scottm's questions

I'm currently using Azure Resource Manager to create virtual machines with DSC to configure basic state and install IIS. I already have a build environment that dumps websites as .zip files to Azure Storage. But, I can't figure out how to make DSC reach out to Azure Storage to download the .zip and place it in wwwroot.

Ultimately, I want to run AzureRM so that it creates a new VM, runs DSC so that when it's finished my app is on the machine and running.

I have a large table in MS SQL that I am having issues reading from while a third party application writes to it. My plan to resolve the problem is to move all of the data from one database and delete the data in the source database periodically. The problem arises when the table has too much data ( hundreds of millions of rows), but I need to be able to read all of the data for a rows which could top a billion rows. I don't have the ability to modify the source database because it is third party.

I'm curious what some options might be to help facilitate this. Is it possible to replicate a table in a way that when I delete the data in the source table, it's not deleted in the destination table?

I have a test machine that's not allowed on our domain because we are testing corporately unsupported applications (SQL 2008 and Server 2008). I want to use management studio to connect to the SQL2008 server but can't get it working. I have authentication set to mixed-mode, I've checked 'allow remote connections to this server', but when I try to access it, I get the error

A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server) (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 53)

Since it says the provider is Named Pipes, I enabled Named Pipes on the server, but still no dice. I've tried connecting to the system name, the IP, the system name\instance and IP\instance, all to no avail. Is what I'm trying to do not possible?

Edit:

Well, through some basic troubleshooting, I've found that I can't ping the server from my client computer, but I can ping the client computer from the server? They are both plugged into the same switch, and are sitting next to each other. The windows firewall on the server is turned on, is there some specific settings I need to enable?

DAH! So it was the firewall blocking me. How can I enable the firewall and still connect?

I think I have my .conf file settings correct, but it seems that I can't validate my password. I know the password is correct because I've logged in with it. Looking at the Apache logs, it looks as though Apache is able to query the LDAP server, but it can't match the passwords.

[Wed Feb 10 10:51:53 2010] [debug] mod_authnz_ldap.c(377): [client 10.0.x.x] [1544] auth_ldap authenticate: using URL ldap://ldapserver:389/DC=corp,DC=example,DC=net
[Wed Feb 10 10:51:53 2010] [warn] [client 10.0.x.x] [1544] auth_ldap authenticate: user jdoe authentication failed; URI /sitejunk [LDAP: ldap_simple_bind_s() failed][Invalid Credentials]
[Wed Feb 10 10:51:53 2010] [error] [client 10.0.x.x] user jdoe: authentication failure for "/sitejunk": Password Mismatch

Here's what the httpd.conf looks like:

<Location /sitejunk>
    AuthLDAPURL "ldap://ldapserver:389/OU=Operations Support,OU=Distribution Lists,OU=Groups,OU=New Structure,DC=corp,DC=example,DC=net?sAMAccountName?sub?(objectClass=*)"

    AuthLDAPBindDN "cn=John Doe,OU=Operations Support,OU=Distribution Lists,OU=Groups,OU=New Structure,DC=corp,DC=example,DC=net"
    AuthLDAPBindPassword "password"

    AuthType Basic
    AuthBasicProvider ldap
    AuthName "Please provide your windows logon credentials to continue."

    require valid-user
</Location>  

I'm just starting some Cisco training and I would like to know if there are any freely available simulators available.

I have a Windows 2000 Server machine and every time I try to open "My Computer", the CPU jumps to 99% . I have to kill explorer.exe and restart it for the computer to resume normal operation (until I try to open my computer again). I installed the available service packs but am at a loss to how I might troubleshoot the problem.

I had a 1TB RAID5 array and Windows is showing "corrupt $Mft" and "unable to read file" errors. It says I should run chkdsk but I've heard not to do that when using RAID.

I have a server that maintains some ID information. Every 15 minutes, an external application runs to remove any old IDs, insert new ones and updated all existing. When this process runs, my SQL instance's page faults sky-rocket, memory sky-rockets, but the process is done in just a couple of minutes. However, SQL server seems to maintain the data used during the processing in memory for at least an hour or more afterward, causing other applications to act up. I've set memory usage to dynamic in SQL (256MB min, 384MB max), but its virtual size is still in the 600MB range.

I have an old system running MSSQL7. It takes about 10.5 seconds to create the table below and another 30 seconds to add the index. Is there anything I can do to decrease these times?

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[MyTable] (
    [queue] [int] NOT NULL ,
    [seqNum] [numeric](12, 0) NOT NULL ,
    [cTime] [char] (14) NOT NULL ,
    [msg] [char] (255) NULL ,
    [status] [int] NOT NULL ,
    [socket] [int] NULL 
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
 CREATE  INDEX [search] ON [dbo].[MyTable]([queue], [seqNum], [status]) ON [PRIMARY]
GO

 CREATE  INDEX [new] ON [dbo].[MyTable]([queue], [status]) ON [PRIMARY]

I have some really old machines and want to run a virus scan on them. They only have about 64mb RAM, 333Mhz processor, etc. I don't want a whole suite, just something light weight and effective.

I have a server supporting a phone system of about 300 phones. When calls are made, many different connections are opened and closed during the course of a call. I'm starting to see "out of database connections" and "timeout expired messages" when making calls to the database.

The call processing software uses an ODBC DSN to connect to the database. I'm guessing that the connection pool is out for the DSN (if that's possible).

How can I check the maximum pool size? If I have to specify the maximum pool size in the connection string, is there a way I can add it with odbcad32 app (maybe in the ini files)? I see the Connection Pooling tab, but it only has the option of how long unused connections remain. These are Windows 2000 and Windows NT systems. I don't have the ability to change the code.

I am debugging a problem with one of our systems. Every Sunday, it stops communicating with another server. If we reboot both servers, communication works again.

I was wondering if there are any small footprint apps that monitor TCP port availability and network connectivity, possibly logging any downtime. I'd also like it to be open source if possible, but if there is another solution that is proprietary, I'd like to hear about it also.