Azure Storage – a pre-requisite to export SQL to blob storage

27-Jun-1212 Leave a comment

A storage account needs a container before it can be used.
The container may be made in Visual Studio using a new Project > Cloud > Windows Azure Cloud Service
When this project is created with any Web Roles you create the relevant projects will also be created and linked.
When this is created make this Cloud Service Project the start-up project and run-it in Visual Studio as an administrator you may then get further, it will not start the cloud service project but the web project. This will then give relevant keys.

I found this not to run in local. Needed to publish it first.
Then in Azure Management > Hosted Services > Locate > Run from DNS

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/2153.windows-azure-and-sql-azure-tutorials-tutorial-3-using-windows-azure-blob-service-en-us.aspx#__Lesson1Proc1

 

To test the application in the staging environment

  1. From the portal, in the left pane, click Hosted Services.
  2. In the middle pane, expand GolferMessageBoard, and then click v1.2.0.0.
  3. In the Properties pane, click the URL in the DNS name box. The application is opened in a new browser tab or a new browser window depending on your browser configuration.
  4. Test the application by entering one or more entries.

After the application is working correctly in the staging environment, you are ready to promote it to the production environment.

To promote the application to production

  1. From the portal, in the left pane, click Hosted Services.
  2. In the middle pane, expand GolferMessageBoard, and then click v1.2.0.0.
  3. From the top menu, click Swap VIP.
  4. In the Swap VIPs dialog, click OK. Wait until the Status for the deployment changes to Ready.
  5. In the Properties pane, click the URL in the DNS name box. The application is opened in a new browser tab or a new browser window depending on your browser configuration.
  6. Test the application in the production environment by entering one or more entries.

 

Azure Export of SQL database to blob

The format of the file should be
http:// teststorage01.blob. core.windows.net/dbbackup/ebcgroup1.bacpac

I had following error:
“azure blob is not writeable … the specified container does not exist”

To create the container make sure the above has been published to Azure and run from there.

 

Filed under Azure, SQL Azure

ASP.Net publish to Azure with Database and control of Start Page

19-Jun-1212 Leave a comment

Followed

https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/tutorials/web-site-with-sql-database/

There was a warning on publish page 3, which mentioned code-first migrations must be enabled. After web-search I realised I needed to upgrade to a higher version of EntityFramework which has System.Data.Entity.Migrations

Used Visual Studio > Tools > Library Package Manager > Package Manager Console

PM> install-package EntityFramework -Pre

PM> enable-migrations

will then publish. Although now up, the sites page is “This web site has been successfully created. There’s nothing here yet, but Windows Azure makes it simple to publish content with GIT, TFS, FTS or your favorite development tool”

If go directly to a page I know exists it does take me there, (or in my case redirects to login)

http://xamlgeek.net/2010/11/19/start-page-in-azure/

During development this of course wasn’t an issue – I just right clicked the page I wanted as startpage as selected “Set as Start Page”.

When I deployed to Azure the start page wasn’t recognized. To set the start page in Azure it is necessary to do one of two things: 1) Implement a start page called “Default.aspx” or 2) specify the start page in the web.config file:

2010-11-19_002433

Setting the defaultDocument value in the web.config fixed my issue.

 

 

Filed under ASP.Net, Azure

Setting up Microsoft Lync from Office 365

15-Apr-1212 Leave a comment

After installing Lync on my 64-bit PC using 64-bit intall it would not connect.

Cannot sign in because the server is temporarily unavailable. If the problem continues contact your support team

Solved with the steps on this site:

http://community.office365.com/en-us/f/164/p/21113/99750.aspx#99750

specifically:

Configure the Lync settings
==============================

  1. In the upper-right area of Lync 2010, click the Gear icon to open the Options page.
  2. In the Lync – Options dialog box, click Personal.
  3. Next to the sign-in address, click Advanced.
  4. Make sure that Manual Configuration is selected and that the configuration values are exactly as follows:

Internal server name or IP address: sipdir.online.lync.com:443
External server name or IP address: sipdir.online.lync.com:443

I did not need to change the firewall. So any changes I had tried, I reversed and removed.

Filed under Computers Tagged with

DHCP reservation on Server 2003

13-Feb-1212 Leave a comment

 

Start > Administrative Tools > DHCP

If the server is not connected then DHCP > Right-click > Add Server

Server name > Scope > Reservations > Add need MAC address from PC that you want to fix IP. To get this do an ipconfig /all on that pc

 

Filed under Servers Tagged with

Some SQL Server 2005 services are not listed in SQL Server Configuration Manager – Also Red Cross shown in IIS – Server 2003

28-Jan-1212 Leave a comment

PROBLEM

  1. Some SQL Server 2005 services are not listed in SQL Server Configuration Manager
  2. Red Cross shown in IIS – Server 2003

SOLVED QUICK

BITS – Background Intelligent Transfer Service may not be registered and may have a startup type of Manual and be Stopped.

regsvr32.exe qmgr.dll
regsvr32.exe qmgrprxy.dll

Then reboot.

