The powershellmagazine.com has released Quick reference guides(a.k.a Cheat sheet) for managing Server Manager in Windows Server 2012 release candidate using Powershell V3.

You can download these guides from Microsoft Download Center. You can refer to http://www.powershellmagazine.com/2012/06/09/windows-powershell-3-0-and-server-manager-quick-reference-guides/ for more details.

Overview

The PDF files in this download are short-form Quick Reference (also called “cheat sheet”) guides for IT professionals and scripting enthusiasts who want to learn tips, shortcuts, common operations, limitations, and proper syntax for using Windows PowerShell 3.0 and Server Manager in Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate.

The following files are contained in this download.

• PowerShell_LangRef_v3.pdf – This four-page reference describes operators, arrays, useful commands, methods, and other tips for using Windows PowerShell 3.0. Also included is a Windows PowerShell reading and tutorial resource list. This quick reference is provided by PowerShell Magazine.
• PowerShell_ISE_v3.pdf – This two-page reference describes keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys that you can use to navigate Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) more quickly, and introduces the new ISE object model. Also included are tips for configuring $ps.ISE options, profiles, and properties. This quick reference is provided by PowerShell Magazine.
• PowerShell_Examples_v3.pdf – This two-page reference describes how to perform popular IT management and scripting tasks by using Windows PowerShell 3.0, including how to fetch data by using Management OData IIS Services, how to schedule jobs, how to install Windows PowerShell Web Access by using Windows PowerShell cmdlets, and how to create new SMB file shares. This quick reference is provided by PowerShell Magazine.
• Quick_Reference_SM_WS12.pdf – This two-page reference describes common tasks that you can perform in the new Server Manager console in Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate. Quickly learn how to manage remote servers that are running older versions of Windows Server by using the new Server Manager; how to run Server Manager deployment cmdlets for Windows PowerShell; how to save and export Server Manager settings, such as the servers you have added to the server pool, and custom server groups that you have created; where to find Server Manager log files; how to run popular WinRM commands such as creating a new listener; how to install roles and features on offline VHDs; and where to find documentation to help you manage multiple, remote servers by using Server Manager and Windows PowerShell.

MS released new version of OS management pack(v6.0.6972.0). Looks like major improvements in this release are targeted at Disk monitoring.

Refer to the below Change log to know what is improved in this version of Operating System Management pack.

You can down load installation source of this management pack and related documentation from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9296

Changes in This Update

Unless explicitly noted, these updates apply to all operating system versions supported by this Monitoring Pack:

• Updated the Cluster shared volume disk monitors so that alert severity corresponds to the monitor state.
• Fixed an issue where the performance by utilization report would fail to deploy with the message “too many arguments specified”.
• Updated the knowledge for the available MB monitor to refer to the Available MB counter.
• Added discovery and monitoring of clustered disks for Windows Server 2008 and above clusters.
• Added views for clustered disks.
• Aligned disk monitoring so that all disks (Logical Disks, Cluster Shared Volumes, Clustered disks) now have the same basic set of monitors.
• There are now separate monitors that measure available MB and %Free disk space for any disk (Logical Disk, Cluster Shared Volume, or Clustered disk).

These monitors are disabled by default for Logical Disks, so you will need to enable them.

• Updated display strings for all disks to be consistent, regardless of the disk type.
• The monitors generate alerts when they are in an error state. A warning state does not create an alert.
• The monitors have a roll-up monitor that also reflects disk state. This monitor does not alert by default. If you want to alert on both warning and error states, you can have the unit monitors alert on warning state and the roll-up monitor alert on error state.
• Fixed an issue where network adapter monitoring caused high CPU utilization on servers with multiple NICs.
• Updated the Total CPU Utilization Percentage monitor to run every 5 minutes and alert if it is three consecutive samples above the threshold.
• Updated the properties of the Operating System instances so that the path includes the server name it applies to so that this name will show up in alerts.
• Disabled the network bandwidth utilization monitors for Windows Server 2003.
• Updated the Cluster Shared Volume monitoring scripts so they do not log informational events.
• Quorum disks are now discovered by default.
• Mount point discovery is now disabled by default.

