How To Extend Cluster Disk Partition on x64 Windows 2003 Servers

Today, Storage Area Network (SAN) is something that an big organizations or event the mid size can't survive without one. Richer media, much more data to be stored for financial regulation, analysis and trend analysis or event a simple BI reports...I'm not going to list out all the possibilities on why an organization need a centralized storage and at time IT will run into a situation where the pre-allocated disk partition 1 or 2 years ago just doesn't cope with the demands today....

There are many ways on how you can "fix" this issue from time to time, You can add a new partition into the server and have your date spitted into 2 partitions, but this will not always works due to the nature of some DB architecture and applications.

For any other OS you may use the SVG tool from HP to extend the disk partition without going to the hassle of recreating a new partition and move your data over from the old to the new one. I'm assuming you're using one of the storage product by HP...the concept and step will be the same even you're on EMC or some other storage vendors

For Microsoft Windows 2003 Servers families and above, you can use the handy tool which ship as part of the Windows installation to extend the partition "online". It is good to have your data fully backup before your attempt to do so.....I'm going to walk you thru the steps on how to extend the disk partition using the DISKPART utility :-

Prerequisite :- You need to login to the storage console to increase the LUN/Disk/vDisk size before you can extend from the Windows server. In this case, login to the Command View for HP Storage Works and select the vDisk(s) that you want to increase the size and click on OK button and wait for a moment for EVA to finish calculating and leveraging the new requested size...

From the Cluster Active Node, perform the following steps :-
1. From the active node command prompt, run DISKPART utility
2. You are at the diskpart utility prompt DISKPART>
3. DISKPART> prompt, type "select disk X" where X is the disk number that you want to extend
4. DISKPART> prompt, type "detail disk" to ensure that you are at the correct disk
DISKPART> select disk 5
Disk 5 is now the selected disk.
DISKPART> detail disk
HP HSV210 Multi-Path Disk Device
Disk ID: 12F906BF
Type : FIBRE
Bus : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 3

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 13 I XXXXXX NTFS Partition 1500 GB Healthy

5. DISKPART> prompt, type "select volume Y" where Y is the volume number that you want to extend
DISKPART> detail volume

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---
* Disk 0 Online 149 GB 0 B

Read-only : No
Hidden : No
No Default Drive Letter: No
Shadow Copy : No
Dismounted : No
BitLocker Encrypted : No

Volume Capacity : 22 GB
Volume Free Space : 2844 MB

6. DISKPART> prompt, type "extend"
DiskPart> successfully extended the volume.

Well..... this actually works on the Windows 2003 32 bits Enterprise Server as well. Now, launch Windows Explorer to ensure that the database, files and application is working fine.....

First Look at Windows Server 2008 Server Core - Part II

It has been a while I posted the Part I of the article but I have not have time for part II sooner....now here you go for Part II, which will pretty much cover how to activate your Windows Server 2008 Server Core from the shell instead of the usual few clicks away kind of GUI interface....

Microsoft has been packaging the product activation in all recent Windows releases to protect their intellectual properties and prevent illegal copies from getting the latest patches from the MS web site.

By running Windows Server 2008 Server Core doesn't mean you can get around the pruoduct activation. In Windows Server 2008 Server Core you can activate your server either locally or remotely. Either way uses the Software Licensing Management Tool - Slmgr.vbs

To activate from the local shell following the steps below :-
start /w slmgr.vbs -ipk ABCDE-12345-FGHIJ-67890-KLMNO
start /w slmgr.vbs -ato

Replace ABCDE-12345-FGHIJ-67890-KLMNO with you own prodict key and the - ato switch will then activate it for you

To activate from the remote shell or remote computer, follow the steps below :-
cscript windows\system32\slmgr.vbs SERVERNAME USERNAME PASSWORD:-ato