Posted by Itamar Gilad, Product Manager

Email is more than just messages going back and forth — it’s also about the people sending them. That’s why today we’re introducing changes that continue to bring people front and center in Gmail, just as we did with profile photos in conversation view, the people widget and last year’s integrations with Google+. Today’s changes include quick access to contact details when viewing past conversations as well as improved integration with Google+ circles.

Quick access to contact details
When you search for an email address, the search results will now show you contact details in addition to that person’s profile photo and the emails sent from and to them. From here, you can start a chat, call their phone and more. Plus, if your contacts have a Google+ profile, this information will stay up to date automatically.

Improved circle integration and circle search
In addition to adding contact details to search results, we’ve made some improvements to the circles integration announced in December. When you select a circle, you’ll now see profile photos of people in that circle at the top right of the page. Plus, when you click on these images you’ll be taken directly to search results with contact details.

Gmail Blog

There’s a new product that just came out of Disney Interactive Labs — a video portal for clips, movie trailers, and even a collection of curated YouTube videos, all designed to be watched online or on any of your mobile devices. The new Disney Video site, located at video.disney.com, combines the best of Disney past and present, with a whole lot of content that might not be found anywhere else.

It’s too early for us to know a whole lot about the site — we checked out the portal after it was announced on Twitter by Henry Work, Senior Software Engineer for Disney Interactive Labs. But at first glance, it seems like a pretty cool example of what a major media company can do with a huge library of content that it hopes to bring to multiple platforms and devices.

First of all, let’s talk about the content. The site is broken down into movies, shows, collections and YouTube, and highlights a wide range of content across Disney’s family-oriented media properties. In the movies section, Disney Video features trailers, as well as behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with stars of upcoming and recent feature films like Frankenweenie and The Avengers. Its shows page puts the spotlight on popular clips from the Disney Channel and related cable networks. Collections organizes its video library into themes, like Disney Fairies, for instance, or content available from Disney Theme Parks.

But the most interesting section might be the YouTube channel on the site, which provides a curated page full of kid-friendly content. The YouTube page is the result of a deal that Disney struck with the video site late last year, through which the media companies will cross-promote each other’s content. YouTube will get some original kids programming from Disney, while Disney is making YouTube clips available on its new portal.

As for the multiplatform aspect of the site — as far as we can tell, it’s formatted to work on web browsers, delivered via Flash, as well as on mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad, and Android handsets and tablets. That’s a huge step for Disney, as it seeks to make its content available on whatever device kids are using.

There’s no real long-form content on the site — for now it’s all promotional clips and trailers — but it is designed to keep viewers watching, with an autoplay feature that loops new videos in ten seconds after the last one has been completed.

Interestingly, the Disney online video portal is being launched at the same time that some analysts are questioning the effect that Netflix is having on the ratings for cable TV networks like Nickelodeon and Disney Channel. While the portal isn’t as kid-friendly as Netflix’s Just For Kids implementation online and on some connected devices, Disney no doubt hopes that its large library of content will keep kids coming back.

TechCrunch

Recently, customers who use Outlook Web App (OWA) have been raising the topic of web app accessibility as a top priority. One reason for all the buzz about web application accessibility is due to a standard produced by the W3C called ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications). While the standard has been around for a while now, ARIA support in the most commonly used web browsers has recently improved. We want to share our thoughts on this topic and let you know that ARIA support is coming to future versions of OWA!

Accessibility here refers to how users with limited vision, mobility, hearing etc. can be given access to all the functionality of an application through a user interface (UI) optimized for that user’s circumstances. For instance, many blind users interact with computers through screen readers, which read the UI text out loud. Another example is users with limited mobility who can’t use a computer mouse and instead rely on speech recognition for dictation and alternative keyboard designs which navigate the UI through keyboard input only.

