ivan bondy

Run PCF Dev on Windows 10

Ivan Bondy — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 18:23:18 GMT

I am exploring Cloud Foundry platform and I discovered Pivotal Cloud Foundry Dev edition is available for download and install on Windows 10. However, as I was going through the instructions I noticed that PCF Dev requires Virtual Box to run. That poses the problem as Virtual Box can't run side-by-side with Hyper-V. As I am heavy user of Hyper-V and run many different VMs at the time, dropping Hyper-V and using Virtual Box is not an option for me. Fortunately there is away to run Virtual Box inside a Windows 10 VM hosted on Hyper-V. Basically you create new Windows 10 Hyper-V VM and install Virtual Box in it. When you start Virtual Box and try to create a new VM you will likely get error complaining about lack of VT-X. To solve this problem you need to enable Nested Virtualization with in your Windows 10 host. Run following PowerShell script with elevated privileges. Set-VMProcessor -VMName -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true After that you should be all set to install PCF Dev on your Windows 10 hosted in Hyper-V. Here you can find complete instructions on installing PCF Dev on Windows. This works on Windows 10 Anniversary edition or later. Hope this will save you some time!

Ultimate Developer Workstation 2015 – Part 4 Software and tools

Ivan Bondy — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 08:16:08 GMT

In this last part of Ultimate Developer Workstation build, I will share with you software, applications and tools I initially install on my development workstation. As a Microsoft FTE I do have access to MSDN subscription and most of the software installed on my workstation is obtained from MSDN. If you have MSDN subscription most of the application and tools used in my build are available to you as part of MSDN subscription (depending on level) or are free, with notable exception of JetBrains Resharper and Stardock Fences

Operating system and drivers

Windows 10 Enterprise x64
Asus applications + tools
NVidia latest video driver

Applications

Office 2016 x32 (MSDN)
InfoPath 2013 x32 (MSDN)
Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise (MSDN)
Visual Studio 2015 SDK (MSDN)
Expression Studio 4 Ultimate + SP2 (MSDN)
VS Plugins: PowerShell Tools for Visual Studio Web Essentials 2015 VSColorOutput Regex Tester File Nesting Git Tools NuGet References Developer assistant Cloud Explorer for Visual Studio 2015 GhostDoc

Chocolatey install

PowerShell script: Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

choco install notepadplusplus -y choco install FoxitReader -y choco install fiddler4 -y choco install keepass -y choco install PowerGui -y choco install RdcMan -y choco install SharePointDesigner2010x32 -y choco install SharePointDesigner2013x32 -y choco install sharepointmanager2013 -y choco install camldesigner2013 -y choco install ulsviewer -y choco install cksdevserver -y choco install freefilesync -y choco install webpi -y choco install paint.net -y choco install 7zip -y choco install Curl -y choco install TortoiseGit -y choco install Resharper -y choco install Winmerge -y choco install GoogleChrome -y choco install flashplayerplugin -y choco install sysinternals -y choco install resharper -y choco install dotpeek -y choco install javaruntime -y choco install treesizefree -y choco install adblockplusie -y choco install vcl -y choco install PowerShell -pre -y choco install smtp4dev -y choco install ilspy –y

Webpi commands

webpicmd /install /products:WindowsAzurePowerShell /accepteula webpicmd /install /products:FTPServer /accepteula webpicmd /install /products:ASPNET35 /accepteula webpicmd /install /products:ASPNET_REGIIS_NET45 /accepteula

SharePoint tools:

SPO Manangement Shell - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=35588
PnPPowerShell Commands for SPO - https://aka.ms/OfficeDevPnPCmdlets16
PnPPowerShell Commands for SP2013 on premise - https://aka.ms/OfficeDevPnPCmdlets15
SPCAF - http://www.spcaf.com/

Others

Microsoft Orleans - https://github.com/dotnet/orleans/releases/tag/v1.1.2
Stardock Fences -http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/

So, there you have it. Complete build and initial configuration of my daily workbox. I am looking forward to hear your comments and suggestions. Specially, would love to hear a way to automate installation of VS2015 plugins. I had a great time building and configuring this workstation. For last 6 months, I am using this workstation as my main development and daily driver and it’s performance is flawless. This workstation is basically silent, totally solid with no issues experienced, easily handling full 5-10 virtual machine SharePoint farm and all my development tasks. Totally awesome and I am very happy with it. Happy developing!