This version of the Management Pack consolidates disk monitoring for all types of disks as mentioned above. However, for Logical Disks, the previous Logical Disk Free Space monitor, which uses a combination of Available MB and %Free space, is still enabled. If you prefer to use the new monitors (Disk Free Space (MB) Low Disk Free Space (%) Low), you must disable the Logical Disk Free Space monitor before enabling the new monitors.

The default thresholds for the Available MB monitor are not changed, the warning threshold (which will not alert) is 500MB and the error threshold (which will alert) is 300MB. This will cause alerts to be generated for small disk volumes. Before enabling the new monitors, it is recommended to create a group of these small disks (using the disk size properties as criteria for the group), and overriding the threshold for available MB.

Book#1:Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (First Preview)

Download Link: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2012/06/04/free-ebook-programming-windows-8-apps-with-html-css-and-javascript-first-preview.aspx

Book#2: Introducing Windows Server 2012

Download Link: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2012/06/04/free-ebook-introducing-windows-server-2012.aspx

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The business need for Windows Server 2012
The rationale behind cloud computing Making the transition
Technical requirements for successful cloud computing
Four ways Windows Server 2012 delivers value for cloud computing Foundation for building your private cloud

Chapter 2 Foundation for building your private cloud
A complete virtualization platform
Increase scalability and performance Business continuity for virtualized workloads

Chapter 3 Highly available, easy-to-manage multi-server platform
Continuous availability
Cost efficiency
Management efficiency

Chapter 4 Deploy web applications on premises and in the cloud
Scalable and elastic web platform
Support for open standards

Chapter 5 Enabling the modern workstyle
Access virtually anywhere, from any device
Full Windows experience
Enhanced security and compliance

The g|day events are an opportunity for businesses and web developers to learn more about Google products and the opportunities that are available online.

The Full Schedule: 

• g|chennai – 19 / 20 July
• g|bangalore – 2 / 3 August
• g|hyderabad – 13 / 14 August
• g|mumbai – 6 / 7 September
• g|delhi – 13 / 14 September

The two day event will cater to different audiences with Day 1 focussing on businesses who want to learn more about Google products and Day 2 will be dedicated to the tech audience like webmasters & App developers.

Day 1: Business Day: Business users and entrepreneurs will benefit from learning about Google tools that will help them to improve and take advantage of their online presence. We will host dedicated tracks on topics likes AdWords, AdSense, YouTube, Google+, and Google Apps.

Day 2: Technical Day: Will provide an opportunity to web developers and webmasters to discuss and learn more about Google platforms like Android, Google+, Google Apps and Google APIs.

Official Blog post: http://googleindia.blogspot.in/2012/05/gdays-are-coming-to-india.html

Entry for this event is free. Register now to get your seat reserved. Visit https://sites.google.com/site/gindia12/home

Amazon.com is offering kindle version of VMWare VSphere 4.1 HA and DRS technical deepdive guide for free of cost. If you are a VMWare guy, go and get the copy if you don’t have it already.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004V49JGW/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=buzzmanagement&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B004V49JGW&adid=0NSBTRWSZWCDRYXSTHXQ

Book Description:

VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical Deepdive zooms in on two key components of every VMware based infrastructure and is by no means a “how to” guide. It covers the basic steps needed to create a VMware HA and DRS cluster, but even more important explains the concepts and mechanisms behind HA and DRS which will enable you to make well educated decisions. This book will take you in to the trenches of HA and DRS and will give you the tools to understand and implement e.g. HA admission control policies, DRS resource pools and resource allocation settings. On top of that each section contains basic design principles that can be used for designing, implementing or improving VMware infrastructures. This book is also the ultimate guide to be prepared for any HA or DRS related questions and case studies that might be presented during VMware VCDX, VCP and or VCAP exams.

