We have 2 HP servers, one one AD domain, with Hyper-V and clustering enabled. From the parent company, we got instructions that all local DCs should be decommissioned soon and migrate all local servers to be part of their global AD.

I am looking for the safest option to move this servers to the new domain, what i think that needs to be done are;

Take backup of VMs (Veeam free), and break the cluster, join the servers to new domain and create it again.
http://www.wservernews.com/newsletters/archives/migrating-a-hyper-v-cluster-between-domains-11369.html

The above link seems to explain the steps but wanted to know from ML

Thanks for the edit @scottalanmiller

http://www.unixmen.com/list-10-funny-linux-commands/

If i need to test the performance of sites hosted in two locations, from the UAE, what are my options? I can do ping and see the response, but is there any other options? I could see several websites that does latency tests, but from other locations, I want specifically from UAE. Any suggestions?

Glad to see that this all got resolved. Thanks @scottalanmiller and @dafyre for the patience and explaining each steps in detail

I like the idea, may be there can be a catalog which can be published for us to know whats available, and probably post results/how to if interested here in ML with the project details.

I think the Windows sticks won't have any problems with CRM. Intel comes with Windows 10. Considering the size and having Windows OS I am leaning towards Windows sticks, but confused which is better. Anyone used these or alternative Windows tinypc?

@Carnival-Boy said:

After reading this thread, I've just ordered an Intel stick. It should arrive tomorrow. I can let you know what it's like if you want

So did you get it? If so how's it?

So far it's a disaster. The pc started and for some reason restarted during the initial setup after language selection. And it's on a loop never completed the initial setup. Tried refresh, reset nothing works. That goes till 98% and restarts again. I am thinking of getting the new iso somehow add it on microsd and try a clean install or just return it and get a new piece.

Given the stick back to the vendor, and as per them they can't just replace unless the problem is proven. The guy boot up the stick, it restarted as usual, but surprisingly it went all the way to complete a reset. He could login to Windows and shown me that everything is fine. Felt surprised to see that stupid thing was working. Came back home, started installing chrome, FF and windows update, in 20 minutes, the device shutdown. Changed power cable just to make sure its not something to do with the USB cable, as the guy used a different cable there, but worked for 10 minutes and turned off. Looks like some sort of issue in the power/overheating. Contacted the vendor and asked to get me a replacement or refund tomorrow. Lets see. So far Intel stick is a big fail!

Apparently someone already did an extensive review and the final verdict is NOT to buy this!

http://gizmodo.com/intel-compute-stick-review-don-t-buy-it-1699377058

Finally, the whole issue was due to the stupid power requirement of the Intel stick. Due to the cable length issues previously where i was setting up the stick (power sources is not very close to the tv, so i used TV's USB interface to power the device, later on tried a different cable and a USB power charger as i forgot the Intel's power USB port at the office. All this was solved when i connected the original Intel sticks usb power adaptor, all started working fine. Very demanding power requirement. So if you want to use the Intel stick, make sure you have the same connectors you got with the device, nothing else works!

Upgraded to Windows 10, the screen has some lag on my HDMI enabled Monitor. Need to check on a bigger display, even though the device is 64 bit the recommended OS from Intel is 32 bit and its 2GB RAM. So far looking good with very basic operations like browsing, word etc. This will be good enough for the online CRM access. One thing i noticed is i kept it to run windows update over night, in the morning i couldn't wake that system and had to turn off completely. Will test it in the office today and see how it goes.

We are in the process of migrating our file server to SharePoint Online. Just wondering if any of you guys have a backup plan for SP online, to access files in case of any downtime with SP online. If so how can i do this?

Yes and probably install rootkit hunter as well! http://www.tecmint.com/install-linux-rkhunter-rootkit-hunter-in-rhel-centos-and-fedora/

@AVI-NetworkGuy said:

So to sum up, I think if you've got your head in the game with knowledge about how version history and how the recycle bin structure of SharePoint works, you really should be covered from DATA LOSS. If you've got redundant ISP's, you should be covered from CONNECTIVITY LOSS. So unless you've got some sort of regulatory requirement to back that sh*t up, I think you should be OK.

Perfect! Yeah, i don't worry about an ISP outage, that got covered already, and i hope things go well with this move and seems like from all these replies, we can manage with the currently available options including versioning and backups from MS, which i believe can be restored in case of major issue by raising a support ticket!

Thanks a lot guys. Will let you know once i have this all moved to SP online, share the results

I was just evaluating box.com, and looks like a good option for a simple file sharing and collaboration tool with some good features like AD integration, lot of reporting etc. Would like to know opinions about box

Yes, I am using the desktop sync tool on my MAC now. Selected few specific files and folders from my box account and syncing that using the desktop tool and its low memory usage

Just installed the sync tool on my windows as well and it's not heavy plus the sync settings i mentioned on my MAC, automatically worked on windows too (sync specific folders & files). Not sure if ODFB works the same way, but for me one of the reasons we are thinking between O365 SP onlive vs box and leaning towards box is the sync tools for all platforms, (When i tried preview of ODFB on our MAC, it crashed both on Yosemite and El Captian), plus of course the unlimited storage.

I got a query from a friend who wants to use a windows machine with just chrome browser and one exe running in the background. No other apps, no other access. Not even desktop. What is the best way to achieve this? Ideally admin should be able to use some hotkey or something to make any changes or access things if needed to troubleshoot.

@scottalanmiller Yes, when i first heard about his requirement, i suggested http://porteus-kiosk.org/ but when he told me about .exe file, then the only good option is to have Windows, not sure how well wine works for this.