Thank you for everyone who attended the recent webcast on Windows Server 2008 R2 (https://www.catapultsystems.com/matthew/archive/2009/10/12/catapult-webcast-overview-of-windows-server-r2.aspx). The video for this is available at mms://videos.catapultsystems.com/Marketing/serverr2.wmv. There were several good questions asked which we needed to do additional research on and were going to write-up the answers for. This is the summary of the thoughts from a variety of technical personnel to get their perspectives. So here we go!
Question from Steve: Does Direct Access require IPv6 along the entire Internet path back to the 2008 R2 server? I.E. a wireless router at a coffee shop that only has IPv4.
Answer:
Kevin Saye: Data Center Technology Solutions Professional
Direct Access uses IP version 6 for communication. It has the ability to encapsulate IPv6 into IPv4 packets so that it may traverse the IPv4 internet. Once it gets to the Direct Access Server, it is introduced as IPv6 on the target network. Because not all networks run IPv6 on the corporate network, we can use a few ‘transition’ technologies, such as: ISATAP (which gives a sudo IPv6 address to each Server08/Vista+ host) or we can use UAG to translate from IPv6 to any other IPv4 host that does not support natively IPv6 or ISATAP.” Page 2 of http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/9/2/992C906B-B137-40E5-B9B7-E6AF2095B28F/DirectAccess%20Datasheet_May09_Final.pdf, in the requirements section is the official word from MSFT on transition technologies.
FYI, here are some additional resources:
Direct Access main site: http://www.microsoft.com/servers/directaccess.mspx
Direct Access webcast: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032416409&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US
Direct Access Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/tags/DirectAccess/default.aspx
Question from Steve: If a server is booting off of a VHD, can the VHD be backed up w/o bringing down the server?
Answer:
Cameron: My initial thought on this would be no. It’s booted to the VHD, so the VHD is either locally stored or on the SAN. If it’s on the SAN it’s on a LUN dedicated to the server so either way there isn’t a way to see the VHD outside of the actual server that is running. So my guess is that the only way to back this up would be to back it up internally to the Operating System rather than to backup the VHD.
James: I would agree. MS DPM or other 3rd party backup software will need to have that ability built in to basically created a online copy of that server for backup. Kinda like how when you move a machine from one hyperv server to another while they are live. They are vhd’s, so the theory is there, but the programming isn’t, yet.
David: Full VHD backup with VSS snapshots will be supported in the next version of DPM.
Additional reading material on the topic – Frequently asked questions on Virtual Disks in Windows 7 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd440865(WS.10).aspx.
Question: Do you know if Exchange 2010 can run on W2k8 R2 Server Core?
Answer:
Jules with additions from Kevin Saye: Exchange Server 2010 cannot run on Server Core. The reason is, Exchange requires some of the components which are not supported on Windows 2008 Server Core, as an example .Net Framework. Server Core R2 runs 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 .Net Framework however while Server Core in R2 does provide these types of .NET functionality that does not necessarily mean it will function or that it is supported on the platform.
To run Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Enterprise Edition on x64 platforms, you need:
Hardware―x64 architecture-based computer with Intel processor that supports Intel 64 architecture (formerly known as Intel EM64T) or AMD processor that supports the AMD64 platform
Operating system―Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Standard x64 Edition or Enterprise x64 Edition
Operating system for installing management tools―The 64-bit editions of Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 or later, or Windows Server 2008. Note: Requirements only for management tools installation.
Cameron: This discussion seems to echo the question: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchange2010/thread/dc2992ab-1a70-4d49-96ab-c2ed20c7632f