vMotion, Storage vMotion, DRS, Storage DRS, Storage I/O Control, VMware HA, and FT are distributed services that enable efficient and automated resource management and high availability for virtual machines.

Live migration using vMotion is the first step towards an automated and much more flexible IT environment because it truly frees the OS and application workloads from the underlying physical hardware. Virtual machines run on and consume resources from the ESXi host. vMotion enables the migration of live virtual machines from one physical server to another without service interruption. Simply saying, the notion of planned downtime goes away. This Live migration capability allows virtual machines to move from a heavily loaded server to a lightly loaded one. The result is a more efficient assignment of resources. With vMotion, resources can be dynamically reallocated across physical hosts.

Storage vMotion enables live migration of a virtual machine’s storage to a new datastore with no downtime.

Migrating single virtual machines and their disks from one datastore to another is possible because a virtual machine is composed of a set of files. Even the virtual machine’s disks are encapsulated in files. Migrating a virtual machine’s disks is accomplished by moving all the files associated with the virtual machine from one datastore to another. Extending the vMotion technology to storage helps the vSphere administrator to leverage storage tiering, perform tuning and balancing, and control capacity with no application downtime.

vSphere 5.0 uses a mirrored-mode approach for Storage vMotion. In this new architecture, Storage vMotion copies disk blocks between source and destination and replaces the need for the iterative pre-copy phase. This was used in the Changed Block Tracking (CBT) method in earlier versions of vSphere. With I/O mirroring, a single-pass copy of the disk blocks from the source to the destination is performed. I/O mirroring ensures that any newly changed blocks in the source are mirrored at the destination. There is also a block-level bitmap that identifies hot and cold blocks of the disk, or whether the data in a given block is already mirrored in the destination disk.

So right now, we’re in the course introduction. We will be going through Backup Exec Fundamentals. That is really a very high level overview of the product. It’s the 30,000 foot overview. And then we’re going to talk about installing Backup Exec. Getting it installed is pretty easy. In this chapter, we will also talk about upgrades, and I know several folks are upgrading from 2010. So we’ll talk about the things that you have to consider before you do that upgrade. Then we will talk about storage devices. Where do you want your backups to be written to? So storage devices can be hard drive space, they can be tape, they can be removable disk cartridge, so we’ll talk about the differences in how all of those work and how do I set them up.

Then we’ll talk about data management. In older versions of Backup Exec this used to be called media management, and everything in older versions, Backup Exec thought everything was tape. That has changed in this version. So everything that’s being written to disk now has what’s called data lifecycle management. So we’ll go through the differences between what’s written on disk and what’s written on tape and how Backup Exec manages that and how you determine how long you would like to be able to restore the data that you have backed up. So once I have my media sets set up, then we can talk about backing up data and I have to backup data to a destination, a storage device, and say how long I want to keep it as part of that backup. But there are several other questions you need to answer during the backup. So we’ll go through all the questions you need to answer and how to get your backups to work properly. And then we’ll talk about restoring data. Really, this class is all about restores. Backups are just a way to get to restores. So restoring is the important part. This is why you do backups everyday. This lesson is really very short, but it’s probably one of the more important ones. Then we’re going to talk about simplified disaster recovery, so how do I run my backups in such a way that I can recover a server from the dead, from bare metal, as easily as possible. This is new to this version of the product. In older versions it was called Intelligent Disaster Recovery, but it has changed significantly with this version of the product. So there are certain things you have to do in the backup in order to be able to recover it, and then we’ll take a look at what those are, and then how do I recover, so how do I bring the machine back from the dead. The next lesson is virtual machine conversion. This is also new to this version of the product. Virtual machine conversion allows me to run a backup and either at the same time or when you schedule it, convert that backup to a virtual machine. So I can do it as the backup runs. I’m backing up the data to my hard drive somewhere and converting to a virtual machine at the same time. So you can convert to a VMDK or a VHD. Or you can do this immediately after the backup, or you can schedule it. So I want to run my backups at night and do my conversions during the day. So we’ll go through the different rules for doing virtual machine conversions. There are two types of virtual machine conversions. They are physical to virtual, which I think most people are familiar with, and then backup to virtual, which is you can do it at any given point. So if I’m running backups on a regular basis and my server goes down, then I can right click on any of my backups and say convert that to a virtual machine. So I can have that machine up and running very quickly as a virtual machine strictly from backups. The last lesson in this section is database maintenance. This is backing up the Backup Exec stuff. This is arguably the most important lesson in this class. If your Backup Exec server dies and probably because you whole data center, something happened in flood or fire, before you can recover anything else you have to be able to recover the Backup Exec server. So this is what do I need to backup so that I can recover the Backup Exec server. And then you can begin to do your other recoveries. An interesting question, if you’re looking at these lessons, we’ve talked about simplified disaster recovery and bringing a server back from the dead. The question becomes couldn’t I just do a simplified disaster recovery of my Backup Exec server, and the answer is which came first, the chicken or the egg. You get yourself into a catch 22. I have to have Backup Exec in order to do a simplified disaster recovery, but if my Backup Exec server is dead then I can’t do a simplified disaster recovery of it. So the answer is no. So what do you have to backup in order to be able to recover this server from the dead? That’s the end of the first section of the course. This will probably take us through Wednesday, late Wednesday, possibly Thursday morning.

