InstantForum.NET v2.9.0SQLServerCentralhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/notifications@sqlservercentral.comWed, 19 Jun 2013 03:34:00 GMT20http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspx4GB is not a lot of RAM, especially since Windows has to have a piece of it as well.You know give a VM 1GB of RAM and it will still run somewhat acceptably. You're not doing high performance TSQL development, but rather some basic administration stuff.Most of the time you only need to run 2 servers at the same time, so it's possible to over allocate your RAM.I don't really have an idea of the RAM usage of Windows Core, but I can imagine it uses less because it is a stripped down version of the OS.Not sure you can RDP into it. You basically have a cmd module and a powershell module. To manage SQL Server however you can just connect with SSMS from another computer, so there's no difference there.Tue, 28 May 2013 14:09:30 GMTKoen Verbeeckhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxQuestions for those of you building out the lab described in the 70-462 book:Do you have several physical servers that you're building this on, or are you all invested in high-end workstations that ran run multiple VMs?My situation: My current home computer (4-5 years old or so) has Windows 7 64-bit with the maximum 4GB RAM the motherboard will accomodate. I had been running a VM of Server 2008 (32-bit - my processor doesn't support 64-bit virtualization) with an instance of SQL Server interacting with an instance of SQL Server Developer Edition on my Host Windows 7 OS. The VM is set to 2GB of RAM as I felt it would be too slow with anything less. Well between the VM, Outlook, SSMS and anything else I was running, my computer occasionally ran out of RAM, started paging and everything slowed to a crawl.My solution was to set up a VM on my wife's computer (6GB of RAM) running Server 2008 R2 and use a SQL instance running there. But she complains I make her computer run slow, even though the VM is set to 2GB, and I'm still limited to 2 SQL instances at one time.I'm considering investing $1,000 or so in a new i7 12GB monster workstation, which I figure could run multiple Server 2008 R2 VMs simultaniously. This would also free up my present computer to be rebuilt as a physical 2008 R2 server for another instance. Is this what I need to do? Or can I run my VMs with less RAM?On a related note, does a 2008 Server Core installation run better with less RAM than the regular version due a lack of the Windows GUI and other features? I haven't done this install yet. Is it worth the time then? Can it be managed via RDP or do you need to be at the phuysical (or VM) console?Tue, 28 May 2013 12:14:30 GMTdan-572483http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxGlenn Berry had a great series on [url=http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/glenn/a-sql-server-hardware-tidbit-a-day-day-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-sql-server-hardware-tidbit-a-day-day-1]hardware[/url] last month, when/if I ever get some money I'm goin to follow his advice and build myself a new toy.Turns out the article I was thinking of was older... it's [url=http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/glenn/building-a-workstation-for-sql-server-2012-development-and-testing/]here.[/url]Tue, 21 May 2013 07:35:27 GMTSteven.Howeshttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxWorks great, many thanks again.Sun, 19 May 2013 16:28:34 GMTnetmikemhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspx[quote][b]netmikem (5/18/2013)[/b][hr]I've made quite a bit of progress (after many hours) and have learned much in the process.I now have the lab environment setup except that my VMs have no internet access. I've played around quite a bit and it seems once I use static IPs for my VMs, as instructed in the training kit, I lose internet access. However, if I use DHCP, I can access the internet from the VMs.When using static IPs (via the netsh interface command), I notice there is no default gateway given but I'm not sure that is the issue.I think I can press on without internet access but I think it would be preferable if it was available on each VM.If anybody has faced these issues also and resolved them, I'd like to hear how you solved them![/quote]If you want internet access, you need two network adapters: one for internal communication between the servers, and one for external communication (the Internet). The internal will have fixed IPs like in the training kit, the external one will use DHCP to connect to the web. If you want to do clustering, you'll need an extra network adapter for clustering traffic.Sun, 19 May 2013 13:05:34 GMTKoen Verbeeckhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxI've made quite a bit of progress (after many hours) and have learned much in the process.I now have the lab environment setup except that my VMs have no internet access. I've played around quite a bit and it seems once I use static IPs for my VMs, as instructed in the training kit, I lose internet access. However, if I use DHCP, I can access the internet from the VMs.When using static IPs (via the netsh interface command), I notice there is no default gateway given but I'm not sure that is the issue.I think I can press on without internet access but I think it would be preferable if it was available on each VM.If anybody has faced these issues also