RunAs Radio

Richard chats with Steven Murawski about his work at StackExchange. The conversation starts out digging into how StackExchange avoided hurricane Sandy by failing the site over from New York to Oregon. Steven also talks about the DevOps attitude at StackExchange, how the developers work closely with operations to test new features, keeping performance and reliability at peak. With his primary responsibility at StackExchange being SQL Server, Steven also discusses the benefits he's gotten from moving SQL Server 2012 over to Server 2012 from Server 2008 R2. Check out the blog posts on ServerFault about Moving to SQL 2012, Working towards failure and Failing over for Sandy.

Hey, it's show 300! For the 300th show, Richard chats with Mark Minasi about a variety of topics, including the good and bad of Windows 8. And somehow the metric system creeps in also. Stick around for the next 300 shows!

Richard talks to Alan Burchill about some of the improvements to Group Policy in Server 2012. The conversation starts out with the new reporting features, including the infrastructure status report that will actually show you when policies have been synchronized between AD servers as well as improve group policy reports to help you understand what policies are (and are NOT) being applied to a given account. Alan then digs into local group policy features in Windows RT (yes, the ARM edition) - you can't join a domain, but you can push local policies onto tablets! For more information around group policy in Server 2012, check out Alan's blog.

Richard talks to Microsoft PFE Bruce Adamczak about the new high availability features for DHCP in Server 2012. The conversation digs into the problems in DHCP and some of the fundamental strategies for dealing with implementing DHCP to be survivable. Bruce then talks about how Server 2012 allows active-active and active-passive groups (don't call them clusters!) of DHCP servers in Server 2012. You can read more about DHCP high availability at Bruce's Blog. Also check out the Windows Team DHCP Blog. Time to think about a more robust DHCP implementation!

For the first show on 2013, Richard chats with Dan Rosanova about big data in the Microsoft space. While the conversation starts out speaking about big data in general, Don focuses in on Hadoop, an open source distributed data manipulation technology that Microsoft has adopted in a big way. Hadoop specializes in doing MapReduce across massive numbers of machines, and if you don't have that many machines, you can always use the cloud. Check out Windows Azure HDInsight for the simplest way to get Hadoop running on Azure. And don't worry if you think you need to run on premise, the SQL Server team is there with Microsoft Big Data. Happy New Year!

While on the US Thanksgiving break of the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Richard talked to Tom Canter about the changes in healthcare information technology going on today. The conversation starts out on the architectural challenges of healthcare information systems. Ultimately, Tom digs into what everyone can learn from building large scale integrated systems, showing advanced data discovery that can turn operations into profit centers. Healthcare technology can lead the way!

Richard talks to Aydin Aslaner about his work deploying IPv6 in the mideast and Europe. Aydin talks about how the Turkish government is mandating externally accessible web sites having IPv6 in the next year and government organizations having internal IPv6 in 2014. The conversation also walks through the evolution of IPv6 implementations in your organization, between internal networks, external networks, public facing and bridging. IPv6 can't be ignored any longer!

While on the US Thanksgiving break of the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Richard talked with Kamal Abburi about risk assessments around Exchange server. Kamal talks about the common issues he's found in doing risk assessments of Exchange for companies all over the world. Along the way, he talks about a number of powerful tools for doing your own assessment, including the Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator, the Exchange Performance Data Collection tool, Exchange 2010 Servicing and the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Build Guide Templates.

During the US Thanksgiving break of the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Road Trip, Richard chatted with Stephen Rose about the new generation of Windows 8 tablets being deployed into the Enterprise. Stephen talks about the differences between Windows 8 RT and Windows 8 Pro and the strengths and weaknesses of each in the enterprise. He also suggests that we not focus solely on Surface devices - that there are lots of great third party hardware out there as well with their own unique advantages. Is it time for surface in the enterprise?

