Any Windows 2008 Server woes to report?

[Darren S]

Just trying out the x64 Eval Edition on a lowly ML150 G5 and tbh, it seems fine so far.

Looks (and feels) like a no-frills Vista imo and am currently using SQL2005 x64 on it.

As we're a Windows 2003 x86 domain, has anyone had any real complications it shifting to either W2008 and/or 64-bit? I haven't wanted to touch the AD side of things yet (for obvious reasons!) but we may also be looking into upgrading Exchange 2003 to 2007 in the near future as well.

Any 'warning' signs or heads-up would be appreciated.

Cheers,
D.

 

[cava83]

Darren,

Just rebuilding our AD at the moment, completely new domain on X86 Standard 2008. Forest and Domain 2003 level. (2 x dell R200's)

Replication and all that works fine.

Just adding member servers, will be on 2008 standard too, one will be running 2007 exchange.

Writing a log, so should be able to provide you some details if needs be

 

[McBunny]

yes it has problems with iscsi multipathing apparently

 

[DMS]

Never had any issues myself, or known of any that have affected us.
I'd make sure to test everything works properly before raising the domain and forest functional levels to 2008 though, because you can't revert back again.

 

[Scottydog]

Never had any issues myself, or known of any that have affected us.
I'd make sure to test everything works properly before raising the domain and forest functional levels to 2008 though, because you can't revert back again.

+1

We now have 3 out of 8 servers running 08, one of them with Exchange 07. No problems to report so far :approve:

 

[McBunny]

im waiting for 2008 r2 before we go live

 

[bmh.01]

I've had zero problems starting from afresh with it really, although not a mega high load application.

 

[Darren S]

Cheers guys - thanks for the feedback. :approve:

Initial findings are great. We had a 45GB SQL2000 database that we trialed in upgrading to SQL2005. The results?

• Windows 2003 x86, running SQL2005 x86 = 3.5 days
• Windows 2008 x64, running SQL2005 x64 = 6 hours!

Tbf, we did beef up the memory from 4GB onboard to 16GB which was the mobo's maximum - but even so, it's a significant improvement.

I'm downloading the eval version of SQL2008 x64 tonight and plan to give that a go tomorrow. I don't think for our relatively limited use of SQL though, that the 2008 version will add much benefit to us.

D.

 

[cava83]

Darren,

That's excellent, I am glad it's working out ok for you

Good stuff, let us know how you get on,

G.

]

Cheers guys - thanks for the feedback. :approve:

Initial findings are great. We had a 45GB SQL2000 database that we trialed in upgrading to SQL2005. The results?

• Windows 2003 x86, running SQL2005 x86 = 3.5 days
• Windows 2008 x64, running SQL2005 x64 = 6 hours!

Tbf, we did beef up the memory from 4GB onboard to 16GB which was the mobo's maximum - but even so, it's a significant improvement.

I'm downloading the eval version of SQL2008 x64 tonight and plan to give that a go tomorrow. I don't think for our relatively limited use of SQL though, that the 2008 version will add much benefit to us.

D.

 

[RSi Dave]

We have just migrated from Server 2000 domain and Exchange to Server 2008 x64 and Exchange 2007.

Took around 8 hours for the migration to be complete and emails to be working. Had a few issues during install on exchange however the install gives you really handy hints on what to do to solve the issues which is nice. If you havent got it PFDAVadmin tool then i would recommend as Exchange 2007 permissions have changed and working with public folders is easier with this than the Exchange 2007 GUI

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...92-D8AD-49E3-ADA4-E2422C0AB424&displaylang=en

Server performance seem fine, we bought 3 new from dell and upgrading one other to server 2008. Our servers are for Domain, Exchange, File Server and Terminal Services. We would also like to trial Hyper Visor for consolidating some old dev servers.

 

[cava83]

Dave,

What guide did you use for installing Exchange on 2007?

Also, are you using edge transport?

I am just about to do similar to you

Thanks,

G.

We have just migrated from Server 2000 domain and Exchange to Server 2008 x64 and Exchange 2007.

Took around 8 hours for the migration to be complete and emails to be working. Had a few issues during install on exchange however the install gives you really handy hints on what to do to solve the issues which is nice. If you havent got it PFDAVadmin tool then i would recommend as Exchange 2007 permissions have changed and working with public folders is easier with this than the Exchange 2007 GUI

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...92-D8AD-49E3-ADA4-E2422C0AB424&displaylang=en

Server performance seem fine, we bought 3 new from dell and upgrading one other to server 2008. Our servers are for Domain, Exchange, File Server and Terminal Services. We would also like to trial Hyper Visor for consolidating some old dev servers.

