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Networking configurations for Hyper-V over SMB in Windows Server 2012 and...
One of the questions regarding Hyper-V over SMB that I get the most relates to how the network should be configured. Networking is key to several aspects of the scenario, including performance,...
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Automatic SMB Scale-Out Rebalancing in Windows Server 2012 R2
Introduction This blog post focus on the new SMB Scale-Out Rebalancing introduced in Windows Server 2012 R2. If you haven’t seen it yet, it delivers a new way of balancing file clients accessing a...
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Selecting the number of nodes for your Scale-Out File Server Cluster
I recently got a stream of e-mails and questions about the maximum number of cluster nodes you can have in a Scale-Out File Server cluster. For the record, we test and support up to 8 nodes per file...
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Is accessing files via a loopback share the same as using a local path?
Question from a user (paraphrased): When we access a local file via loopback UNC path, is this the same as accessing via the local path? I mean, is "C:\myfolder\a.txt" equal to...
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How much traffic needs to pass between the SMB Client and Server before...
One smart MVP was doing some testing and noticed that SMB Multichannel did not trigger immediately after an SMB session was established. So, he asked: How much traffic needs to pass between the SMB...
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Minimum version of Mellanox firmware required for running SMB Direct in...
There are two blog posts explaining in great detail what you need to do to use Mellanox ConnectX-2 or ConnectX-3 cards to implement RDMA networking for SMB 3.0 (using SMB Direct). You can find them...
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Sample PowerShell Scripts for Storage Spaces, standalone Hyper-V over SMB and...
These are some PowerShell snippets to configure a specific set of systems for Hyper-V over SMB testing.Posting it here mainly for my own reference, but maybe someone else out there is configuring a...
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Hyper-V over SMB – Sample Configurations
This post describes a few different Hyper-V over SMB sample configurations with increasing levels of availability. Not all configurations are recommended for production deployment, since some do not...
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Hyper-V over SMB – Performance considerations
1. Introduction If you follow this blog, you probably already had a chance to review the “Hyper-V over SMB” overview talk that I delivered at TechEd 2012 and other conferences. I am now working on a...
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Hardware options for highly available Windows Server 2012 systems using...
Highly available Windows Server 2012 systems using shared, directly-attached storage can be built using either Storage Spaces or a validated clustered RAID controller. Option 1 – Storage SpacesYou can...
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Increasing Availability – The REAP Principles (Redundancy, Entanglement,...
Introduction Increasing availability is a key concern with computer systems. With all the consolidation and virtualization efforts under way, you need to make sure your services are always up and...
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SQLIO, PowerShell and storage performance: measuring IOPs, throughput and...
1. Introduction I have been doing storage-related demos and publishing blogs with some storage performance numbers for a while, and I commonly get questions such as “How do you run these tests?” or...
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Q and A: Is it possible to run SMB Direct from within a VM?
Question received via blog mail:Jose-I picked up a couple ConnectX-2 adapters and a cable off of ebay for cheap (about $300 for everything) to test out SMB Direct. I followed your blog "Deploying...
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Q and A: Can I use SMB3 storage without RDMA?
Question received via e-mail:Is it practical use SMB3 storage without RDMA or do we have a use case for production rather than development or test?I thought RDMA would be essential for production...
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Q and A: I only have two NICs on my Hyper-V host. Should I team them or not?
Question via e-mail:I am using blade servers for my Hyper-V cluster and I can only have two NICs per blade in this configuration.I am considering two options on how to configure the NICs:1) Use...
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Slides for the Instructor-Led Lab on Windows Server 2012 Storage from MMS 2013
I delivered an instructor-led lab on Windows Server 2012 Storage at MMS 2013 yesterday (4/8), with a repeat scheduled for tomorrow (4/10) at 2:45 PM. You can find the details on this lab at...
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MMS 2013 Demo: Hyper-V over SMB at high throughput with SMB Direct and SMB...
Overview I delivered a demo of Hyper-V over SMB this week at MMS 2013 that’s an evolution of a demo I did back in the Windows Server 2012 launch and also via a TechNet Radio session.Back then I showed...
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TechNet Radio series covers Windows Server 2012 File Server and SMB 3.0...
I have been working with Bob Hunt at the TechNet Radio team to provide a series of webcasts with information about SMB 3.0 and the File Server role in Windows Server 2012.These are fairly informal...
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Iron Networks shows a complete private cloud pod at MMS 2013 with Windows...
I was visiting the expo area at MMS 2013 earlier today and saw that Iron Networks was showing a private cloud pod there, complete with a set of well-matched layers of compute, storage and...
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File Server Tip: How to rebalance a Scale-Out File Server using a little...
A Scale-Out File Server is a cluster role that offers the same SMB file share (or set of shares) on every node of the cluster. As clients come in, they are spread across the nodes using a round-robin...
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