During the US Thanksgiving break of the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Richard chatted with Jeremy Moskowitz about the new group policy features in Windows 8. The discussion starts out with a digression talking about how to influence features in the Microsoft stack before steering back on the subject of Group Policy, specifically Group Policy Preferences with Server 2012 and Windows 8. Jeremy digs into some of the new features available, as well as talking about how his product PolicyPak can help with applying policies to third party products. He also mentions a number of blogs including his own GP Blog, Darren Mar-Elia's GPOGuy and Alan Burchill's Group Policy Central for finding out more about group policy.

While on the break week of the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Richard talked to Steve Evans about his experiences with Hyper-V in the field. Steve talks about a company he's working with that uses Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V (effectively version two) and runs down a number of specific tuning elements around networking, VM sizing, CPU allocation, hardware and software redundancy.

While on a break from the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Richard talked to Clint Huffman about some of the internal changes to Server 2012. The discussion starts out talking about better utilization of multiple cores, including new NUMA architecture and Performance Monitor counters. Clint also talks about scheduling of threads in relation to NUMA, memory fragmentation and processor allocations. Finally he talks about the new Automatic Memory Dump feature that deals with huge amount of memory you can have in Server 2012 more effectively.

During a break on the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Richard talks to Jeff Stokes about Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Jeff digs into the differences between running a desktop in a virtual environment and a physical environment, especially when the environment resets on shut down. He talks about a script originally developed by Jonathan Bennett of Auto IT Script. This script is modified for the latest features, you can get it on Jeff Stokes Blog. The conversation also talks about the challenges of VDI in general, including a mention of The VDI Delusion.

During a break on the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Richard chats with Steven Murawski about web farm management in the Microsoft space. Steve helps to organize the thinking around an array of free Microsoft products including Web Platform Installer 2.0, Web Deploy v2.0, the Web Farm Framework and the Windows Management Framework 3.0.

While on the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Road Trip Richard chatted with Mark Minasi about some of the new features in Server 2012 - and ended up focusing on the new storage services. Mark explains that with Server 2012, Microsoft has taken software-based storage to a whole new level. No need for expensive SANs (at least at the low end) or even fancy RAID controllers, Server 2012 Storage Services will do it all for you!

While on the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Richard sat down with Robert Bogue to talk about ten of the most common mistakes made with Sharepoint. The conversation covers the gambit of Sharepoint infrastructure challenges including SQL Server, disk storage as a whole, networking, monitoring and more!

Richard chats with Rob Gillen about the myths and realities around WiFi security. Rob talks about how the release of passwords in the wild has weakened WPA2-PSK. You need to use an original SSID and long passwords to have a chance to keep your WiFi secure. The conversation also digs into the challenges of open WiFi access as places like coffee shops. Rob also talks about how WiFi Protected Setup has exploits like reaver-wps that can break into a home WiFi network in a matter of hours. He also debunks non-secure security features like hidden SSIDs and MAC address filtering. Finally, Rob rolls out the big guns to talk about WiFi Pineapple, a tool capable of exploiting the preferred wireless network features of smartphones to get them to connect to a man-in-the-middle attack system. Frightening and enlightening!

Richard chats with Mario Hewardt about what IT folks need to know about debugging Windows. Yes, that's right - IT folks should be able to debug Windows. Not the same way that programmers do, but rather focused on how Windows actually works so that they can solve program interaction problems. Mario talks through a scenario he ran into involving an occasionally crashing program and how he used the Debugging Tools for Windows tool kit from the Windows SDK and SysInternals Process Monitor to solve the problem.

Richard chats with former PFE Joe Sack about his work helping queries go faster in SQL Server. Joe talks about his techniques for figuring out what to fix as well as how to fix it, starting with studying wait statistics in dynamic management views - SQL Server knows what it's waiting for! From there the conversation digs into the ways that SQL Server fools itself to perform badly, including cardinality estimate issues and other problems with statistics. Joe also looks at the potential of column store indexes in SQL 2012 - still new cool stuff to come in SQL Server!