and resolved them, I'd like to hear how you solved them!Sat, 18 May 2013 18:40:20 GMTnetmikemhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspx[quote][b]netmikem (5/11/2013)[/b][hr]I think I understand the idea of the parent/child differing disks configuration for SQL-A, SQL-B, SQL-C and SQL-D (although I have one big question which I ask below) but what about the DC and SQL-Core VMs? Is the idea that the DC and SQL-Core VMs do not need to be a part of this parent/child differing disks arrangement? Instead, these are set up as 'regular' VMs?Koen suggests installing SQL Server on the parent virtual disk first. Does this mean we don't follow the install instructions in Chapter 1 of the training kit then, which seem to suggest we do the SQL install separately on each of SQL-A, SQL-B, etc and use this Kim_Ackers domain account (also meaning the DC needs to be in place first).[/quote]It's been quite a while now, and I'm not sure if the DC was part of the differencing disks. It is a small VM, so it doesn't really matter. The Core certainly was not, as it is a seperate install. Regarding the SQL Server set-up already done on the parent: if you do it once, you should know how to do it, so there's no need to repeat it 3 times. The only special one is the installation through the command line on the SQL-core machine, that's the one you should really practice.Tue, 14 May 2013 03:10:49 GMTKoen Verbeeckhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxCan't say much about Hyper-V. I simply installed all VMs on VirtualBox, connected them into one network and read half of the 70-462 book doing practice exercises - everything is working fine.Sat, 11 May 2013 20:31:56 GMTd39731550http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxHi.I'm in the midst of setting up the lab environment. I have a server borrowed from work with 8 GBs of RAM and 140 GBs of hard drive space. I've got Hyper-V installed and working.I've read over the great advice in this thread and the various links mentioned. Unfortunately I am finding that I'm still not quite clear on what is being suggested in terms of the setting up the 6 VMs.I think I understand the idea of the parent/child differing disks configuration for SQL-A, SQL-B, SQL-C and SQL-D (although I have one big question which I ask below) but what about the DC and SQL-Core VMs? Is the idea that the DC and SQL-Core VMs do not need to be a part of this parent/child differing disks arrangement? Instead, these are set up as 'regular' VMs?Koen suggests installing SQL Server on the parent virtual disk first. Does this mean we don't follow the install instructions in Chapter 1 of the training kit then, which seem to suggest we do the SQL install separately on each of SQL-A, SQL-B, etc and use this Kim_Ackers domain account (also meaning the DC needs to be in place first).If somebody can add some clarity for me, I would be most appreciative!Sat, 11 May 2013 11:59:13 GMTnetmikemhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxI don't think it is mandatory, but in order to use VirtualBox it will need the following features (not sure if it has them or not):* multiple shared networks between the machines (needed for clustering)* parent/child VMs (differencing disks), otherwise you'll need a whole lot of storage since you need 5 VMsThe reason it's easy to use HyperV, is because you typically would set up a test environment like this using Windows Server, which has HyperV already installed. (I think if you have Windows 8 Pro you also have HyperV)Wed, 20 Feb 2013 02:48:07 GMTKoen Verbeeckhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxHi all,Has anyone tried to prepare the environment using VirtualBox? Prepare 2 server and 4 SQL Server machines - sounds not so difficult.Or Microsoft-based VM is mandatory here?Thanks.Wed, 20 Feb 2013 02:36:41 GMTd39731550http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxI have just bought a used mid 2011 i5 2,3 Ghz Mac Mini that will be my new friend for this :-)I will fit 16 GB memory and a second disk (a small SSD). I will use this SSD for the VM's OS and the VM's data will be stored on the second 7200 rpm disk.This should be enough to get me going, maybe a bit too much for the study environment but I guess it will be handy anyhow to have a dedicated test server available.And If I decide to sell it, it will keep its value somewhat longer than comparable PC's And the Mac looks good too ;-) and only consumes about 10W!Hope to get it and the parts soon so I can get giong!Mon, 05 Nov 2012 02:22:15 GMTErikvanDhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspx[quote][b]Ells (11/5/2012)[/b][hr]I too am on the hunt for hardware for this. My old laptop is XP. Looking at a laptop with Windows 8 and 8 Gig RAM. I think Hyper V comes with Windows 8 not sure if it all versions. Hoping this will be good enough to get me going.E.:w00t:[/quote]According to this article, you'd need Windows 8 Pro.