Microsoft Office, including OWA’s companion Microsoft Outlook, has had strong accessibility support for many years through the Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) technology and more recently the User Interface Automation (UIA) frameworks on the Windows platform. But accessibility has been more difficult for web-based email experiences because of the incompatibility between many accessibility technologies and new dynamic/complex web app behaviors. We’ve faced a tough choice between a) staying away from most dynamic, complex web app behaviors and ensuring great accessibility, or b) building modern Web 2.0 apps without top-notch accessibility support. For OWA 2007 and 2010, this was not a choice we could make, so our solution was to do both. We built OWA Premium which makes use of all that Web 2.0 has to offer, and OWA Light which is a very accessible UI built almost exclusively on HTML 4.0. When people access their Exchange mailboxes for the first time through OWA, they’re asked whether they’d like to use the OWA experience optimized for accessibility.

Over the years, the screen reader interoperability and keyboard navigation capabilities of OWA Light offered an accessibility solution few other modern web applications could match and have been appreciated by the people who rely on it every day. But, web standards are evolving. People are wondering if ARIA is mature enough for us to move beyond a two-UI solution and take OWA accessibility to the next level. After watching ARIA evolve and experimenting with it in recent version of web browsers we support, the answer is clear: we look forward to implementing ARIA in future versions of Outlook Web App.

Kristian Andaker
Microsoft Group Program Manager
on behalf of the OWA team

Exchange Team Blog

Curiously one of the topics we hardly ever get asked about at our IT Camps is security in Hyper-V.  Perhaps it’s because you all have total confidence in our approach security, or you already have the facts to hand, but more likely is that you forgot to ask about because it’s not top of your agenda.

That’s OK, and anyway I need to write this so I have the definitive answers to hand when someone asks me.

So what do you need to consider when virtualising your data centre?

The best resource I have seen is by the US Government specifically the National Institute of Standards & Technology in their Guide to Security for Virtualization Technologies.  It’s a big read but the three key sections are:

4-2 recommendations about locking down the hypervisor.  the key points are:

• No unauthorised access to the operating system controlling the VMs
• Resources shared by the managing operating system and the guest VMs are kept to a minimum
• that the host or physical operating system is kept up to date with patches
• The host operating system is only used to run virtual machines

4-3 recommendations for securing the virtual machines themselves

4-4 recommendations for securing a virtual desktop infrastructure

So having got your head around that and carried out your own risk assessments be that by contacting CESG if you are in UK government or the risk assessment advice put out by the UK government for businesses in the UK, you then need to apply this to your environment.  For Hyper-V the three key resources you need are: 

• Hyper-V Security Guide on TechNet:
• Hyper-V Security Guide
• Planning for Hyper-V Security

I would argue that you’ll also need System Center to manage your data centre security, check and rectify compliance issues as well as to audit and changes.  To help with that there is a Governance Risk & Compliance Process Pack which uses the integration between Service Manager and the rest of System Center (Config Manager, Ops Manager, Virtual machine Manger via Orchestrator).   It has extensive guidance for the non IT functions and  has the side benefit of showing you how to unify System Center to better support the business.

Finally You’ll want to lock down windows server as well whether that’s the physical operating system or the guest and there’s a Security Compliance Manager to help with that.

Insufficient data from Andrew Fryer

Hi folks, here are some great links on TechNet to help OEMs and end-users with Windows Storage Server 2008 and the iSCSI Software Target.

Windows Storage Server 2008

1. Storage Server Overview:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd573315(WS.10).aspx
2. Getting Started Guide:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd573323(WS.10).aspx
3. Known Issues and Updates:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd904408(WS.10).aspx

iSCSI Software Target

1. iSCSI Target Overview:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd573326(WS.10).aspx
2. Getting Started Guide: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd573325(WS.10).aspx
3. Known Issues and Updates:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd904411(WS.10).aspx
4. New!   Interoperability page for the iSCSI Target: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee621808(WS.10).aspx 
   This outlines the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.1 and 3.2 Interoperability with Third-Party iSCSI Initiators.