Mark Russinovich returns to the show to talk about his new book Trojan Horse and discuss the world of cyberwarfare and malware in general. After scaring the heck out of us with the potential exploitation of computing out there today, the conversation turns to solutions. Mark points out how the white listing approach of iOS and the Apple App Store has been so effective in keeping malware off iOS devices that it is being emulated everywhere, including Microsoft. Richard also pokes at Mark's role around Azure and the cloud - is that where the next generation of exploits will come?

Richard chats with Glenn Berry about SQL Server hardware. Microsoft changed the licensing of SQL Server in 2012 to per-core rather than per-socket, suddenly making SQL Server much more expensive if you've gone to lots of cores. Glenn talks about how to assess your workload to know if you need as many cores as you currently have, why you shouldn't upgrade in place and use old hardware for SQL Server 2012 and the differences between Intel and AMD CPUs in this new world. Lots of geeky hardware speak, but if you do it right, you can make your SQL hardware almost free! Glenn mentions a couple of important web sites related to SQL performance in relation to hardware, including the TPC-E stats and Geekbench to understand how your hardware performs.

Richard talks to Michael Steineke about the new clustering features of Windows 2012. Michael starts with the latest version of Network Load Balancing for clustering and goes from there - looking at how all the major products Microsoft makes, like SQL Server and Exchange, work with clustering. The conversation focuses in on the importance of the new file share clustering capabilities, combined with SMB3 to create awesome high performance shared storage with commodity equipment. Server 2012 changes everything!

Richard chats with Microsoft's Stephen Rose about Windows 8 in the enterprise. Does it make sense? Stephen talks about the specific features available in the enterprise edition of Windows 8. It's not just about tablets!

Richard chats with Microsoft Premier Field Engineer Kamal Abburi about his experiences putting together hybrid implementations of Exchange and Office 365. The conversation starts out focusing on why Exchange in the Cloud at all, and the challenges of making a full migration to Office 365. Kamal mentions some of the regulatory hurdles that some countries put in place requiring some mailboxes to remain in the country of origin. He then digs into the challenge of hybrid implementations, covering the role of ADFS in creating a single sign-on experience, challenges with security and how to do seamless migrations of mailboxes. In the end it appears that hybrid deployment is going to be the most common model used, especially going forward into the next version of Exchange! Check out Office 365 and the Office 365 Deployment Guide.

Richard talks to Victor Mushkatin from the System Center team at Microsoft about Operations Manager 2012. Victor is the former CTO of AVICode, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2010. AVICode's technology has been added to OpsMan to provide detailed instrumentation of .NET applications. The conversation explores how OpsMan 2012 can instrument web and client-based applications end to end to detect reliability and performance issues. Victor also digs into how OpsMan 2012 is a key part of Microsoft's DevOps tool chain strategy.

Richard chats with Justin Morris about the recently announced Lync 2013 Preview. The preview is available for download now, but the product itself is still several months away. Justin talks about how quickly Lync has evolved as an enterprise SIP phone technology into the concepts of presence, integrating email, instant messaging, voice/video calling and desktop sharing together.

Richard chats with Jeffrey Snover about DevOps at Microsoft. The concept of DevOps goes back to a talk that John Allspaw and Paul Hammond did at Velocity called 10 Deploys Per Day. DevOps focuses on having developers and operations working closely together to make rapid deployments possible. Jeff discusses his blog post on the subject of Windows Server 2012, PowerShell 3.0 and DevOps. DevOps is coming to the Microsoft world, are you ready?

Richard talks with Bhargav Shukla about some of the issues he encounters with Exchange 2010 out in the field. The conversation starts out with a long discussion about the impact of mobile device, especially the tendancy today to bring your own device to work. Most users have several devices now syncing with Exchange, not just one or two. This leads to a great knowledge base article on issues with Exchange Active Sync and third party devices. Bhargav then moves onto issues around mailbox size, the impact of active directory performance and load balancing. So many challenges, but only so much time - this show is chocked full of ideas on how to make Exchange perform better!

