4sysops – For SysAdmins and DevOps

Windows 10 1903: The most significant new features for professional users

Wolfgang Sommergut Wed, May 22 2019 deployment, group policy, security, windows 10 0

The Sandbox starts each time with a pristine Windows 10

Windows 10 1903, also known as the May update, introduces some substantial improvements. These include new functions as well as changes to the service model and best practices. In addition, they've made some improvements to the user interface.

Activate a VM using Automatic Virtual Machine Activation (AVMA)

Adam Bertram Tue, May 21 2019 hyper‑v, virtualization 0

By using a Windows Server feature called Automatic Virtual Machine Activation (AVMA), administrators can easily activate virtual machines (VMs) running on an already-licensed Windows Server Data Center Edition server.

Set up nested Hyper-V virtualization

Anthony Howell Mon, May 20 2019 hyper‑v, virtualization 0

For testing Hyper-V, it sometimes helpful if you can run a Hyper-VM inside another Hyper-VM. In this post, you will learn how to set up nested Hyper-V virtualization.

Create and deploy a CloudFormation template to AWS

Adam Bertram Fri, May 17 2019 AWS, cloud computing 0

Infrastructure as code is a great way to manage scattered infrastructure resources. AWS’ CloudFormation templates are Amazon’s way to make leverage infrastructure as code in an AWS environment. Let’s dive into CloudFormation and see what it takes to create a template, deploy it, and provision AWS resources using nothing...

Top tips for using VMware vCenter Converter

Vladan Seget Thu, May 16 2019 virtualization, vmware 1

VMware vCenter Converter is a free tool that is an indispensable utility for VMware administrators. Even now, many years after physical to virtual (P2V) conversion in many enterprises has finished, there are systems to convert or reconfigure, as the tool can also optimize and resize disks and their layout.

Understanding vSphere shares, reservations, and limits

Leos Marek Wed, May 15 2019 virtualization, vmware 0

The primary goal of the ESXi hypervisor is to distribute physical resources to virtual machines (VMs) while ensuring fairness of consumption. Shares, reservations, and limits settings allow you to prioritize VMs that are more important when resources are under contention.

Configure DHCP scopes in Windows Server

Adam Bertram Tue, May 14 2019 networking, window server 0

Many IT administrators must manage DHCP scopes as part of their roles of keeping networks available to end users. Windows Server provides a popular DHCP server that administrators need to maintain scopes on. In this article, let's dive into how to work with DHCP scopes on Windows Server.

Convert Windows Server 2019 Evaluation to the retail edition

Vladan Seget Mon, May 13 2019 deployment, windows server 3

You might be looking into the possibility to convert the Windows Server Evaluation edition to the retail edition. We'll look at how to install a license key to transform Windows Server 2019 from the Evaluation version to the retail one.

Build an Active Directory user activity report with PowerShell

Adam Bertram Fri, May 10 2019 active directory, powershell 9

Monitoring Active Directory users is an essential task for system administrators and IT security. In many organizations, Active Directory is the only way you can authenticate and gain authorization to access resources. Some resources are not so, yet some are highly sensitive. Using PowerShell, we can build a report...

Set up a Hyper-V home lab with the AutomatedLab PowerShell module

Anthony Howell Thu, May 9 2019 hyper‑v, powershell, virtualization 12

The AutomatedLab PowerShell module lets you deploy complex labs on Hyper-V and Azure with PowerShell. In this post, I'll show how you can quickly set up a home lab with AutomatedLab.

Clone hard disks to SSDs with free tools from Samsung and SanDisk

Wolfgang Sommergut Wed, May 8 2019 deployment 1

Replacing the hard disk drive (HDD) with a solid-state drive (SSD) can bring even old office PCs back to life. In general, you would migrate the existing Windows installation and the data from the HDD to the new drive. SSD manufacturers offer cloning tools for this task; however, the...

PS Protector: Convert your PowerShell module into a .NET assembly DLL

Timothy Warner Tue, May 7 2019 powershell 0

PS Protector is a Windows utility that simplifies converting your plaintext PowerShell module into a Windows .NET assembly DLL. The use case is for businesses that need to protect their intellectual property by preventing source code inspection.