Cheers,

Scott

Windows Storage Server

Hello, Mike Jacquet here, and today I would like to discuss things you can do to help Data Protection Manager (DPM) utilize your tapes to full capacity. Many customers have reported that DPM tape backups use more tapes than necessary when backing up large data sources or many small data sources across protection groups. For an example, the tape may have a Native capacity of 800GB, but DPM never seems to fill the tape and may even stop using the tape after writing only a few gigabytes. Other customers report that they have no problem filling tapes when the backups are large enough to fill the tape during a single backup session, however if the tape is not filled or marked offsite ready, the tape will still not be used for subsequent backup jobs scheduled on a later day or week.

These appear to be related problems, but in reality, there are several underlying causes that need to be explored and DPM settings explained / configured before optimal tape usage can be achieved.

Tape drive / Library hardware and device drivers.

Data Protection Manager does not ship with or use Microsoft proprietary device drivers for tape drives and libraries; instead, DPM relies on Windows 2008 X64 compatible device drivers from the OEM vendor of the hardware. The guidance we are giving customers is if the library is listed on the Windows server catalog under the hardware / storage section and shows as being compatible with Windows 2008 X64 and Windows 2008 R2, then it should work fine with Data Protection Manager.

Windows Server Catalog: http://www.windowsservercatalog.com

One problem that the DPM product group discovered is that some tape drives did not properly report or process end of media EOM correctly when the end of tape was reached and instead reported an IO_DEVICE_ERROR 0x8007045D error. This problem would cause DPM tape backup jobs to fail anytime a tape filled. Another problem that was discovered is some tape drives did not handle multiple buffers very well and would also result in IO errors being reported. To mitigate both of those problems, some logic was added to the DPM agent to handle these types of problems that were outside of our control.

Today, If the tape driver returns an IO_DEVICE_ERROR, DPM will auto convert IO_DEVICE_ERROR to an END_OF_TAPE_REACHED and span to next media without any issues. However, that brings us to our first reported problem that DPM will not fill tapes and grabs another tape after only writing a few gigabytes.

Now you ask, how can I tell if the tape drive / driver / firmware combination in use is having these behind the scenes / hidden device I/O error 0x8007045D ?

To see if the tape drive is reporting IO error 0x8007045D that equals "The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error", you can run the following commands on the DPM server.

1. Open an Administrative command prompt.
2. CD C:\Program file\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Temp
3. Find /I "0x8007045D" MSDPM*.Errlog >C:\temp\MSDPM0x8007045D.TXT
4. Notepad C:\temp\MSDPM0x8007045D.TXT
5. See if there are any entries in the file, if not look in the DPMRA logs
6. Find /I "0x8007045D" DPMRA*.Errlog >C:\temp\DPMRA0x8007045D.TXT
7. Notepad C:\temp\DPMRA0x8007045D.TXT

Also search for "-2147023779" which is the decimal equivalent.

NOTE The DPMLA*.errlog may contain that 0x8007045D errors and that is OK, so do not look in that file.

How do I fix this I/O 0x8007045D error problem?

1. I would start by checking with the Tape Drive / Library OEM vendor to see if there are any new firmware or driver updates available, and if so, update them to the latest revision. Check your controller settings and scsi or fiber connections including termination.

2. By Default, DPM will use 10 tape buffers when writing to the tape drive. The below BufferQueueSize registry setting will reduce the number of buffers to three. Most of the time, that is enough to reduce or eliminate the IO error and does not negatively affect tape backup performance. However, you may need to reduce it further if the value of 3 does not help.

NOTE If you need to reduce the setting below 3, it is very possible that backups will succeed without errors, however tape restores or tape library inventory jobs may hang. Should that occur, you will need to increase the BufferQueueSize entry back up to three or more to do the restore, then reduce it again for normal backups.

Copy and Save the below in notepad then save as BufferQ.REG on the DPM server.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Agent]
"BufferQueueSize"=dword:00000003

Right-click BufferQ.REG and choose the "merge" or "open with registry editor" option to add it to the registry. Stop and restart the DPMRA service.

Another solution that also seems to help resolve the above issue is to add the following Storport key and BusyRetryCount value to each of the tape devices.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\SCSI\<DEVICEID>\<INSTANCE>\DeviceParameters\Storport\
Value – BusyRetryCount
Type – DWORD
Data – 250 Decimal or (0xFA hex)

To get a list of all the tape devices in your DPM Server that needs the registry key added to, run the following command from an administrative command prompt. That will return a list of tape drive Scsi\DeviceID\Instance that you can use to make the above change.

C:\Windows\system32>wmic tapedrive list brief

Below would be the registry keys to add to the DPM server based on the above output from wmic command.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\SCSI\Sequential&Ven_IBM&Prod_ULTRIUM-TD3&31cf2afa&0&000001\Device Parameters\StorpPort]
"BusyRetryCount"=dword:000000fa

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\SCSI\Sequential&Ven_IBM&Prod_ULTRIUM-TD3&31cf2afa&0&000002\Device Parameters\StorpPort]
"BusyRetryCount"=dword:000000fa

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\SCSI\Sequential&Ven_IBM&Prod_ULTRIUM-TD3&31cf2afa&0&000003\Device Parameters\StorpPort]
"BusyRetryCount"=dword:000000fa

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\SCSI\Sequential&Ven_IBM&Prod_ULTRIUM-TD3&31cf2afa&0&000004\Device Parameters\StorpPort]
"BusyRetryCount"=dword:000000fa

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\SCSI\Sequential&Ven_IBM&Prod_ULTRIUM-TD3&31cf2afa&0&000005\Device Parameters\StorpPort]
"BusyRetryCount"=dword:000000fa

Data Protection Manager 2007 / 2010 Specific Configuration Settings

Let us explore some Data Protection Manager specific configuration settings that have a large impact on how long a tape can used for backup jobs.

TAPE CO-LOCATION - This feature allows data sources from different protection groups that share the same recovery goals to be written to the same tape. This helps utilize the tapes by filling it with backups across protection groups. Only protection groups that share the exact same tape recovery goals and encryption settings can be co-located together on the same tape.

NOTE DPM 2012 has an enhanced option that allows you to choose which protection groups can be co-located regardless of retention goals.

The below LT-Goals.PS1 DPM powershell script can be ran on a DPM 2007 / 2010 server to analyze all your protection groups and list which protection groups can be co-located together based in common goals and encryption settings across protection groups.

Copy / Paste the below into notepad and save as LT-Goals.PS1 – then run it in the DPM power shell window.

cls
$ confirmpreference=’none’
$ dpmversion = ((get-process | where {$ _.name -eq "msdpm" }).fileversion)
write-host "DPM Version – " $ dpmversion "`nCollecting Long Term protection Information. Please wait…" -foreground yellow
$ dpmserver = (&hostname)
out-file longterm.txt
$ pg = @(get-protectiongroup $ dpmserver | where { $ _.ProtectionMethod -like "*Long-term using tape*"})
write-host "We have" $ pg.count "groups with tape protection"
foreach ($ longterm in $ pg)
{
    "———————————————————–`n" | out-file longterm.txt -append
    "" | out-file longterm.txt -append
    "Protection Group " + $ longterm.friendlyname | out-file longterm.txt -append
    "" | out-file longterm.txt -append
    switch ($ dpmversion.substring(0,1))
    {
        2 { $ policySchedule = @(Get-PolicySchedule -ProtectionGroup $ longterm -longterm)}
        3 { $ policySchedule = @(Get-PolicySchedule -ProtectionGroup $ longterm -longterm tape)}
        default { write-host "NOT TESTED ON THIS DPM VERSION. Exiting script" -foreground red;exit }
       