Richard chats with Jeff Stokes about Microsoft's Windows Assessment Toolkit. Download the ADK here. Another amazing free tool from Microsoft, the Assessment Toolkit gives detailed evaluations on performance, reliability, compatibility and functionality across multiple operating systems, software, low level and application level behavior. Jeff talks about testing new hardware with existing software, with new versions of software, any combination you like. Also mentioned is Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL), which should be in your toolkit also. The Windows Assessment Toolkit is a tool you need to have sitting right beside Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - test every change, every time!

Richard talks to Steve Goodman about mobile mail solutions. Steve starts out talking about getting iPhone to work well with Exchange. Turns out that much of what makes iPhone work well applies to other smart phone devices like Android as well. The conversation also explores the role of the cloud, tablets and where the market is headed. Who knew so much innovation is still coming around email?

Mark Minasi is back! Mark and Richard get into a debate about the role of ARM-based and Intel-based tablets. Mark references a couple of articles he authored. The first discusses how ARM tablets cannot join domains. The second digs into the idea domain joining isn't that big a deal. From there, the conversation turns to the hardware differences, how Intel is making moves to be more competitive with ARM from a power and performance perspective, perhaps eliminating the need for ARM in the enterprise at all. Expect lots of history lessons along the way, these guys are getting old!

Richard chats with Steve Murawski about how Server 2012 affects file sharing. Server 2012 includes SMB3, which allows NIC teaming to allow commodity 1GB NICs to work together to create awesome file transfer rates. But how far can we go with that? Steve talks about how clustering and other services in Server 2012 create a world where you may never need a SAN at all - everything can be a file share!

Richard chats with Rhonda Layfield about the now shipping version of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012. Rhonda describes the relationship between MDT 2012 and System Center 2012 Configuration Manager - what MDT does and what SCCM does. The conversation continues over to how Group Policy packs are deployed by default in MDT 2012, which might surprise some IT folks. Rhonda also talks about Security Compliance Manager and how it can help you understand where your Group Policy is at, as well as provide policy configuration for specific Windows, Office and Internet Explorer features. You can get MDT and SCM at the Solution Accelerators page on TechNet. Also, check out the Microsoft Security Compliance Manager library page on TechNet for a list of the security baseline settings for various operating systems, Internet Explorer, Exchange and Office.

Richard talks to Robert Bogue about his Nine Keys to SharePoint Success. The conversation starts off with an acknowledgement that a SharePoint implementation, like any business-related project, needs a shared vision that creates value for a business for there to be any chance of success. After all, if you don't define success, how can you know when you've achieved it? From there, Robert discusses the impact of culture change on SharePoint implementations, honestly evaluating how the project is going, the relationship that IT has with the business and how platitudes can keep us from digging deep into problems. Finally, there are some simple things, like the right defaults, that can help make a SharePoint solution successful.

Richard and Mark Minasi go off the RunAs Rails a bit to talk about geek health. At the beginning of 2011 Mark embarked on a diet and exercise regime that a year later reduced his weight by 30%. The conversation is geeky, but that's what we like - Mark has learned how to get his body recalibrated to burn fat rather than carbs, take the weight off and keep it off. Here's the list of links talked about in the show: Nutrition Made Clear, Tap and Track, MyFitnessPal, FitBit, Withings, Zeo and Polar.

Richard chats with Eric Shupps about the process of improving SharePoint performance. Starting with the single-server implementation of SharePoint, Eric walks through each point of tuning SharePoint including database tuning, separating web front ends from application servers, separating off services, etc. Microsoft has a great site on Best Practices for SharePoint Server 2010.