Manage and Administer
The second section of the course is known as Manage and Administer, and in that section of the course what we will cover is remote agents. Remote agents, there are two major ones. They are the remote agent for Windows, and the remote agent for Linux. There is also a remote agent for Mac, but it is really covered under Linux. Macintosh is really a version of Linux under the hood. So when we talk about the remote agent for Linux, all those rules also apply to the remote agent for Mac. The next lesson is an agent for applications and databases. This is really databases 101. I don’t intend to make anyone a DBA, that’s not the intent here. The intent is that you have to understand how databases work in order to back them up appropriately. Why do I have to run the backups that I do. So we’ll talk about how databases are structured, and how you back them up appropriately. And then we will also talk about the agent for Active Directory recovery. And the agent for Active Directory allows me to recover individual items out of Active Directory with their original GUID, so that’s very important. The next lesson is how to backup SQL. For every backup that you do for a SQL Server you should have at least two backups that touch that SQL Server. So we’ll talk about what those are and how they work. In the next lesson, the lesson about Exchange, what we’re going to talk about is how to backup Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007 but then Microsoft changed all the rules for how Exchange 2010 works. So we’re going to have to take a very short overview of how Exchange 2010 works and how to back it up. So that one’s a fairly in-depth lesson. The next lesson is SharePoint. SharePoint is really a glorified SQL Server with an IIS front end, so we’ll talk about the different pieces. One of the challenges with SharePoint is that SharePoint is a distributed installation meaning that I can have part of it installed on a Web Server, part of it installed on a SQL Server and part of it so that the documents and things that you’re sharing are on a user server somewhere. So SharePoint can be installed in many different places. Backup Exec is smart enough to just go out and find all the pieces and parts of SharePoint and back it up. So we’ll talk about how to set it up so that you can get that automated — just go find my pieces of SharePoint and back it up appropriately. The next lesson is virtual environment agents. There are two of these. This is really a three part lesson. It is an overview of virtualization and how does virtualization work. And then we’ll talk about the agent for VMware, and how does the agent for VMware back up. It backs up everything in one pass. You get the VMDK, you get everything that’s inside the VMDK, and you can still do granular recovery, so I can restore individual files and folders, or if it is a virtualized Exchange server I can restore individual e-mail or mailboxes. The last part of that lesson, the third part of that lesson, is the virtual agent for Hyper-V. Hyper-V works slightly different than VMware, so we’ll take a look at some of those differences and the differences in the rules of how they work. The last lesson that we’re going to cover is deduplication. Data deduplication is new to many people, so if you haven’t heard of what it is, in a nutshell data deduplication is a fancy form of compression. Let’s take this PowerPoint presentation just as an example. If I were to e-mail this PowerPoint presentation to everyone in the room, then we would all have a copy of it, and we would all have that in our user directory. How many times do we need to back it up in order to be able restore it? Do I need to back it up four or five or six times? The answer is no, I only need to back it up once and I can restore it. But data deduplication is more than that. It is looking at the individual pieces inside of a file. So if I e-mail this PowerPoint out to everyone and only one person changed a couple slides, we would backup the whole PowerPoint once, but then we would only backup those chunks that change, the deltas of that slide presentation, so just the slides that changed. So data deduplication is a way of backing up the data so that it occupies the least amount of space possible on the destination. It’s extremely efficient. And the idea is that if I’m using hard drive space for backups, rather than only keeping three or four weeks worth of backups in that drive space Because data deduplication uses this space so efficiently, I can now keep two or three months worth of backups in that same amount of drive space. We’re not costing you any more drive space. So what are the rules for data deduplication? How does it work? And how do you set up your backups to use it? And there are several different rules to that. So that gets us through all the lessons we have for this week. You can tell it’s going to be a very busy week, and we have a lot of new material to cover.

Course objectives
So after completing this course, you will be able to describe the basic functions of Backup Exec from a very high level overview. The components of Backup Exec; you’ll be able to manage your devices and more importantly manage how long your backups are kept for you to be able to restore, and there’s two parts to that. There’s the media set and there’s data lifecycle management. You’ll be able to run basic backup jobs, these are known as backup definitions, and you’ll be able to create new ones and edit the ones that you have. You’ll be able to explain how backup and restore workflows work. You’ll be able to restore — the most important part of the class — you’ll be able to restore your data. You’ll be able to list the different virtual conversions that Backup Exec is able to do, that’s P2V and B2V. You’ll be able to create a simplified disaster recovery disk. This is a disk that you boot to to recover your server, and you can put your own drivers on it if you need to. Most people don’t, but you can if you need to. So we’ll talk about how to do that. And then you’ll be able to use that disk to recover servers. We’ll also go through the new features and enhancements that have been made to Backup Exec, and we’ll list a few of the end of life items, not all of them, but we will go through a few of them. So those are all things you’ll be able to do when you’re finished with this course.

