Setting up an Oracle Virtual Machine in Windows Azure

If you want to set up an Oracle virtual machine in Windows Azure, fortunately, there is already a Database Servers virtual machine template for that!

VMWare Workstation 12.5 Pro just released!

VMWare Workstation 12.5 Pro was just released yesterday!

You can download VMWare Workstation 12.5 Pro from here: https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=WKST-1250-WIN&productId=524&rPId=12749

You can read the Release Notes for VMWare Workstation 12.5 Pro here: http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/workstation/12pro/workstation-125-release-notes.html

Installing Microsoft Antimalware for Windows Azure Virtual Machines

One of the many changes that came about as part of the switch from the Azure Classic Portal to the new Azure Portal was the way in which you install Microsoft Antimalware for your Windows Azure Virtual Machines.

In the past, you would simply choose "Microsoft Antimalware" as part of the wizard when you are setting up your virtual machine for the first time.  Unfortunately, that practice also did not allow you to go back and set it up later once the virtual machine was created.

While Microsoft has made it easier to turn on now at a later point in time, since it is no longer part of the initial creation process of the Windows Azure VM and it is disabled by default, it is also easier to forget!

Fortunately, installing Microsoft Antimalware after the fact is relatively simple.

First click on the Settings for your virtual machine:

In the Settings menu, you should see a menu option for "Extensions".  Once you click on that you should get a list of the currently installed extensions.  In the toolbar for that new screen, you should be able to click on the "Add" button to get a list of additional extensions to install:

In that list, you will find the listing for "Microsoft Antimalware".  You can click on it to open another screen for configuring Antimalware and creating it on your Windows Azure VM:

Once you read through the details screen, you can click on the "Create" button.  This will then provide you a final screen to configure the settings for Microsoft Antimalware:

Once you have configured all of the rules for running Microsoft Antimalware, you can click on the OK button to set it up on your Windows Azure VM.  It should now show up in the list of installed extensions for your VM listed as "IaaSAntimalware":

Premium vs. Standard Disk Storage in Windows Azure Virtual Machines

If you are building Virtual Machines in Windows Azure, you will probably need to add additional disk storage at some point in time as your needs grow.

However, you should be aware that Windows Azure Disk Storage has a different pricing model for Premium vs. Standard Disk Storage: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/storage/

You will immediately discover that Premium Disk Storage costs SIGNIFICANTLY more than Standard Disk Storage so it is important to make sure you choose the right type of Disk Storage for your needs.

You can follow the simple steps below to add a new disk to your Windows Azure virtual machine:

1. Select your virtual machine
2. Click on the Settings for your virtual machine
3. In the Settings menu, click on Disks
4. At the top of the Disks menu, you will see an icon for "Attach new"
5. Click on the Attach new icon
6. You will now be prompted for information regarding your new Disk.  
7. When you choose your disk, Windows Azure has now DEFAULTED the Type to Premium.  Therefore, you will want to change the selection to Standard
8. When you choose a Standard disk, the default size will be 1023 GB (approx. 1 TB).  You can then configure the location settings for your disk which will specify the storage account to use.
9. Once you click OK, your new disk will be added to your virtual machine!

Backing up Windows Azure VMs

I needed to perform a backup of one of my existing Windows Azure VMs and I decided to follow this article which described how to do this using PowerShell: http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2014/01/24/create-backups-of-virtual-machines-in-windows-azure-by-using-powershell.aspx

Unfortunately, the article is EXTREMELY outdated and no longer works!!

When I attempted to run the PowerShell script outlined in the article, I kept on getting the following exception when attempting to run the Start-AzureStorageBlobCopy operation:
"The condition specified using HTTP conditional header(s) is not met"

Of course, researching a solution to this problem turned out to be a fruitless search, so I thought that perhaps I was using an older version of Windows Azure PowerShell and decided to download and install the latest version of Windows Azure PowerShell from here: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/

As you can guess, there was definitely a newer release of Azure PowerShell available and they had changed the PowerShell cmdlets significantly!

In any case, I have to work on learning the new commands for Windows Azure and will provide a newer version of the Backup script here when it is ready.

But until then, you are probably out of luck creating backups of your Azure VMs using the TechNet article...