Coverage includes:

• HA node types
• HA isolation detection and response
• HA admission control
• VM Monitoring
• HA and DRS integration
• DRS imbalance algorithm
• Resource Pools
• Impact of reservations and limits
• CPU Resource Scheduling
• Memory Scheduler
• DPM

I want to write about another quick post before I sign off today. One of my friend asked me how to get Manager of a user from active directory using powershell. He seem to have tried ActiveDirectory module to get this information but it never returned any data.

So, I this post I want to provide quick one-liners using Quest AD cmdlets and built-in activedirectory cmdlets which returns the Manager attribute information from active directory.

Using Quest AD CMDlets:

Get-QADUser -Id User1 | select Manager

Using ActiveDirectory Module:

You need to note one thing when you are using ActiveDirectory module. Most cmdlets in this module never returns all properties by default. You need to explicitly ask for attribute when using the cmdlets in this module.

So, Get-ADUser -Id User1 | select Manager will not work as there won’t be any parameter called Manager in default output. You should use something like below to get the data.

Get-ADUser -Id User1 -Properties Manager | select Manager            

OR            

Get-ADUser -Id User1 -Properties * | select Manager

Hope this helps…

This simple script will help you to get the list of ALL(both direct and indirect groups) the current user belongs. Generally we use Quest cmdlets to get this direct and indirect group membership information but this script uses buil-in dotnet method which is available on all computers if you have dotnet installed. So, no need of external dependencies like Quest AD cmdlets.

Function Get-AllUserGroups {
[cmdletbinding()]
param()
$Groups = [System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent().Groups
foreach ($Group in $Groups) {
  $GroupSID = $Group.Value
  $GroupName = New-Object System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier($GroupSID)
  $GroupDisplayName = $GroupName.Translate([System.Security.Principal.NTAccount])
  $GroupDisplayName
  }
}

I still haven’t figured out a way to get the same information for a given user(not currently logged on user) using dotnet methods. Please let me know if you are aware of any such procedure.

[UPDATE]

Shay Levy has provided a way to do get the all groups of a given user account(see comments section). I am updating it here for everyone’s quick reference.

#curtsy : Shay Levy             

$userName = ‘sitaram’            
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement            
$ct = [System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement.ContextType]::Domain            
$user = [System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement.Principal]::FindByIdentity($ct,$userName)            
$user.GetGroups() #gets all user groups (direct)            
$user.GetAuthorizationGroups() #gets all user groups including nested groups (indirect)

Hope this helps…

I came across below interesting reading which talks about A-Z things needed for becoming Microsoft Certified Master(MCM) in Active Directory. MCM is the highest level of Certification given by Microsoft for people who excel in a given technology. Current MCM is available for Exchange, SQL, Lync, Sharepoint and Active Directory.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2012/05/21/so-you-want-to-be-a-master-eh.aspx

Hope you will find this informative.

This is continuation to my previous post. I want to add more commands that System Administrator require to manage XenApp environment using powershell. Below are some of them. I will extend the list as and when I find something.

Get the list of Users currently using a published XenApp Application:

Get-XASession -BrowserName notepad | select AccountName

Get the computer(or client) name from where a XenApp Application is launched

Get-XASession -BrowerName notepad | select ClientName, AccountName

Logoff a user(user1) session who opened “MS Word” application in XenApp:

(Get-XASession -BrowserName “MS Word” -ServerName XenAPP1 | ? {$_.AccountName -match “User1” }).SessionID | Stop-XASession

Get all published XenApp applications on a Server

Get-XAApplication -ServerName XenApp1 | select DisplayName

Get all Desktops published in XenApp environment

Get-XAApplication | ? {$_.ApplicationType -eq “ServerDesktop” } | select DisplayName

Get the users or groups who has permission to a published application:

Get-XAAccount -BrowserName App1

How to get the list of processes running in a given XenApp session on server:

Get-XASessionProecss -ServerName XenApp1 -Sessionid 10

 Rename a published XenApp Application (or change displayname of XenApp Application):

Get-XAApplication -BrowserName “My Notepad” | Rename-XAApplication -NewDisplayName “My Notepad – OLD”

Change the description of a XenApp application:

Get-XAApplication -BrowserName “My Notepad – OLD” | Set-XAApplication -Description “This is going to retire”