Affordable Cloud Object Storage: Synology's C2 offering

Affordable Cloud Object Storage: Synology's C2 offering

With Synology’s C2 Object Storage, the company continues its tradition of delivering a solution that strikes the perfect balance between simplicity and cost-effectiveness in a dynamic market. Having relied personally on Synology NAS devices for over a decade, I’ve consistently experienced their impressive capabilities. These devices embody a set-and-forget ethos, providing seamless updates throughout their lifespan and never experiencing a failure outside of normal HDD issues. Their inherent simplicity ensures that, unlike the IT challenges I have to navigate at work, managing storage at home is a hassle-free experience.
Exploring Windows Server 2025: What’s New and What’s Changed - Part 1

Exploring Windows Server 2025: What’s New and What’s Changed - Part 1

Last month, Microsoft unveiled Windows Server Insider build 26040—the inaugural preview branded as Windows Server 2025. As seasoned Windows Server enthusiasts, we’re eager to delve into the enhancements and evolutions this release brings. In this Part 1, we’ll deploy the fresh Windows Server build, meticulously compare available Windows Features and Roles, and scrutinize any modifications to in-box PowerShell modules. Buckle up for an insightful journey through the latest iteration of Windows Server!
Fixing CORS Error when adding Veeam Plugin to VMware Cloud Director

Fixing CORS Error when adding Veeam Plugin to VMware Cloud Director

I was setting up Veeam Backup & Replication the other day, testing out the Plug-in for VMware Cloud Director (VCD) to provide Self Service backup and restore, and I hit an unexpected issue when trying to access the extension from the VCD Tenant Portal. Access to XMLHTTPRequest has been blocked by CORS policy After some digging, I came across a single post on the Veeam Forums that made reference to the same issue.
Hybrid Cloud Announcements | MS Build 2021

Hybrid Cloud Announcements | MS Build 2021

Every year, Microsoft holds its annual BUILD conference where they “announce new tools and solutions to empower developers to solve real world problems”, it’s also a great time to pick up some new skills and connect with the wider developer communities. If you’ve attended any of the Microsoft conferences in the last few years, you would’ve seen a steady increase in hybrid content and solutions, as the world starts to realise that ‘Cloud-native’ doesn’t need to mean ‘Cloud-only’.
Using an Azure Arc Token to access Azure KeyVault

Using an Azure Arc Token to access Azure KeyVault

One of the awesome features of Azure VMs has been that they have their own identity in Azure AD, much like traditional servers on-prem have had computer accounts in Active Directory, and these identities can be used to authenticate against other Azure services such as Azure KeyVault. Thanks to this native ability, it’s been possible to securely store objects such as secrets for User accounts, API Keys and things like Certificates in KeyVault and access them from other Azure Resources without having to create and store credentials those services.
Extending SConfig in Azure Stack HCI 20H2

Extending SConfig in Azure Stack HCI 20H2

As some of you might have seen earlier this month, I tweeted my excitement at the fact that the Azure Stack HCI 20H2 preview included a newly rebuilt SConfig utility, written in PowerShell! Incase you missed it, #AzureStackHCI includes a completely re-written version of SConfig! The best part? It's written in #PowerShell, so why not start extending it? :D I spent a couple of minutes and added a little extra menu for my own use#MVPBuzz #AzSHCI pic.
Forecasting Azure Stack HCI Cache Wear

Forecasting Azure Stack HCI Cache Wear

So you’ve set up an Azure Stack HCI Cluster and everything’s running great, but there is this nagging feeling in the back of your mind. It’s a hybrid setup, with some type of flash cache sitting in front of spinning disk, and you start to wonder how hard you’re pushing that cache, and how long it will last. Thankfully with Windows Server 2019, there are many in-built tools and commands to help work out just that!

Testing DFS Replication with Powershell

DFS Replication (DFS-R) is a fantastic tool in any sysadmins belt when it comes to creating highly redundant and scalable file shares. And yet anyone who has used it, knows that monitoring it can be difficult at the best of times. Windows Server 2012 introduced several Powershell commands for DFS-R which help discover partnerships and their status, however none of them test replication end-to-end. So here are the goals I get out to achieve with Powershell:

Updating your AzureStack? Make sure you don't miss any steps!

AzureStack is a fantastic appliance, with a massively simplified patch and lifecycle policy thanks to a lot of hard work from Microsoft and the OEMs delivering it. But even with all that, to ensure the best experience when updating AzureStack, you should always apply the available hotfixes in-between updates. At some point, you may find you’ve fallen more than one update behind and need to catch up. Finding all the right hotfixes and updates requires reading each of the release notes for prerequisites.

Best Practices for patching S2D and AzureStack HCI Clusters - Part 1

Overview While spending a lot of time on the Storage Spaces Direct Slack group, one thing that comes up, again and again, is patching of S2D Clusters, and what is the best way to do it. For this blog series, I’m going to break down the patching best practices into 2 separate scenarios: Offline Patching Using Cluster Aware Updating Offline Patching Offline patching is a pretty common scenario when patching S2D Clusters, and in my mind it is used for 2 reasons, catching up on multiple months of patching where there are known issues, and planned patching in a small window with an outage.