Windows Server 2003 – AgileOps

How to extend the 'C: Drive' system partion, without rebooting 2003 server

Ibrahim Quraishi — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 22:02:30 +0000

ExtPart from Dell. its a simple command line utility easy to use tool to expand or extend the size of your C drive provided you have more disk space or another partition that is un-formated.

Dell Basic Disk Expansion

The ExtPart utility provides support for online volume expansion of NTFS formatted basic disks. This is a self extracting file that will install the extpart.exe utility. No reboot is necessary.

Please note some people think that ExtPart does not work on 64 bit OS of Windows 2003, but just to let you know it does work, its just the extractable binary is only 32 bit so it will give you an error that its a 32 bit application if you execute it on a 64 bit windows.

I have used it recently, deployed a virtual machine from a template, the template had the OS installed on only 20 GB. I added more size to the HDD from the data store, from the windows side in the disk management I can see the raw partition, all I had to do is create a new partition and used the dell ExtPart follow the steps and I will extend the C drive, you will not need to reboot the server.

The solution is to extract the binary after downloading on a 32 bit OS and use it on a 64 bit OS and its work. Their you go! you can now expand the C drive with out rebooting the OS the link given below takes you to Dell website what has the ExtPart utility : https://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriverDetails?driverId=R64398 Hope you find my post useful and if you have any question please feel free to comment below.]]>

Virtualization Technologies used today and its benefits!

Ibrahim Quraishi — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 02:18:51 +0000

Reduce power and space requirement in data centres

Fast application and service provisioning

Improved manageability

Business continuity

When these factors are measured by a survey taken by f5 few years a go we got the following results. This clearly explains that the Businesses are focused to do server consolidation and reduction of power and space requirement which is the driving factors even today. The types of virtualization do we currently have ? as discussed this on my previous post, I am going to compare them today. According to surveys taken recently we have the following stats. This clearly explains us that most of the Virtualization technologies are been used today, however still the most popular one is Server virtualization. Never the less this is taken on a different level today to get the Desktop virtualization for the end users companies like Citrix and VMware have got a lot of powerful products for this.

Finally I would like to discuss the products which are used in the industry and to what extent. The most widely used product is VMware ESX and then comes Microsoft Hyper-V. As we can see from the table below.

I will be disscussing VMware and Hyper-V Technologies and theire benifites over one and outher in detail in my next post.

Source: https://www.f5.com/pdf/reports/enterprise-virtualization.pd https://www.vmworld.com/community/conferences/2008/ https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/us_northeast/boston httpss://2008.msteched.com/itpro/public/precons.aspx www.microsoft.com/virtualization/default.mspx

www.f5.com/solutions/resources/white-papers/

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Are you Secure when you browse the web ?

Ibrahim Quraishi — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 01:26:51 +0000

Eventually someone else started using their network; they only realized this after they felt that their connection became slow. This could have been worst as people can capture all the packets and get the critical information like online banking information, CC numbers etc. The truth is even if your using secure Wi-Fi connection, wireless technology can still be very easy to compromised, how ? Check out for yourself Googleit – how to crack Wi-Fi network and you will get the answer. However we can avoid this just by making sure we do not use simple name or dictionary words as a passphrase. Always use complex passphrase /WEP/WPA2 keys and make sure you have a key which is at least 10 to 12 characters long. Now let’s get to the point How to secure Your wireless network ? Change Your network name and Your router login information Simple job just login to the router using the details from Manufacture. Usually found at the back on the router long and change the Name of the network and login information or at least the password. Secure Your Wi-Fi network: If you do not secure your network it will be open for anyone who can get your wireless signal. WEP (Wire Enabled Protection) this should only be used if you have old laptop that does not support the advanced encryption. If you are using this make sure you use 128 bit encryption. WPA 2 encryption is the best so far, However I suggest you keep a long passphrase and complex at the same time. Hide Your network name (SSID) Although most people don’t do this, but I strongly suggest you to hide the SSID. Simple logic if they can’t find your Wi-Fi signal you will be less vulnerable to get hacked. Enable Software and Hardware Firewall: Let me explain Software firewall is the firewall built into the Operating System i.e., Windows Vista or Windows 7 just enable it. Hardware firewall ah might be new to some of us, but most of the routers built today even the cheapest one has a firewall program built into them. So all you got to do is login to the router using your admin login and enable it. Hope you find this post useful feel free to comment if you ever used open / un-secure Wi=Fi.]]>

Memory Support in Windows – Kernal v User Virtual Addressing

Ibrahim Quraishi — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 22:02:43 +0000

example: [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT=”*****” /3GB Note: “*****” Can be any of the following operating system versions: Windows XP Professional Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition Windows 2000 Advanced Server Windows 2000 Datacenter Server Windows NT Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition So if you think you need more memory you can give it a short. However if your Kernal is already struggling then,I would not suggest you to try this. you can try some other options like increasing the virtual memory. reference: https://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/pae/paemem.mspx]]>