Every now and then poor planning and an incredible growth curve meet to make something special. We’re having a special maintenance cycle this weekend at OwnWebNow and rather than to test our luck I’ve extended the maintenance cycle by 5 hours to make sure everything thats being brought online is done in a manner that won’t cause me to have to apologize for a week straight.

Absolutely every single core service is being scaled up, along with both physical and topological change in the infrastructure: new DNS server core, three more data centers.

Tip for newbies: never be a smartass in an engineering meeting. For example, if you hear someone say the above to you and you are compelled to say “No biggie, whats the worst thing that could happen” prepare for everyone else to pause and look at you, visually painting “fault point” on your forehead. On the flip side, its a hell of a way to get a Saturday off

Dave Sobel was all over System Center Essentials at last years TechEd and frankly, I dismissed it way back then as another mee-too Microsoft entry in a hot market with an offshoot of SMS/MOM crippled down to the SMB without any of the features that make SMS/MOM somewhat of a success in the enterprise. We use all of these tools to manage our Own Web Now network so I’m trying my hardest to use the words that don’t inspire confidence in these things being actual solutions to the problem.

This year I tried my hardest to attend the many System Center presentations to see the progress (still on MOM here) and what I saw justified my previous position. Don’t get me wrong, they have improved to the point at which they might kill Level Platforms, the integration of System Center Essentials into the upcoming Microsoft servers (if/what/when) might give it a little bit of attention but what I saw in these tools had clear prints of the many failed Microsoft enterprise solutions when cripled/pushed down into SMB. I watched this presentation in which the presenter tried his hardest to explain how System Center Service Manager would help the company mange its support requests. While that tool might be great for the helpdesk to fill out on behalf of the user and get it right half the time, throwing a 50 page questionaiire clearly designed by a retarded CRM developer (you know the kind, that throw every available control onto a 6 mile long page) at a user will just result in people ignoring it.

Now there is some press about SCE being used to deliver managed solutions, but the story is still the same – license System Center Operation Manager in your network and then make everyone else buy into SCE. Riiiight.

If you ask me, and we’ll pretend you did since you’re reading my blog, Microsoft lost the SMB managed space by mismanaging it for close to a decade. One half-baked idea after another, one patching nightmare after another, making product support costs shoot through the roof where you only seem to buy the application framework but are left on your own to put together the pieces and make them work togheter… those kinds of moves have made loyal Microsoft customers either make it work themselves (middleware) or go with a third party solution.

And now, moreso than at any point over the last 10 years, people are using competitive solutions that actually solve the problems. Those third party solutions for security, spam, VoIP, network management, email, etc are not going to be managed by SCE and will likely keep the third party tools in dominance. Absolutely nobody I spoke to (outside Microsoft) at TechEd was using the Edge Role on their Exchange 2007 network. Even the most devout of MVP’s had Blackberries. And don’t get me started on the circumcised Forefront (bad TechEd 2006 joke). People are buying Asterisk VoIP, they are adding Macs, they are buying Vmware, they are buying third party appliances… and Microsoft is living in a realm in which only their solutions exist and only their solutions need to be managed.

Manage that.

The “new generation” of IT certifications is now official, Windows Server 2008 track has been published. Just like with the 2000 to 2003 track, there are two exams to upgrade your MCSE (now MCTS) credential to 2008. There is even a 40% discount code.

I wonder if this is a one-shot “pass or retake all 7” like it was in 2003. Either way, one thing you can bet on is that these exams are going to be extremely difficult. Time to spin up those 2008 boxes.

(oh, and all of you that cried foul about how expensive TechEd was…. you don’t want to look at the cost of Microsoft training for these exams. But as with anything, it takes a lot to separate hobbyists from professionals)

Have an Exchange question thats on your mind? Well, Microsoft is hosting an Exchange Server Expert Q&A tomorrow and Thursday and I’ll be one of the folks answering the questions. Want some free Vlad support?

Exchange Server Q&A with the MVP Experts
Exchange MVPs will be on hand to answer your questions about Exchange Server, Outlook and Exchange for Small Business Server.  So if you are thinking of upgrading to Exchange Server 2007 or have questions about Exchange Server 2003 we hope you can join us for this informative online chat!

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/vcs/07_0621_TN_ES.ics

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/vcs/07_0619_TN_ES.ics

Tomorrow at 8 PM EST, and Thursday at 1 PM EST. Hope to see you there! More details on the Exchange Blog.

No, not an SBS Show. But a great podcast by Susan Bradley on how to apply service packs and more importantly, the test steps you should take. Really worth a listen to.

Welcome to Orlando! Today is the pre-day at TechEd, people are flying in, checking in, enjoying the sun and fun that Orlando and Central Florida offer. Welcome, have a great time!