 

[RSi Dave]

No i just created a standard SMTP connector so our exchange is directly on the net.

I closely followed this guide:

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Transitioning-Exchange-2000-2003-Exchange-Server-2007-Part1.html

Another thing to watch out for is SSL, the standard cert that comes with exchange is a self signed exchange one which is used mainly for outlook 2007 to authenticate. I have manged to get this working for activesync too but OWA doesnt validate as it isnt from a trusted source. I think the best bet is getting a proper cert from a trusted CA. If you use activesync now then you might be ok however coming from exchange 2000 we didnt have OTA syncing.

 

[DMS]

You could just install a Certification Authority on your network if you haven't already got one, then export the intermediate and web certificates from your CA and use group policy to distribute them to client PC's / laptops' relevant certificate stores. Or even Autoenrollment if you're feeling flash.
You can also configure the Exchange ActiveSync policy to deploy certificates to mobile devices so that you don't have to copy them across manually.
You'd only get the certificate warning on non-company computers then. That's what we've done here to save a few bob.

If your internal AD name matches your email domain name, you might have a problem with Exchange 2007's autodiscover service too. It uses HTTPS to communicate with the Exchange server, and will attempt to go through any proxy server that Internet Explorer is configured to use. I resolved it for a customer by using GP to add proxy exceptions for the CAS servers' FQDN's.

 

[McBunny]

thats why its not best practice to have your internal domain name to be the same as your web domain name
.lan or .local FTW

 

[cava83]

s**t, I have just redone my domain not using the internal format.

So many places say so many different things.

thats why its not best practice to have your internal domain name to be the same as your web domain name
.lan or .local FTW

 

[DMS]

thats why its not best practice to have your internal domain name to be the same as your web domain name
.lan or .local FTW

Exactamundo.

 

[McBunny]

s**t, I have just redone my domain not using the internal format.

So many places say so many different things.

mine was done with the external name when the network was originally done i hav just never got round to changing it it causes problems but we have fixes in place to stop most of the problems

 

[DMS]

It's not too much of a problem naming your internal AD domain the same as your email / web domain. You just have to know what you're doing to work around the problem you've got yourself into.
For example, your AD incorporated DNS servers will think they're fully authorititive for the zone that matches your external domain name. Not too much of an issue unless you've got a subdomain on your website for example, and your DNS servers can't resolve it. Then they throw a wobbly in Event Viewer complaining that it cannot find the zone, check that NS records exist, etc...
You'd probably also run into an issue where your external website doesn't work when your client machines are using AD's DNS servers. You have to create an A record named www that points to your web server's IP address to get around the issue. Same with any other external host names you've got (mail.yourdomain.com etc...).

Reasons like the above mean it's often easier to just name your domain something different in the first place.

 

[ChrisR]

thats why its not best practice to have your internal domain name to be the same as your web domain name
.lan or .local FTW

yup, .local ftw

 

[Longy]

aye I always use .local

 

[cava83]

Hi, the internal domain is not the same as our email domains, nevertheless, this might change in the future.

All I have done is set two domain controllers and three members, I could rename the domain, or just start from scratch.

Top notch

 

[dk]

we moved to a total Windows 2008 domain last April, so have had it all installed for a year and so far have only had some little issues, mainly around TS 2008 and the gateway, nothing major though, more to do with the connection between the sites.

The 2008 servers have blue screened a couple of times and they were clustered too and bought down the whole cluster, this was caused by our first line guy creating a loop in the network though when i told him to plug it in where he wanted to, strange that it only affected the 2008 clustered servers, but once the loop was removed everything was fine.

Its a much faster OS, much quicker to install, quicker to boot and shutdown. I love the roles and features part too, and file blocking on file servers.

Wouldn't ever recommend 2003 over 2008 now, using all 64bit too with exchange 2007 clustered mailbox role and separate case and hub roles, SQL2005, TS2008, OCS, MOSS and all secured through ISA.

Not sure about the iSCSI problems mentioned above, we haven't had any issues, running a Netapp FAS in our test network, we use a HP fibre EVA with Blades in our live environment.

Having installed an iSCSI san with vmware this week i really f**king hate iSCSI, its nowhere near as good as fibre, not as quick, not as efficient and failover is much slower, FC FTW!

 

[Darren S]

we moved to a total Windows 2008 domain last April, so have had it all installed for a year and so far have only had some little issues, mainly around TS 2008 and the gateway, nothing major though, more to do with the connection between the sites.

