Four examples where File Copy does not prove a storage problem.

Storage related performance has other considerations then file copy

Aka Windows Storage issues:  Several flavors of the same Ice Cream

Aka : xamples where file copy illustrates how a test can the problem.

There are a few cases which illustrate how file copy is not the best way to show you have a performance issue. I will endeavor to illustrate This point below. I have 4 cases where this assumption proves wrong. This does not include hardware. There could be an underlying hardware issue. However, many claim the disk is bad, when we have a test which just shows how to exhaust cache or illustrate a design issue. These are not hardware issues!

Storage IO and File Copy

File copy is not a one-dimensional topic. The Storage stack is more complex then it appears

Figure 1. The Storage Stack.

I would like to present cases where assumptions are wrong about “Cause of latency” , related to the claim of “slow file copy operations prove the disk is slow”. All the cases are examples where the test violates the design of the storage architecture in some way, or there is an assumption built into the assertion of slow file copy, slow disk etc.

In all cases, using copy and paste, is a single threaded operation. This factor limits the speed of disk IO, simply because of copy method. This problem is called a testing methodology error.  

Second,  all three cases (and most cases) are due to cache filling up, and the writes flushed, directly to disk. This is the least efficient method of copy and the performance is very low. Most solutions are designed to use cache to improve speeds. The summary of this paper is these tests either are 1) Self-limiting or 2) the test simply overruns the cache, creating a performance issue in the test methodology. 

#1 (Server 20xx) The test simply maxis out the cache of the storage solution.

Problem: Slow file copy – Claim: Disk is bad

Solution: Windows 201X | Storage: Software raid or Sata controller | Copy: Folder with 1 500gb iso and 200gb small files

Result:

Figure 2- File copy going to zero.

What’s going on here? Well you can see the copy goes to nearly zero over and over. The professional support agent will tell you the cache is filling up. What does that mean? It means copying 700 GB worth of data, it is taking all the cache resources, and it’s a bottle neck.

Was the solution designed for this type of copying? To begin with, any large data copy should be using multi-thread copy (robocopy), but we must investigate the disk sub-system to see what’s happening here.

What we really want to know is what is happening every time the graph goes near 0? We need only two performance counters. Open Windows Performance monitor and hit the + sign:

• Disk transfers/second
• disk idle time

Figure 3. Use Performance monitor counter.

What you will notice – When the graph goes to zero, the disk idle time goes to 0! Hmm busy disks… ok. What else. Disk transfers per second ~ IOPS. You can calculate your own iops, but top speed for a lower end storage subsystem is about 60-80 iops. The graph below tells us all we need to know:

Figure 4. Zero Idle time and high disk transfers/sec.

You see, in this case things are working as designed. The problem is the customer is using file copy and found the combination which will exhaust the cache. This means the writes get flushed to disk and this speed issue will be persistent for the whole copy.

Proof. If you want proof of this, look no farther than RAMMAP.

Empty the standby list – See the screenshot below. See the copy take off like a rocket? If you had hardware cache clearing fast enough, this would be happening automatically! This is your problem not enough cache to sustain the copy!

Figure 5. Empty Standby List for copy to take off like a rocket.

To conclude, the needed change here is 1) Change the test or 2) Get a faster disk subsystem with more cache. Hint: DiskSpeed at the end of this article.

#2 (S2d)The Test Circumvents the design of the Storage subsystem (S2d)

Problem: Slow file copy – Claim: Disk is bad

Solution: S2d Azure Stk HCI | Storage: H310 Storage Pool | Copy: Folder with 1 500gb iso and 200gb small files

Result:

Figure 6. See Saw Behavior when copy to or from the Pool.

In this case, we have an insane fast amount of possible IOPS, but that does not show in this example. What is happening is the same as above case.  The difference is we have entire drives dedicated to cache, for S2d. But it’s compounded by specific design parameters. S2d is designed around the virtual machine, Hyper-V and RDMA. You get insane transfer speeds between VM’s , across nodes.

The perfect expression of this case, is the customer who purchased S2d but does not use Hyper-V. If you use S2d as your storage, but not using Virtual machines, you’re missing the purpose. Without Hyper-V and VMs, you have no RDMA and your leverage to the solution is lost. S2d is contained, so its on a hyper speed rail “within the solution”.

If you experiment with this file copy, you will find out you can copy from CSV to CSV fine. This is what the solution was designed to do. The issue is if you copy from your PC to the CSV, ½ of this connection is not optimized. Your PC has a 1gb nic S2d has more then 1 25GB nic . Even host to host is not thrilling.

In this case, the customer needs to move all the workloads to Hyper-V VMs. Then do the testing between VMS only. Then the use case Is fulfilled, and this solution can be used as intended.

Again, testing should use disk speed with multiple threads. That section is at the end.

#3 (SQL VM)Comparing VM speed to a Physical Server (ISCSI)

Problem: Slow file copy – Claim: Disk is bad

Solution: SQL 19xx | Storage: Hyper-V on ISCSI  | Copy: SQL query rebuilding or backup

Result:

The results can vary widely. The main takeaway is the perception may be slow to very slow, compared to hardware. Let’s find out why.

This last case is a bit of an outlier. Not really, it’s another flavor of the same ice cream.  It’s not so much a file copy, but still involves the claim that the storage is the cause. In place of file copy, we have a SQL database doing the writing. The situation is SQL has been put in a VM. The expectation is the file copy will be just as fast.