Data protection: Is backup or restore the priority?
So the question becomes why do we care, and the reality about backups is that most environments really don’t want to put a lot of time or effort into backups, particularly money, into backups until they have had a disaster. And once they lose data, all of a sudden backups become important. So when you look at the slide that you see here about data protection, what’s the priority, the answer is it restores the priority, but in order to restore very quickly you have to back it up in such a way that you can restore it very quickly. I’m going to give you a rule that we’re going to talk about all week, and that is the faster the backup, the slower the restore. The faster the restore, the slower the backup. Everything in life is a trade off. So if I’m backing up to tape, that’s my slowest backup, but it’s also my slowest restore. My tape is sequential access. There’s all kinds of things that are in effect now for very fast recoveries. I can do clustering, I can do a backup to virtual, so I can bring a machine up as a virtual machine, or I can do disaster recoveries of the whole machine. So the trade off here is I have my recovery point that I want to recover from, hopefully that’s as current as it can be, but then how long does it take me to do that recovery. And that’s where the longer the backup, the shorter the restore. If I did a full backup every night, that’s a much faster recovery. So I have my recovery point of my full backup and my time to recovery is very short if I had done full backups. This all takes planning, and that’s really your mission as a backup administrator is to understand these rules and understand which ones are faster and which ones are slower and then apply that to your servers as needed. Because the reality is that you may only have one or two administrators on your network, and if your data center is full of water and you have to recover the data center as a whole, which servers do you recover first? You’re one person. How many can you recover at a time? Who comes first? Who comes last? Which server can you stand to be without for three or four days? Those are all questions that you have to answer, and you’re not going to answer them all today, but they’re questions that you have to think about, and this is really our priority in this class is to get you to think about the different types of backups that you run, why you run them, and then how can you use those to your best benefit when you have to do recoveries.

Data protection plan
So you have to plan this out. Being able to recover is really more a function of how you backed it up. So your backup method becomes the driving force for how you can do recoveries. So you have to plan what kind of a recovery do I need to do and I have to run my backups accordingly. Then the next thing that comes into play is how long are you keeping your data. How many people really restore backups that are a year old or two years old? Most people restore backups that are less than 60 days old, so do you really need to keep your data for long periods of time. Well, for some legal requirements the answer is yes, some data has to be kept forever and ever, amen. Some data you keep for a very short time, maybe two weeks at a maximum. So how do I store my data to make the best use of my resources, and one of those methods is called archiving. And that’s where I can take the data off of the source where the users access it, let’s say for example Exchange, and so the users have their e-mail on their Exchange server, but users keep e-mail forever. And so I’m going to say as an administrator that they can only have things on that Exchange server that’s less than two years old. And once it hits two years old, we’re going to take it off of the Exchange server and put it onto drive space that something else manages, maybe Backup Exec. And so now I’m going to pull it off the Exchange server and put it onto drive space that Backup Exec manages, and if the user needs it back we can get it back, but it frees up space on the Exchange server. That’s known as archiving. So all of these data protection and recovery things require planning, and part of the planning on this is what kind of service level agreements do you have. Service level agreements say how long can a server be down. Some of you have written service level agreements that say this server can only be down for one hour or two hours and it has to be back up and running. Some service level agreements are implied. Take down your Exchange server and tell me how long it’s going to be before users are howling at you that the Exchange server is down, right. They’re going to be calling you on the phone, they’re going to be knocking at your door, I can’t send e-mail, I can’t send e-mail. What’s your service level agreement for that Exchange server? Well, if you didn’t have one written, I will tell you it’s about 30 seconds, if it’s that long. So you’re going to have to plan your backups accordingly so that you can recover your data as quickly as needed for your business, Exchange and SQL being two of the big ones. So this all drives your backup strategy. The last piece of this that’s very important is that you’ve got to test. The only way to find out that what you backed up is truly valid data is to do restores. If you’ve never done a pretend drill where you pretend that a server is dead and try to recover it, it’s a very useful learning experience. Because it’s easy for us to sit here and be armchair quarterbacks with our cup of coffee and say when a disaster happens this is how we’re going to recover, but it’s a very different thing to actually do it, and walk through. And a question is, can you? And I think what you’ll find is that with certain types of data it’s much more difficult to do those recoveries than it is with other types of data, SQL being one of the more difficult. SQL is also one of your more mission critical because this is the one usually that holds all of your billing, all of your money coming in and money going out is in a database. So if you can’t recover that one, what happens to your organization? Often people will say but I don’t have the time or the resources to do recoveries. With this version of Backup Exec you can take that physical box or that virtual machine and back it up and recover it as another virtual machine. So just to make sure that you know how to do your recovery. So it’s a very easy and efficient way to do testing to make sure that you can bring your data back. And you thought this was a backup class. This is really a restore class. Backup is just how you get there.

