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Scheduled Maintenance for TPIA Users on Shaw Cable’s Last Mile Network

This just came in from TekSavvy’s e-mail list altering users of upcoming maintenance by Shaw on their last mile network:

Scheduled Maintenance and Upgrades

Date

Window

Expected Duration

March 9

Midnight to 6 a.m. Mountain (like Calgary)
11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Pacific (like Vancouver)

Up to five minutes

March 14

Midnight to 6 a.m. Mountain (like Calgary)
11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Pacific (like Vancouver)

Up to 15 minutes

March 15

1 a.m. to 7 a.m. Mountain (like Calgary)
Midnight to 6 a.m. Pacific (like Vancouver)

Up to 30 minutes

March 21

Midnight to 6 a.m. Mountain (like Calgary)
11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Pacific (like Vancouver)

Up to two hours

March 22

1 a.m. to 7 a.m. Mountain (like Calgary)
Midnight to 6 a.m. Pacific (like Vancouver)

Up to one hour

During those times posted above, you may experience temporary loss of connectivity until the maintenance has been completed. As for users that are on other third party internet providers that uses Shaw for their last mile connection, the maintenance can also potentially affect subscribers that is also a third party, but not TekSavvy themselves.

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Upgrading from Windows Azure Websites Update 4 to Update 6 with SQL Server Standard

As you may have known, Windows Azure Websites installations that uses SQL Server Standard Edition for data storage will have issues getting updated to Update 6 as the SQL scripts included in this update used SQL Server Enterprise Edition specific features. I’ve reported this issue to Microsoft on the Windows Azure Pack forums and have privately conversed with a few people inside Microsoft who are responsible for the Azure Pack Websites product following the public post.

Continue reading “Upgrading from Windows Azure Websites Update 4 to Update 6 with SQL Server Standard”

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Changing the php.ini File for Web Workers in Windows Azure Pack Websites v2

As some of you may have noticed with Windows Azure Pack Websites v2, you can have the user to specify certain settings inside the .user.ini file if they want to enable fancy PHP options.

However, what if you want to make those changes applied globally to all of your tenant’s web sites by default? Doing some quick Google searches leads you to a dead end. However I accidentally discovered this trick when I was upgrading a lab web farm from Update 4 to Update 6.

Continue reading “Changing the php.ini File for Web Workers in Windows Azure Pack Websites v2”

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Cleaning up a MS SQL Server after Windows Azure Pack Websites v2 was Previously Installed

As most people will have known this working with a Windows Azure Pack Web Farm lab environment, cleaning up the data can be a pain since the installer refuses to continue if any databases containing Windows Azure Pack Websites v2 data.

You can easily fix this by running these queries:

drop database [Hosting];
drop database [ResourceMetering];
drop login Hosting_FileServer;
drop login Hosting_HostingAdmin;
drop login Hosting_LoadBalancer;
drop login Hosting_Operations;
drop login Hosting_Publisher;
drop login ResourceMetering;
drop login ResourceMetering_Operations;

That should clean up the database server so a new instance of Websites can be installed on that database server.

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Mikrotik CRS125 Series Basic VLAN Configuration

Since I’ve been working with Xarix Cloud Computing and knowing what gear they use for core networking, I’ve decided to procure similar gear that they use to setup a home lab.

The Mikrotik CRS125 series switch is what I’ve settled on. The specific model I got features 24 Gigabit Ethernet Ports, a single SFP port and a Console port. Internals wise, this switch uses the AR9344 SoC for the switch’s main CPU functions and the QCA8513 26 port switch ASIC. Pretty much standard for a managed switch nowadays. All their CRS series switches run off on RouterOS 6.x with switching functionality added on top of the OS.
Continue reading “Mikrotik CRS125 Series Basic VLAN Configuration”