This is Part 4 of the SQL Always-on Availability Group installation, where we finally get to install the SQL Server database engine and related tools. This first SQL installation will be a fully manual process where we walk through the GUI to get SQL installed. For our second node we will use...
This is Part 3 of the SQL 2014 Always-On Availability group series where we setup two service accounts and a security group. One account is for the database engine and the other is for the SQL agent. In order for Kerberos to work properly the database engine account must be Active Directory based. We will also...
Hot off the digital presses is vSphere 5.5 Update 2. This is a minor update, but with some important supported database updates. It's great to see SQL Server 2014 now supported. I'm in fact surprised they supported SQL 2014 so fast, so kudos to VMware. Now if we can only...
First up in this series is deploying your two Windows Server 2012 R2 VMs, which will be the SQL 2014Â Always-On availability group nodes. I have a standard VM template that is built in a nearly fully automated manner with Microsoft MDT 2012 Update 1. If you are still making your...
This series of posts will show you how to configure SQL 2014 on VMware vSphere 5.5 using SQL Always-On Availability Groups (AGs). Always-on Availability Groups is the 'next generation' in high availability technology that relies on application level data replication versus shared SCSI disks like traditional failover clustering. No more shared...
While I was at VMworld 2014 in San Francisco last week I got a lot of very positive feedback about my 20 part vSphere 5.5 install series and my vSphere toolkit script. I'm glad its helped so many people make their vSphere SSL life easier. Up until now my Toolkit...
So VMworld 2014 was my sixth VMworld, if I'm counting correctly and was in many respects the best one to date. It had two firsts for me:  my first VMworld as a VCDX and the first time attending as a VMware partner/vendor employee. VMworld 2013 was big for me, as encouraging comments by...
Session: INF1736 Jon Kohler (Nutanix), Josh Odgers (Nutanix), Matt Cowger (EMC), Scott Lowe (VMware), Jason Nash (Varrow) This was a very lively session with a panel of five VCDXs from a variety of companies. I was taking real time notes, so I didn't capture all of comments and some of...
Session EUC2551 VDI 1.0 challenges: Storage cost and performance; 3D Graphics; Application management; Provisioning: All adds up to a frustrating experience Broad Goals for Next Gen VDI Efficient use of infrastructure - just in time desktops w/ zero copy architecture - Building at the point of demand Improved flexibility- user...
Session INF1273 This was a very technical session on how to implement the DISA STIG's (security lockdowns) for DoD/Government customers. Many of the slides contained script snippets that help automate the process. Thus my session notes are very light. If you are a U.S. Government Federal customer that must comply...
Panel: William Lam, Duncan Epping, Chad Sakac, Scott Lowe Moderator: Rick Scherer This was a pure question driven session, and I tried to capture the questions and response as best I could. Please forgive any grammatical errors or typos. Q: Is there any capability to address any external storage? A:...
Session BCO2701. This was very fast paced, and I missed jotting down a lot of the slide content. If you attended VMworld then I recommend you listen to the recording to get all of the good bits of information. vSphere HA - what's new in 5.5 VSAN Support AppHA integration...