Richard chats with Steve Murawski about the new features in Powershell V3. V3 comes with Server 2012, but should also make an appearance in 2008 R2 and Windows 7. Steve talks about how V3 is utilizing .NET 4 and the DLR for improved performance and flexibility. The new Command Source Adapter uses CDXML to create Powershell proxy commands against WMI API calls, which has made it possible for Server 2012 to ship with 1200 cmdlets, up from the 400 in 2008 R2. Steve also talks about workflows in V3, coming from the .NET 4 workflow foundation engine to create long running powershell tasks that survive the shutdown of the powershell enginer, even reboots. Microsoft seems to get it right on version threes - and Powershell V3 is no exception.

Richard chats with Microsoft Premier Field Engineer Jeff Stokes about his tools and techniques for improving boot performance. Jeff points out that it doesn't matter what version of Windows you're using, all of them can suffer from bad boot performance for a variety of reasons, including third party tools, logon scripts and even group policy. The first tool on the list for diagnosing boot performance problems is xperf, specifically xbootmgr which is part of xperf. You can get xperf at the Windows Performance Analysis Development Center. xperf is great for all sorts of performance analysis beyond boot performance, and Jeff also points out the codeplex project xperf123 for making using xperf a whole bunch easier. Jeff also points to Troubleshooting Group Policy Using Event Logs, using Netsh Commands for Network Trace, Richard chats with Microsoft Premier Field Engineer Jeff Stokes about his tools and techniques for improving boot performance. Jeff points out that it doesn't matter what version of Windows you're using, all of them can suffer from bad boot performance for a variety of reasons, including third party tools, logon scripts and even group policy. The first tool on the list for diagnosing boot performance problems is xperf, specifically xbootmgr which is part of xperf. You can get xperf at the Windows Performance Analysis Development Center. xperf is great for all sorts of performance analysis beyond boot performance, and Jeff also points out the codeplex project xperf123 for making using xperf a whole bunch easier. Jeff also points to Troubleshooting Group Policy Using Event Logs, using Netsh Commands for Network Trace, Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4, Microsoft Exchange Server Error Code Look-up (which is good for all sorts of error codes, not just Exchange) and of course, Windows Sysinternals as all tools to help you diagnose your boot performance. Jeff mentions Justin Halls' article on Tools for Troubleshooting slow boots and slow logons. And don't forget to check out Jeff's blog Dude where's my PFE? and Yong Rhee's blog The troubleshooters and problem solvers for even more information!

Richard talks to Richard Hicks about the new features of DirectAccess in Windows Server 2012. DirectAccess first made its appearance in Server 2008 R2 as a way to make VPN connectivity to the network less painful for users. But the server requirements were arduous, to the point that many IT folks could not deploy DirectAccess at all. Richard talks about how this second version of DirectAccess solves many of those problems. Windows Server 2012 isn't here quite yet, but when it is, you're going to want DirectAccess!

Richard talks to Alan Sugano about using the cloud for disaster recovery. Alan discusses how the latest version of Site Recovery Manager (SRM) from VMWare works with certain cloud providers to provide an alternate site for your virtual machines in the event of a disaster. The conversation digs into how much bandwidth is needed, dealing with the initial 'big sync' of data and the on-going costs of operating the cloud as a remote site.

Richard talks to Aidan Finn about the new Hyper-V features in Windows Server 8. Aidan starts off talking about Hyper-V Replica, focusing on it as an awesome solution for virtual machine disaster recovery for small and medium businesses. The conversation continues into exploring how Microsoft has taken their experiences running Azure into improving Hyper-V and Server 8.

Richard chats with Jes Borland about SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Jes talks about how SSRS has evolved into the latest version with SQL Server 2012, including some new features like reporting monitoring, where reports are generated automatically (and notifications sent out) when data changes. The conversation also digs into some of the administrative capabilities of SSRS including security and multi-tenancy features.