    }

    $ tb = Get-TapeBackupOption $ longterm;
    "Is encryption enabled? " + $ tb.OffsiteEncryption | out-file longterm.txt -append
    "" | out-file longterm.txt -append
        $ tb.RetentionPolicy | out-file longterm.txt -append
#    $ tb = $ tb.labelinfo
    $ label = @($ tb.label);
    $ count = $ policySchedule.count -1
    while ( $ count -ne -1)
    {
        if ($ label[$ count].length -eq 0 -or $ label[$ count].length -eq $ null)
        {
            "Default Label Name" | out-file longterm.txt -append
        }
        else
        {
            "Tape Label: " + $ label[$ count] | out-file longterm.txt -append
        }
        $ policyschedule[$ count] | fl *              | out-file longterm.txt -append
#              (Get-TapeBackupOption $ longterm).RetentionPolicy | out-file longterm.txt -append

       
        $ count–
    }
}
#exit
if ($ pg.count -gt 1)
{
    $ pgcount=0
    while ($ pgcount -ne ($ pg.count-1))
    {
        $ collocation = @($ pg[$ pgcount].friendlyname)
        write-host $ pgcount -background green
                (Get-TapeBackupOption $ pg[$ pgcount]).RetentionPolicy   | out-file policyretention.txt
        (Get-TapeBackupOption $ pg[$ pgcount]).OffsiteEncryption | out-file policyretention.txt -append
        write-host "policyretention.txt" -foreground green
        type policyretention.txt
        $ pgcountinnerloop = 0
        while ($ pgcountinnerloop -ne $ pg.count)
        {
            write-host $ pgcountinnerloop -background yellow
            if ($ pgcount -eq $ pgcountinnerloop) {$ pgcountinnerloop++}
                    (Get-TapeBackupOption $ pg[$ pgcountinnerloop]).RetentionPolicy   | out-file policyretention1.txt
            (Get-TapeBackupOption $ pg[$ pgcountinnerloop]).OffsiteEncryption | out-file policyretention1.txt -append
            write-host "policyretention1.txt" -foreground green
            type policyretention1.txt

            $ compare = Compare-Object -ReferenceObject $ (get-content policyretention.txt) -DifferenceObject $ (Get-content policyretention1.txt)
            if ($ compare.length -eq $ null)
            {
                if ($ pgcountinnerloop -lt $ pgcount)
                {
                    Break
                }
                else
                {
                    $ collocation = $ collocation + $ pg[$ pgcountinnerloop].friendlyname
                    $ collocation
                    write-host "done"
                    $ collocationcount++
                }
            }
            $ pgcountinnerloop++
        }
        if ($ collocation.count -gt 1)
        {
            "———————————————————–" | out-file longterm.txt -append
            "Protection Groups that can share the same tape based on recovery goals/Encryption:" | out-file longterm.txt -append
            " " | out-file longterm.txt -append   
            write-host $ collocation   
            foreach ($ collocation1 in $ collocation)
            {
                $ collocation1 | out-file longterm.txt -append
            }
        }
        $ pgcount++

    }
}

               
"———————————————————–" | out-file longterm.txt -append
$ dir = dir longterm.txt; write-host "`nDONE`n`nOutput file Created:" $ dir.fullname -foreground yellow
del policyretention*.txt
notepad longterm.txt

Referencing the below Technet articles, after you enable tape co-location, DPM has two configurable options [TapeWritePeriodRatio and TapeExpiryTolerance ] that impact when a tape gets marked offsite ready and if a tape will be used for another backup job if not yet marked offsite ready.

Enabling tape Co-Location:

DPM 2007 – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc964296.aspx
DPM 2010 – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff399230.aspx

When tape colocation is enabled, a tape will be shown as Offsite Ready when any one of the following conditions is met:

- The tape is full or is marked full. (This includes the I/O 0x8007045D error problem described above.)
- One of the datasets has expired.
- Write-period ratio has been crossed.

(By default, this is the first backup time + 15 percent of the retention range.)

When a tape is marked offsite ready, no additional data sets will be written to that tape until ALL recovery points expire. Once a tape is marked as expired, DPM will show the tape as expired in the DPM console and can overwrite the tape during subsequent backups. DPM will always favor a free tape over an expired tape when it searches for a tape to use if a new tape is required.

