Centralized Licensing Management for Microsoft VDI

This blog post introduces the new Centralized Licensing Management work, implemented in Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) as a part of the RemoteFX feature, for centrally managing the licensing configuration in a Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) deployment.
This post assumes that you have a basic understanding of the following:

• Windows PowerShell
• Various Remote Desktop Services role services
• Remote Desktop Licensing
• Microsoft VDI with Remote Desktop Services

What is Centralized Licensing Management?

Centralized Licensing Management is a new sub-feature that has been implemented in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, as a byproduct of RemoteFX work. It enables Microsoft VDI administrators to specify licensing configuration for the entire VDI deployment centrally from one place; that is, from the RD Connection Broker server.

Why is centralized licensing management required?

Until Windows Server 2008 R2, in a VDI deployment the RD Virtualization Host server was not aware of licensing settings because only the RD Session Host server participated in licensing and performed license validations for the client session/connection requests. But the new licensing model for Microsoft VDI (in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1) requires that the Remote Desktop licensing mode and the list of Remote Desktop license servers must be specified in all RD Session Host servers (configured in VM redirection mode) as well as in all the RD Virtualization Host servers (with RemoteFX enabled), because the RD Virtualization Host servers can also participate in VDI licensing. Therefore, an option was provided for the admins to specify licensing configuration on the RD Connection Broker server. This would address the following concerns:

1. Lack of a GUI interface for specifying a licensing configuration on an RD Virtualization Host server, which makes it difficult for VDI administrators to configure this on multiple RemoteFX-enabled RD Virtualization Host servers.
2. Licensing mode mismatch across the RD Session Host server configured for VM redirection and RD Virtualization Host servers. (Licensing mode inconsistency across the deployment leads to license wastage and/or potential service denials.)

How does centralized licensing management work?

As a part of this feature, the licensing settings (Remote Desktop license type and the list of specified Remote Desktop license servers) can be specified on the RD Connection Broker server. This feature also provides an option to turn centralized licensing management ON or OFF (in case the VDI administrator decides to configure licensing separately on different servers). A VDI administrator can configure centralized licensing management on the RD Connection Broker server by using one of the following:

• Remote Desktop Connection Manager UI
• The Remote Desktop Services module for Windows PowerShell

Configuring licensing through the RD Connection Broker UI

1. On the RD Connection Manager (sbmgr.msc) home page in the middle pane, there is an entry for RD Licensing under the Virtual Desktops: Resources and Configuration table. Click the Specify link that corresponds to RD Licensing to open Virtual Desktops Properties.
2. When accessing centralized licensing for the first time, because it is disabled by default, all the other fields and buttons will be grayed out except the Apply the following settings to all servers check box.
3. Enable central mode by selecting this check box, if it is not already enabled.
4. Select the desired licensing mode, add the Remote Desktop license servers that you want to specify, and then click OK or Apply.
5. These settings will be propagated to the RD Session Host server in redirection mode and all the RemoteFX-enabled RD Virtualization Host servers which are added on the RD Connection Broker server.
6. As mentioned in Virtual Desktop Properties, the servers configured later will automatically inherit these licensing settings.

If these licensing settings need to be modified later, just open this Properties page again, update the licensing mode or the list of Remote Desktop license servers, and then click OK or Apply. The modified settings will be applied on all the servers that are configured on the RD Connection Broker server.
If the administrator decides that the licensing settings should not be centrally managed and wants to specify different licensing settings manually on different RD Virtualization Host servers, he can simply clear the Apply the following settings to all servers check box and specify licensing settings separately on all the RD Virtualization Host servers which have RemoteFX enabled.

Configuring licensing through the Remote Desktop Services module for Windows PowerShell

1. On an elevated Windows PowerShell command prompt, execute the following command: ‘import-module remotedesktopservices;cd RDS:\connectionbroker\VirtualDesktops\LicensingSettings; ’
2. This node displays licensing settings configured on the RD Connection Broker server.
3. The UseCentralLicensingSettings property specifies whether to use the centralized licensing settings. The LicensingType property denotes the licensing type for the VM redirectors and RD Virtualization Host servers. The LicenseServers container contains the list of license servers to be used.
4. Because central licensing is disabled by default, UseCentralLicensingSettings will be 0, LicensingType will be 5, and LicenseServers will be empty when accessing it for the first time.
5. Execute the command set-item UseCentralLicensingSettings 1 to enable the central management of licensing settings. If enabling central management for the first time, the licensing type also needs to be specified in this command: set-item UseCentralLicensingSettings 1 –LicensingType <value>, where <value> is the desired value of the licensing type.
6. Execute the command set-item LicensingType <value>, where <value> can be 2 (Per Device mode) or 4 (Per User mode).
7. Execute the command new-item .\LicenseServers <value>, where <value> is the name of the license server, for each of the license servers that you want to specify.
8. These settings will be propagated to the RD Session Host server in redirection mode and all the RemoteFX-enabled RD Virtualization Host servers that are added on the RD Connection Broker server.
9. The servers configured later will automatically inherit these licensing settings.