SOLVED DETAIL

by external support company. Asked them how they did it. Answer copied here:

It looks like a windows update was responsible for the failure, Steve correctly spotted the fundamental issue which was that the default web site was stopped in IIS.  By attempting to start IIS, this registered an event in the windows logs and I could diagnose the issue from there.

The earlier versions of SQL reporting prior to 2008 relied on IIS to operate and the failure of IIS to start resulted in the missing items in SQL.

Windows update installed a hot fix which altered a file responsible for BITS (the service that enables Windows Update to function), the update applied an updated version of a file for IIS and the file failed to register when it was installed.  IIS was effectively looking for a file which wasn’t present and stopped itself.

By re-registering the file and rebooting, IIS was able to recognise the updated file and the default web site started successfully.  As the default website hosts information referred to by SQL, this caused SQL reporting to re-appear.

An odd one, but then Microsoft updates are probably responsible for a lot of strange behaviour!

Incidentally, while I was on the server, I spotted a string of Windows Desktop Search errors in the log – Windows Desktop Search was given as an update by Microsoft and it is my personal view that the product is poorly designed and disables perfectly good search facilities included within Windows, it looks like it has been clogging your event log with errors for some time now and with both of these things in mind,  I have disabled the Windows Desktop Search.

Anyway, glad SQL & IIS are now working, please let me know if you have any further issues.

Filed under Errors, Servers, SQL Configuration, SQL SSRS Configuration, Troubleshooting Tagged with

Crystal Reports run-time error – “Failed to open a rowset”

09-Dec-1111 Leave a comment

Details: HY000:[Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 10.0]Connection is busy with results for another comand

SOLVED
Report ran in Crystal Reports designer. Problem turned out to be that there was an unlinked table in Visual designer. Replaced the fields from this table with fields in a view, then removed this table from the report and report then ran

USED this entry:
SRS 18th Dec 2012

THIS ERROR Can also be if there are truly multiple start points for your Crystal Report

In this case use two connections.  This could be the same ODBC connection added to the report again. This works as proved 11-Jan-13
See Purchasing\Requirements.rpt

Filed under Crystal Reports, Errors Tagged with

ODBC Crystal Reports ODBC hanging due to Tracing Log file

07-Dec-1111 Leave a comment

Problem on a colleagues machine where ODBC was very slow on Crystal Reports.

We thought problem was due to 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC. Possibly see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942976

SOLVED
However problem was that ODBC > Tracing > Tracing was on. Stopped it and crystal reports immediately went quicker. The log file was also very big 200,000 Kb.

Filed under Crystal Reports, Troubleshooting Tagged with

VPN gets stuck on “Verifying username and password”

01-Dec-1111 Leave a comment

When attempting to connect the VPN gets stuck on “Verifying username and password” (hangs). After a while it then gets stuck on “Connecting to **.**.***.*** using *” and eventually returns a long message and may attempt to redial. The solution below is for messages containing text including GRE.

HYPOTHESES

  1. Also I was using both a laptop and PC with VPN switching to a couple of companies. It may fail on one machine if the other machine is already logged in.
  2. Possibly following a failed connection, I found that a VPN I have used a lot on Windows 7 had a blank User name: when this was normally filled in.

EXPERIMENT

  1. Hypothesis 1:- Reverse the first machine to log in. This time the other machine VPN started failing and in fact scenario 2, the User name became blank.

SOLVED
Create a new VPN which worked, then delete the old VPN

UNSOLVED
For error message 800 there are different problems. One of these is conflict between two computers. There may be a timeout on the server before another computer may connect, possible 30 minutes. Secondly may need to uncheck “Use default gateway on remote network”, this worked once, did not work several times.

ALSO
There are pages on web e.g. however first try above
http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/90522-vpn-not-accepting-incoming-connections.html

Filed under Errors, Servers, Troubleshooting Tagged with , , ,

Windows Azure – SQL Azure – Manage firewall settings

26-Nov-1111 Leave a comment

Not immediately obvious where this is.
On Management Portal select the server – not higher – not lower – not on the SQL portal
There on the right is the Firewall settings

Filed under Azure

How do I… open a cmd prompt at a specified location

22-Nov-1111 Leave a comment

  1. Create a shortcut to cmd
  2. Change the Start In to the location you desire
  3. There are other methods

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/60904/how-can-i-open-a-cmd-window-in-a-specific-location

Filed under Windows Tagged with ,

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