Here is some reading about Storage and QUEUE Management

• Little’s Law (1)
• Storport Queue Management – Windows drivers | Microsoft Docs (2)
• best practice and deployment (3)
• Recommendation is to equally spread the data (4)
• database into separate files (5)

Since this is a more complex case, I am going to summarize what is going on here. The answer is in the documents above:

1.  Hyper-V cluster with a CSV only affords the Storeport driver (see figure 1) a single QUEUE.
2. To make SQL faster, the data should be broken into multiple Virtual disks. There is one Queue Per virtual disk (VD)
3. 3 Virtual disks are three times more processing. See document 2.
4. If you have multiple virtual disks, and the whole load is on one virtual disk, then that is like having one VD. See Document 5.
5. There is a formula to calculate how much cache is needed. This must be built into the design. (document 1).

Hopefully you can see what is happening. The SQL is running slow, due to Storport queue limitation.  This is the same situation as case #1.  Its like a cache buffer.

The solution to this case is to break the SQL up, just like you would in a physical server:

1. Place a tmp.db in a standalone NVME
2. Place the Logs in a single CSV. (Document 3)
3. Peace the database in as man CSV as necessary to meet speed requirements . (document 5)

These steps will ensure SQL is as fast as possible.

Are we building a case which is easy to understand? If you want to know if you’re really having a physical disk issue. To know this, you need to baseline test and find out what not production, multithreaded reads and writes look like. Which is our next section!

#4 (SQL slow Queries disks fault) Standardized SQL database

Problem: Slow SQL due to disk – Claim: Disk is bad

Solution: SQL 19xx | Storage: any  | Copy: SQL query rebuilding or backup

For a SQL database, there are design and deployment elements, that will take all available resources and make the disk look like its faltering.

The only way to really troubleshoot SQL, is to get off your specific workload and get onto a scientifically reproductible workload.

There is no case example here because it’s been a while since I have seen this. But, its no different then the VM case, except when SQL is rebuilding indexes, or backing up, it may be pulling a lot of IOPS. We don’t know what that number should look like for every Corporate database.

How to proceed?

I had designed a “fill database creation” template, that populates a million rows in a new database. I find this is a good baseline and would complete in less than 20 minutes on any fast SQL server.

The file and article are included with this document. Its scientific and reproducible.

Use a Baseline Database Generator Script for reviewing performance of SQL Instance | DigitalBamboo’s Blog (wordpress.com)

Apologies for not having the details, but it belongs on this list. This is a head and shoulders example of how the file copy, or index writes are not the whole picture to troubleshooting.

Baseline testing Ideas

Baseline is all about the scientific Method. I won’t beat a horse to badly here. (no horses were harmed, during the filming of this video).

Below is an example where someone will call into support, after running this command, claiming the disk is too slow.

• diskspd –b8K –d30 –o4 –t8 –h –r –w25 –L –Z1G –c20G  D:\iotest.dat > DiskSpeedResults.txt

what I am trying to drive here is don’t run some complex command where you can’t isolate the results. Run the simplest command, testing one aspect at a time.

Introduce a Baseline. Anything is better than nothing

The Above diskspd command is complex and long. Come up with some simple tests and run more of them, over time. Second, test your commands, on a laptop, or desktop, with a specific Ram, Storage, and Processor Profile. Once you record all the results on the client machine, duplicate the test in the Virtual Machine. Make sure it’s the only Virtual Machine Running. Make sure nothing is running on the Host but this one VM, with specific resources.

Below I am not giving you results. I am just giving you the commands, along with some Instructions on how to use DSKSPD. I am also leaving you with Articles that VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V use, when asking for baseline testing. Notice, how many little requirements they have?

If you read these articles, they are forcing you to pin things so get specific results. This is because you are calling in, asking for, or expecting maximums. To get maximums, you must design you vm, and pin your VM to the maximum performance tier!

There is a reason for this! We are all trying to be scientific.

Tests to establish a Baseline.

• .\diskspd -c100M -d20 c:\test1 d:\test2
• .\diskspd -c2G -b4K -F8 -r -o32 -W30 -d30 -Sh d:\testfile.dat
• .\diskspd -t1 -o1 -s8k -b8k -Sh -w100 -g80 c:\test1.dat d:\test2.dat
• .\diskspd.exe -c5G -d60 -r -w90 -t8 -o8 -b8K -h -L
• .\diskspd.exe -c10G -d10 -r -w0 -t8 -o8 -b8K -h -L d:\testfile.dat
• .\scriptname.ps1
• Same as above- second location
• .\Diskspd -b8k -d30 -Sh  -o8 -t8  -w20 -c2G d:\iotest.dat

With this battery of testing, you will get a good feel for your performance. Once Baseline takes place, put your workloads in production. Now you can compare the baseline to events like  windows update, or when you add applications.

The truth is performance issues are 80% more likely to be due to changes in the system, rather then hardware. When hardware is going bad, you generally know it ahead of time. You get an alert!

Robocopy if nothing else

If you can’t do the type of testing referenced in this document, you will need to use robocopy and at least run the copy with multiple threads. Depending on the situation, you might have to disable cache, or pin something to a hot tier, but you must structure the test, so you get what you are after. Any random file copy may not capture the facts, to decision.

There are some robocopy guis available

Robocopy GUI Download (RoboCopyGUI.exe) (informer.com)

https://sourceforge.net/projects/robomirror/

https://sourceforge.net/projects/eazycopy-a-robocopy-gui/

Otherwise, you need to know the switches. This document is long already. It’s a google search away. I use the GUI.

For That Once in a Blue Moon when I Need That Program Called RoboCopy! | DigitalBamboo’s Blog (wordpress.com)

A few other Details

Standardized file copy

If you’re doing Case #1 above, you may find the file type affects that case Here is a way to manually pre-create the files if desired

• fsutil file createnew d:\iotest.dat 20000000
• fsutil file createnew d:\iotest.dat 2000000000
• fsutil file createnew d:\iotest.dat 20000000000

Here is all of the best articles on storage, and IO online right now. I was surprised that so many of  Storage Performance Needs are all in one place.

