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Dell 12th Generation Server will launch on 6th March 2012 - Stay tuned!

One month later, Dell will present to you the brand new 12th Gen servers with a lots of new features to fulfill the current market demand. Dell always believe that they can simplified your IT, and ensure your server will always do more than what you can expected!

12th Gen servers have a lot of new features as below:
- New RAID Card : PERC 810, 710 & 510
- iDRAC 7.0
- OpenManage Server Administrator 7.0
- Casper 1.0 (Dell 12th Gen Digital Licensing Infrastructure)
- Micron PCIe SSD ready
- etc.

For more information, stay tuned or consult Dell Sales department. :-)



 

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VMWare vSphere 4.0 / 4.1 Network Issue

A customer from Taiwan report a network issue as below:
- ESXi Host A & B
- Last Friday, Host A suddenly down, and all VMs being vMotion to Host B with through HA triggered.
- Before this incident, network intermittently down and he need to restart the ESXi Host to resolve the issue 
- Server configured with 2x Dual Intel PCI-e NIC, with total 8 NICs from the server
- Network Teaming configured for some of the NICs

Customer throw me a challenging request as below:
"...I believe there isn't any hardware issue from the PowerEdge R710, please help me escalate to VMWare for solution..."

As usual, is my responsibility to let customer know Dell currently still able to support/resolve break-fix issue only. For 3rd party software relevant issue, we are able to support with best-effort only. Lucky enough that I'm able to convince customer to wait for the outcome of my short research.

I spend 2 to almost 3 hours looking for solution/workaround from VMWare.com, and finally I get the piece of useful information as below:

Network connectivity failure and system crash while performing control operations on physical NICs
In some cases, when multiple X-Frame II s2io NICs are sharing the same pci-x bus, performing control operations, such as changing the MTU, on the physical NIC causes a loss of network connectivity and a system crash.
Workaround: Avoid having multiple X-Frame II s2io NICs in slots that share the same pci-x bus. In situations where such a configuration is necessary, avoid performing control operations on the physical NICs while virtual machines are doing network I/O.

From the above statements, clearly to say that issue occurred due to Network Teaming being configured (contained control operations), and cause the ESXi Host A "crash", then trigger HA.

Reference:

* TIPS: Always check the known-issues from VMWare release notes, which can help to get the answer/solution or workaround faster.

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Dell System Management Tools & Documentation version 6.5 is out!

Please follow the steps below to prepare the SMTD v6.5:

1. Download both ISO from below:
Image 1: OM_6.5.0_SMTD_A01.iso.001 Image 2: OM_6.5.0_SMTD_A01.iso.002 

2.  Before you burn it out, you need to join both ISO become single ISO file.
        Windows:
copy /b OM_6.4.0_SMTD_A00.iso.001+OM_6.4.0_SMTD_A00.iso.002 OM_640_SMTD_A00.iso

             Linux
cat OM_6.4.0_SMTD_A00.iso.001 OM_6.4.0_SMTD_A00.iso.002 > OM_640_SMTD_A00.iso
3. After that, you may open the ISO file with your burning software such as Roxio or Nero, and burn it. 

After that, boot with this DVD to enter the Pre-Install configuration interface.

**Additional Info:

PowerEdge 1800
PowerEdge 1850
PowerEdge 1855
PowerEdge 1950
PowerEdge 1955
PowerEdge 2900
PowerEdge 2950
PowerEdge 2970
PowerEdge 6800
PowerEdge 6850
PowerEdge 6950
PowerEdge 800
PowerEdge M600
PowerEdge M605
PowerEdge M610
PowerEdge M610x
PowerEdge M710
PowerEdge M710HD
PowerEdge M805
PowerEdge M905
PowerEdge M910
PowerEdge 1900
PowerEdge 830
PowerEdge 840
PowerEdge 850
PowerEdge 860
PowerEdge 2800
PowerEdge 2850
PowerEdge R200
PowerEdge R210
PowerEdge R300
PowerEdge R310
PowerEdge R410
PowerEdge R415
PowerEdge R510
PowerEdge R515
PowerEdge R610
PowerEdge R710
PowerEdge R715
PowerEdge R805
PowerEdge R810
PowerEdge R815
PowerEdge R900
PowerEdge R905
PowerEdge R910
PowerEdge T100
PowerEdge T105
PowerEdge T110
PowerEdge T300
PowerEdge T310
PowerEdge T410
PowerEdge T605
PowerEdge T610
PowerEdge T710
PowerVault DL2000
PowerVault DL2100
PowerVault DP100/NF100
PowerVault DP500/NF500
PowerVault DP600/NF600
PowerVault MD1000
PowerVault MD1120
PowerVault MD3000
PowerVault MD3000i
PowerVault NX1950
PowerVault NX3000 

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End of Sales/Support for Windows XP, Windows Vista & Windows 7

For me, Vista is one of the failure from Longhorn series. Although the interface is quite impressive, but it require or I should said it utilize at least 30-40% resources from your PC or Laptop. In other words, it will slow down or cause hang/freeze when you run 3 or more 'resources-drained' application, such as Adobe Photoshop, PPS Player, Movie Editing software and etc. That is why I quickly change to Windows 7 when I heard most of the people said it is the 'improved-version' of Vista. I'm using it for more than a year, still I will giving 7 out 10 for it.


