I recently had a disk failure that I was using for my Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2010 (DPM) protection groups.  Unfortunately, it wasn't a recoverable error so I had to remove the disk from the pool and reallocate the affected data sources.  DPM is supposed to error out the data sources when it can't perform the backup, but I've found this is not always the case.  Only about 25% of the data sources that were on that disk ever errored out.  The rest had the happy green "OK."  Looking through the protection groups, I noticed that any data source that was no longer protected would still show the correct last recovery point from when it last succeeded (which was days ago).  When I tried to run a manual express full backup at that point, I would get an error that stated that the disk was missing and it could not perform the backup.  However, it still showed the green "OK" symbol next to the data source.

I have several hundred protected data sources and I couldn't go through them one by one, so I whipped up a PowerShell script to show me stale DPM data.  Basically, it enumerates all the data sources and compares the latest recovery point date with 24 hours ago.  If it's older than that, it outputs the protected resource so I can removed it and add it back to the protection group with a fresh volume.

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I'm a big fan of MS DPM and have been using it for years.  The one place where it really suffers, though, is the management console.  Even in DPM 2010, there are very few things you can do in a batch sequence, which is a common need for DPM administrators.

From time to time, your server may get a large amount of inconsistent replicas.  This is usually due to something outside of DPM's control.  For example, one DPM server I manage is a VM.  If the host server suspends the VM, then resumes and the target server it was backing up before suspend is suddenly offline (such as during a reboot cycle from updates), you can get inconsistent replicas.  There are numerous other scenarios, but you get the drift.  When this happens, the management console forces you to right click on every single alert individually and select "Run a synchronization job with consistent check."  (You can also just wait for the next automatic consistency check interval, but that's not always ideal.)

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House Democrats are forcing the Republicans to admit with their vote that they just want tax breaks for the rich.  The Democrats are trying a (sneaky or awesome, depending on your political preference) procedural move to force the hand of Republicans.  Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner is turning a brighter shade of orange.   Are Democrats finally learning how to play politics the same way as Republicans?  I hope so.  I'm basically an o-bot, it seems, by Liberal Intertubez Blog Commenting Standards, but I am oh-so-very-glad to see some hardball being played after several days of the media reporting that Obama apologized for not being more accommodating to the guys who got our country into the mess it's in.

So will the Republicans vote against tax cuts because the uber wealthy aren't getting their (unfair) share?  A lot of them will, is my prediction, but we'll see.  Either way, the media headlines will emphasize the delicate fee fees of the Republicans being hurt, and not the fact that (some?) Republicans vote against tax breaks for the middle class.  Just you wait and see.  Extra credit for lazy reporting for anybody in the media refers to this bill as a "tax hike" (on the wealthy) by Democrats.

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My new pet peeve is when technology pundits that use the phrase (or a variation thereof), "designing for 1985" when talking about traditional mouse/keyboard input modalities.  This is usually said as a derogatory comment to Microsoft, but also includes other companies that have not yet jumped headfirst into the latest fad of iPad computing (if you can call running applets on a multimedia presentation device "computing.")

I think touch screens a la cell phones and slate devices have their place and can be awesome, but just, for a minute, try imagining typing a long document on an iPad compared to basically any traditional computer setup.  The very thought of it is tiring to me.  I need a nap.  My point is that mouse+kb has been successful for so long because when you know how to type (probably not many tech magazine writers know how without staring at the keyboard and pecking with their index fingers, unfortunately), the keyboard is incredibly fast for input.  And for situations that you can't use the keyboard, the mouse is still faster than touch screens.  With a mouse you can quickly jump from one part of the screen to the other and precisely zero in with just the smallest flick of your wrist.  Touch screens require your arm and hand actually extend to each of the affected areas on the screen.  When you have two or three monitors, having to touch for all direct-contact input with controls on the screen would actually be quite slow, even if it is satisfying in a "I feel like I'm on Star Trek" kind of way.