If these licensing settings need to be modified later, in an elevated Windows PowerShell window, execute import-module remotedesktopservices; cd RDS:\connectionbroker\VirtualDesktops\LicensingSettings; and update the licensing mode or the list of Remote Desktop license servers as desired. The modified settings will be applied on all the servers that are configured on the RD Connection Broker server.
If the administrator decides that the licensing settings should not be centrally managed and wants to specify different licensing settings manually on different RD Virtualization Host servers, he or she can simply execute set-item UseCentralLicensingSettings 0 and specify licensing settings separately on all the RD Virtualization Host servers that have RemoteFX enabled.

Windows 7: Boot from VHD First Impression

Hello,
In my previous post i.e. Windows 7: Boot from VHD First Impression: Part 1 we seen creating and attaching the VHDs. Using the Disk Management or Diskpart utility we can attach the existing VHDs. In this part we will actually cover the boot from VHD feature.
We will cover the different ways by which we can actually boot from VHD file. In order to boot from VHD, the bootloader needs to support boot from VHD file. So, what are the basic benefits of having VHD Booting.
You can use Boot for VHD feature in your test environment or development where you want to try out different applications or devices, which is not possible in Virtual Environment.
Booting from VHDs means booting the machine as if running from primary hard disk so your operating system will leverage all the hardware available in your system like Graphics, Wireless, USB etc. which is not possible in most of the virtual environment.
This is good for multi-boot environment where you want to run multiple operating systems on same machine without losing the performance. This is possible by VHD booting. As every VHD is like a Hard disk with primary partition; so you can create multiple VHDs with operating systems installed onto it.
In this discussion we will cover the following key points.

• Booting a Windows 7 VHD or Windows Server 7 (aka Windows Server 2008 R2) VHD
• Preparing VHD file using Windows 7 or Windows Server 7 Media or existing VHD running Hyper-V
• Adding the VHD entry in Boot Menu for VHD Boot and then Boot from VHD

Booting a Windows 7 VHD or Windows Server 7 (aka Windows Server 2008 R2) VHD
This feature is only supported by the Windows 7 client VHD and Windows Server 7 aka Windows Server 2008 R2 VHD.
In order to boot from VHD we need to prepare the VHDs using any of the two methods.

1. The first method is obtaining the existing Windows 7 or Windows Server 7 DVD VHD and make sure it is sysprepped to clear all the hardware information. So why sysprep ?

   Benefits of Sysprep

   Sysprep provides the following benefits:
   
   • Removes system-specific data from Windows. Sysprep can remove all system-specific information from an installed Windows image, including the computer security identifier (SID). The Windows installation can then be captured and installed throughout an organization.
   • Configures Windows to boot to Audit mode. Audit mode enables you to install third-party applications and device drivers, as well as to test the functionality of the computer.
   • Configures Windows to boot to Windows Welcome. Configures a Windows installation to boot to Windows Welcome the next time the computer starts. In general, you configure a system to boot to Windows Welcome immediately before delivering the computer to a customer.
   • Resets Windows Product Activation. Sysprep can reset Windows Product Activation up to three times.
   For more information about sysprep visit How sysprep works ? and What is Sysprep ? that will give you clear idea about sysprepping a system.
   
2. Applying a WIM Image directly to the VHD file using ImageX utility. The ImageX utility can be used to extract the required operating system edition directly to the attached VHD file in Windows 7

The ImageX utility is part of WAIK. i.e. Windows Automated Installation Kit. You can download the WAIK for Windows 7 from here

Preparing VHD file using Windows 7 or Windows Server 7 Media or existing VHD running in Hyper-V

From my previous post create a new VHD and attach it using Disk Management. Now, you will have newly attached X: created with label 'Windows7', which is of size 20 GB.
Now, you will require the 'install.wim' file from the Windows 7 Media or Windows Server 7 Media. Along with that we will require ImageX utility.
In order to extract image to the X: we will use the following syntax.