VM Performance

see your actual VM numbers. try using this tool Run this tool on the host, while using diskspd on your VM.

DO not run more than one instance of Diskspd at once!! This will invalidate your tests!

Other tools

Jperf and Dskspeed

Using Jperf Graphical Interface for Iperf, for basic network testing and Diskspeed or Dskspeed for storage testing. | DigitalBamboo’s Blog (wordpress.com)

Conclusion

I want to thank you for reading my article. It turns out I had a lot more to say, which is really for reference material. Below I mostly address tools. Keep this article for those references alone!!! But its right to conclude here, so you don’t think the rest has any additional cases.

What I have presented are just three examples where File copy was not going to be a good predictor of storage issues. If you really want to know if your storage is the issue, use disk speed and do not run in production. Its just as likely that all the other processes running on the server are the problem, then just the storage.

The takeaway is use simple tools to collect the data, and collect isolated, scientifically significant samples. If you do that, you will be able to tell a bad disk from a bad configuration!

Standardized SQL database

For a SQL database, support cannot just accept that storage is slow, when we don’t know what the SQL database is doing. There are design and deployment elements that will take all available resources and make the disk look like its faltering.

The only way to really troubleshoot SQL is to get off your specific workload and get onto a scientifically reproductible workload.

I had designed a fill database creation that populates a million rows in a new database. I find this is a good baseline and would complete in less then 20 minutes on any fast SQL server.

The file and article is included with this document. Its scientific and reproducible.

Use a Baseline Database Generator Script for reviewing performance of SQL Instance | DigitalBamboo’s Blog (wordpress.com)

Appendix A. What all those DiskSpd Letters and numbers mean

• -t2: This indicates the number of threads per target/test file. This number is often based on the number of CPU cores. In this case, two threads were used to stress all of the CPU cores.
• -o32: This indicates the number of outstanding I/O requests per target per thread. This is also known as the queue depth, and in this case, 32 were used to stress the CPU.
• -b4K: This indicates the block size in bytes, KiB, MiB, or GiB. In this case, 4K block size was used to simulate a random I/O test.
• -r4K: This indicates the random I/O aligned to the specified size in bytes, KiB, MiB, Gib, or blocks (Overrides the -s parameter). The common 4K byte size was used to properly align with the block size.
• -w0: This specifies the percentage of operations that are write requests (-w0 is equivalent to 100% read). In this case, 0% writes were used for the purpose of a simple test.
• -d120: This specifies the duration of the test, not including cool-down or warm-up. The default value is 10 seconds, but we recommend using at least 60 seconds for any serious workload. In this case, 120 seconds were used to minimize any outliers.
• -Suw: Disables software and hardware write caching (equivalent to -Sh).
• -D: Captures IOPS statistics, such as standard deviation, in intervals of milliseconds (per-thread, per-target).
• -L: Measures latency statistics.
• -c5g: Sets the sample file size used in the test. It can be set in bytes, KiB, MiB, GiB, or blocks. In this case, a 5 GB target file was used.

Appendix B – DiskSpd Xmas time.