[url=http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh857623.aspx]Client Hyper-V[/url]8GB of RAM is enough, just don't run all the VMs at once :-)Mon, 05 Nov 2012 02:11:26 GMTKoen Verbeeckhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxI too am on the hunt for hardware for this. My old laptop is XP. Looking at a laptop with Windows 8 and 8 Gig RAM. I think Hyper V comes with Windows 8 not sure if it all versions. Hoping this will be good enough to get me going.E.:w00t:Mon, 05 Nov 2012 02:03:51 GMTEllshttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxThe more RAM, the better :-)CPU isn't that important, you will be doing pretty simple exercises, not calculating PI till the millionth digit. :-)Enough space on the hard disk is also crucial. After installing OS and everything, 100 GB spare would be OK.Sat, 03 Nov 2012 14:29:26 GMTKoen Verbeeckhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxWell since yesterday I have learned two things:- my Mac will not support Hyper-V as it is too old- the spare server from workt turned out to be a dead endSo now I guess I'll have to buy/build me some hardware. Which I find very difficult to choose as there is so much choice... As I will probably sell the system after getting my MCSA I would not need a top end configuration. Any ideas on what would be a sufficient setup for the course environment?Sat, 03 Nov 2012 05:10:11 GMTErikvanDhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxThe spare server would certainly a better option, because fiddling around with a $2500 laptop isn't always fun :-DCome say hi on the SQLServerDays, it's always nice to meet some people who are also SQLServerCentral visitors.Tue, 30 Oct 2012 06:57:58 GMTKoen Verbeeckhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxAhh, I saw your name on the agenda of the SQL Server Days in Belgium next November, that's why I recognised it. Might see you there, just got my teamleader to approve my registration!Yes, I use Bootcamp. Without BC it can be done but is pretty hard. In between I have asked at work if they have a spare machine/server doing nothing that I could borrow for a while. That would be the better option, not having to mess with my Mac. They were pretty confident they could help me...Tue, 30 Oct 2012 06:24:21 GMTErikvanDhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxHi Eric,I haven't spoken on a SQLSaturday (or SQLZaterdag), but I did on the Belgian CommunityDay (twice) and on the SQLServerDays (also in Belgium). Also did some LiveMeeting on the 12HoursOfSQL in the beginning of this year.I'm not sure how to do it in a Macbook Pro. I'm curious what would happen if did try it though. Are you using bootcamp to boot into windows 7?Tue, 30 Oct 2012 06:00:52 GMTKoen Verbeeckhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxThanks Koen for your elaborate reply. Always strange to reply in English to someone who also speaks Dutch natively ;) Can it be I saw/heard you speak sometime on a SQL Saturday or so?I also run Windows 7 on my laptop. But, as this is a MacBook Pro, this could be an extra challenge...I will have a go at it soon, I always like a challenge. This weekend the wife and kids are away so that might me the perfect opportunity. I also found some ready made Windows Server VHD's on Microsofts Download center but those do not have the differencing disks.I might want to contact you with a few questions though if you don't mind...Thanks,ErikTue, 30 Oct 2012 05:01:59 GMTErikvanDhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxOh yeah, Eric, you do will have to get your hands dirty with Windows Server and HyperV. Especially if you want to set-up clustering :-) But you'll learn a lot from the process. I spent a good two weeks (only in the evening of course) setting up the environment before I could even begin making the exercises.Tue, 30 Oct 2012 04:50:33 GMTKoen Verbeeckhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxI did the 70-462 exam recently, and I have set-up the HyperV environment.And I had as much experience as you when I first started :-)HyperV is included in Windows Server 2008R2 Enterprise and Windows Server 2012.I used the trial version of Windows Server 2012. If you cannot complete the exercises in 180 days, you better skip the exam :-)It's really not that hard to set-up. The trick here is to use differencing disks:[url]http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1393.hyper-v-virtual-machine-vm-parent-child-configuration-using-differencing-disks.aspx[/url]The clue is that you create one virtual hard disk - the parent - on which you install Windows Server 2012 and SQL Server. All the other hard disks use this parent as a common basis. Because you already installed SQL Server on it, you only need 4 GB of space, instead of 4 * 4 GB (4 instances). So let's say you create a parent disk of 30GB large. Then you create 4 child VHDs (SQL-A, SQL-B, SQL-C and SQL-D). Each of those child disks only consumes the disk space that is specific for the child virtual machine. So at first, a child VHD only consumes a few megabytes. As you add databases, new SQL Server instances and other software, the child disk gradually grows in time.This way you can create 4 virtual machines who consume in total not more than 50GB.If you'd install everything on seperate machines, you'd need indeed 50GB each.Regarding the configuration:make sure there is enough disk space. At least 20GB for the parent VHD. With 30GB you'll be pretty safe. Make sure you have at least 90GB free in total on your host OS. (the OS that runs HyperV)I gave every virtual machine 1GB of memory (I have 8GB in total), but in reality you could give a bit more, as you probably would not run all virtual machines at once.Also configure a virtual network that can be used by your virtual machines. You also need to add extra networks (not explained in the training kit) if you want to do the clustering exercises. You need at least 3 if I'm not mistaken. (1 for regular traffic, 1 for clustering traffic, 1 for the shared storage).Since I have Windows 7 on my laptop (which doesn't have HyperV), I installed a Windows Server 2012 virtual machine that was bootable. In other words, I could boot my laptop into the virtual machine, so the VM could use my full hardware resources. Here's an article that explains how to do it:[url]http://www.windows7hacker.com/index.php/2011/09/native-vhd-boot-to-windows-8-developer-preview-with-windows-7/[/url](it talks about Windows 8, but it's the same for Windows Server 2012)Tue, 30 Oct 2012 04:46:27 GMTKoen Verbeeckhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxIn between I have been looking around, including asking a MCT, but so far I have not succeeded in finding the answer... As there are quite a few more people that have done the 70-462 exam here that also used the TK, there must be enough knowledge here to get me started and help me set up the environment myself...The training kit gives no more info than this on the Hyper-V environment:[i][b]System Requirements[/b]The following are the minimum system requirements your computer needs to meet tocomplete the practice exercises in this book and to run the companion CD. To minimize thetime and expense of configuring physical computers for this training kit, it’s recommendedthat you use Hyper-V, which is a feature of Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2,Windows Server 2012, and certain editions of Windows 8. You can use other virtualizationsoftware instead, but the instructions are written assuming that you are using a solution thatsupports 64-bit operating systems hosted as virtual machines.[b]Hardware Requirements[/b]This section presents the hardware requirements for Hyper-V, the hardware requirements ifyou are not using virtualization software, and the software requirements.[b]Virtualization Hardware Requirements[/b]If you choose to use virtualization software, you need only one physical computer to performthe exercises in this book. That physical host computer must meet the following minimumhardware requirements:■■ x64-based processor that includes both hardware-assisted virtualization (AMD-V orIntel VT) and hardware data execution protection. (On AMD systems, the data executionprotection feature is called the No Execute or NX bit. On Intel systems, this featureis called the Execute Disable or XD bit.) These features must also be enabled in theBIOS. (Note: You can run Windows Virtual PC without Intel-VT or AMD-V.)■■ 8.0 GB of RAM.■■ 80 GB of available hard disk space if you are using differencing virtual hard disks.■■ DVD-ROM drive.■■ Internet connectivity.[b]Physical Hardware Requirements[/b]If you choose to use physical computers instead of virtualization software, use the followinglist to meet the minimum hardware requirements of the practice exercises in this book:■■ Six personal computers, each with a 1.4-GHz, 64-bit processor, minimum 2 GB of RAM,50 GB hard disk drive, network card, video card, and DVD-ROM drive.■■ All six computers must be connected to the same network.[b]Practice Setup Instructions[/b]This section contains abbreviated instructions for setting up the domain controller (DC),SQL-A, SQL-B, SQL-C, SQL-D, and SQL-Core computers used in the practice exercises in allchapters of this training kit. To perform these exercises, first install Windows Server 2008 R2Enterprise edition with Service Pack 1 using the default configuration, setting the administratorpassword to Pa$$w0rd. For server SQL-Core, install Windows Server 2008 R2 EnterpriseEdition with Service Pack 1 in the default server core configuration, setting the administratorpassword to Pa$$w0rd.[/i]After that the book just talks about the individual machines after the environment has been set up...I do have a few questions like these:- the Hyper-V environment of the six servers only needs 80GB of HD space. When using 6 physical PC's those need 50GB each... How come the difference?- any idea of the specs that are needed per virtual machine on memory and diskspace? The TK says nothing about this...- I have not Googled this one yet (will do) but does anyone know of some more instructions online in setting such an environment up without having to become a Hyper-V and Windows Server expert?To be honest, I think MS could have given quite some more info in the TK for setting up the environment. To me it seems a little bit short sighted to assume that everyone knows his way around in Hyper-V and Windows Server...Cheers,Erik Tue, 30 Oct 2012 01:17:56 GMTErikvanDhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1377933-10-1.aspxHi all,When I just opened the 70-462 TK I saw a six server Hyper-V environment is neccesary to complete the book. It has only very, very brief instructions on setting this environment up. No info on the configuration of the separate servers on disksize, memory etc.So far I have no experience with Hyper-V. I have only used it as enduser on some classroom MS courses in the past. Other MS studies I did could all be done on a single local SQL Server installation.Before I even start to try and install the Hyper-V environment (on what machine is a different question...) I wondered if the empty training environment might be available as a download somewhere? I have seen similar environments available but have not been able to find this one.Any ideas?Cheers,ErikSat, 27 Oct 2012 03:43:25 GMTErikvanD