d:\imagex>imagex /apply d:\install.wim 1 x:\
In the above syntax we can see we have used 'd:\install.wim' followed by '1' and 'X:\' (this is the attached VHD.)  Now this 1 denotes Image Index i.e. edition of the Operating System.
As you can see I have used the 'install.wim' file from the Media of Windows Server 7 Beta and 1 denotes Enterprise Edition.
In order to check the Image Index we will use the following command
d:\imagex>imagex /info "d:\Download\Windows Server 7 R2\install.wim" (i.e. the location of the install.wim file)

Once finished the extracting the OS using ImageX it will look like this

Once the image is applied to particular drive in our case X:\. Detach the X: Drive from the Disk Management. Now your VHD file is ready to boot.

Preparing the VHD file using Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
If you have Windows Server 2008 running Hyper-V, launch the virtual machine running Windows 7 or Windows Server 7 aka Windows Server 2008 R2 and the run the following command
c:\windows\system32\sysprep>sysprep /generalize /shutdown

After running the above command in the virtual machine, this will launch the System Preparation Tool 3.14. Select the checkbox for 'Generalize' and click on OK.
Once the sysprep is completed the virtual machine will be shutdown and ready for booting. You can copy that VHD now.
Note: Sysprep does not work on upgrade. You need to have Clean Installed Windows 7

Adding the VHD Entry in Boot Menu and then Boot from VHD
Now that we have successfully created VHD files. The last step is adding boot entry for the VHD file in your Windows 7 or Windows Server 7 using BCDEdit.exe tool.
For this step open the Elevated Command Prompt with Administrator Privileges and type the following commands.
C:\>bcdedit /copy {current} /d "My New VHD Description"
Note: This will Return the GUID of the Loader Object that you will use to replace <guid> below
C:\>bcdedit /set <guid> device vhd=[driveletter:]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
C:\>bcdedit /set <guid> osdevice vhd=[driverletter:]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
Note: vhd=[driveletter:]\<directory>\<vhd filename> is the new syntax supported for BCDEdit.exe to locate VHD File and Bootmgr will locate the partition containing the VHD File to boot from.
C:\>bcdedit /set <guid> detecthal on
Note:
Following is the attached screenshot of the my machine. In this case I have Windows 7 as the default OS and I have added the VHD File in the Boot Entry.

Well just after that run the following command to test if your boot entry is successfully created using C:\>bcdedit /v


Similarly, if you want to add multiple VHDs into Boot entry you can use the following lines to the command prompt
C:\>bcdedit /copy {current} /d "New VHD Description"
C:\>bcdedit /set <guid> device vhd=[driveletter:]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
C:\>bcdedit /set <guid> osdevice vhd=[driverletter:]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
C:\>bcdedit /set <guid> detecthal on
Note:  detecthal is used to force windows to auto detect the Hardware Abstraction Layer.
If you want to delete any existing VHD entry from the Boot Menu you can always use the command C:\>bcdedit /delete <guid> /cleanup This deletes the specified operating system entry from the store and removes the entry from the display order.
Well, we are ready to Boot from VHD. Once you restart the computer you will see additional entry in Boot Menu along with the default Windows 7 or Windows Server 7 OS.
Here is the screenshot from newly booted Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta from VHD. I have installed Desktop Experience Pack and enabled Aero Glass.

How to Become an Exchange MVP

How do I become an Exchange MVP?

This is a question that both current Exchange MVPs and Microsoft employees get quite often.  The fact is, there's really no answer to this question.
The MVP Award recognizes exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who voluntarily share their deep, real-world knowledge about Microsoft technologies with others.
Potential MVPs are nominated by other technical community members, current and former MVPs, and Microsoft personnel who have noted their leadership and their willingness and ability to help others make the most of their Microsoft technology.
To receive the Microsoft MVP Award, MVP nominees undergo a rigorous review process. A panel that includes members of the MVP team and Microsoft product groups evaluates each nominee's technical expertise and voluntary community contributions for the past 12 months. The panel considers the quality, quantity, and level of impact of the MVP nominee's contributions. Active MVPs receive the same level of scrutiny as other new candidates each year.
MVPs are independent of Microsoft, with separate opinions and perspectives, and are able to represent the views of the community members with whom they engage every day.

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Tips on becoming an Exchange MVP

There’s no golden recipe to follow in order to archieve an MVP award on Exchange, but the following list of activities  can help improve your chances of being nominated:

·         Be active in Exchange forums  Go help out your peers in online forums. The most popular Exchange related forums are the ones on Microsoft TechNet (find them here and here) and MSExchange.org. Both are being monitored for potential MVP nominees by both current MVPs as well as Microsoft personnel.

·         Share your knowledge via blogs and articles  In order to see how exceptional  you are when it comes to Exchange, you must be visible. A good idea is to share tips and tricks with your peers via a blog or by writing articles. But please don’t think you will earn an MVP award simply by blogging Exchange content originally authored by other individuals or by blogging Exchange related news. You must create your own unique content.

·         Speak at conferences and/or Exchange user groups  Another way to show you’re exceptional when it comes to Exchange is to deliver sessions in local Exchange user groups or at conferences such as Microsoft TechEd or Exchange Connections.

Exchange 2010 Overview

Welcome to the Exchange Server 2010 section of the Exchange TechNet Wiki, your source for guidelines and information written by the community for the community.

Note
If you're looking for the official Exchange 2010 product documentation, please follow this link.

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About Exchange Server 2010

Now, more than ever, your organization requires cost-effective and flexible communication tools. With Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 you can achieve new levels of reliability and performance with features that simplify your administration, help protect your communications, and delight your users by meeting their demands for greater mobility.

Microsoft Exchange Server, the cornerstone of Microsoft’s Unified Communications solution, is a flexible and reliable messaging platform that can help you lower your messaging costs, increase productivity with anywhere access to business communications, and safeguard your business with protection and compliance capabilities that help you manage risk.

What's New
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP1 helps you achieve new levels of reliability and performance by delivering features that simplify your administration, protect your communications, and delight your users by meeting their demands for greater business mobility. With new deployment and storage options, enhanced inbox management capabilities, and e-mail archiving built-in, Exchange Server 2010 SP1 helps you lower costs and enhance business outcomes.

Exchange Server 2010 SP1 includes a host of new features customers will benefit from, including new integrated e-mail archive and discovery functionality, new user features to battle inbox overload, voice mail management enhancements, and improvements that simplify administration. There are also New Features in Exchange Server 2010 and Rights Management Services, which are explained in the linked video on the TechNet Edge site.

For businesses, highlights include:

• New integrated archiving and discovery capabilities.
• New unified mailbox resilience model that provides high availability, disaster recovery, and back up capabilities.
• Ability to easily delegate administration to specialized users, such the help desk or a compliance officer.
• Comprehensive information protection capabilities—from e-mail moderation to automatic e-mail encryption.
• The choice to run Exchange on-premises, as a service hosted by Microsoft or as a hybrid of both.

For users, highlights include:

• A consistent inbox, calendaring, and contacts experience across the PC, browser and phone.
• Integrated conversation view bringing together information across all folders, inbox and sent and deleted items.
• Ability to ignore irrelevant conversations with the click of a button.
• Text preview of voice mail messages in the inbox.
• New Call Answering Rules to easily create customized voice mail rules, such as call transfer options.
• Mail Tips to notify users about potential mistakes before they send e-mail.

AD RMS BEST PRACTICE

ere are a few best practices to keep in mind when installing Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS):
Use dedicated AD RMS servers.  Installing AD RMS on the same server as a domain controller, Microsoft Exchange Server, Certification Authority, or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is a poor security practice.
Do not install AD RMS on a domain controller.  If you do, you must add the AD RMS service account, which is normally configured with no additional permissions, to the Domain Admins group.
You cannot install the Identity Federation Support feature until you have an Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) server in place.  If AD FS is not configured in your environment at the time of installation, you can install the feature later.
You should only use Windows Internal Database in a test environment.  Windows Internal Database does not support remote connections; therefore, you would be unable to add additional AD RMS servers to your cluster.  In a production environment you should use Microsoft SQL Server.
Use DNS aliases, such as CNAME records, or DNS host records, such as A Records for your database server.  This makes future migration of the databases much easier.
Use DNS aliases, such as CNAME records, or DNS host records, such as A Records for the fully qualified domain name of the AD RMS cluster.  This allows you to easily add additional servers to the cluster and allows you to load balance and perform disaster recovery very easily.
If you plan to deploy AD RMS on a website that is already set up, be sure that website has an http binding, even if you are provisioning AD RMS to use https.
If you plan to deploy AD RMS on a non-default website, install the IIS 6 Management Capability role service before you start provisioning.
Using SSL protocol increases the security of the connections to the AD RMS cluster.  Also, SSL is required to integrate AD RMS with AD FS.  Remember that this cannot be changed once it has been specified.
If installing Identity Federation Support, use lower case letters for the fully qualified domain name, as AD FS is case sensitive.
You should configure your extranet URL at the time of installation, even if it will not be initially deployed.  If external access is enabled after documents are AD RMS protected you must remove the protection, remove the DRM folder on the client computers, configure extranet access, and then protect the documents again.
You should use self-signed certificates only in a test environment.  In a production environment you should use an SSL certificate issued from a certification authority.
After an installation or upgrade is complete you must log off and log back in again before you can administer AD RMS using the AD RMS console.
Once installation is complete you should back up your Server Licensor Certificate and your private key.
There are two paths to upgrading an earlier version of RMS to AD RMS: migration and in-place upgrade.  Migration is the recommended process.  If you choose to do an in-place upgrade, be sure to run the upgrade wizard after the operating system upgrade completes.  This wizard is launched from a link in Server Manager.  For more information on migrating or upgrading a cluster see the TechNet article RMS to AD RMS Migration and Upgrade Guide.
For information on AD RMS prerequisites visit the TechNet article AD RMS Prerequisites.  For more information on installing AD RMS the AD RMS Step-by-step Guide walks you through the process of installing AD RMS in a test environment.

DOMAIN RENAMEING USING NETDOM COMMAND

Netdom Command

To rename the computer name of a Domain Controller: -

·   Firstly install “Support Tool” from the CD of windows 2003 server.

·   Insert the CD into CDROM.

·   Browse the CD.

·   Open “Support” folder.

·   Open “Tools” Folder.

·   Run the setup- SUPTOOLS.MSI.

Now you should raise the domain functional label from Mix to Windows 2003 server.

·   Start-programs-administrative tools-Active Directory Users and Computers.

·   Right click on domain name, click- raise domain functional label.

·   Select “Windows 2003 server” from the list.

·   Click- Raise.

·   Click- ok.

Now you can rename the domain controller like: -

·   Click- Start-programs-support tools-command prompt

·   Run the following commands on the prompt.

C:\>Netdom Conputername currentcomputername /add:newcomputername

C:\>Netdom computername currentcomputername /makeprimary:newcomputername

·   Now restart the computer.

C:\>Netdom computername newcomputername /remove:oldcomputername

High availability solution in exchange 2010

    HIGH AVAILABILITY SOLUTION IN EXCHANGE 2010

Mailbox databases and the data they contain are one of the most critical components (if not the most critical component) of any Microsoft Exchange organization. In Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, you can protect mailbox databases and the data they contain by configuring your mailbox databases for high availability and site resilience. Exchange 2010 reduces the cost and complexity of deploying a highly available and site resilient messaging solution while providing higher levels of end-to-end availability and supporting large mailboxes. Building on the native replication capabilities introduced in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, the new high availability architecture in Exchange 2010 provides a simplified, unified framework for high availability and site resilience. Exchange 2010 integrates high availability into the core architecture of Exchange, enabling customers of all sizes and in all segments to be able to economically deploy a messaging continuity service in their organization.

  Key Terminology

A high availability solution is a solution that provides service availability, data availability, and automatic recovery from failures that affect the service or data (such as a network, storage or server failure).

Disaster recovery is any process used to manually recover from a failure. This can be a failure that affects a single item, or it can be a failure that affects an entire physical location.

Site resilience is a manual disaster recovery process that used to recover from a complete site failure. Using Exchange 2010, you can configure your messaging solution for high availability and enable site resilience using the built-in features and functionality described in this content area.

*over (pronounced "star-over") is short for switchovers and failovers. A switchover is a manual activation of one or more databases. A failover is an automatic activation of one or more databases after a failure.

Mailbox Resiliency is the name of unified high Availability and site resilience solution in Exchange 2010.

Database Mobility is the ability of a single Exchange 2010 mailbox database to be replicated to and mounted on other Exchange 2010 Mailbox servers.

Incremental Deployment is the ability to deploy high availability /site resilience after Exchange 2010 is installed.

The Exchange Third Party Replication API is an Exchange-provided API that enables use of third-party synchronous replication for a DAG in lieu of continuous replication.

A Database Availability Group is a group of up to 16 Exchange 2010 Mailbox servers that host a set of replicated databases.

A Mailbox Database Copy is a mailbox database (.edb file and logs) that is either active or passive.

A Lagged Mailbox Database Copy is a passive mailbox database copy that has a log replay lag time greater than zero.

The RPC Client Access service is a new service that provides a MAPI endpoint for Outlook clients.

Shadow Redundancy is a transport server feature that provides redundancy for messages for the entire time they are in transit.