Command line and parameters · microsoft/diskspd Wiki · GitHub

Parameter`	Description
-?	Displays usage information for DiskSpd.
-ag	Group affinity – affinitize threads in a round-robin manner across Processor Groups, starting at group 0. This is default. Use -n to disable affinity.
-ag#,#[,#,…]	Advanced CPU affinity – affinitize threads round-robin to the CPUs provided. The g# notation specifies Processor Groups for the following CPU core #s. Multiple Processor Groups may be specified and groups/cores may be repeated. If no group is specified, 0 is assumed. Additional groups/processors may be added, comma separated, or on separate parameters. Examples: -a0,1,2 and -ag0,0,1,2 are equivalent. -ag0,0,1,2,g1,0,1,2 specifies the first three cores in groups 0 and 1. -ag0,0,1,2 -ag1,0,1,2 is an equivalent way of specifying the same pattern with two -ag# arguments.
-b<size>[K|M|G]	Block size in bytes or KiB, MiB, or GiB (default = 64K).
-B<offset>[K|M|G|b]	Base target offset in bytes or KiB, MiB, GiB, or blocks from the beginning of the target (default offset = zero)
-c<size>[K|M|G|b]	Create files of the specified size. Size can be stated in bytes or KiBs, MiBs, GiBs, or blocks.
-C<seconds>	Cool down time in seconds – continued duration of the test load after measurements are complete (default = zero seconds).
-D<milliseconds>	Capture IOPs higher-order statistics in intervals of <milliseconds>. These are per-thread per-target: text output provides IOPs standard deviation. The XML output provides the full IOPs time series in addition (default = 1000ms or 1 second).
-d<seconds>	Duration of measurement period in seconds, not including cool-down or warm-up time (default = 10 seconds).
-f<size>[K|M|G|b]	Target size – use only the first bytes or KiB, MiB, GiB or blocks of the specified targets, for example to test only the first sectors of a disk.
-f<rst>	Open file with one or more additional access hints specified to the operating system: r: the FILE_FLAG_RANDOM_ACCESS hint, s: the FILE_FLAG_SEQUENTIAL_SCAN hint and t: the FILE_ATTRIBUTE_TEMPORARY hint. Note that these hints are generally only applicable to cached I/O.
-F<count>	Total number of threads. Conflicts with -t, the option to set the number of threads per file.
-g<bytes per ms>	Throughput per-thread per-target is throttled to the given number of bytes per millisecond. This option is incompatible with completion routines. (See -x.)
-h	Deprecated but still honored; see -Sh.
-i<count>	Number of I/Os (burst size) to issue before pausing. Must be specified in combination with -j.
-j<milliseconds>	Pause in milliseconds before issuing a burst of I/Os. Must be specified in combination with -i.
-I<priority>	Set I/O priority to <priority>. Available values are: 1-very low, 2-low, 3-normal (default).
-l	Use large pages for I/O buffers.
-L	Measure latency statistics. Full per-thread per-target distributions are available using the XML result option.
-n	Disable default affinity. (See -ag.)
-N<vni>	Specifies the flush mode used with memory mapped I/O: v: uses the FlushViewOfFile API, n: uses the the RtlFlushNonVolatileMemory API, i: uses RtlFlushNonVolatileMemory without waiting for the flush to drain.
-o<count>	Number of outstanding I/O requests per-target per-thread. (1 = synchronous I/O, unless more than one thread is specified with by using -F.) (default = 2)
-O<count>	Total number of I/O requests per shared thread across all targets. (1 = synchronous I/O.) Must be specified with -F.
-p	Start asynchronous (overlapped) I/O operations with the same offset. Only applicable with two or more outstanding I/O requests per thread (-o2 or greater)
-P<count>	Print a progress dot after each specified <count> [default = 65536] of completed I/O operations. Counted separately by each thread.
-r<alignment>[K|M|G|b]	Random I/O aligned to the specified number of <alignment> bytes or KiB, MiB, GiB, or blocks. Overrides -s.
-R[text|xml]	Display test results in either text or XML format (default: text).
-s[i]<size>[K|M|G|b]	Sequential stride size, offset between subsequent I/O operations in bytes or KiB, MiB, GiB, or blocks. Ignored if -r is specified (default access = sequential, default stride = block size). By default each thread tracks its own sequential offset. If the optional interlocked (i) qualifier is used, a single interlocked offset is shared between all threads operating on a given target so that the threads cooperatively issue a single sequential pattern of access to the target.
-S[bhmruw]	This flag modifies the caching and write-through modes for the test target. Any non-conflicting combination of modifiers can be specified (-Sbu conflicts, -Shw specifies w twice) and are order independent (-Suw and -Swu are equivalent). By default, caching is on and write-through is not specified.
-S	No modifying flags specified: disable software caching. Deprecated but still honored; see -Su. This opens the target with the FILE_FLAG_NO_BUFFERING flag. This is included in -Sh.
-Sb	Enable software cache (default, explicitly stated). Can be combined with w.
-Sh	Disable both software caching and hardware write caching. This opens the target with the FILE_FLAG_NO_BUFFERING and FILE_FLAG_WRITE_THROUGH flags and is equivalent to -Suw.
-Sr	Disable local caching for remote file systems. This leaves the remote system’s cache enabled. Can be combined with w.
-Sm	Enable memory mapped I/O. If the -Smw option is specified then non-temporal memory copies will be used.
-Su	Disable software caching, for unbuffered I/O. This opens the target with the FILE_FLAG_NO_BUFFERING flag. This option is equivalent -S with no modifiers. Can be combined with w.
-Sw	Enable write-through I/O. This opens the target with the FILE_FLAG_WRITE_THROUGH flag. This can be combined with either buffered (-Sw or -Sbw) or unbuffered I/O (-Suw). It is included in -Sh. Note: SATA HDDs will generally not honor write through intent on individual I/Os. Devices with persistent write caches – certain enterprise flash drives and most storage arrays – will complete write-through writes when the write is stable in cache. In both cases, -S/-Su and -Sh/-Suw will see equivalent behavior.
-t<count>	Number of threads per target. Conflicts with -F, which specifies the total number of threads.
-T<offset>[K|M|G|b]	Stride size between I/O operations performed on the same target by different threads in bytes or KiB, MiB, GiB, or blocks (default stride size = 0; starting offset = base file offset + (<thread number> * <offset>). Useful only when number of threads per target > 1.
-v	Verbose mode
-w<percentage>	Percentage of write requests to issue (default = 0, 100% read). The following are equivalent and result in a 100% read-only workload: omitting -w, specifying -w with no percentage and -w0. CAUTION: A write test will destroy existing data without issuing a warning.
-W<seconds>	Warmup time – duration of the test before measurements start (default = 5 seconds).
-x	Use I/O completion routines instead of I/O completion ports for cases specifying more than one I/O per thread (see -o). Unless there is a specific reason to explore differences in the completion model, this should generally be left at the default.
-X<filepath>	Use an XML profile for configuring the workload. Cannot be used with any other parameters. The XML output <Profile> block can be used as a template. See the diskspd.xsd file for details.
-z[seed]	Set a random seed to the specified integer value. With no -z, seed=0. With plain -z, seed is based on system run time.
-Z	Zero the per-thread I/O buffers. Relevant for write tests. By default, the buffers are filled with a repeating pattern (0, 1, 2, …, 255, 0, 1, …).
-Zr	Initialize the write buffer with random content before every write. This option adds a run-time cost to the write performance.
-Z<size>[K|M|G|b]	Separate read and write buffers and initialize a per-target write source buffer sized to the specified number of bytes or KiB, MiB, GiB, or blocks. This write source buffer is initialized with random data and per-I/O write data is selected from it at 4-byte granularity.
-Z<size>[K|M|G|b],<file>	Specifies using a file as the source of data to fill the write source buffers.

Table 1. Command line parameters

Event parameters

The parameters in Table 2 specify events that can be used to start, end, cancel, or send notifications for a DiskSpd test run.

Parameter	Description
-ys<eventname>	Signals event <eventname> before starting the actual run (no warm up). Creates a notification event if does not exist.
-yf<eventname>	Signals event <eventname> after the test run completes (no cool-down). Creates a notification event if does not exist.
-yr<eventname>	Waits on event <eventname> before starting the test run (including warm up). Creates a notification event if does not exist.
-yp<eventname>	Stops the run when event <eventname> is set. CTRL+C is bound to this event. Creates a notification event if does not exist.
-ye<eventname>	Sets event <eventname> and quits.