Deficiency in Windows Azure Team Foundation Server Virtual Machine Template

I was recently attempting to set up a test Team Foundation Server 2013 environment in Windows Azure and after I had completed restoring a set of databases and installing the Application Tier Only on my Azure VM, I received the following error message:

Of course, I looked everywhere on the virtual machine expecting to find a script or some sort of package installation file that would allow me to install the SQL Server Client Tools on that machine.  Unfortunately, nothing could be found on the machine.

Therefore, I was left on my own to install the SQL Server Client Tools.  :-(

So, just because you choose the Team Foundation Server 2013 virtual machine template in Windows Azure, does not mean that it is all set and ready for you to use as a full-blown Team Foundation Server instance!!

SharePoint 2013 Dream Machine

If you are familiar with the system requirements for SharePoint 2013, you may already know that the recommended memory requirements for SharePoint 2013 is 16 GB.

Well, that puts many developers/administrators and architects in a precarious situation if they want to test varying SharePoint 2013 Farm configurations since most modern desktops only ship with 16 GB or 32 GB of RAM.

Even if you have 32 GB of RAM, you might only be able to get 2-3 VMs running alongside SharePoint (such as a Domain Controller and an Office Web Apps Server, or a Domain Controller and a Search/Index Server or possibly an Application Tier Server and a Web Front End).

If you want to test out integration points with SharePoint 2013 such as Team Foundation Server, Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Project Server, this will probably require implementing your SharePoint Farm across multiple machines.

Well, I was taking a look at the Costco website today and it seems that they have a SharePoint Administrator's Dream Machine!  http://www.costco.com/CyberpowerPC-Desktop-|-Intel-Core-i7-|-2GB-Graphics-|-Windows-8.1-Professional.product.100172430.html

With 64 GB of RAM and plenty of CPU horsepower and expandability, it makes it easy to set up even a very sophisticated SharePoint 2013 Farm virtual environment!!

With so much memory available, you can readily configure a full SharePoint Farm complete with multiple load-balanced WFEs, a SharePoint Application Tier Server, a separate SQL Server, a Domain Controller and perhaps even a separate Search/Index Server or Office Web Apps Server!

How cool is that??

Running Virtual Machines in Windows Azure Virtual Machines

If you want to leverage the existing Windows Azure Virtual Machine infrastructure to run older/legacy VMs such as Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, fortunately, you can do just that!

Here is an article that describes how to do just that: http://fabriccontroller.net/blog/posts/running-a-legacy-os-in-a-windows-azure-virtual-machine-windows-xp-windows-server-2003/

As you can read from the post, only Oracle VirtualBox will support running in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine.

However, there are also a few points when setting up the VirtualBox VM that are not mentioned:

1. You should install the Oracle VirtualBox Extension Pack in order to ensure everything works regarding mouse and keyboard input etc.
2. You will probably need to add a Windows Firewall exception in the Windows XP machine or turn off the Windows Firewall completely
3. You need to set up the VM using NAT in order to use the Port Forwarding feature.  You can set up NAT either in the Preferences of Oracle VirtualBox or configure it on a machine-by-machine basis.  Using other networking options will not work.
4. When you set up NAT, you will need to configure the Guest IP address as the target for Port Forwarding.  If the Guest IP address is not configured, Port Forwarding may not work.
5. You may also need to set up the Remote Display feature in order to get RDP to work correctly (Display-->Remote Display)

Leveraging the Windows Azure Virtual Machine infrastructure is very handy if you need to do some testing on older legacy Windows OSes until you phase out support for them completely.  As many IT users know, numerous applications still only work on Windows XP which is why it has been so difficult for Microsoft to completely drop support for Windows XP for so many years.

As an experiment, I decided to see if I could also get Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 running on VirtualBox inside of a Windows Azure VM and I got the error message "AMD-V is not supported".  Therefore, you can only run older legacy OSes on VirtualBox inside of a Windows Azure VM.

Joining 2 or more virtual machines to a domain

If you have ever had to build distributed architecture test environments (such as for Team Foundation Server or SharePoint), there is a good chance that you have to join one or more machines to a domain to get everything to work properly.

I most frequently use VMWare Workstation so the basic guide I have provided here will work best with VMWare Workstation or VMWare Player, but it should apply similarly to other virtualization products as well.

