Archive
EMC vCenter Plugins updated
New versions of the EMC vCenter plugins have been released for the Unified Storage, older Block and iSCSI CX/AX can use these plugins but need Flare 30. Snapview and Solutions Enabler are no longer required for the new Unified Storage plugins which is great news so this additional functionality is free for all EMC customers. I had the pleasure of meeting Chad Sakac recently and he confirmed the old version of the plugins used some of the Snapview API’s which is why the plugins failed without Snapview.
There are primary two different types of EMC vSphere Plugins
* Unified Storage Plug-in for VMware
Simplified that doesn’t need Solutions Enabler and can be used for Clariion or Celerra to provision storage and communicate with View Manager Server.
* Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI formally known as the Storage Viewer) Version 4.0.0 has been released
Requires Solutions Enabler, can be used for Clariion, Celerra, VPLEX and Symmetrix arrays. Also has additional plugins for Path Management, Storage Pool Management and Unified Storage Management.
The plug-ins can be downloaded from the following locations:
EMC Powerlink, Support, Software Downloads, Downloads T-Z, VSI
Download the VSI Storage Viewer, VSI Unified Storage Management, VSI Storage Pool Management, VSI Path Management.
EMC Powerlink, Support, Software Downloads, Downloads J-O, Navisphere Server Software
Download Windows Navisphere CLI 7.30
EMC Powerlink, Support, Software Downloads, Downloads A-B, Adapters for Third-Party applications
Download Unified Storage Plug-in for VMware
All of the Plug-ins require the installation of NaviCLI.
The Unified Storage Plugin required the NaviSecCLI defined in the System or User PATH variable.
i.e. C:\Progra~2\EMC\Navisphere CLI (this is for a x64 host with “Program files (x86)”)
vForum Sydney 2010
I attended vForum this week at the convention Center in Sydney, the event was well organised and had some great sessions from high profile VMware, EMC, VCE, NetApp and other VMware partners. This event was free for all the delegates thanks to the sponsors, this really showed up other similar style events like Microsoft’s Teched which costs delegates over $1500 dollars each.
My favourite sessions were from Chad Sakac, Scott Drummond and Queensland’s own Michael Francis, these were the more Technical sessions where the word “Cloud” was used rarely and in the correct context. Overall it was a great event to network, learn and share with other industry partners and customers, I definitely plan to attend next years event.
Migrating data from Exchange 2007 to 2003
Recently I assisted a customer who needed to migrate mailboxes from a Domain with Exchange 2007 to their Exchange 2003 environment. The import-mailbox command as per the following article outputs unicode PST files, this format cannot be used by exmerge which only supports ANSI PST file format.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691363(EXCHG.80).aspx
Although Outlook 2003 can read both formats and could be used to open the unicode PST files to import the mail information to the Exchange 2003 mailbox. The following tool allows you to convert PST files either from unicode to ANSI or back the other way. This is a must if you are migrating lots of mailboxes and need to import the mail data for the users.
Outlook 2003 with Exchange 2003/2010 coexistance
Alot companies who held off from upgrading to Exchange 2007 are upgrading to Exchnage 2010. Most companies also have not moved on from Office 2003 and although they are looking to deploy Windows 7 with Office 2007/2010 in the near future. If you like one of my customers are planning on using Outlook 2003 with Exchange 2010 need to be aware of the changes you must make to your Outlook profiles.
This MS article provides the information you will require to change on Outlook clients that will be connecting to an Exchange 2010 mailbox.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2006508
One thing which recently caught me out was coexistance with users still on Exchange 2003 and when they tried to access Calendars or other Mailbox folders for mailboxes migrated to Exchange. In this customers environment they were only enabling the encrpytion when the users mailbox was migrated. Therefore users who had not be migrated received an error when opening calendars of users who had been migrated.
Therefore I recommend that you modify the encryption settings prior to moving any mailboxes to Exchange 2010 so Outlook 2003 clients are not affected by this problem.
RunningVMs 