NOTE If DPM library sharing is enabled, by default only the DPM server that initially wrote to that tape can re-use it unless you manually free the expired tape. Once the tape is marked as free, then any DPM server sharing the library will be able to use that free tape.

TapeWritePeriodRatio – This is a DPM Global property that can be set only when colocation is enabled and indicates the number of days for which data can be written on to a tape as a percentage of the retention period of the first data set written to the tape. This is a global setting and affects all protection groups.

TapeWritePeriodRatio value can be between 0.0 to 1.0 the default value is 0.15 (i.e. 15%)

NOTE DPM 2012 does not have this global property and instead has additional configuration options in the GUI to allow different write periods for different protection groups. This adds greater flexibility in determining how long you want to use a tape at the protection group(s) level.

As an example on the impact of the TapeWritePeriodRatio setting having a default of 15% – if you have a protection group doing daily backups, with a retention period of 2 weeks (14 days), the tape will be marked offsite ready after only 2.1 days regardless of how much / little data was written to the tape. If you desire DPM to write to the tape for a week, you would need to change the TapeWritePeriodRatio to 50% using the DPM power shell command below.

Set-DPMGlobalProperty –DPMServerName <dpm server name> -TapeWritePeriodRatio .5

TapeExpiryTolerance – This is a registry setting and indicates the time window within which the expiry date of the next dataset to be written to the tape must fall. It is expressed as a percentage. The default value is 17 percent if the registry is not present.

This is a DWORD type registry value located under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager.0\Colocation. DPM does not create the CoLocation key automatically. You must manually create the Colocation key then make a new ExpiryToleranceRange value to set it.

There is a misconception that the tape co-location feature will only co-locate data sets for the same recovery goals onto the same tape. IE: A weekly backup will never co-locate on a tape that has Monthly backups already written. That is not correct as DPM will evaluate each tape that is not marked offsite ready and see if the data set about to be written will meet the following check. It does this to help meet the goal of fully utilizing tapes without preventing the tape from expiring on time. If you adjust the ExpiryToleranceRange too high (make it 100%) then you run the risk of placing shorter retention data sets on tapes with a longer retention goal and risk having the tape marked offsite ready prematurely, which defeats the goal fully utilizing tapes. Generally speaking, setting this to 60 will provide a good benefit and should not cause any problems.

Let, Furthest expiry date among the expiry dates of all the Datasets already on the tape = FurthExpDate

Time Window =

FurthExpDate – TapeExpiryTolerance * (FurthExpDate –today’s date) (Lower Bound)
FurthExpDate + TapeExpiryTolerance * (FurthExpDate –today’s date) (Upper Bound)

So, the current dataset will be co-located on the given tape only if its expiry date falls within Time Window (both bounds inclusive)

Using the same example we used before, you have a protection group doing daily backups, with a retention period of 2 weeks (14 days), and you set the TapeWritePeriodRatio to .5 (50%) because you want DPM to use the tape for 1 week. But with the default TapeExpiryTolerance of 17%, you may not achieve that if one backup fails for any reason and you miss a day’s backup.

In the below example, I have set the TapeWritePeriodRatio to .50 and the first backup set was written to the tape on 5/7. Notice offsite ready will not be set until after the 7 days as desired based on the 50% TapeWritePeriodRatio setting. The last backup set was written on 5/9 and the next backup set to be written is 5/11 due to a server problem on 5/10 that prevented that day’s backup from occurring. With the default 17% TapeExpiryTolerance window, the next dataset expiry date does not fall between the lower and upper bounds. This would result in DPM picking a new tape for the next backup set and since the TapeExpiryPeriodRatio has not been crossed and no recovery point is expired, however that tape would not be marked offsite ready. This is an example of why a tape will not be used for any additional backups, yet there is no visual indication, so it makes you question why DPM is using more tapes than necessary.

Now, changing nothing more than the TapeExpiryTolerance from 17% to 60%, notice how that time window has expanded and allows the next data set on 5/11 to be written on that tape.