Table 2. Event Parameters

Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) parameters

Using the parameters in Table 3, you can have DiskSpd display data concerning events from an NT Kernel Logger trace session. Because event tracing (ETW) carries additional overhead, this is turned off by default.

Parameter	Description
-e<q|c|s>	Use a high-performance timer (QPC), cycle count or system timer respectively (default = q, high-performance timer (QPC)).
-ep	Use paged memory for the NT Kernel Logger (default = non-paged memory).
-ePROCESS	Capture process start and end events.
-eTHREAD	Capture thread start and end events.
-eIMAGE_LOAD	Capture image load events.
-eDISK_IO	Capture physical disk I/O events.
-eMEMORY_PAGE_FAULTS	Capture all page fault events.
-eMEMORY_HARD_FAULTS	Capture hard fault events.
-eNETWORK	Capture TCP/IP, UDP/IP send and receive events.
-eREGISTRY	Capture registry events.

Table 3. Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) parameters

Size conventions for DiskSpd parameters

Several DiskSpd options take sizes and offsets specified as bytes or as a multiple of kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, or blocks: [K|M|G|b].

Conventions used for referring to multiples of bytes are a common source of confusion. In networking and communication, these multiples are universally in powers of ten: e.g. a ‘GB’ is 10⁹ (1 billion) bytes. By comparison, a ‘GB’ of RAM is universally understood to be 2³⁰ (1,073,741,824) bytes. Storage has historically been in a gray area where file sizes are spoken of in powers of two, but storage system manufacturers refer to total capacity in powers of ten. Since storage is always accessed over at least one (SAS, SATA) or more (PCI, Ethernet, InfiniBand) communication links, this adds complexity into the already challenging exercise of understanding end-to-end flows.

The iB notation is an international convention which unambiguously refers to power of two-based sizing for numbers of bytes, as distinct from powers of ten which continue to use KB/MB/GB notation.

• 1KiB = 2¹⁰ = 1,024 bytes
• 1MiB = 1024 KiB = 2²⁰ = 1,048,576 bytes
• 1GiB = 1024 MiB = 2³⁰ = 1,073,741,824 bytes

This notation will be used in this documentation. DiskSpd reports power of two-based quantities with the iB notation in text results. XML results are always reported in plain bytes.

To specify sizes to DiskSpd:

• bytes: use a plain number (65536)
• KiB: suffix a number with ‘K’ or ‘k’ (e.g. 64k)
• MiB: suffix a number with ‘M’ or ‘m’ (e.g. 1m)
• GiB: suffix a number with ‘G’ or ‘g’ (e.g. 10g)
• multiples of blocks: suffix a number with ‘b’ (e.g. 5b) – multiplying the block size specified with -b

Fractional sizes with decimal points such as 10.5 are not allowed.

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Exchange 2010 to 2016 Migration Guide

Hello all,

I just wanted to make sure I keep this migration guide handy. I have been seeing a spike in 2010 to 2016 migrations. This document will be handy:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/Rapid-Migration-from-1daaee0c

Other guides include:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/exchange-deployment-assistant

The Exchange Deployment assistance will generate a guide for you. Just go through the steps.

https://www.kerneldatarecovery.com/blog/step-by-step-guide-for-migrating-exchange-server-2010-to-2016-part-1/

https://practical365.com/exchange-server-2016/

http://techgenix.com/migrate-exchange-2010-2016/

That last one requires an email address to get but it looks like it may be useful.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

Setting up your NTP time server and client

Good day all!

 

I am in the heat of the work day and up to my neck in support cases. However, there is one subject I meant to write about but never had time.

 

Let it suffice to say my friend and colleague Jim did a fine Job. Please visit him and give him a hard time for me. He is a great technical person and

 

a pretty good human too-

 

http://blog.g2techsolutions.com/2016/04/26/how-to-configure-time-in-a-windows-active-directory-environment/

 

You all need a time source don’t you?

 

Thank you,

Louis

You should upgrade to the latest version of .NET that’s supported by Exchange first and then immediately upgrade to the current CU

You should upgrade to the latest version of .NET that’s supported by Exchange first and then immediately upgrade to the current CU

https://eightwone.com/2017/12/21/upgrade-paths-for-cus-net/

 

Update: Per February 13th, Microsoft updated upgrade guidance on the Exchange Supportability Matrix page, stating:

“When upgrading Exchange from an unsupported CU to the current CU and no intermediate CUs are available, you should upgrade to the latest version of .NET that’s supported by Exchange first and then immediately upgrade to the current CU. This method doesn’t replace the need to keep your Exchange servers up to date and on the latest, supported, CU. Microsoft makes no claim that an upgrade failure will not occur using this method, which may result in the need to contact Microsoft Support Services”.

This means you will be supported when upgrading in the revised upgrade path, but the risk is still there. In the example above, when going from Exchange 2013 CU6 with .NET 4.5.1 to CU19, the support statement indicates you can upgrade to .NET Framework  4.7.1, when install CU19. However, things might break and you may need to contact support to get back in a supported, working situation. Therefor, I repeat my recommendation to download and archive CU’s and .NET Framework files, even when you are not planning on installing them (yet).

Recreating arbitration mailboxes

Third-party blogs have had these steps in the past but now there are official MS posts for how to do this. It’s sometimes needed when customers accidentally delete them, which can result in mail flow and other issues.

 

2016 Article
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt829277%28v=exchg.160%29.aspx

 

2013 Article

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt829264(v=exchg.150).aspx

A Solution for Skype for Business 2015 “Response groups may stop receiving calls after you run the Enable-CsTopology command”

Response group may stop receiving calls after you run the enable-CsTopology command

 

Good morning to everyone,

I have the first new ground in some time, for a Response group issue, I found in 2015, documented in 2016 and finally found it had been committed to KB4015898

Or Just SFB CU5!