Microsoft had declare the end of sales and end of support as below. 


End of Sales Date: 

Desktop operating systems
Date of general availability
Retail software end of sales *
End of sales for PCs withWindows preinstalled
Windows XP
December 31, 2001
June 30, 2008
October 22, 2010
Windows Vista
January 30, 2007
October 22, 2010
October 22, 2011
Windows 7
October 22, 2009
To be determined
To be determined

End of Support Date:

Desktop operating systems
Latest service pack
End of mainstream support
End of extended support
Windows XP
April 14, 2009
April 8, 2014
Windows Vista
April 10, 2012
April 11, 2017
Windows 7
To be determined
Not applicable


Reference:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/products/lifecycle

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What should I do if one of the hard disk from Dell PowerEdge Server failed?

Many customers, especially those Server Admin with technical knowledge wouldn't ask this question but take action to the server which they think is right. However, it just messed up everything, and worst will cause data lost. Then, we have a lot of job to do afterward.

Sometimes, I feel funny that customer call to the toll-free number only if they ruined everything. When I tried my very best to 'reverse' the situation, but failed, they will shout at me with the sentence as below:

"..I pay so much for the warranty, but you said you can't help me?.."
Therefore, I beg you guys (Server admin) give call to Technical Support to confirm before you take any action that you think is right.

Hard disk failure may have 2 different situation:
i) Single hard disk failure
  • Check the hard disk status from OpenManage Server Administrator or DSET
  • After confirm the status is FAIL, you may re-seat the hard disk while the server is ON/Power-up, to see the hard disk can proceed to rebuilding or not.
  • If the hard disk is able to rebuild, monitor the rebuilding progress. If the rebuilding progress can reach 100%, monitor the hard disk status for 1 day.
  • If it fail to kick-start the rebuild, or fail during the rebuilding progress, you may call up Technical Support to claim the hard disk replacement.
ii) More than two hard disks failure
  • Check the hard disk status from OpenManage Server Administrator or DSET 
  •  After confirm the status is FAIL, check Controller Log so that we know which hard disk failed the first.  (E.g. PERC Log)
  • We always Force Online the hard disk failed the first, due to the hard disk that failed the last will contained latest data.
  • If this isn't work, kindly call Technical Support for assistance.

*re-seat: Pull out and push in the hard disk (applicable for hot-swap hard disk)

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How can you downgrade from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2003?

Many customer called and ask is there anyway to downgrade from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2003. Hereby I would like to say : "..It can be done!"

For Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Operating System, it have two different types of downgrade options:
    - Downgrade license (bundle with Windows Server 2008)
      When Windows Server 2008 launched for one quarter, Dell start not to upsell Windows Server 2003. Therefore, the Sales team introduce Windows Server 2008 with Downgrade license to Windows Server 2003. During the installation, the interface slightly different with the usual one, you will see extra options called: "Downgrade" is available to chose.

    - Downgrade media
      If your OEM Windows Server 2008 doesn't come with the downgradeable license (due to price different), you may contact your Sales Account Manager to request a Downgrade Media from Microsoft. Please note that this is not a new license, and it is chargeable.

Please refers to the below for further info from Microsoft.

From an OEM. From now until March 31, 2011, some OEMs may support fulfilling Windows Server 2003 R2 downgrades (includes Windows Server 2003 Web Edition, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition for Itanium-based Systems, and Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition for Itanium-based Systems) to their customers. There are several options available. Contact your OEM to determine if it supports downgrade fulfillment. Please note that downgrade media is not a new license for Windows Server. It only enables a customer to install, activate and run an earlier version of Windows Server under a Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 license.
  • OEMs may provide their existing Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 customers one copy of downgrade Windows Server 2003 R2 media only if their customer requests it.
Some OEMs have pre-activated their software. In these cases, a customer would not need a product key or to activate over the internet or via the phone.For Windows Server 2008 R2 downgrade requests, end customers should fulfill downgrade requests through the Windows Server Downgrade Fulfillment site.

Reference:  http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/downgrade-rights.aspx

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Dell Server: Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the system setup program

A very common issue for server to encounter the P.O.S.T (Power-on Self Test) error as below:

Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the system setup program


Cause:
It may due to the reason below:
- System BIOS updates
- Power-trip cause server shutdown unexpectedly
- CMOS battery (or slot) issue

Workaround:
You may go to System BIOS by pressing F2 during P.O.S.T, and perform as below:

1. Integrated devices
    - Ensure "Embedded Gb NIC 1" and "Embedded Gb NIC 2" are set to "Enabled" (or Enabled without PXE)

2. SATA port
    - Turn all SATA port to OFF, except CD/DVD-ROM.

Then "Save Changes & Exit", and server will proceed for reboot.

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