I have shared this Excel spreadsheet to help you calculate offsite ready at the following site: http://cid-885774776d4f197a.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/tape-offsite-ready-calculator.zip

In conclusion, I hope this explains what you may have experienced and helps you configure your DPM server so it can fully utilize your tapes during future backups.

Mike Jacquet | Senior Support Escalation Engineer

Get the latest System Center news on Facebook and Twitter:

App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/
ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/
Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm
Server App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv
Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center Essentials Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/

The Forefront Server Protection blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/fss/
The Forefront Endpoint Security blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

System Center: Data Protection Manager Engineering Team Blog

For weeks – if not months – I’ve been trying to come up with a way to succinctly and accurately explain why, exactly, Windows 8 rubs me the wrong way, usability-wise. I think I finally got it.
OSNews

Once again it’s on! We hope you enjoy this fourth episode of the Fantastic 12 of 2012: Behind the Scenes Blog Series, where you’re getting a peak into workings of the SQL Server Engineering Team with previously unheard stories from team members as they developed and tested SQL Server 2012. The first three episodes can be viewed here and don’t forget to download The Fantastic 12 of SQL Server 2012 (PDF) to follow along with all 12 episodes. |

This week we have Joe Yong, Senior Program Manager, whose teams in Redmond and Shanghai worked on the upgrade and migration capabilities of SQL Server 2012. Joe tells a story of the team working with their first Technical Adoption Program (TAP) customer during the very early builds of SQL Server 2012 that wanted to test something in the SQL Server Labs. They came in and loaded up their data, which included a 100GB trace file, which the team had never encountered. Watch the video below to find out what happened!

The Fantastic 12 of #SQL2012 Twitter Contest happens every Thursday at 10:30am PT, where we’re giving away the cool new SQL Server T-Shirts that the SQL Family selected. 

Enjoy this week’s episode…..    

Fantastic 12 of SQL Server 2012

4 Peace of Mind

Help ensure peace of mind with the right product tools, premier services and support, a trusted partner ecosystem, and a wealth of no-fee tools.

Product Enhancements

• Distributed Replay: Simplify application testing and help minimize errors with application changes, configuration changes, and upgrades.
• System Center Alignment: Up-to-date Management Packs enable centralized monitoring across SQL Server versions including SQL Server 2012.
• System Center Advisor: Help reduce overall downtime with ongoing assessments of SQL Server configurations and changes over time.
• No-fee Service Packs: Unlike many software companies, Microsoft offers free access to software service packs.

Free Planning Tools

• Quickly plan for an upgrade or migration with a wealth of no-fee tools like Migration Assistant, Upgrade Advisor, and MAPS developed by Microsoft engineers and available for download online.

Tailored Support and Licensing Programs

• Mission Critical Support: Microsoft’s Premier Mission Critical Support and the Microsoft Critical Advantage Program, provide the services and support needed for companies to establish the proactive IT environment and operations necessary to deliver maximum availability and performance to their Mission Critical Applications.
• Enrollment for Application Platform: Microsoft delivers piece of mind with the licensing program EAP which offers unlimited support to customers with specific software assurance plans and up to 40% savings on license costs for new deployments.

Stay tuned for the next episode of this series coming every Thursday through the end of June 2012. Get more information on SQL Server 2012 and download the free trial today.

SQL Server Team Blog

Posted by Zohair Hyder, Software Engineer

Notification emails are a great way to keep up with what’s happening in the Google+ stream: whether someone mentions you, comments on your post, or shares with you directly. It’s not always enough to just read these updates, however; sometimes you want to respond right away, right from your inbox. The good news is that starting today, you can reply to Google+ notifications from Gmail.

On the desktop, in addition to adding people to circles, and viewing recent Google+ content in the people widget, we’re now making Google+ notification emails in Gmail completely interactive:

• You can view, comment on, and +1 posts from inside your inbox
• Your comments appear in the Google+ stream in real-time, and
• Responses from others instantly appear in Gmail, as part of the notification message

From left to right: Google+ notification on the phone; replying via email; updated post in the stream

We’re always working to create a simpler, more intuitive experience for our users, and with today’s changes, we’re excited to take another step in this important direction.