 

I wrote this Piece on Response groups not ringing available agents, when the group members were in modes like longest Idle.

I said the only remedy available was to rebuild the response group and you may (or not) get a different result. Another viable step is

to “Use Attendant Mode.” This was my shtick in 2016.

 

So it turns out there had been an issue dating back 2015. I had personally run into this issue several times. It turns out somthing

you may do every day, turns out to be a “No No”. So if you have a need for “Re-Publishing” the topology Frequently, and you

have response groups, that may no longer be a good Idea, Even if there is a patch in place.

 

Just be aware, and make sure you update to CU5 or higher.

 

 

“Response group may stop receiving calls after you run the enable-CsTopology command “

 

This needs to be installed on any server where you have installed the Skype for business. Back up your

Response groups for CU5.

Louis

 

Skype For Business Certificate Encryption Agorithm RSASSA-PSS is not supported in Skype for Business

I ran into this issue for the first time and just wanted to document this. It was a bit of a surprise, but documented the fact

that Skye For Business is not supporting Current Encryption Methodology RSASSA-PSS. This was a real snake bite. Having

been involved in many deployments, I never ran into this issue. so a few point on this:

• From Skype 4B stand point, look at this as a Certificate authority problem
  • besides failing calls you have
  • Bad certificate endpoint audits
  • bad chain audits
• SHA1RSA is being phased out like this year was the deadline as I recall
• You would expect SFB to have moved to more modern encryption
• SHA2RSA is apparently not supported either but does support RSAPSS (which MS documentation says is supported)
• And its True! Microsoft Windows has been more open then some of the other Departments, to support modern Authorization and Encryption.
• But Certain things like Skype and possibly Exchange 2016 Secure Mail, may be limited to SHA1RSA as an absolute requirement. This has not changed as of 10.2017

So for the mean time, this means you are more and more likely, to find this occurring, and my article will become helpful. I will try to find some errors to post, to give you some terms of this challenge.

For Example:

• Elliptic Curve Cryptography
• Microsoft works with them all
• To avoid this issue, you need to install you CA with “Use Alternate Signature Format” Unchecked, during Install.
• If the issue is a Public Certificate, you will need to re-Request the Certificate and tell the Provider you do not want an Alternate Signature format for your PKCS #1 Version 2.1  Certificate.

I have it on my desk but i am out of time. But Early warning. The New RSASSA-PSS is not currently supported by SFB.

Yeah RSASSA-PSS is not supported signature algorithm for Lync/SFB servers, this information has been provided in the following article, https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398066(v=ocs.15).aspx

Like it. This 2013 article is what Microsoft Passed on for Skype for Business 2013.

L

Using Powershell and Excel to compare Microsoft Hotfixs on Servers and Virtual Machines.

Hello All,

 

Two Types of Comparisons Devised

I have been working several Clustering and Hyper-V cases Recently.  I have come to a point where I notice the Virtual Machines rarely have the same level of  Microsoft Updates that the Cluster Node does. I finally had a few minutes to look at this issue, and I even made an Excel Spreadsheet to compare updates to other machines.

Fortunately, When I got serious about making a Spread Sheet Script, I noticed there were some pretty good work already available. In fact, I found one that will likely serve to compare updates on all the Nodes, all the VMs and more. I am sure I can do cross checks using a Host as the standard, and a bunch of VM’S as the comparisons.

So we are basically showing off two different ways of doing the same thing.  The Gallery script vs. MyExcelHotfixCompare. These are different things for different reasons. But its good to have them in the same place, Because they both have their own purpose.

 

 

First thing you want to do have is a copy of the spread sheet, MYexcelHotfixCompare , and a copy of the The Gallery script

 

Why Two Comparisons

So I made one up, and I found the other by accident! That is true. However, I discovered these both served different purposes.

The First method came from Stane Monsik. What this count does, is aggregate the KB’s for every server in the survey. So your Final report answers the question “when you updated Server Group X with KB Group Summation(A-Z), did you do that same thing to all the other servers? This is what I started out to have answered! If the answer to this is no, then I always tell my customer to finish his updates right away.

However, another question I was often asking, was not being answered by this script. The Questions was, When we know that there are X updates packages for Technology Y, how many of those updates did you apply to your server? Then Question #2,  For X and Y, did you apply these updates to just the server which had problems? The answer to this question should be that you updated all the servers which contained technology Y, with every Update Package X. I found this question was often met with Guesstimates more than actual proof; this was an easy question to get a good guess on. It’s also an easy question to just accept the guess and move on.  In today’s complex world, that is no longer acceptable. So I set out to easily answer this kind of question.

 

Method1 Script

This script will take “a list of Machines” and show you what updates the entire list has and does not have. Every KB gets added to the list, no matter what server it was found on.

The Script, located at Gallery.Tech.net.Microsoft.Com , Goes to every server and pulls the list of hot fixes. Then it goes through the hot fix list and checks every computer, to see if the hot fix has been applied to the computer.

To make GetHotfixCompare_Gallery work, all you have to do is open the .PS1 file with notepad and add your list of computer names. You can add as many computers as you like, but realize it takes longer and longer and longer to complete. The text you are editing looks like this in the file:  See Figure 1. :

# —————————————————————————————————-

$computers = “ComputerName1”, “ComputerName2”, “ComputerName3”, “ComputerName4”, “ComputerName5”

# —————————————————————————————————-

The Result is a very nice HTML report:

 

Figure 1.

 

Once you populate the script with edits on the names of computers, you run the PS1 file by right Clicking the file and choosing Run With Power Shell. The Script runs (longer the more computers you select), then generates an HTML file of your KB’s. There is an orderly chart of stars telling you which KB’s have stars for the machine, and which do not have stars.