1. If you have not already done so, build a primary virtual machine that will act as the domain controller.  This machine should have a static IP address and should be configured to be its own DNS Server.  If you are building this virtual machine on a home network, I would recommend using blocking out a set of IP addresses from your router that will not be used as part of the DHCP range on your LAN.
2. Once you have that initial domain controller virtual machine, you can now configure your secondary virtual machine.  Before you attempt to join it to the domain, make sure you set the Primary DNS IP Address for the secondary virtual machine to point to the Domain Controller's IP Address.  For example, if your Domain Controller is configured with an IP Address of 192.168.0.10, then your secondary virtual machine should be configured with an IP Address of 192.168.0.11 and a Primary DNS Server Address of 192.168.0.10.  
3. Once you have configured the appropriate IP address configuration for your secondary virtual machine, you should now be able to join it to the domain.  When you are prompted for credentials to join it to the domain, you need to be sure that you enter credentials of a user that has Domain Admin privileges.
4. If the secondary member server is joined to the domain successfully, you are on your way!! You can follow this same procedure for any additional servers that you need to join to the domain.  
5. If you are having trouble testing communication between the domain servers (such as by using telnet), you may have to configure the Windows Firewall for Domain Networks.  NOTE: When you join machines to a domain, the Windows Firewall will automatically be enabled for Domain Networks.

If you are attempting to run your virtual machines on a corporate network and you know that Bridged or NAT network configurations will not work (due to Corporate Administrative Group Policies on your host machine), then since you cannot connect your virtual machines to the Internet, you can create a custom virtual network.

1. From the Edit menu, select Virtual Network Editor
2. Click on the Add Network button to create a new virtual network
3. From the drop down list, select a virtual network to Add and click the OK button
4. Once you are able to view the Virtual Network Editor screen, enter the subnet and DHCP settings
5. When you have completed entering all of your settings, click on the OK button
6. Now, when you go back into your virtual machines, you need to edit your existing Network Adapter and select your newly created Virtual Network and click the OK button.
7. Once you have edited the Network Adapters for all of your virtual machines, you can power on the virtual machines.
8. If you wish to assign static IP addresses to your virtual machines, you can assign them statically as long as they exist within the range of DHCP IP addresses available for your custom network.  
9. Once you have assigned a static IP address to your domain controller, you can use this IP address as the Primary DNS IP address in all of your subsequent virtual machines.
10. Once the network settings have been configured, you should be able to join your remaining machines to the domain.  
11. If the secondary member server is joined to the domain successfully, you are on your way!! You can follow this same procedure for any additional servers that you need to join to the domain.  
12. If you are having trouble testing communication between the domain servers (such as by using telnet), you may have to configure the Windows Firewall for Domain Networks.  NOTE: When you join machines to a domain, the Windows Firewall will automatically be enabled for Domain Networks.

Easy ways to create Virtual Machines for VMWare

One of my colleagues just came across this site which allows you to easily create configurations for VMWare virtual machines:

http://easyvmx.com/

Processor check for 64-bit Guest OSes

If you have a bit of an older computer and you are not sure whether or not your system will support 64-bit guest OS Virtual Machines, you can download the VMWare Processor Check utility from here:

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/processor_check_5_5_dt/dCpiQGhkYmRAZQ==

This tool will validate whether or not your system is capable of hosting 64-bit Guest OS Virtual Machines using either VMWare Server or VMWare Workstation.

VMWare Workstation Error Message: 64-bit operation is not possible

If you newly install VMWare Workstation on your computer and you try to configure a 64-bit Guest VM such as Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012, you may receive the following error message:

Well, this error message essentially means that even though you may be running a 64-bit OS on your computer, you are running it on the HOST OS.  This is different than running a 64-bit OS in a Guest Virtual Machine.

By default, most BIOS settings disable Virtualization Technology.  Therefore, if you want to run 64-bit Guest VMs on your system, you will have to manually alter this setting in your BIOS.

On older computers, there is another technology enabled in your BIOS which is inhibiting and thus preventing you from using 64-bit guest virtualization called Intel-AMT.  You can read more about Intel-AMT here: http://www.intel.com/technology/platform-technology/intel-amt/

So, as you can probably guess, if you disable Intel-AMT from your BIOS and then re-boot your system, you will be able to utilize 64-bit guest virtual machines!

On newer computers, this setting has been renamed to Virtualization Technology (VTx).  The location of this setting can vary from computer to computer, but on an HP computer for example, it is under the System Configuration --> Device Configurations menu option.

You simply have to check the Virtualization Technology (VTx) checkbox and you should be all set to run 64-bit Guest Virtual Machines!