Monday, March 13, 2017

SCDPM 2016 Storage Setup – Modern Backup Storage

In the System Center Data Protection Manager 2016 (SCDPM 2016), there’s improvement of which type of data to be stored into specific LUN.  I have in the sample are 2 LUNs from NetApps presented the volume to SCDPM 2016 for the Storage Pool.

By configuring this, I’ll have it as Application-aware backup for my SCDPM 2016

In the predecessors (SCDPM 2010, SCDPM 2012), the whole storage pool is mixed together with SQL,VM Backups etc.

However in the SCDPM I can have something like this :

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In order to have the above, I’ll share the steps of how it was done.

Once the LUN is presented to the SCDPM 2016, open up the Disk Manager.  I’m going to use Disk 4 and add into the Storage Pool.  This LUN I’m going to use it for SQL type of backups.  This Disk 4 LUN storage was presented from NetApps.  In the later steps I use a friendly name to distinguish in the Storage Pool.

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I’m going create it as a New Simple Volume (Right-click – Select New Simple Volume)

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In the Welcome to the New Simple Volume Wizard, click Next.

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In the Specify Volume Size, click Next (selection to use entire volume for this backup)

In the Assign Drive Letter or Path display, click the Assign the following drive letter, select letter, then click Next

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In the Format Partition display, click Do not format this volume, then click Next.

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In the Completing the New Simple Volume Wizard, click Finish

(Below is just a sample)

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It will something like a sample below in the Disk Management, once the above activity has completed carry out.

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Switch back to SCDPM 2016 console.

Click ManagementDisk Storage – then click Add at the ribbon menu.

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In the Add Disk Storage display, click the Add button. 

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A warning is displayed, click Yes  to continue

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Once selected and added, key in a friendly name (as mentioned earlier in this blog) to distinguish.  Click OK.

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Double click on the DPM Management Shell to launch the specific PowerShell commands for SCDPM (Note that this is different set of commands from the normal Windows PowerShell)

Once the DPM Management PowerShell is launch type the following :

$vol = Get-DPMDiskStorage –Volumes

$vol

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In the next command key, this is going to change the particular pool for Application-aware backup as shown below :

Update-DPMDiskStorage –Volume $vol[3] –FriendlyName “SQL-NetApps” – DataSourceType SQL

Note : Change the ones in Pink in the above syntax  The rest of it stays.

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DatasourceType supported are :

  • Client
  • SQL
  • SharePoint
  • Exchange
  • SystemProtection
  • HyperV
  • VMWare
  • Other
  • All

Remember to use a unique Volume number.  Usually my Practice is using Disk # – 1  (Disk Number minus 1, refer to the Disk Management)

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Once the Update-DPMDiskDiskStorage shell command is done, navigate back to your DPM ConsoleManagementDisk Storage to see the Preferred Datasource Types has been changed

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When the Protection Group is created, you can then select the appropriate storage for the kind of backup.  With this Workload Aware Storage, it will help to reduce storage costs.  

Hope this helps.

keywords : Application-aware backup, SCDPM 2016, System Center Data Protection Manager 2016, modern backup storage

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Network Connection Folder Empty

Recently I had an issue with Server not displaying the Network Adapters.

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I checked and ping and it was okay.  But when I did a Failover Cluster Validation, it displayed error cause it couldn’t find the network.

The following are the steps that was carried out to have it resolve

  • Open regedit .
  • Drill to the following in the registry

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network

  • On the right-panel look for Config.  Delete the key.

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  • No worries.  When delete this key, it’s just removing the configuration cache.
  • Restart the server or just reopen the Control PanelNetwork, it will display once again.

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keywords : Network Connection missing, network not display, network connections folder is empty, not showing network adapter list

Monday, February 27, 2017

How to remove “Unsupported Cluster Configuration” in SCVMM 2012

Recently I had a incident in one of the end user’s environment. 

The scenario is as follow :
The storage LUNs where the Virtual Machines resides had several Hard Disks failed.  There were not enough hotspare disks assigned to it.  The only way is to replace the faulty Hard Disks in the storage and then reconfigure it again.

Once it was done, the LUN was presented back to the Hosts and Failover Cluster recognize the LUN and then VMs were configured.

However, in the System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM 2012) has an issue.  It contained two identical records.  One is displayed as Running and another as Unsupported Cluster Configuration

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Steps Taken

  • Ensure the VM is running in the Cluster
  • Launch the Virtual Machine Manager Command Shell in the Server that is running the SCVMM 2012
    (right-click run as administrator)
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  • Key in the command as follow in the VMM Command Shell that was launched :

    Get-SCVirtualMachine | where { $_.Name -EQ "Duplicate-ComputerName"} | fl name, status


    Note : Replace the Pink with your computer name that you want to remove from the SCVMM.   Remember the rest of the commands stay, including the quotes.
  •  It will display something like the screen below :

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  • Next is to execute the command to  remove from the SCVMM database
    Get-SCVirtualMachine | where { $_.Name -EQ "Duplicate-ComputerName"} | Remove-SCVirtualMachine –Force

    Note : Replace the Pink with the computer name that you want to remove from the SCVMM.  The rest of the commands stays inclusive the quotes.  This is going to remove from the SCVMM DB but not removing the VM.  Remember the VM needs to be up and running.
  • In the SCVMM, the record will be removed and you need to do a refresh to once again get the information from the Cluster. 
    Right click on the Cluster in the VMM and click refresh

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After the SCVMM has completed the job (getting the information from the Cluster), the Unsupported Cluster Configuration is no longer in the record.  The one that is healthy is displayed in the cluster information.

A thank you to Aidan Finn and Law.

keywords : error 2604, unsupported cluster configuration, system center virtual machine manager, scvmm hyper-v, duplicate computer name in scvmm 2012, how to remove computer from scvmm 

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Cluster Disk in Failover Cluster Failed to Start (File Server)

Recently one of the customer had an upgrade in their firmware of their storage.  Their setup is as follow :

2 Hosts in Windows 2012 Server.  Using a shared storage and it’s setup with Windows 2012 Failover Cluster.

After both the hosts were rebooted, the Cluster Disk that was assigned as FileServer in the Failover Cluster failed to start.  From what I know it’s because both the hosts are assuming they are the owner of that particular Disk.  So both are locked to the resources.

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I clicked on the “more details” to check it displayed as :

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Further probing into the Disk Management and found that the Disk is in RAW. Before this it was in NTFS format.

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Next I go into the shared Storage Management (which is the Dell Storage Manager in this scenario), tried to repair but in vain.  It displayed as follow :

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After going through the logs as earlier on, found that the resource was locked due to both the hosts are assume they are the rightful owner and both are trying to write at the same time.  In a Windows cluster environment, there’s only one owner at any one time.

Therefore I launched a PowerShell ISE in Administrator mode.

Execute a command to clear the Cluster Disk Reservation on both the hosts

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In my scenario as above, in the Disk Management it shows as Disk 6, I execute the command of :

Clear-ClusterDiskReservation –disk 6

 Note : change only the one in Pink according to the info from disk management

Resource of the command : https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee461016.aspx 

After that, I started the FileServer and no issue.  The format was in NTFS and content was intact.

In the Failover cluster of the File Server :

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Hopefully this helps.

keywords : cluster disk reserve, error 219, dell storage manager, disk in RAW format, incorrect function, cannot start up cluster disk file server, the requested resource is in use, persistent reservation