 

All in all, A  very good method. But in order for me to answer the technology related questions, I needed to use something different.

 

Method 2 Spread Sheet comparison (MY_excel_GetHotfixCompare)

On the Excel Help article, called “Compare two lists and highlight matches and differences” I use Example 4 of that section. Example 4 runs a comparison from column one (the update list of a server (get-hotfix)  against column two (the list of updates for the specific technology) .  The comparison Colorizes the two list columns to highlight where the updates match or are unique.

MY_ExcelGetHotfixCompare Is the name of the spread, and you just need to right click and save as to save the file as an XLSX file.

This method will always work, as long as you can find a list of key updates, Microsoft says is relevant. This list below is not unabridged. This is just areas where I work most often. Below are some Example Technology Patch lists, that will power column two, on your spread sheets.

• Hyper-V updates 2012 R2
• Server 2012 Cluster Updates
• 2012 R2 Network Virtualization
• Skype Client 2016
• Exchange 2013 and 2016
• Server 2012 R2

Server 2012 and Exchange make you dig a little bit to get the actual KB list, but you get the Idea. The point is to get the list of “important hotfixes” and be able to use them to “audit” you current situation. So let’s get to the formulas and make a spread sheet!

 

Get Hot-fix Compare Spread Sheet

The Compare column Colorizes numbers in column A , that are also in column B. And Vice Versa. So there is only one caveat to this method. If the KB shows up twice in the same column, then the cell becomes colored, denoting that the patch has a match. But, This is an impossibility of the get-hot fix command. As long as your pasting in get-Hotfix results from only one machine per column, you will get a valid result. So the limitation of this, or any tool reviewing hot-fixes; don’t try to do two machines in one spread.

Steps to create:

1. Open Excel and put your Values for Get-Hotfix (just the KB) into column 1.
2. Copy the Hot-fix numbers for the relevant Microsoft KB numbers from your articles like above, into Column 2.
3. With Excel at the Home Tab, Choose “Conditional Formatting” and Manage Rules . You will see a pop up window, New Formatting rule: (figure Below)

 

 

4. Choose New Rule and “Format only unique or duplicate values”
5. There is a little Drop down that says Duplicate or Unique- You will make that choice here

 

6.Then you see where it says no format set? (above) This is where you choose your color.

7. Hit the Format button. Then choose the Fill tab.

8. Now see the Fill tab below Choose your color and hit Ok.

 

9 Then Choose OK Below

 

10. Now Comes the important part. You simply highlight all values in both columns and there is a wizard that will form the formula for you based on how many rows each column has in it. I am showing the screenshot below, after I clicked into the “applies to field” and held down the left click of the mouse while I selected both columns and went down enough rows to cover all values in both columns. I also found that if you pre-select both columns, before clicking conditional format, then these vales will be there automatically

11.  The only thing you can’t see in the picture above is the dashed line that is now hovering over both columns. Once I hit OK or apply, it all goes away and my formula is:

=$A$3:$B$13

Pre-Select your columns before you start with Conditional formatting

Now I found out some weirdness about the formula. If you have to go back and change the length of the column, you have to make the formula a little differently.  You click into the applies to field

and highlight Column one, then you type a comma, and then you highlight column 2. So the formula looks like this

=$A$3:$A$13,$B$3:$B$13

The more general solution is coming up below:

=$A:$A,$B:$B

I like the second formula better, because you can see the start and finish of each column. But the more general one covers all KB in both Columns. cant beat that. I am editing this sentence,

after the fact, and I found that if you select the columns, by Highlighting the columns entirely, you don’t have to deal with touching any formula aspect at  all.

Here the download again for My Excel HotfixCompare , You can also watch the video at the top and make your own spread.

Believe it or not, that is it! When you hit OK, your values immediately calculate out:

 

The next issue I tried to solve was the length of the column. It looks to me that this is the master formula, no matter how many KB s you have  (=$A:$A,$B:$B). This is for column A and B.

I do believe you could replace these values with columns a and c or b and E or whatever. This can help you move columns for your ease of use and you list can be as long or short as you want.

So use this in your Duplicate Values formula:

=$A:$A,$B:$B

Again, I am coming back after the fact, and just saying to Highlight the columns you want to use, before you start, and you don’t have to deal with the formulas at all. I have a second Excel

Method for comparing up to 6 servers, but I will let you just download the Excel File and see how it works!!! Watch the video, I performed that in about 1 minute in the video. also

after the fact, and I found that if you select the columns, by Highlighting the columns entirely, you don’t have to deal with touching any formula aspect at  all.

 

How do I get my Hot-fix list = Get-Hotfix

So this is all we have left to cover. Below these are the steps I use to get that list of KB numbers isolated from the rest of the information you find when you run the Get-Hotfix command.

 

1. Open PowerShell as Administrator

2. You may run Get-Hotfix > c:\myhotfix.txt

3. Open Notepad ++ and Open myhotfix.txt

4. Hold Control and Alt Key on your keyboard at the same time

5. While (4) use the mouse to select just the KB column

6. once the KBs are highlighted Right click and choose copy.

7. Paste you KBs into notepad for transport to your work station.

That’s It! I hope you have enjoyed this article. In closing I have the original link for the script in the initial discussion. I also have a method to update your Hyper-V Cluster automatically with a script. That can be pretty handy.

 

How to make a .ISO File for Drivers or Platform updates for Offline Server 2016

 

So I hope I captured the mission of this blog With the title. I was trying to update some firmware and drivers over a DRAC/ILO. I found it was quite hard to find a way to wrap your BIOS and CHIP-SET into an ISO file unless that ISO was going to be the size of a Full Van Halen Double DVD! Or worse, I was burning a Default of 6 Terra Bytes or something!

