Category: Cluster

Recommended hotfixes and updates for Windows Server 2012-based Failover Clusters

Microsoft published a knowledge base article with recommended hotfixes and updates. This will be important article for every engineer who builds or supports Server 2012 clusters. For now there are only 2 updates added but I guess more will be added in time. The article is located here.

Find Missing Hotfixes on Cluster Nodes with PowerShell

Rick Bergman a Microsoft PFE created nice and powerful script that generates report and shows missing patches on nodes of a cluster. You just have to enter the cluster names and the script will find all nodes, compare hotfixes and generate a nice report. Download and find more on the script here.

Microsoft Virtual Academy: Windows Server 2012 Tracks

As soon as Windows Server 2012 went into General Availability MVA released a fair amount of videos to cover the new functionalities. So watch and learn for free:

Windows Server 2012: Technical Overview

Server Virtualization Module

Networking Module

Storage Module

Identity and Access Module

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Module

Web and Application Platform Module

Windows Server 2012: Server Virtualization

Virtual Machine and Scale Mobility Module

Windows Server 2012: Storage

Storage Spaces Module

SMB 3.0 Module

File System Enhancements Module

Windows Server 2012: Networking

Managing Network Infrastructure Module

IP Address Management (IPAM) Module

Hyper-V Network Virtualization Module

Windows Server 2012: Management & Automation

Standard Based Management with Windows Management Framework Module

Multi-Server Management with Server Manager Module

You can also logon to MVA and find the track there.

Cluster disk monitoring for the latest Windows OS MP

Daniele Grandini a well known MVP has made a management pack that extends the monitoring of Cluster Disks for the latest Windows OS management pack. As you know the latest Windows OS MP contains a lot of changes of how logical disks are monitored in SCOM. You can read about all changes in Kevin’s blog. As these changes were introduced there were missing some performance counters for Cluster Disks and CSV. Daniele took the challenge to add these counters for Cluster Disk by creating an management pack. You can read about this solution and download the management pack on his blog.

Thank you Daniele for sharing this solution with the community.

Several Sessions for Windows Server 2012

Below are some interesting sessions about Windows Server 2012. Keep in mind they are mostly overview of the capabilities of the new server version: