Microsoft Office Activation Error: 0x80072EE7

Hi Friends,

Got a good error for you today!  So I've changed the way I'm activating my Office 2010 VDI desktops to use my KMS instead of activating them directly from Microsoft.  The interesting thing about Office is that it's VERY perceptive.  If I change hardware in my VDI environment it knows it immediately and wants to re-activate Office...  I can understand why Microsoft is doing this, but what a pain when I'm just trying to introduce a new blade into my environment!

So I've been experimenting bringing in a new type of blade into my environment and from my past experience I knew Office was going to complain.  This time I was READY!

I opened up Word and sure enough, I get the activation screen.  Okay, so I go to the CLI so I can activate Office.

1.  cd Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14
2.  cscript ospp.vbs /sethst:FQDNofYourKMSServer
3.  cscript ospp.vbs /act

What?!  Error!!

What the heck is error 0x80072EE7?

I ran the script to check the error and here's what I got.

What do you mean you can't resolve the server name?!?!

I pinged my KMS, did an NSLOOKUP, no problem....  Hmmmm....

Well I was outta ideas, so time to head over to my good buddy Google.

I typed in the error and almost nothing....

Ummmm....

I kept searching and I finally found an article on the Microsoft Technet of someone that got the same error message.

This is from the page:

"0x80072EE7:
The server name or address could not be resolved
Source: Winhttp
When you use MAK product keys, the machine must be able to contact MS webservers, to activate.
This error you are getting, suggests that the machine cannot resolve the host for the MS webservers.
If it cannot resolve the name, then it cannot connect, so it cannot activate."

What the heck?  Office needs to contact Microsoft?  Isn't that what my KMS is supposed to do?  In a normal VDI environment you're probably never going to hit this problem because each of the desktops will get it's own DHCP address that will be able to contact Microsoft.  But, since I'm running in an isolated environment my desktops can't contact the outside world.

Sooooo, I had to change my internal NIC to one that could reach the outside world.  Re-ran cscript ospp.vbs /act and everything worked.

D'oh!!

This is probably why I didn't find much information on it, because most people don't hit this error.  Well, if you happen to hit the error, it might be because your desktop can't contact Microsoft.

Until Next Time!
-Brain

Woo Hoo! BrainWavez on The Main Nimble Storage Website!

Hi Friends,

I'm very excited to let you know that BrainWavez is on the main Nimble Storage website again!  This time for BrainWavez Episode 32 - Meet Suresh Vasudevan - Nimble Storage CEO

How cool is that?!?!

If you haven't had a chance to check out this episode, I highly recommend listening when you get a chance.

Brain, Meet OpenStack - How to Quickstart OpenStack and Connect Up Nimble Storage!

Hi Friends,

Ready for something completely different?!

Yep, you read that right, OpenStack.  I know what you're thinking, "But Brain, you're the Windows VDI guy who loves GUI's!  What are you doing working on an open source cloud tool that runs on Linux?!"

Well, believe it or not, once upon a time I used to be a Unix admin and I've been hearing lots of cool stuff about OpenStack and wanted to try it for myself and see what all the excitement was about.

So bear with me here, I'm a COMPLETE novice!  Huge thanks to Jay for getting me started!! :-)

I thought I'd walk you through a quick start-up and how I connected Nimble Storage to my OpenStack environment.

1.  Go grab yourself a copy of Centos 7 and install it.  I'm using my VMware environment to host my OpenStack test environment since I'm limited on physical hardware.

2.  I'm using the RDO implementation for my test OpenStack environment.  What is RDO?  From the RDO page, "RDO is two things. It's a freely-available, community-supported distribution of OpenStack that runs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Fedora, and their derivatives. In addition to providing a set of software packages, it's also a community of users of cloud computing platform on Red Hat Linux operating systems to get help and compare notes on running OpenStack."

From the RDO page, "For a commercially-supported enterprise ready OpenStack solution, Red Hat provides Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform, an enterprise-class cloud platform based on OpenStack Juno."

3.   Head over to the Quickstart page on the RDO site.  It's got all the per-requisites and how to get your instance running.  I'm going to put the steps in the blog because I'm going to forget how to do this if I don't!  All of the quickstart steps are taken from the RDO site.

4. We need to stop and disable NetworkManager

systemctl stop NetworkManager
systemctl disable NetworkManager
systemctl enable network

5. Make sure your networking is all good. Take a look at the steps on the Quickstart page for more information.

6. Update your current packages on your Linux distribution.

sudo yum update -y

7. Setup the RDO repositories.

sudo yum install -y https://rdoproject.org/repos/rdo-release.rpm

8. Now let's install the Packstack Installer.

sudo yum install -y openstack-packstack

9. Next we'll run Packstack to install OpenStack.  This step will take a bit of time, so be patient.  And if you're not patient, ummm, go do something else.

packstack --allinone

Alright, you've installed OpenStack!  You can now log into the OpenStack GUI!

10.  http://x.x.x.x/dashboard

Hmmm, username and password....

Oh! Hey, it's on the quickstart page!  Username is "admin" and password can be found in the file keystonerc_admin in the /root/ directory of the control node.

Okay, now that we have OpenStack installed, we need to let OpenStack know about our Nimble array.

11.  Head over to Nimble Storage InfoSight and from the Integration Kits tab select Nimble Cinder Volume Driver for OpenStack.  The cool thing is we don't need the driver, that's included in the OpenStack build now, but we do need to open up the User Guide and add some stuff to the cinder.conf file.

12. Open up the document and search for /etc/cider/cinder.conf.  It's in there a few times, so make sure you're at the part of the document that talks about configuring the Nimble Storage Adaptive Flash Cinder Driver.

13. Within the [DEFAULT] section of your /etc/cinder/cinder.conf file we need to add the nimble information.  You might see lvm already there, so just put in a comma and add Nimble-Cinder.

14.  Go to the end of the cinder.conf file and add the [Nimble-Cinder] information.  This will be the IP, username and password of your Nimble Storage array that you want to connect up to OpenStack.

15.  Okay now we need to create the Nimble Storage backend type.  You can call it whatever you like, I chose Nimble-Cinder.
cinder type-create Nimble-Cinder

I got a weird error when I tried to run the command, so I needed to go to my /root directory and type 
source keystonerc_admin

I'm not sure if you'll run into the same thing, but if you do, that's how I was able to continue.

16.  Next associate the type label with the Nimble-Cinder driver.
cinder type-key Nimble-Cinder set volume_backend_name=Nimble-Cinder

17.  Now we need to restart OpenStack.
service openstack-cinder-scheduler restart
service openstack-cinder-api restart
service openstack-cinder-volume restart

18.  Head over to your OpenStack GUI and we're ready to add some Nimble Storage!!

19.  Once there click on Volumes.

20.  Now click on +Create Volume.

21.  Name the Volume, select Nimble-Cinder as the Type, select the size of the volume and then click Create Volume.

22.  When the volume has been created it will appear in the Volumes page in the OpenStack GUI.

23.  Let's head over to the Nimble Storage array and see if the volume is showing up there.

Alright!  There's our 100GB OpenStack1 volume!

Next time I'll show you some more coolness of OpenStack, as I learn it!  :-)

-Brain

BrainWavez Episode 32 - Meet Suresh Vasudevan - Nimble Storage CEO

Hi Friends,

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted anything.  I was at VMworld 2015, then vacation.  I know, excuses, excuses.  ;-)

Well this one is definitely worth the wait!  In this episode of BrainWavez, Marion and and I interview Suresh Vasudevan the CEO of Nimble Storage.  How freaking cool is that?!?!

In a million years if you told me that I'd be interviewing a CEO I would have told you that you were seriously delusional!

Just goes to show you how down to earth the executives are at Nimble.  First I interviewed the founders, Umesh and Varun, and now Suresh, the CEO.  I've got a bunch of episodes in the queue and I can't wait to share them with all of you!

Suresh was a super cool guest, very friendly, honest and open.  We discussed his background, how he came to Nimble Storage, where he sees the storage market going (converged, hyper-converged, cloud) and the Nimble Storage culture we're always talking so much about.

Definitely worth the download friends!  As always, you can download it in MP3 and from iTunes.

For iTunes users: [iTunes]
For everyone else: [mp3]

Huge thanks to Suresh for being our guest!

BrainWavez Episode 31 - SmartStack - What's it All About?

Hi Friends,

Got a great podcast for you today.  We talk about SmartStack, what it is and how the validated architectures can help you!  Thanks to my guests, Tony, Bill and Steve.  And thanks to my trusty side-kick Sean!!

For iTunes users: [iTunes]
For everyone else: [mp3]

This episode is not only incredibly informative, it's super funny!  Be sure to check out, "And now a word from our sponsors."

And Now a Fireside Chat With Bill Roth on Data Encryption

Hi Friends,

Recently Nimble Storage came out with it's Nimble OS 2.3 which has a TON of new features!  If you'd like to hear about the new features in a recent BrainWavez show follow the link here:
BrainWavez #29: The NEW Nimble Storage OS 2.3!

One of the new features in Nimble OS 2.3 is Data Encryption at Rest, also known as SmartSecure.  Bill Roth has written a fantastic paper about this new feature which is available here:

http://www.nimblestorage.com/resources/technical-papers/

For those that don't know Bill, he is a brilliant Technical Marketing Engineer that focuses on backup, archiving, Exchange, SQL and now encryption.

I recently had a chance to sit down with Bill to ask him a bit about the new SmartSecure feature.

======================================================================

Neil says, “Bill, do you view this feature, SmartSecure, as raising the bar?

Bill says, “No, it doesn’t raise the bar, I see it as setting the bar.” “One thing I like about it is that it doesn’t attempt to boil the ocean.”

Neil says, “In what respect?”

Bill says, “Well you can selectively decide to have a mix of encrypted and non-encrypted volumes.” “It’s not an all or none deployment, unless you want it to be.”

Neil says, “Do you consider this game changing technology?”

Bill says, “Not at all, users understand the importance of data security and this feature allows them to create a secure data at rest infrastructure.”

Neil says, “In what way does this feature redefine the landscape?”

Bill says, “I don’t think it’s about redefining, I think it’s about giving users the technology they require – plain and simple, easy to use, no tricks or gimmicks”

Neil says, “At the end of the day what does this feature bring to the table?”

Bill says, “Encryption of data at rest is more of a 24x7 entity, not something you only care about at the end of the day.” “But it may be easier to sit at the table during dinner knowing your data is secure.”

Neil says, “Well you don’t seem to be a big fan of industry buzzwords.” “Do you have anything else to say?”

Bill says, “Yes, users interested in learning more about the feature, and how to deploy it, can download the new white paper at:  http://www.nimblestorage.com/resources/technical-papers/”

Neil says, “Do you have any advice for users that lose their encryption passphrase?”

Bill says, “Yes, the advice is DON’T lose your passphrase!”

BrainWavez #30 - InfoSight - New and Improved!

Hi Friends,

I've got a great BrainWavez show for you this week!  Gim and Sean explain what Nimble InfoSight is, how it can help, and all the cool new features that have recently been added to the tool!

Yep you are correct, Episode 14 covered InfoSight, but you can never have enough of a good thing AND Gim explains all of the new features that have gone into InfoSight!

So what are you waiting for, go get the episode!  :-)

For iTunes users: [iTunes]
For everyone else: [mp3]

Product Demo: Nimble Storage OS 2.3 Searching, Sorting, and Filtering

Hi Friends,

The goodness of Nimble Storage OS 2.3 just keeps on giving!  When you've got a few volumes it's easy to keep track of who, what, where and why, but what happens when you have 100's of volumes? 

What if I want to find all of the volumes that are chowing up space but aren't even connected to an initiator?  Come on storage administrators, I know you've been in this situation before!

Want to see how easy it is to search, sort and filter your volumes?

Dr. Brain has got you covered and nothing says cool like a product demo!

Enjoy the demo and feel free to post a comment if you have any questions.
 

YouTube Link - VDI Webinar - Thursday June 25th - Featuring Dr. Brain!

Hi Friends,

Did you miss my VDI Webinar because more important things came up?  For example:

1. Trip to the dentist
2. Tax audit
3. Needed to take out the trash
4. Wash dishes
5. Dog needed grooming
6. Your hair needed washing

You get my point.  :-)

Never fear friends, YouTube is here!  Catch all the VDI goodness you missed and if you have questions, you can ask them here!

BrainWavez #29: The NEW Nimble Storage OS 2.3!

Hi Friends,

I've got two surprises for you!  There's a new BrainWavez show and Nimble OS 2.3 is available!  If you haven't heard about 2.3 you've gotta take a look.

In this episode, guests Matt and Sean explain all of the cool new features in 2.3!  Here's just a few things available in the release:

Volume Pinning
Audit Logging
Search - Sort - Filtering
Encryption at Rest
REST API
VVOL Tech Preview
ODX

You might also notice the new theme song, a huge thanks to Level of Exit for the new song!  Guest starring with the band is me and Mrs. Brain!

For iTunes users: [iTunes]
For everyone else: [mp3]

This Desktop Currently Has No Desktop Sources Available. Please Try Connecting to This Desktop Again Later, or Contact Your System Administrator

Hi Friends,

Got a frustrating one for you.  I've been running some Login VSI performance tests on Horizon View 6.x and I've been getting an error, but not on all of the desktops...  Inconsistent errors suck because something is working but other things aren't and it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

As the desktops are launching and users are logging in on SOME, not all of the desktops I get this error:

"This desktop currently has no desktop sources available.  Please try connecting to this desktop again later, or contact your system administrator."

Contact my system administrator?!?!  I **AM** the system administrator!

Here's the error message from a screen shot.

Okay, don't panic, what would Dr. Brain do in a situation like this?  I know, ask my good buddy Google!

I found a discussion on the VMware Communities board that showed other administrators getting the same message, but their errors seemed to be an all or nothing...  Hmmmmmm.....

Well, keep reading Dr. Brain...  Some AD problems, some DNS problems...  Yep, yep, makes sense, but I've got like a bazillion Login VSI users to use and it's only on SOME of the desktops.

One person responded to the discussion that they unregistered the users from the desktops and it worked.  Hmmm, worth giving that a try.

So I unregistered the users and then clicked on the Try Again thingy and it worked!

So what was the problem?  I'm guessing because I'm adding, deleting, adding deleting (you get the idea) desktops like crazy, I think View thinks those users are tied to other desktops and say, "You Shall Not Pass!"  Or something like that...

So if you're running into this error, and your AD and DNS are looking good, maybe you've got some weirdness going on with your users and the desktop that was assigned to them.

Until Next Time
-Brain

VDI Webinar - Thursday June 25th - Featuring Dr. Brain!

Hi Friends,

I wanted to let you know I'll be presenting a VDI webinar next week!  I'll be talking about how to setup your VDI environment, avoiding common pitfalls that can derail your implementation and how I test reference architectures including the use of Login VSI.  In typical Brain style I've included my unique sense of humor, so no boring blah blah blah.  :-)  Sign up and tune into Dr. Brain's "Building the Right VDI Solution - Testing Insights from the Trenches".  And if listening to me babble for an hour wasn't incentive enough, you can win an Amazon Gift Card!!

Hope to see you next Thursday!!
-Dr. Brain

Brain and Wendel Episode 28 - iTunes Links Now Working

Hi Friends,

Just a quick update.  The iTunes links are working again!!  If you're an iTunes user, go get those episodes.  :-)

Brain and Wendel Episode 28 - Storage Protocol-o-Rama! iSCSI / FCP / CIFS

Hi Friends,

Brain and Wendel are here to make Monday suck less!  This weeks episode we talk about all the different protocol goodness that Nimble Storage supports.  With special guest stars Jonathan and Steve!!  So if you're interested in iSCSI, Fibre Channel and CIFS be sure to tune in!  Sorry the iTunes link is missing, I'm having some issues with it.  You can still get the mp3 version of the episode.  Hopefully it'll be fixed soon!!

For iTunes users: [iTunes]
For everyone else: [mp3]

Look Mom I'm on the Nimble Storage Front Page!

Yep, that's right Mom, I'm the one in the jar!

I'm never beneath self promotion, so here goes...  :-)

<Blatant Self Promotion>
Brain and Wendel are on the front page of the Nimble Storage website!!!

</Blatant Self Promotion>

Until Next Time
-Brain

Hey, What Happened to Brain and Wendel?!?!

Hi Friends,

Brain here!  You might have noticed some changes to the Brain and Wendel site.  I'm very sad to inform everyone that that my friend Wen Yu will no longer be on the podcast.

Yeah, I know, I'll miss him too!  I wish him the very best and I know he'll do great at whatever he does!!

Without Wen, there is no Brain and Wendel so I've changed the name of the show to BrainWavez.

I'm very excited to announce that Sean Roth has joined the show!  Sean is a veteran of the show and he's already started helping co-host.
 
Never fear, the great content will continue to flow and hopefully some other cool stuff!

Be on the lookout for:
The new BrainWavez theme song - Special thanks to Level of Exit!
Wheel of SWAG! (Where guests get to spin for prizes!)
And now a word from our sponsor
Nerd Trivia

Make sure to update your links and if you're an iTunes user, the graphic and show name will change shortly, so search for "brainwavez" instead of brain and wendel.  I apologize to anyone that subscribed to the podcast, but I'm hoping you'll enjoy the new show!

All The Best,
Brain
http://www.brainwavezshow.com

Brain and Wendel Episode 27 - Meet The Founders of Nimble Storage!!

Hi Friends,

I have a very special treat for you today!  Yep, you read it right, Brain and Wendel interview Varun Mehta and Umesh Maheshwari, the founders of Nimble Storage!!  They discuss how they met, the early days of Nimble Storage, where they see the tech industry going and tons of other great topics!  Don't miss this very special Brain and Wendel show.

For iTunes users: [Link]
For everyone else: [mp3]

File Sharing with Microsoft Server Message Block (SMB) and Nimble Storage

Hi Friends,

Are you looking to set up a file sharing server on Microsoft Windows 2012R2?  Want to see how Nimble Storage can make it fly like a rocket ship and protect your data like a super hero?

You do?!  I knew I liked you!

Well look no further friends, Dr. Brain has you covered.  My mild mannered alternate identity, Neil, created a new paper to show you how to set up your file share, how to protect it and AND... test it with Vdbench for performance!

Head on over to the Nimble Storage website and grab your copy today!

This calls for some happy pictures!

Until Next Time!
-Brain

Brain & Wendel #26: Meet Nimble's Microsoft Team

Hi Friends,

You know what's better than a 3 day weekend?  A NEW episode of Brain & Wendel!!  That's right friends, this week I talk to our Microsoft development team and find out about all the cool stuff that Nimble Storage has released and even some cool stuff on it's way.  You don't want to miss this episode!

For iTunes users: [Link]
For everyone else: [mp3]

Back from Citrix Synergy 2015

Hi Friends,

I'm back from Citrix Synergy 2015.  It was a fun show, got to see lots of friends and took a bunch of photos I'd like to share.

The plane flight over was pretty cool, the guy sitting next to me brought his dog along to Florida and she was very well behaved!

When I got to the convention center they had a really cool Synergy sign with these balls suspended from the ceiling that changed colors and stuff.  The balls didn't really turn out well, but they were cool.

I got to see my sister Rachel! (Notice the family resemblance!)

Pim from Login VSI dropped by to give us our Validated by Login VSI sign!  Here it is hanging in the Nimble Storage booth.  You can see one of my demo's running.  I'll be posting them up on YouTube soon.  Not to pat myself on the back...  (Okay I'm patting myself on the back) I think they were pretty good!

Here's Roger and I and I'm holding the sign.  Pim took this shot and posted it on Twitter.

And here's me and Pim being goofy.

I also got to see my friends Rob and Sachin!

After the show floor was closed one day I was out walking around and saw this.  It was pretty cool, they had sky bridges going from the hotels to the convention center.

Here's a picture of our booth.  We had two demo stations and were showcasing our SmartStack pre-validated reference architectures.

Here's a picture of the Nimble Storage booth staff.  Sorry I missed you Adam!  He was setting one of the demo stations up when I took this photo.

They had a Tesla there!!  What a cool car!

As the days went on, my mind quickly deteriorated.  What I needed was something to make me smart!

And as the show began to come to an end I was brain fried and here's the result...

It was a fun show, got to see some cool technology and friends.  I hope you enjoyed the photos!

Until Next Time

-Brain