Lab Environment
For our lab environment, what we have is a physical host that’s running five different virtual machines. We have a domain controller that is running Active Directory, SQL, and SharePoint. It is a 64-bit 2008 R2 box. Then we have a backup server that is also 2008, 64-bit that is our backup server and our Outlook Client for Outlook 2007. We have two Exchange servers. One of them is the major Exchange server, the other one is a member of the data availability group, database availability group, or DAG, and that’s the one that we’re going to have to talk about Exchange 2010. Then we also have an ESX server that is also hosting guests so that we can backup virtual machines. So that’s our lab environment, and I’ll go through that more when we break to do labs.

The Backup Exec 3600 Appliance provides data protection, with comprehensive backup and recovery, in a single easy-to-use appliance. The Backup Exec 3600 Appliance is 1U high. A rack unit or “U” is a unit of measure used to describe the height of equipment intended for mounting. One rack unit is 1.75 inches high.

The Appliance can be installed in a rack cabinet that is 19 inches wide and 100 cm deep. The physical dimensions of the Appliance are as follows:

• Height: 8.43 cm or 1.70 inches
• Width:  45.1 cm or 17.76 inches
• Depth: 67.1 cm or 26.2 inches

The Appliance weighs 12.20 kilograms or 26.89 pounds. This weight is inclusive of the two power supply modules and four disk modules.

Let’s now take a look at the core hardware configuration of the Backup Exec 3600 Appliance.

Backup Exec 3600 Appliance contains four externally accessible Serial Attached SCSI or SAS drives, with a total capacity of 5.5 Terabytes of data storage and two Solid-state Drive disks (SSD), with total capacity of 40 Gigabytes for the operating system. The power supplies and the disk drives can be removed and replaced without powering down the Appliance. The Appliance CPU is a quad-core, 2.4 Gigahertz processor with an 8 MB cache. The rear panel of the Appliance contains two USB ports and five NIC Ethernet ports. However, only two NIC ports are customer operational. NIC 5 is reserved for administrative purposes while NIC 3 and NIC 4 are currently not operational.

Now that you are familiar with the core configuration of the Appliance, let’s discuss the key components of the Appliance. In the image displayed above, the top cover of the Appliance and the Air Duct is removed. The Appliance essentially consists of:

• A Redundant Power Supply Cage
• An Optional BBU Assembly Position
• Blowers for Processor and Memory
• An Optional Slim-line Optical Drive Assembly
• Four External Hot-swappable HDD Carriers
• A System Fan for PCIe add-in card
• An Optional PCI Express Add-in Card, and
• The Motherboard

The detailed list of components attached to the motherboard is displayed on the next image

Like any other Appliance the Backup Exec 3600 Appliance, comprises a front and rear panel. The front panel of the Appliance contains the following components:

• A system power/sleep button
• A system reset button
• A power/sleep activity LED
• A system NIC5 activity LED
• A system status LED
• Two USB 2.0 ports
• The rack handle and
• Four hard drive bays.

The rear panel of the Appliance comprises the following physical components:

• Two power supply locks
• Two power supply sockets
• Two power LEDs
• Two North America power cords that are connected to the power sockets
• A top cover thumb screw
• NIC 5 port
• A PCIe expansion slot
• A serial port
• Two USB ports
• A VGA port
• NIC 1 and NIC 2 ports, and
• Ethernet cables that are connected to the Ethernet ports.

The Backup Exec 3600 Appliance contains two power supply sockets and two  power cords. The power supplies can be removed and replaced without powering down the Appliance. However, do not remove both power supplies at the same time. Power must be maintained to the system at all times unless you plan to shut down the Appliance.

If you need to shut down the system, be sure that the Appliance and all peripherals are properly shut down. All programs running on any devices must be stopped before the power is turned off. If you remove power or disconnect devices while programs are running, data loss may occur.

The maximum power consumption of the Appliance is 400 Watts. The Alternating Current Voltage range is between 100 Volts and 127 Volts approximately, 8.5A Max. Alternatively the Alternating Current Voltage can also range between 200 Volts to 240 Volts, approximately /4.2A Max. The AC frequency range is between 50 Hertz and 60 Hertz.

Backup Exec 3600 Appliance contains four externally accessible disk bays. Each bay holds one disk module, which includes a disk carrier and a hard disk drive.These four hot swappable Serial Attached SCSI or SAS drives have a 3.5 inches form factor, 2 Terabyte capacity and are labeled from zero through three, left to right. To maintain air flow, the bays must never be empty. A blank carrier may be used if necessary.
You can hot-swap only one disk drive at a time. If you have two drives that are not working properly, you must shut down the entire system before removing more than one drive. Disk drives must be removed in two stages; First, disengage the disk module from the slot slightly. Do not pull it all the way out. Wait a couple of minutes for the disk to spin down and then pull the disk module out. After this the disk module can be completely removed.

