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How-to : Create DAG on Exchange 2010

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Set of screenshots from old archives. It shows how to setup DAG on Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

If there will be interest in that subject I will put some description around that, just request that in comments.

Otherwise, enjoy step-by-step screenshot guide for DAG on Exchange 2010

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How-to : Publish multiple URLs with single IP and HAProxy

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Many times there is a need to publish multiple websites from internal network, but there is only one public IP address available.

How this can be done easy way? HAProxy can help us with it.

In example configuration I have 2 URLs registered to same public IP address:

  • first.laboratory.net
  • second.laboratory.net
  • third.laboratory.net

Here is how HAProxy configuration for given example looks like…

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How-to : Setup AlwaysOn Availability Group on SQL Server 2012

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SQL Server 2012 has very nice HADR technology built-in, AlwaysOn Availability Groups. It allows to have multiple replicas of selected databases across multiple servers, which can be even located across multiple sites. AlwaysOn itself provides mechanism to keep all replicas of database synchronized and up-to-date, as some of them might serve data for read-only purposes (for example reporting).

MSDN article: AlwaysOn Availability Groups (SQL Server) describes AlwaysOn technology in details. In this article I will focus on practical side of this HADR technology and how to get this up and running fast without any issues.

To test and demonstrate SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn capabilities I built simple Lab environment on VMware Workstation as shown below. Lab contains 2 servers with Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter and SQL Server 2012 Enterprise.

Lab environment also contains Active Directory domain and Domain Controller, which is not shown on the diagram.

In order to get SQL Server AlwaysOn up and running we will complete following activities:

  • Install Failover Clustering Role
  • Configure Windows Server Failover Clustering
  • SQL Server installation
  • Demo database preparation
  • Enable Availability Groups on SQL Server
  • Creating AlwaysOn Availability Group

So, let’s get started…

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How-To : openSUSE & keepalived for Firewall HA

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Current expectations from all type of systems and services is to be available without any disruption. One of mission critical systems is gateway/firewall. Of course you can use multiple products available on the market. One of them is openSUSE, which is perfect to act as gateway/firewall between Internet and production systems. So, how to provide redundancy for openSUSE and same time be able to keep it up-to-date without any disruption for production systems?

openSUSE 13.2 with keepalived provides all technology required to make your firewall high-available.

Here is diagram of Lab created to configure and test openSUSE with keepalived:

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