Gmail Blog

Hi everyone, Andy Nadarewistsch here, and today I want to talk about passive node visibility in System Center Data Protection Manager. To be more specific I would like to discuss why passive nodes would not show in the DPM console. In general, there are only a few reasons why you would not see a passive node or an Exchange DB listed in the DPM console when protecting a DAG:

1. The agent is not installed on any of the nodes that owns the Mailbox DB attempting to be protected
2. There are VSS errors causing the datasources not to enumerate
3. The EnableVSSWriter regkey is set to 1

Looking at the last scenario we will review how DPM responds when the registry key below exists:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\ExchangeServer\v14\Replay\Parameters\EnableVSSWriter

Let’s see how DPM normally sees passive nodes. In this example I will used a 3 node cluster and I am only going to install agents in two out of the three which are shown below.

• Test = Exchange DAG name
• 5438 = Node 1
• 54381 = Node 2
• 54382 = Node 3

The node that does not have the agent installed is Node 3 which will be shown in future screenshots.

Initial setup for active passive is as follows:

	38	381	382
DB01	P	A
DB02	A		P
DB03		P	A

Legend: A = Active, P = Passive

I am going to change a registry key on Node 2 (54381). This key is disabling the Exchange Replication Writer which is why DPM no will not see passive copies for that node.

As previously stated, the registry key is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\ExchangeServer\v14\Replay\Parameters\EnableVSSWriter and we’re going to set it to 0 (disabled).

NOTE By default this registry does not exist and must be created manually. However, there are times when this registry key should be changed and the article below is a good example:

Using Windows Server Backup to Back Up and Restore Exchange Data : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876851.aspx

Note the important notice that is given in the article:

Default registry key settings:

After making the change:

NOTE DPM is not affected until AFTER the replication service is restarted. What this means is that the registry key change can lay dormant and an Exchange server replication service restart or reboot may trigger abnormal behavior in DPM.

Now let’s see what DPM shows. Going back and re-enumerating the DAG, notice we no longer see DB03. This is because the passive copy was on Node 2 and the active copy was on Node 3 which is not protected by this DPM server or may not protected at all.

However, notice that the Node 2 still shows under DB01 since it holds the active copy.

Now let’s do one final test. I am going to setup Exchange so both the active and passive copies are on nodes protected by this DPM server and the passive copy resides on Node 2. To do this I activated the passive copy for DB01 to Node 1. This switched the active\passive copy configuration.

New Configuration for DB01:

Looking at the DPM console not only is DB03 still gone, Node 2 for DB01 is no longer selectable.

NOTE This behavior can be compounded if the Exchange Registry key is on more than one DAG member.

Summary:

DPM will not see passive copies and\or nodes when the replication writer is disabled. If you find missing components during enumeration please check the following potential causes.

1) The agent is not installed on any of the nodes that owns the mailbox database attempting to be protected. If this is the case, ensure that an agent is installed on the node that holds the Mailbox database  you are attempting to protect.

2) The EnableVSSWriter regkey is set to 1 under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\ExchangeServer\v14\Replay\Parameters\EnableVSSWriter. If this is the case, check all nodes of the DAG and ensure that the registry does not exist, or if it does, that EnableVSSWriter is not set to 1. If you make this change, remember to restart the Exchange Replication Service for it to take effect.

3) There are VSS errors causing the datasources not to enumerate. If so, verify that all Exchange Node and Exchange VSS components are functional.

• Ensure all databases are mounted and healthy
• Run vssadmin list writers – Check to see if the Exchange Writer is in stable state
• Review System event log for VSS or Volsnap errors

Don’t be passive about passive copies not showing. If you run into a scenario I haven’t mentioned please reply or review our DPM Exchange forums at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/dpmexchbackup/threads.

Andy Nadarewistsch | Senior Support Escalation Engineer

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System Center: Data Protection Manager Engineering Team Blog