The “One ring”

It’s here! Finally!

As I’ve got the Microsoft MVP award for another year (beginning October), today I’ve received the (special) “blue ring” – my fifth year of being an MVP.

It has been a long road… full of excitements, events, friendships, travels, real-world issues… but it was fun!

Once again, I want to thank my girlfriend, my family, my fellow MVPs, my mentors, my colleagues (past and present), wonderful Microsoft people and everyone else who backed me up along this path – THANK YOU, you are the real MVPs, and this award is yours as well!

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Now… let’s face the new “challenges”! Smile

Cheers!

Advanced Technology Days (ATD) 10 – recap

Another great conference is behind us – Advanced Technology Days 10 (or just ATD 10). Two-day conference, Wednesday and Thursday, about the latest and greatest from Microsoft, just in time for some of the important announcements, and with more than a glimpse into the future of technology – pretty cool. Smile

I’ve had two sessions – on Wednesday, I’ve had a session called Što nam donosi Windows Server vNext (Technical Preview)? (or “What’s new in Windows Server vNext (Technical Preview)?”), where I’ve outlined the major news in this prerelease version of the next Windows Server. There really is a lot to talk about, as Windows Server vNext brings so many news, even in this, somewhat early, stage in development cycle.

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The session that I’ve had on Thursday was called Što nam donosi System Center vNext (Technical Preview)? (or “What’s new in System Center vNext (Technical Preview)?”), and there I’ve shown what is there in Technical Preview today with the preview of the new Microsoft Azure Operational Insights, which also entered the “public preview” phase during the conference. You can sign up and try it at https://opinsights.azure.com/.

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Overall experience was great – once again located in a movie theatre, with lots of great people, networking, combined with a flawless demo experience (plug ’n’ play) and great timing… actually, I can’t wait for Advanced Technology Days vNext! Smile

I’m so happy that I was invited to speak (big thanks to all involved!), and got the opportunity to participate with my view on all the great stuff included in those releases of very important products.

More info is available at http://atd.mscommunity.hr/ and https://www.facebook.com/MicrosoftATD.

Cheers!

Hosts have “Needs Attention” status after installing the VMM 2012 R2 UR4

For those who installed the Update Rollup 4 for System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager, you may be facing this somewhat “strange issue” right after the installation – your hosts will have the “Needs Attention” status.

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And now the “strange” part – if you open the host Properties window, and check the Status tab, you’ll may see that everything is green.

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So, what needs the attention then?
The answer is – VMM agent needs the attention, and that’s the cause of this “issue” (you’ll need to run Update Agent action on affected hosts).

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And, finally, status of your hosts should be OK again.

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Hope this helps!

P.S. Read the KB document thoroughly – there is a part which mentions the manual update of System Center Virtual Machine Manager DHCP Server (x64) component. It should be like this:

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Windows Firewall blocking pings

A short one this time… Smile

Have you ever had an issue with Windows Firewall blocking your pings on a network using Public profile, although the “File and Printer Sharing” exception is enabled for this profile?
(oh, yes, and don’t you dare to say that Windows Firewall should be disabled by default! Smile)

So, this is what I’m talking about:

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As you see in the previous picture, the exception is enabled for both profiles (this PC is not domain-joined, but it would be the same with domain-joined PC on a network which is using the Public profile). When I try to ping it, I’m getting the standard “Request timed out.” message. Why is that? Is this a feature or bug?

Well, I’ve deliberately left-out two things:

  • if I try to ping my machine from the same subnet, the ping is passing through
  • if I try to ping my machine from the different subnet (routing is all set and working OK, in case you’re wondering), the ping is not passing through

The security feature that enables this kind of behavior is set in Windows Firewall by default – by default, Windows Firewall allows ping (and other traffic) only from the Local subnet, for all networks that use the Public profile. Of course, you may want to change this in certain scenarios (and you can… easily).

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This is yet another thing that should be kept in mind during troubleshooting, right? (hope it helps) Smile

Have a great weekend!