After a month preparation for the Netximizer workshop, together with the vendor, the workshop successfully conducted at my company office, I had further understanding on the Internet Continuity and Business Continuity on the product. More information on the product feature, kindly refer to the blog I posted some time ago about

Netximizer.

Not much information can be obtain from the official website, here some Netimizer product datasheet.

Below is the product specification for N series.

Model : 220 / Netxi220
Targeting Business : Remote and Branch Offices
WAN Links Support : 2
Extra USB Modems Supports : 2
10/100 Base-TX : 4
10/100/1000 Base-TX : NA
Gigabit Fiber Ports (SFP) : NA
Throughput (Mbps) : 80
User Defined Port : Yes
High Availability : Yes
LAN Bypass : Yes
Optional SSD Storage : NA
Max. Power Consumption : 60W
Redundant Power Supply : NA
Dimension (mm) (W*D*H) : 210x151x44
Weight : 2.35kgs
Operating Temperature : 0 to 45 C
Certifications : FCC class B / CE class B
SRP (RM) : 5240

Model : 520 / Netxi520
Targeting Business : Remote and Branch Offices
WAN Links Support : 5
Extra USB Modems Supports : 2
10/100 Base-TX : 5
10/100/1000 Base-TX : NA
Gigabit Fiber Ports (SFP) : NA
Throughput (Mbps) : 80
User Defined Port : Yes
High Availability : Yes
LAN Bypass : Yes
Optional SSD Storage : NA
Max. Power Consumption : 60W
Redundant Power Supply : NA
Dimension (mm) (W*D*H) : 210x151x44
Weight : 2.35kgs
Operating Temperature : 0 to 45 C
Certifications : FCC class B / CE class B
SRP (RM) : 7813

Model : 1420 / Netxi1420
Targeting Business : SME
WAN Links Support : 10
Extra USB Modems Supports : 2
10/100 Base-TX : 4
10/100/1000 Base-TX : NA
Gigabit Fiber Ports (SFP) : NA
Throughput (Mbps) : 250
User Defined Port : Yes
High Availability : Yes
LAN Bypass : Option
Optional SSD Storage : 8GB
Max. Power Consumption : 84W
Redundant Power Supply : NA
Dimension (mm) (W*D*H) : 430x248x44
Weight : 7.0 kgs
Operating Temperature : 0 to 45 C
Certifications : FCC class A
SRP (RM) : 14351

Model : 1620 / Netxi1620
Targeting Business : SME
WAN Links Support : 20
Extra USB Modems Supports : 2
10/100 Base-TX : NA
10/100/1000 Base-TX : 6
Gigabit Fiber Ports (SFP) : NA
Throughput (Mbps) : 350
User Defined Port : Yes
High Availability : Yes
LAN Bypass : Yes
Optional SSD Storage : 16GB
Max. Power Consumption : 90W
Redundant Power Supply : NA
Dimension (mm) (W*D*H) : 429x255x44
Weight : 7.0 kgs
Operating Temperature : 0 to 45 C
Certifications : FCC class B / CE class B
SRP (RM) : 19069

Model : 2620 / Netxi2620
Targeting Business : Large Organization
WAN Links Support : 30
Extra USB Modems Supports : 2
10/100 Base-TX : NA
10/100/1000 Base-TX : 6
Gigabit Fiber Ports (SFP) : NA
Throughput (Mbps) : 1000
User Defined Port : Yes
High Availability : Yes
LAN Bypass : Yes
Optional SSD Storage : 32GB
Max. Power Consumption : 270W
Redundant Power Supply : NA
Dimension (mm) (W*D*H) : 430x394x44
Weight : 9.8 kgs
Operating Temperature : 0 to 45 C
Certifications : FCC class A / CE class A
SRP (RM) : 30646

Model : 3620 / Netxi3620
Targeting Business : Large Organization
WAN Links Support : 50
Extra USB Modems Supports : 2
10/100 Base-TX : NA
10/100/1000 Base-TX : 6
Gigabit Fiber Ports (SFP) : NA
Throughput (Mbps) : 1500
User Defined Port : Yes
High Availability : Yes
LAN Bypass : Yes
Optional SSD Storage : 32GB
Max. Power Consumption : 270W
Redundant Power Supply : NA
Dimension (mm) (W*D*H) : 430x394x44
Weight : 9.8 kgs
Operating Temperature : 0 to 45 C
Certifications : FCC class A / CE class A
SRP (RM) : 40401

Model : 4100
Targeting Business : Large Organization
WAN Links Support : 50
Extra USB Modems Supports : 2
10/100 Base-TX : NA
10/100/1000 Base-TX : 6
Gigabit Fiber Ports (SFP) : 4
Throughput (Mbps) : 2000
User Defined Port : Yes
High Availability : Yes
LAN Bypass : Yes
Optional SSD Storage : 32GB
Max. Power Consumption : 300W
Redundant Power Supply : Yes
Dimension (mm) (W*D*H) : 430x500x88
Weight : 21.6 kgs
Operating Temperature : 0 to 45 C
Certifications : FCC class B / CE class B

