Copy File problem in windows 7 x64

I've been having problems copying from a specific desktop to my 2008R2 server for a long time now. The problem is most notable when I copy pictures to my server. To solve the problem I disabled:

IPv4 Checksum Offload
Large Send Offload (IPv4)
Large Send Offload v2 (IPv6)
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4)
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv6)
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4)
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv6)

Now it is working well.

My First NetApp

We just purchased a NetApp FAS3240 for our new vCloud, This made me really miss my comfort zone with EMC products.  But here are the initial setup challenges I faced and how I overcame them

1) Basic wiring, who puts the Shelves on the bottom really?.  So the wiring diagram is giving me headaches because there is no way I’m racking top-down.

2) Basic wiring continued.. because this NetApp was purchased with HA, and there are ports labeled c0a & c0b that are described as “Controller to controller HA cable” I incorrectly assumed I needed to use them.  After waiting overnight to get access to the NetApp.com website(Really? it’s 2011), I was able to download the manual and find that “they use an internal InfiniBand connector between the two controller modules, so no interconnect adapters or cabling is required.”

3) Basic console setup, This requires a serial cable (you know that thing they stopped putting on laptops 6 years ago).  You’ll need to setup each controller module separately, I only configured the maintenance port, which is e0m (wouldn’t it be nice if that was on the sticker with the other e0 labels, or at least in the big blue instructions that comes with it).

4) Web Setup, https://ipaddress/api for setup then https://ipaddress/na_admin/ for management.  I could only partially use the UI, it is java based, but it doesn’t work unless you modify your java setup.  Start/Control Panel/Advanced Tab/Security-General/uncheck “Use TLS 1.0” then close/reopen your browser. 

5) Once I had the web UI working, it was reporting that I had a Shelf Failure, this turned out to be a co-worker didn’t fully seat a power cable, but that wasn’t clearly bubbled up as a power issue, more of a vague shelf error. 

6) HA was not working, instead of there being an actual problem, I went into Cluster/Manage/ “Enable Takeover” and instantly my unit went from Red to Green and everybody was happy, I could now ping both Management IP’s and HA was online.

7) I am still having issues getting email alerts and NTP working consistently, and I haven’t setup any LUNS or exports yet.  That’s an adventure for next week.

Lab Manger Login Error: The username -whatever- already exists in vCenter Lab Manager. Please ask your Administrator to delete the previous user account.

A user called me with this error, I had never heard of it before, but here is what happened. The user left the company, I disabled his account.  He was rehired by the company, so I re-enabled his Lab Manager account.  However, his AD account had been deleted (by company policy) and he had been generated a new AD account with the same login name.  LBM was smart enough to know that this was not the same account and gave me a valuable error message.  I deleted his LBM account, recreated him and was ready to roll.

Lab Manager HA Settings

For some reason Colorado Springs has frequent late night power outages, or at least our building does.  Our most common downtime event with Lab Manager (besides maintenance) is complete power outages, yes we have UPS’s, but they don’t last forever and the lab doesn’t get generators.  I’ve been playing with the HA settings for a long time, this is what I’m going to try going forward.  Assuming your vCenter and LBM box are hosted in the same cluster as your guests, powering on the whole environment can take hours and be a huge pain.  Here is my proposed solution.

In the “Virtual Machine Options” page of the HA configuration

vCenter Server = VM Restart Priority High

LBM Server = VM Restart Priority Medium

Cluster Default settings = VM restart Priority Low

Hopefully this will allow my vCenter a chance to get up and running before all the guests boot and cripple my ESX hosts for 2+ hours.

vCD vCloud Director not allowing Media CD ISO uploads from IE

It’s probably a certificate issue, I made my vCD a trusted site in IE and I installed the certificate.   IE should prompt you for trusting it, but it doesn’t always.  Firefox has been working well and consistently prompting me.