The 2008 servers have blue screened a couple of times and they were clustered too and bought down the whole cluster, this was caused by our first line guy creating a loop in the network though when i told him to plug it in where he wanted to, strange that it only affected the 2008 clustered servers, but once the loop was removed everything was fine.

Its a much faster OS, much quicker to install, quicker to boot and shutdown. I love the roles and features part too, and file blocking on file servers.

Wouldn't ever recommend 2003 over 2008 now, using all 64bit too with exchange 2007 clustered mailbox role and separate case and hub roles, SQL2005, TS2008, OCS, MOSS and all secured through ISA.

Not sure about the iSCSI problems mentioned above, we haven't had any issues, running a Netapp FAS in our test network, we use a HP fibre EVA with Blades in our live environment.

Having installed an iSCSI san with vmware this week i really f**king hate iSCSI, its nowhere near as good as fibre, not as quick, not as efficient and failover is much slower, FC FTW!

Dave, what issues did you have with terminal services? We're big on Citrix here (currently PS4 - non of the Xen stuff as of yet) - so it would be good to know what issues you had. If they were major, that is.

Never used the fibre channel stuff on storage, but I'm one of the biggest advocates of fibre as network medium - especially when a lot of machinery, factory equipment and power distribution boxes are knocking about. Fibre just works.

D.

 

[dk]

Dave, what issues did you have with terminal services? We're big on Citrix here (currently PS4 - non of the Xen stuff as of yet) - so it would be good to know what issues you had. If they were major, that is.

Never used the fibre channel stuff on storage, but I'm one of the biggest advocates of fibre as network medium - especially when a lot of machinery, factory equipment and power distribution boxes are knocking about. Fibre just works.

D.

mainly around getting the TS gateway to work properly, it doesn't load balance people and round robin doesn't really work.

As we have a remote office over a vpn they all seem to get put on the same server in the farm because they are coming from the same IP and theya re the main users of it.

Also, they need a shed load of ram, ours are runnign 6gb and this isn't anywhere near enough, and thats only to support around 30-40 users over 2-3 servers.

And then speed is a major issue, the users in the remote site trying to open pdf's and powerpoint is a joke, slows the whole system down for them when one person does it, needs something like riverbed i think to compress everything over the link but its mega bucks. Also thought maybe they don't use the whole desktop over TS and either have local servers (was a pilot scheme having a second office so didn't want to put too much infrastructure in place at first) or run certain apps over TS using the single app feature and then have local web access etc. as at the moment their whole desktop is going over the link.

I think it was specced wrong and the IT manager doesn't really know how to fix it all but won't really take on others ideas etc.

As a local product over the network for hot desking and for me at home on a decent broadband connection it seems to work fine, we secure it using ISA and certificates.

 

[Darren S]

mainly around getting the TS gateway to work properly, it doesn't load balance people and round robin doesn't really work.

As we have a remote office over a vpn they all seem to get put on the same server in the farm because they are coming from the same IP and theya re the main users of it.

Also, they need a shed load of ram, ours are runnign 6gb and this isn't anywhere near enough, and thats only to support around 30-40 users over 2-3 servers.

And then speed is a major issue, the users in the remote site trying to open pdf's and powerpoint is a joke, slows the whole system down for them when one person does it, needs something like riverbed i think to compress everything over the link but its mega bucks. Also thought maybe they don't use the whole desktop over TS and either have local servers (was a pilot scheme having a second office so didn't want to put too much infrastructure in place at first) or run certain apps over TS using the single app feature and then have local web access etc. as at the moment their whole desktop is going over the link.

I think it was specced wrong and the IT manager doesn't really know how to fix it all but won't really take on others ideas etc.

As a local product over the network for hot desking and for me at home on a decent broadband connection it seems to work fine, we secure it using ISA and certificates.

Easy - take Office off Citrix!

We have a few instances of Office 2003 on the Citrix farm, but the end users are less than 100yards away and the building is connected to head office via fibre :approve: - so there's very lag.

The depots all run Office locally on the their machines with the documents backed up to their local DC and then in-turn backed up to HQ over night when the systems are idle.

The only Citrix-wide apps that we use are our main sales & accounts program, together with a few custom VB apps. Their memory foot-print isn't too big (thankfully) - normally around 18-25MB per user - which split over three Citrix boxes doesn't cause too many problems.

I really need to get off my backside and check out the Xen stuff from Citrix - in particular when sat on W2008 Server. Too many things - not enough time, lol!

D.