Model : 4100
Targeting Business : Large Organization
WAN Links Support : 50
Extra USB Modems Supports : 2
10/100 Base-TX : NA
10/100/1000 Base-TX : 6
Gigabit Fiber Ports (SFP) : 4
Throughput (Mbps) : 6000
User Defined Port : Yes
High Availability : Yes
LAN Bypass : Yes
Optional SSD Storage : 64GB
Max. Power Consumption : 300W
Redundant Power Supply : Yes
Dimension (mm) (W*D*H) : 430x500x88
Weight : 21.6 kgs
Operating Temperature : 0 to 45 C
Certifications : FCC class B / CE class B

Below is the Netximizer datasheet and product specification for M series.(M Series special for those who would like to you mobile SIM card as their alternative Internet link.

Model : M240 / Netxi240M
WAN Links Support : 4
Embedded 3G Modems : 2
USB Modems Supports : 2
10/100 Base-TX : 4
Throughput (Mbps) : 80
802.1 b/g/n Wireless LAN : Yes
Wi-Fi Operating Frequency : 2.4Ghz
Embedded 3G Modem Connectivity : HSUPA/HSDPA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/GSM
High Availability : Yes
Hardware LAN Bypass: Yes
Max. Power Consumption : 60W
Redundant Power Supply : NA
Dimension (mm) (W*D*H) 210*151*44
Weight : 2.35kgs
Operating Temperature : 0 to 45 C
Certifications : FCC class B/CE class B
Price SRP (RM) : 9188

Model : M400 / Netxi400M
WAN Links Support : 4
Embedded 3G Modems :  4
USB Modems Supports : 2
10/100 Base-TX : 4
Throughput (Mbps) : 80
802.1 b/g/n Wireless LAN : Yes
Wi-Fi Operating Frequency : 2.4Ghz
Embedded 3G Modem Connectivity : HSUPA/HSDPA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/GSM
High Availability : Yes
Hardware LAN Bypass: Yes
Max. Power Consumption : 60W
Redundant Power Supply : NA
Dimension (mm) (W*D*H) 210*151*44
Weight : 2.35kgs
Operating Temperature : 0 to 45 C
Certifications : FCC class B/CE class B
Price SRP (RM) : 15163

Model : M700 / Netxi700M
WAN Links Support : 7
Embedded 3G Modems : 7
USB Modems Supports : 2
10/100 Base-TX : 4
Throughput (Mbps) : 80
802.1 b/g/n Wireless LAN : Yes
Wi-Fi Operating Frequency : 2.4Ghz
Embedded 3G Modem Connectivity : HSUPA/HSDPA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/GSM
High Availability : Yes
Hardware LAN Bypass: Yes
Max. Power Consumption : 60W
Redundant Power Supply : NA
Dimension (mm) (W*D*H) 210*151*55
Weight : 2.5kgs
Operating Temperature : 0 to 45 C
Certifications : FCC class B/CE class B
SRP (RM) : 23475

When I come across Windows ROK Downgrade Issue, it took me a long time to source for the correct activation key in order to activate the downgraded version of OS.

At this point of time, I found a method to extend or so called re-arm the Windows evaluation period; it might not be a permanent solution, but an alternative workaround solution to buy you some time.

Every time you downgrade or install the evaluation copies, it does not require any activation keys, the activation grace period (Evaluation Period) is usually 60 days. You may reset or rearm the windows 3 time, total up to 240 days (60 days + 180 Days)

How to extend Windows Server 2008 Evaluation Period ?
Once you install Windows Server 2008, when it prompt to insert activation key, click NO and enter evaluation period, usually 60 days. You may run the Slmgr.vbs to check the the time left for evaluation period. Once the period is due, run a command prompt as administratiom, type c:\slmgr.vbs –rearm, and restart your PC, this will reset your evaluation period for another 60 days

How to automated extend the evaluation period every 60 days?
Since you can re arm the windows 3 time, you might need a automated schedular to execute the re-arm every 60 days.

Step 1. Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools and Task Scheduler
Step 2. At Task Scheduler, click action menu, and import task
Step 3. Select the XML file you create and Click Import, Click the Triggers tab and Click the One Time trigger then click Edit.
Step 4. Change the task date just before the end of your evaluation period. DONE!