 

 

Figure 1. How to make a Small ISO file for your Small Files.

Mea-BiB-Eyetes! (Mebibytes)

So I did the experimenting and I am going to introduce you to something you may not have heard of. Mebibytes!    That’s Mee —    BIB— EYETS!! That is not a unit of weight is it? It turns out this is a unit of Data. So you just have to fool around with getting the right amount of Mee Bee Bites. and your ISO can be whatever size you want!!.

So My research suggest you wont find anything for Free around unless you use IMGBURN. Great! Its got a lot of press online, they say it works but they never told me about the MEE BEE BITES!

So Grab your version of IMGBURN and follow me to BIOS ISLAND!!

How to get a 30 Meg ISO for 30 Meg worth of updates

So Below You will find the basic steps for how to do this magic. I suspect there will  be a video at the top of this Blog that may not be more entertaining, but will be of some help if the instructions don’t make sense.

1. You set the source and choose your files.  (left side of windows)

2. On the right, Clisk on the Advanced Tab. Choose “MEDIA”

2. Set the Profile to Custom.

3. Secret sauce (see screen shot below) Arrows show a sectors to Mebebytes.

 

 

• Set the media tab to custom
• The maximum sector size is like a guess number
• SO to figure out what number needs to go there (max sectors
• Convert the number to the right to Megabytes or Gigabytes.
• MiB is mebibytes- so the conversion to search google is mebibytes to megabytes.
• once you know how many megabytes you want the ISO to be, just keep increasing the numbers until the conversion comes up to what you want for the iSO size.

Then hit burn. It worked awesome. I copied Bios and Chip-set to a different server (another one I am working on, and it was perfect. Make yourself an ISO. If you get stuck

I can help you in just a few minutes.

 

One negative, the first installer had an adware, you just decline it, then you will get a second installer, which is the actual app, no adware, at all, just delete the first EXE and run the second one.

Nothing is installed on the machine with the first download. You may also look at other sites to get it from-

So There is not much to it, but I think watching it happen will make it much easier to carry out. I will put the video up top and make it short for you all. I hope this is helpful!!.

Special Bonus Bootable DVD and Bootable USB

In the video I covered two additional subjects. I explained how to make the Image Bootable in ImgBurn. I also showed a link for how to make a bootable USB with an application named RUFUS. I did not explain that process, but I did show the link to the RUFUS USB Bootable Blog Post.

I hope you left this blog post with what you came here looking for! Have a great day and weekend!

If you need to remember screen shots for burning of ImgBurn, so the ISO becomes bootable, Have a look at this blog entitled “How To Create Bootable Windows 10/8.1/7 ISO From Files/Folders”.

This set of screen shots can supplement the Video and this blog, with screenshots and steps to make a bootable image very possible for all. .

Louis

Windows Server 2016 Licensing Is Easier With a Little Help From a Calculator

Hello,

Fortunately the industry is coming to our aid for answering questions about how many licenses you need for your 2016 Standard or Data-Center Server.

This is not a long post. I am just passing on the few methods I have ran across for getting the total licenses you need to purchase.

You can do it yourself with the Excel Download. That link is here, courtesy of Dell EMC INC.

Secondly, you have the Microsoft entry, which is also a Spread sheet, but its starts for your convenience here

---

Since I put a line above, I figure I need some special content, so how about a Video about the New 2016 Licensing?

Figure 1. Video on 2016 Licensing and Ramifications

If you watch the above video, you will get a good idea how useful the 2016 Licensing calculator will be. You can even use it to correct what you hear from others. some sites seem to message differently to others.

*update 7/29/2017. So I did find some other documentation (in the fine print) that tries to use 8 cores and 16 cores. So I could move as far as “the use of 8 as a starting point for processors, would not be false, but would be ambiguous” . The use of  expressing the minimum license in physical cores, does not fit in with most of the documentation, so the possibility of mis-understanding is maximized here.  So I am backing off on saying the MS blog is incorrect, but i am not changing the video because that video is lost time in my life, but second, the chart I show below is ambiguous, and serves as a good example to test the licensing calculator out. My take on that chart would not be an uncommon interpretation. See the chart from the Video below:

 

Figure 2. Ambiguous chart when compared to Licensing documentation.

 

To support where Microsoft is meaning with using 8 Processors as the starting point for a 2016 License, see this 2016 Datasheet.

This comes from Pricing and Licensing for Windows Server 2016

If you read this 2016 Datasheet  article, I think you will agree with me, that it says in black and white;  It says the you need to have a minimum of 16 Core License per server.

I am putting the fine print from the data sheet below. Do you come out thinking 8 or 16? then watch the Video. Does the MS blog look correct against these fine print Items below:

** All physical cores on the server must be licensed, subject to a minimum of 8 core licenses per physical processor and a minimum of 16 core licenses per server.

** CALs are required for every user or device accessing a server. See the Product Terms for details.

* Software Assurance is required to install and use Nano Server.

**  Pricing for Open (NL) ERP license for 16 core licenses. Actual customer prices may vary.

---

 

Now if you watched the Video, and saw the chart above, you probably want to see if the chart is right or wrong! Go ahead and get your calculator here !  I found a Microsoft version of the Spread Sheet. Dell and Microsoft look very similar indeed. It does say OEM windows so they may actually be the same. The 2016 Windows Server Core Calculator should be easy to find.

Enjoy reading and have a great Day!

If you want to get into the changes from old until now, or you want to get into the philosophy of why this change, you can look for some opinions and facts online. I found a pretty good one here, which i used for my own knowledge. The link here is from the Tech-net Blog and it is something you should go though and understand. Go ahead and correct it with the Calculator, and you can see how the 2016 License is going to affect how you purchase your Operating System.  Enjoy correcting your price projections!

Louis