There aren’t many things that will get you in trouble in Central Florida, we’re a 24/7/365 tourist destination. However, here are a few things to avoid to make sure your stay here is easier and cheaper:

• There are no deals in Orlando. This isn’t Las Vegas, this is Orlando – there are no discount tickets, no discount meals, no great opportunities – everything that seems like it’s too good to be true probably is.
• Do not go into camera stores. If you need a new SD card, spend a few extra bucks and buy it at Walgreens. Do not go into electronics stores with sharp-dressed immigrants, they are known for very antagonistic pressure sales, not allowing customers to leave the store, etc.
• Don’t accessorize like MC Hammer. This is a tourist destination, not a gold and diamond exibition. If you’re wearing a few car payments on your neck it might be a good idea to leave that stuff in the hotel room.
• Don’t drink in public. It’s against the law in Orlando, so if you have a drink do it in the restaurant, bar, hotel. Don’t walk around the street with it, you will get arrested.
• “You can just walk there.” Nobody walks in Florida. If you try, you’ll find out why very quickly. It’s hot and everything is far.
• Don’t buy a time share. Don’t go swimming in a lake. You’ll just have to trust me on these two.

Things to do:

• Always bring a bottle of water. No matter where you’re going, once you leave the A/C and feel that humidity combined with a 30–40 degree temperature differential you will dehydrate. Quickly. Just bring a bottle of water with you.
• Shower at night. Weird one, eh? Here is the problem – if you shower in the morning you will never dry off. As you hop between climate controlled environments, cabs, busses, outdoors, conferences, etc you will likely end up with a cold by the end of the conference.
• Enjoy the attractions. Orlando is famous for the many world-class attractions, check them out. No, Disney World is NOT just like DisneyLand.
• Hit the outlets. Don’t hold me to this but it’s likely that Microsoft will bus you to Premiere Outets. You can get some really nice things for a tiny fraction of the retail price. These outlets usually sell discontinued stuff (sneakers, etc) or designer clothing from last year. So if you want something nice but don’t want to pay for it, thats your best bet.
• If this is your first time at TechEd… sleeeeeeeeeeeeep. Really, try to get a few hours each night. The schedule is brutal, the amount of information is overwhelming. If you hope to survive and make it to the conference on Wednesday and Thursday take a few hours to sleep on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Oh.. and have fun! Congratulations on getting your managers to part with the funding to send you to TechEd, this year will certainly be a great mix of fun and learning unparalleled by any other event.

Welcome to Orlando!

The good news about Windows Server 2008 just keeps on piling up. Even without the WinFS and Virtualization features built in, Windows Server 2008 looks great and the IIS and infrastructure improvements are making a lot of us drool already. How will you roll it out is an easy question to answer, just work with the betas now and you will have a handle on it by the time it ships. But how do you prove to others that you can roll it out, correctly, securely and the first time? Through a little thing called professional industry certifications.

For that you have to listen to Trika Harms zum Spreckel, lady with a long name and lots to say about Micrsoft Certifications. Trika talks about training, certifications, Microsoft Learning and other cool stuff that separates professionals from… well.. hobbyists. And it’s darn important in SMB as well. If your company stands for more than its ability to scheme customers into buying Microsoft solutions then it ought to be getting you one of the leading technology certifications – MCSE on Microsoft Windows Server 2008.

This week Trika is offering a 40% discount on the upgrade exams to MCSE on Windows Server 2008. Sign up now, these are by no stretch of the imagination “easy”;

Susan Bradley’s blog tagline ought to be “Protecting you from your own stupidity” because she fought for the SP2 EULA from the day it was prematurely made available as a High Priority update on Microsoft Update. We all have a tendancy to trust Microsoft, sometimes trust it too much. Such is the case with updates, particularly to the systems that we look at on part-time only basis. Today this hard fought evangelical EULA is up on Microsoft Update.

Why? Well, Service Pack of any sort is kind of a big deal. Despite Cousin Joel’s notion that it’s easier to consume it still introduces large scale changes to your operating system and the entire network environment. So whats the big deal with an EULA? Well, it’s just another reminder put up there to make sure you’re about to do something that you might want to think about.

Why? Because you don’t want to be this guy:

The blog notes and instructions from the SBS blog have all been heeded.  32
hours of talking with tech support on the phone, changing the nic card,
updating all the drivers, and still, the system is dogging to the point of
being painful.  Here is the unexplainable issue:  I have 5 new machines, all
came from Dell with XP Pro installed.  They all had to be flattened and XP
Pro re-installed.  They worked great until SP2 was installed.  Now they take
5 minutes to open an 8MB spreadsheet they used to open in 20 seconds.  My 3
old machines were upgraded from W2K to XP Pro and they worked fine before SP2
was installed.  Afterward, they are slower, but work better than the new
machines.  The old machines can still run ACT 6.0.  The new machines fail
with a program error after opening the database.  Explain that!

All file access to the network is so slow now.  Don’t suggest anything
previously mentioned in the blog.  4 MS engineers can verify that all the
tricks have been done as outlined in this blog.

There must have been some other deep layer of connectivity between the
server and workstations that does some kind of handshaking/security checking
that is slowing things down.  Excel seems to have been hit the hardest.  It
is a terrible thing to see a 2GB 4Ghz Dual Core processor take 60 seconds to
copy 10 files of 80K each from the network to the local drive.