Open a notepad, paste the below code, and save it as a XML file, eg. extend.xml. In the sample task, change the value of the following “UserID” tag to contain your domain and your alias: domain\alias

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Task version="1.2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2004/02/mit/task">
  <RegistrationInfo>
    <Date>2007-09-17T14:26:04.433</Date>
    <Author>Microsoft Corporation</Author>
  </RegistrationInfo>
  <Triggers>
    <TimeTrigger id="18c4a453-d7aa-4647-916b-af0c3ea16a6b">
      <Repetition>
        <Interval>P31D</Interval>
        <StopAtDurationEnd>false</StopAtDurationEnd>
      </Repetition>
      <StartBoundary>2007-10-05T02:23:24</StartBoundary>
      <EndBoundary>2008-09-17T14:23:24.777</EndBoundary>
      <Enabled>true</Enabled>
    </TimeTrigger>
  </Triggers>
  <Principals>
    <Principal id="Author">
      <UserId>domain\alias</UserId>
      <LogonType>Password</LogonType>
      <RunLevel>HighestAvailable</RunLevel>
    </Principal>
  </Principals>
  <Settings>
    <IdleSettings>
      <Duration>PT10M</Duration>
      <WaitTimeout>PT1H</WaitTimeout>
      <StopOnIdleEnd>true</StopOnIdleEnd>
      <RestartOnIdle>false</RestartOnIdle>
    </IdleSettings>
    <MultipleInstancesPolicy>IgnoreNew</MultipleInstancesPolicy>
    <DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>true</DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>
    <StopIfGoingOnBatteries>true</StopIfGoingOnBatteries>
    <AllowHardTerminate>true</AllowHardTerminate>
    <StartWhenAvailable>false</StartWhenAvailable>
    <RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>false</RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>
    <AllowStartOnDemand>true</AllowStartOnDemand>
    <Enabled>true</Enabled>
    <Hidden>false</Hidden>
    <RunOnlyIfIdle>false</RunOnlyIfIdle>
    <WakeToRun>true</WakeToRun>
    <ExecutionTimeLimit>P3D</ExecutionTimeLimit>
    <DeleteExpiredTaskAfter>PT0S</DeleteExpiredTaskAfter>
    <Priority>7</Priority>
    <RestartOnFailure>
      <Interval>PT1M</Interval>
      <Count>3</Count>
    </RestartOnFailure>
  </Settings>
  <Actions Context="Author">
    <Exec>
      <Command>C:\Windows\System32\slmgr.vbs</Command>
      <Arguments>-rearm</Arguments>
    </Exec>
    <Exec>
      <Command>C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe</Command>
      <Arguments>/r</Arguments>
    </Exec>
  </Actions>
</Task>

For more detail instruction, you may want to check out at Microsoft‘s website. While some mention, there is another method which can permanently re-arm your windows without expired date again, would this method be a legal way of cracking windows evaluation period? Let me get more information and share it at my blog.

This method also applicable for extended windows 7 evaluation period.

Extreme Networks is not a familiar brand for me, and recently there is a request for Cisco alternative model to Extreme X450 and X350.

Is difficult to source this kind of information where Extreme Network versus Cisco Switch.

The alternative of Extreme Network X350 to Cisco will be WS-C2960S-24TS-L, while for Extreme X450 alternative will be Cisco WS-C3750X-24T-S.

comparison and compatible models for Cisco, alternative of Extreme Network

More information you may look for their datasheet, it include the specification and functionality.

Extreme X350 vs Cisco 2960S

Extreme X450 vs Cisco 3750X

When talking about Windows downgrade (Assume Windows Server), few issue you require to take concern. Some vendor will propose you Windows Server ROK (Reseller Option Kits), in short, ROK is another type of OEM edition; while some vendor will advice you for Windows open license which cost you higher compare to ROK.

In Microsoft licensing point of view, you may downgrade the server as long you own the the Windows license. Example Windows Server 2008 R2 64 Bit, you may downgrade to Windows Server 2008 32 bit or Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2003.

Why purchase Open License?
For Open License, you may login to Microsoft portal, list of allowed downgrade version will be shown there, together with the license key / activation key and the downloaded media.

Limitation of ROK / OEM license
Unfortunately, for OEM / ROK, you do not have this option. Legally, you allow to downgrade, but you require to obtain your own CD Media and Activation key. Vendor like IBM and HP will not provide you nor Microsoft them self. Personally I am not agree with Microsoft because they advice end user to borrow from other end user who own the version they want to downgrade. How many really willing to borrow the activation key?

More information about your Windows downgrade, check out Understand Windows Downgrade Rights. While to solve the ROM / OEM issue, in case you unable to locate a correct activation key and your evaluation period is expired, you may also use another method call windows “rearm“, I will write about how to apply this method in my following articles, it will be a good method to extend your windows evaluation period, and this method is not about crack or hack, it is a legal method which recognize by Microsoft.

Quiz after attending Calculate Total Power Requirement for Datacenter

Q1. When confronted with the challenge of determining both current and future power requirements, data center managers often over size their power requirements by as much as 70%

Q2. No matter what the actual physical infrastructure system design configuration is, the core issue will be to provide sufficient power to the critical load while keeping that critical load cool enough to operate, without experiencing downtime. True

Q3. Studies indicate that the nameplate rating of most IT devices is well in excess of the actual running load by a factor of at least 33%

Q4. This is a simple formula for estimating average lighting consumption. 2 Watts per square foot or 21.5 watts per square meter

Q5. Air conditioning loads, require high starting currents and can impose Harmonic currents on a generator that may impact its ability to supply the power needed.

