines that used to be exported from Server 2008R2 Host were utilizing the version 1 WMI namespace which resulted in an export file (.exp) which was used to represent the exported virtual machine. When Server 2012 was released version 2 of WMI namespace was introduced and version 1 was deprecated (Server 2012 still compatible with old version 1 WMI namespace but no new features or additions will be added, Microsoft normally use deprecated as a step to fully remove and delete this feature on the next version) and then it was totally deleted in Server 2012R2.

For a list of deprecated and removed features in 2012/2012R2, check this link

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn303411.aspx

After several trials and investigations done by my team we reached two recommended methods for moving the VMs to Hyper-V 2012R2 hosts (Both were confirmed later by Microsoft Support Team) as follows:

1. The Easiest way will be to turn off the VM on the hyper-V 2008R2 host and stop the VMMS service on the host server as well to unlock all VM files. The next step is to copy all Virtual Machine files/folder including the VHDs, XML..........etc. to the server 2012R2 and import them directly.
2. Another method can be done is to use an intermediate server (this can be used if you already exported your VM and deleted the original VMs). In this method you will export the VM from the 2008R2 host and then import in in 2012 Hyper-V host (no need to start it up) and then export it again from the 2012 Host and import it in 2012 R2 host.

For more information about Version 2 WMI Namespace, check the below link

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2012/05/30/the-v2-wmi-namespace-in-hyper-v-on-windows-8.aspx

An excellent resource on Hyper-V generation 2 virtual machines is the 10 blog series by John Howard

http://blogs.technet.com/b/jhoward/archive/2013/10/24/hyper-v-generation-2-virtual-machines-part-1.aspx

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