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Now that the 2010 election is over, I think it's safe to say that Americans have clearly spoken: nobody on the Socialist Party ticket won.  Clearly this means America is a center-right country.  At the same time, Obama should have used the bully pulpit more, because progressive voters are fragile creatures who would rather let their opponents win and go scorched earth than support a moderate on their own ticket.

Yea, also, to, this is all stupid and wrong.  I can say this because I have as much knowledge and credentials as most of the lip-flapping sputter coming out of the beltway media.  I posted the following comment on Balloon Juice (one of the only sane political blogs on the intertubes), but had to share it here to.

Regarding this article.

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The winningest site for those of us on the left that understand that governing this country is more than just a bully pulpit and getting angry: http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/

NOW GET OUT AND VOTE!

A while back I created the SCHANNEL.ADM administrative template to allow SCHANNEL ciphers and protocols to be configured in a GPO and pushed out to all servers in a domain.  Basically, in any Windows Server version before 2008, the SSL 2.0 protocol was enabled, and so were a bunch of weak ciphers, like 40-bit RC2 or 56-bit DES.

Well, recently one of the sites I manage began failing a HackerSafe test for ciphers and it seems I missed a few ciphers in my template.  Why HackerSafe only discovered this now instead of years ago is anybody's guess.  It is run by McAfee now, so I wouldn't bet the farm on their audits…  But I digress.

I updated the template on my website for download.  In addition to having  a few more ciphers, I also put in the description "(Recommend Disabled)" next to all the weak ciphers.

Remember that these values are not fully managed policy entries and if you delete your GPO, the affected server will not automatically revert to default values – you will be left to clean up the registry.

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My congressional representative is Brad Miller.  He’s done some great work and is generally well liked by his district.  However, just like many Democrats this year, he’s facing stronger competition than in many previous years.  Luckily, his opponent is a crazy conspiracy theorist (BP Truther) and “tea party” candidate.

I went to a house party for Miller’s campaign.  This is the first time I’ve done such a thing.  I’m always pretty politically motivated, but as far as campaigning goes, I’m usually just a money donator, bumper sticker/yard sign poster, and not much more.

The house party was encouraging.  There were quite a few disappointed progressives, but they were largely positive towards Miller and more critical of Obama.  This is interesting to me because most of the media reports about Democratic turn-out point to dissatisfied Obama supporters not turning out for their local Democrats.  I can’t speak for all Democrats and the house party certainly isn’t a scientific sampling, but it was encouraging to see quite a few people turn out for Miller, despite possibly being disappointed in Obama. 

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There's a lot of documentation out there on how to mount ISOs in Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager for Hyper-V hosts.  It basically involves setting up permissions on the library shares so that the Hyper-V host machines can consume the share, then setting up constrained delegation in Active Directory.  Here's a link: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dutchpts/archive/2009/02/09/hyper-v-and-scvmm-2008-mounting-iso-s-from-a-network-share.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

And here's the error…

Error (12700)
VMM cannot complete the Hyper-V operation on the HVSERVER1.domain.com server because of the error: 'NewServerHost' failed to add device 'Microsoft Virtual CD/DVD Disk'. (Virtual machine ID 119730D6-8939-4CB9-8456-7941F6925279)

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A very brief tech mystery today!

We have not upgraded to Exchange 2010 yet at work and are still on Exchange 2003 (yes, 2003).  That upgrade is scheduled for a little later this year, but until then, I have to continue to support 2003.

I ran into a strange mail flow issue today that ends up being the result of a combination of Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2007 or newer.  One of my users was trying to send an update to a meeting request, but recipients outside of our domain (external SMTP recipients) were getting stuck in the queue.  The additional information in the queue just said "Unable to open the message for delivery."  That clued me in that it wasn't an external SMTP rejection of the message (invalid email address or whatever).  So I did some googling.

It turns out there's actually a known issue for Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010 (or newer) clients sending meeting updates via Exchange 2003.  It must not happen all the time, because we've had Outlook 2007 deployed for years and never saw this issue before.  In fact, it didn't start happening until a user on Outlook 2010 sent a meeting update.  Maybe it's just coincidence – I'm not really sure.

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