Richard chats with Allan Hirt about the new failover clustering features in SQL Server 2012. SQL Server 2012 has added a number of new features to make clustering more flexible and less wasteful of hardware. Allan talks about how Windows Server 8 will also amp-up the clustering offerings when it ships. The conversation also digs into the controversy around Microsoft deprecating database mirroring in SQL 2012 - it's not the end of the world, the technology won't explode when you upgrade!

Richard talks to Rory McCaw of Infront Consulting about the System Center 2012 suite. The conversation starts with the starting point of System Center - Configuration Manager or Operations Manager, depending on the focus of your organization. From there, the entire suite is explored, including Virtual Machine Manager, Orchestrator, Service Manager, Data Protection Manager, Endpoint Protection and App Controller. Rory explains how the different parts of System Center fit together and why you want to slowly add each product to your organization. This is about getting to preventative IT rather than constantly battling the crises!

Richard talks to Stacia Misner about the new features of Data Analytics 2012. The conversation starts with the evolution of data analytics from 2000 to 2005, 2008, 2008 R2 and now 2012. Then Stacia digs into how Excel has become the defacto client for analysis services, using PowerPivot and PowerPivot for Sharepoint mode. PowerPivot runs from Excel and doesn't require Analysis Services, at least not at first - but eventually you'll want to bring in the back end. Stacia also explains the evolution of the Unified Dimensional Model (UDM) into the Business Intelligence Seminatic Model (BISM) in Analysis Services 2012. Lots of incentive to upgrade to 2012!

Richard talks to Brent Ozar about the upcoming release of SQL Server 2012. While there's certainly lots to talk about around SQL Server 2012, Brent focuses on some of the odder features, like the ability to attach SQL Server to a database accessed over a NAS. Doesn't seem like the best idea, but Brent paints a few scenarios. The conversation also brushes over the NoSQL movement and how SQL Server still plays a role - Brent brings up the SQL Server Connector for Hadoop. Brent also talks about the SQL Server Certified Masters program, how it has evolved from a three week onsite class at Microsoft into a study-at-home, huge exam and six hour lab solution that has made it easier for more people to get certified.

Richard talks to Tony Redmond about DMARC, a new email specification for controlling spam and phishing emails. DMARC is an acronym for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance. It standardizes implementations of Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) so that email servers receiving mail can be sure that the domains the email identifies with are actually the sources of the email. Tony also digs into the deeper concepts of DMARC, including receiving servers being able to communicate back with source servers to indicate when email is being marked as spam. The conversation digs into the larger concepts of spam solutions, talking about how cloud is helping to create safer environments for email and how email will ultimately need to evolve to stay relevant in business environments.

Richard talks to Mike Jones about implementing IPv6 at home. After listening to RunAs Episode 205 about IPv6, Mike set about to get himself ready for World IPv6 day. Mike talks about discovering what his ISP (Comcast) was doing for IPv6, and how you can implement IPv6 in your network with or without ISP support. He almost mentions two key resources - one is knowledge base article 929852 on configuring IPv6 features in Windows. The other is the IPv6 test site so you can evaluate how your set up is working. Mike also blogs about his experiences with IPv6. June 6 2012 is World IPv6 Launch Day - are you ready?

Richard talks to Stephen Rose about the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Stephen talks about the features that IT Pros are particularily going to be interested in for Windows 8, such as the new version of BitLocker. The conversation also moves over to Server 8 and some of the capabilities there, including a new IPv4 version of DirectAccess. Now is a great time to get testing!

Richard talks to Justin Morris about the mobility component of Lync. Only just released, Microsoft has Lync clients for iPhone, Android, Symbian and Windows Phone 7. Justin talks about how the mobile Lync client extends Lync's concept of presence to the smartphone, so that people working in the enterprise can connect and communicate with their fellow employees on the road the same way. The conversation digs into the challenges of data connectivity versus cell telephony, and how Lync provides a call-via-work mechanism to centralize and control cellular call costs. And don't worry - Skype comes up in the conversation too!