I have 5 SBS 2003 servers and 3 of them are just fine.  This one is dying
and SP2 failed to install on the other one.  I am afraid to work the issue as
it might turn out like this one.

I really do need ideas and help short of flattening the server, as that may
not help anyway.  Ideas, anyone?

I feel bad for this guy, I really do.

However, a part of me wonders just how heavy the rock was. You know, the one that he was under since Microsoft started releasing service packs. As painful as the above is to read, and as painful as this process has been for him, this outlines the fundamental lack of respect for change management we have in the IT industry.

First, where is the full backup of the server that this was done on. At the very least this would have allowed him to take the server back to the last known good configuration.

Second, where is the test system on which he checked Act 6.0 for compatibility?

Third, never change more than one thing.  If you installed the Service Pack and it broke things, do not proceed to install drivers (that likely have not been tested with the said service pack) and do more exotic changes.

Fourth, test, test, test, test. Forget about the stuff you should have done before you patched, too late to setup a test vm, too late to do a full backup, too late to check the app vendor for advisories related to the patch, too late. You’re patched, there is a whole new world on your network. Isn’t the first thing to check all the workstations and rerun MBSA, performance testing, reset the performance counter on both server and workstations, build new baselines, etc? If not, why? 

Perparing for a Service Pack

There are a few simple things you can do to minimize your chances of a 35 hour support call:

1. Check the main application vendor for the customer and make sure their products are tested and supported on the new service pack. Service Packs are available months in advance and vendors can test/advise whether you should update or not.

2. Reboot the server.

3. Back up the server, full backup or image.

4. Download the service pack.

5. Disconnect the server from the network.

6. Apply service pack.

7. If all is well, connect one workstation to the server to test the performance, application compatibility, access policies, etc.*

8. If all is well, reconnect everything to the network.

9. Rebuild your performance baselines.

10. Create a new full backup.

* - The last thing you want is to start storing live data on the server that you may need to restore to the previous version due to major problems. By placing the server offline you don’t have to deal with email that was delivered to the server that you will now lose, comitted data, etc, etc.

Now I realize that points #5 and #9 are in the same category as “Don’t eat pizza, it’s not good for you” and “Did you know that smoking causes cancer” but those are really the two things that will limit your exposure and tell you that there are problems before its far too late.

Got your own change management tip? Blog it or post a comment.

Second month in a row without a major Microsoft patch incident – patches apply properly, systems reboot as intended, no BSoD’s, no application incompatibilities. Just like it’s supposed to work.

Are we starting to see a trend in improved patch release management at Microsoft?

An interesting bug came up in the OWN Forums over the weekend, when downloading Office 2007 Word (docx) document from an Apache hosted site, the file either comes up garbled (application/octet-stream) or opens up a zip folder. This is usually the case when you have a mime-type and content-type mismatch and can get even uglier.. so what’s the solution? You have to define new Office 2007 mime types in your web server (or more precisely, server-side mime type database) so it knows how to communicate the content properly to the web browser. Office 2007 uses the new zipped XML OpenDocument format. After Googling for a few minutes and not finding the solution on the first four pages of searches I came to my buddy David Overton’s page – Now I remember where I read about the new Office 2007 mime types! I’m sure David will be extatic to know his hard work (which applies to IIS6 by the way) is now going to help Apache users everywhere get Office 2007 documents easilly. Joke aside, truth is Apache is the dominant web server and there is at least 70% chance you’re browsing an Apache site (you are right now, it’s what powers Vladville!) or about 98% chance if you’re not in a corporate environment.

Office 2007 mime types from David Overton.

First you’ll notice that there are many different mime types associated with Office 2007 OpenDocument format for just Word documents and templates: .docx, docm, dotm, dotx:

.docm = application/vnd.ms-word.document

.docx = application/vnd.openxmlformats-
officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
.dotm = application/vnd.ms-word.template
.dotx = application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.

wordprocessingml.template

You can hardcode in one of these at a time, however, there is a shortcut. Just open your /etc/mime.types and add this to the last line:

application/vnd.openxmlformats       docx pptx xlsx

Restart the Apache service and you’re set. This takes care of the top three popular Office 2007 formats. If you don’t have access to the system mime type configuration (you likely don’t) you can always override the settings using your .htaccess file. Enjoy and thank David! Here is the end result:

Extra note: Above applies to Apache servers hosted on Linux, however, if you host your Apache server on Windows the server distribution is likely shipping a mime configuration database in a specific path, one that you may or may not be able to find easilly. No worries, you can always add the content types directly to the httpd.conf file which is very easy to locate in most popular Windows Apache distributions such as Vertrigo. To add the new mime type directly in Apache httpd.conf (for Linux fans, /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf):

AddType  application/vnd.openxmlformats  .docx .pptx .xlsx

Please note that httpd.conf definitions override the /etc/mime.types definitions and dependant on the directory configuration, htaccess can (and usually does) override both.