Q6. To derive the UPS load, you need to know the existing load, future load and inefficiency factor for the UPS & UPS battery charging. True

Q7. IT “refreshes”—where new, more powerful and efficient devices are installed in the data center will typically occur at a minimum on every three year time cycle.

Q8. When calculating critical loads, if the wattage is not listed on the device, it can be determined by dividing the incoming current in Watts by the amps of the device to get the VA or volt-amps. False

Q9. Some popular availability configurations, from a power and cooling perspective, include which of the following? N, N+1, 2N

Q10. The critical load includes: servers, routers, computers, storage devices, telecommunications equipment, etcetera, as well as the security systems, fire and monitoring systems that protect them. These items are known as the IT hardware components that make up the IT business architecture. True

I always have a big question mark on Virtualization, and knowing that Hyper-V and Vmware always be the topic when we talk about virtualization.

Few month back, I come across Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012, which is a stand alone product, without windows role and feature’s operating system. The benefit of this operating system is without require any windows license.

Unlike Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012, both operating system also contain Hyper-V, but it require license for the windows to run then hyper-V feature.

The benefit of using Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 is during the server without much windows role and feature, it is purely use to deploy multiple VM only.

I found there is a video which is very helpful for newbie step by step to get start on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 core Installation

1. Domain/Workgroup
2. Computer Name
3. Add Local Admin
4. Configure Remote Management
5. Windows Update
6. Download and Install Update
7. Remore Desktop
8. Network Settings
9. Date and Time

Once finish the installation, there is no GUI for the Hyper V 2012 core installation, the only screen will be look like below. You might need to Hyper V manager connect remotely.

I will blog about how to use Hyper-V Manager remotely manage Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 shortly. There is few additional step and troubleshooting require during the setup of the remote access of hyper-V.

Lately a partners inquiry whether can Cisco 881/K9 router (without ADSL module) connected to the ISP (Internet Service Provider) using external ADSL Modem which the ADSL set to bridge mode, and let the Cisco 881/k9 do the PPPoE dial up

As usual configuration, we let the ADSL modem do it work (PPPoE dial up at ADSL Modem) and let the router connect to Modem via the LAN/WAN. Unfortunately, the End user would like to set the modem into bridge mode, and let the Cisco 881 do the PPPoE dial up.

I try to search around, but unable to locate a confirmation from Cisco’s official website. after few more attempt on searching, found a question online which similar to my partners’s inquiry

I am attempting to setup a Cisco 881G router that uses FastEthernet 4 for the WAN interface to utilize an ADSL Modem. How does this configuration work. Since the modem does the PPPoE do I also have to setup the Router to do PPPoE?

This is few answer from the expert:

1. You could have the ADSL modem/router do the PPPoE + NAT and then have your 881G do NAT again behind it.

or..

2. You can turn off PPPoE on the ADSL modem and have it run in bridging mode only. On the Cisco you would then do something like this:

interface FastEthernet4
description Physical WAN Interface
bandwidth inherit
no ip address
no ip redirects
no ip unreachables
no ip proxy-arp
ip route-cache flow
duplex auto
speed auto
pppoe enable group global
pppoe-client dial-pool-number 1
hold-queue 224 in
!

interface Dialer0
ip address negotiated
ip verify unicast reverse-path
no ip redirects
no ip unreachables
ip directed-broadcast
no ip proxy-arp
ip nat outside
ip virtual-reassembly
encapsulation ppp
ip tcp adjust-mss 1400
load-interval 30
dialer pool 1
dialer-group 1
ppp authentication chap callin
ppp chap hostname xxxxx@yyyyy.zzz
ppp chap password xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Other then the above answer, which the option 2 is pretty much answer my doubt on Cisco 881 with PPPoE connection which the external ADSL modem been set to bridge mode.

While at the same time, there is another expert do comment another method:

You will need to setup F0/4 as a pppoe interface and point it to the proper dial pool. then configure the dialer interface . next create a route pointing all lan traffic to the dialer interface.

Nat will also need to be setup so your internal lan computers can use the internet.

here is a sample config for you

 

interface Ethernet0/4
no ip address
pppoe enable
pppoe-client dial-pool-number 1
!
interface Dialer0
ip address negotiated
ip mtu 1492
encapsulation ppp
dialer pool 1
!
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 interface dialer0
!
!you will also need to configure NAT/PAT for address translation
!
ip nat inside source list 100 interface dialer0 overload
access-list 100 permit ip <internal subnet> <mask> any
!
interface Dialer0
ip nat outside
!
!any interface connecting to your local lan needs ip nat inside
interface f0/0
ip nat inside