Ultimate Developer Workstation 2015 – Part 3 Performance and tuning

Ivan Bondy — Sat, 16 May 2015 08:26:00 GMT

This is the third post of a 4-part series:

In the last two posts I was planning and building my new workstation. Now it is time for some hands-on experimentations. As you may recall, last time I finished with a successful bios post. Next, Windows 10 Enterprise TP is installed on the Phoenix Blade in an impressive number of less than 3 minutes. Now it is time to run some benchmarks. For quite some time now I use Passmark's Performance Tests to evaluate my workstations. The latest version is V8 which I downloaded and installed. Below is my first result without any modifications or configuration tuning. Strictly OOTB experience. Not bad, but not great either. For comparison my old 2012 workstation achieved PassMark rating of 3449 on the Performance Test V8. My goal was to at least double the performance of my old workstation. I'm not there yet. First, I started pushing CPU. I was able to get this CPU running at 4.7Ghz but it would crash on the CPU load test. I found out that I can run this CPU at 4.6Ghz and pass CPU load tests. Next, I tweaked my video cards. Asus Strix video card comes over-clocked from the factory and runs at 1253 Mhz. With the help of Asus wizard I was able to increase the speed to 1400Mhz. G.Skill memory chips I am using are already heavily overclocked and will be left alone. After spending the afternoon tweaking my new workstation, I was ready to run a new Performance Test. Below is my best score achieved with this new workstation. Quite a bit of a jump from the PassMark Rating of 5327 to 7486. This landed my new workstation in the middle of the Top 100 builds on the PassMark site, (as of the time of writing this post) Not bad! Significant performance gains were achieved from OOTB configuration and the system remains rock solid. This system is also amazingly quiet, I can hear my HP Elite Book laptop sitting on the corner of my desk but I can't hear my workstation sitting below my desk. I am very happy about the lower noise level as my old workstation was relatively loud. For my daily use, I created a new overclocking profile where I backed off the top a little and am running the workstation at 4.4Ghz. I stored my top performing profile as a custom profile which can be enabled by a click of the button on the Asus Overclocking Command Center when I feel I need to have every ounce of the speed. So did I reach my goal of doubling performance of my old workstation? Yes. In my daily use configuration I achieved 110% performance gain over my previous workstation, but more important than synthetic tests, this workstation is visibly faster while performing daily tasks. These tasks include working with 3-5 SharePoint VMs running locally on my workstation, using VS2015 and VS2013, running MSSQL 2014, compiling code, doing other tasks like Skype for Business meeting, creating documents, etc.. Running all these tasks at once does not faze this workstation at all. Old vs New: Here are the important system numbers as I write this blog with a virtually silent workstation. Lastly, I would like to discuss storage performance of this workstation. I reused some SSD I had in my old workstation in addition to Phoenix Blade. Let's see how they stack up:

Drive	Read MB/s	Write MB/s
Corsair 250GB SSD	492	429
Samsung 850 Pro 1TB	530	498
Phoenix Blade 480 GB	1700	1760

Corsair: Samsung: Phoenix Blade: Phoenix Blade has pretty incredible performance, to translate it to my daily tasks. I am able to create new W2K12R2 with GUI VM from nothing to log in screen in less than 2 minutes. Samsung and Corsair take 4+ minutes. I am very happy how this workstation build turned out, the performance and noise levels (or lack of) are pretty amazing, and I am sure, will make me one happy developer for the next 3 years. At least as hardware is concerned. :) In the next post I will share with you all of the software, tools and 'secret' ingredients I install on my workstations.

Ultimate Developer Workstation 2015 – Part 2 Building

Ivan Bondy — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:06:00 GMT

This is the second post of a 4-part series:

Over the last few days Fedex delivered all of my parts needed for my new workstation. You can read my previous post for all the components I choose. Here are all of the components, but case, on my workbench. First thing I noticed since my last build 3 years ago was the quality of packaging. Clearly, competition is working and vendors are trying really hard to start the experience with their products when you open the box. Lot’s of thought and design went into most of these packages. G.Skill Phoenix Blade package really stud out for me. G. Skill used one of the highest density foams I ever seen, perfectly cut to fit product and accessories. This not only provides excellent protection for the product, but also looks great. Here is the Corsair 750D case I choose for this build. This is the first time I choose this case for a build as on my previous builds I used Antec Nine Hundred case. I really liked that case, but it was time to move on. Corsair 750D is a definite upgrade, quality of the case is amazing, it is completely tool less and provides room for Corsair H110 water cooling radiator. This case also provides plenty of room for additional coolers, hard drives, SSDs and has great solution for cables. First, I installed Corsair H110 radiator into the top section of the case. I love sealed water cooling systems, there is no need to mess with air-bleeding, replacing coolant fluid and monitoring coolant levels. I had Corsair H50 sealed system in my last workstation with no issues for last 3 years. Just install it and forget about. I used 2 included 140mm fans in push mode and added 2 Corsair AF140 fans in pull mode. This gives me push-pull air flow in the intake mode. Installing this radiator was likely most difficult part of this build. The screws could be little longer to make installation easier but after employing my wife’s two hands I was able to secure radiator in the case. Definitely, lot easier to install if someone can hold radiator in place for you. Next, Asus Rampage V Extreme motherboard goes in. This is large EATX format board which exactly fits into the case. There is pretty much no room to spare between the motherboard and the radiator with 4 fans. Wish there was extra ¼ ‘’ or so to make everything little easier during install. This board has pre-installed backing plate for the heavy cpu cooling components so that save me some time. Following motherboard is the Intel i-7 5960x cpu which slides right into the socket and water cooling block with the build in pump is installed on the top. After the cpu is secured in the place 8 G.Skill DDR4-2800 memory sticks are installed into all available slots. These memory stick have built in blue heat sinks to handle the heat and also looks awesome. Starting to look like a computer. Time to install 2 Asus Strix 970GTX video cards in PCIe slots 1 and 3. These are factory over-clocked and I can’t wait to see how well they will perform. Next, G.Skill PCIe Phoenix Blade SSD goes in between the video cards into PCIe slot 2. Make sure to install this card into 8x PCIe slot otherwise the performance of the drive will not be optimal. After that, only part left to install into motherboard is the TPM module. Lastly, Corsair HX850i power supply and 2 SP120 Quiet Edition fans are installed on the bottom of the case. Hey, I almost forget to install Asus Rampage V Extreme overclocking panel. 5.25-inch bay filler goes out and OC panel goes in. This panel allows for controlling your CPU's speed, fan speeds and other functionality by hitting button(s) on the face. It also has small LCD to provide runtime info about the system. Looking great. Time to connect the power cables. Great advantage of modular power supply is that you can run only power cables you need, and you are not stuck with all other cables, polluting your case. One of the reasons I choose Corsair 750D case is the cable solution. Case provides plenty of opening to move the cables out of the way and have unrestricted airflow throughout the case. Next, let’s make sure all fans are connected. This board has 7 fan connectors, but I have 9 fans in this case. Quick trip to my spare computer parts box and fan power split cable is installed. Now, I have all 9 case fans wired up. Motherboard power cable is run, cpu power is plugged in and power cables for video cards are connected. Power cable and SATA cables are installed and routed for future SSDs install. What else have I left? Yes, I need to connect OC panel cable to motherboard, case control panel and video cards SLI cable. Here is the business side of the finished workstation. One final check and recheck of all connections and it is time to power up. It’s alive! Post screen comes up and this part of the build is done. Next time I will test how this workstation performs OOTB and how far I can push it. I uploaded additional pictures of this build into my One Drive. Go check them out.

Ultimate Developer Workstation 2015 – Part 1

Ivan Bondy — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 08:34:00 GMT

This is the first post of a 4-part series:

As a Senior Consultant for Premier Support for Developers with a focus on SharePoint technologies, I mostly work with large environments and large code bases. Having fast development workstations able to support Visual Studio with 50+ projects in a solution and be able to support multiple SharePoint VMs is an absolute must for my work.

While I do not travel to my customer’s sites I work from my dedicated home office and am proud of this work environment. About every three years I build a new development workstation in order to keep up with the latest technologies. Currently I am due for a new workstation and would like to share this build with you.

I spent some time considering whether to build a new physical workstation or use Azure VM. As one of my team mates said “Azure is my workstation.” I love Azure and its capabilities but still decided that a fast and powerful workstation in my home office is the best option for me. After convincing my wife that “I really need” J a new workstation, I was given a budget of $4,000. What I am looking for in a new workstation:

Speed
Overclocking with stability
Low noise
Windows 10
Did I mention speed?

To save some of my budget I will reuse existing parts I already own:

2 - 24” BenQ monitors
2 – 22” LG monitors
Crucial M4 512 MB SSD

After extensive research and discussions with my friends here is are the specs I settled on:

By design, I limited my choices to three manufactures: Corsair, Asus and G. Skill. I am hoping this will eliminate any build conflicts. I purchased all items from NewEgg and am now waiting on delivery. With rebates and discounts I am right below my budget.

In my next post I will discuss the actual build of my new workstation. You can expect many pictures as well.

How to cleanup large Workflow History list in Office 365

Ivan Bondy — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 12:40:00 GMT

Recently, on our team site we had misbehaving workflow, which created over 18 million rows in the Workflow History list. Needles to say it consumed bunch of space on our site and caused other issues. It was not as easy to clean this up, as one would hope. When I tried to delete the offending list I got this error: Next, I tried to contact our technical support team. Technician informed me that they can’t delete offending list either, they just recently had the same issue with different customer and their recommendation is to manually delete list entries using tabular list view to get bellow 5000 items threshold. With 18 million rows in my Workflow History list, that would be lots of clicking. I decided to write simple console application to delete rows in the Workflow History list using SharePoint CSOM. Basically, there are four simple steps to accomplish this task:

Open connection to your o365 site
Set credentials
Get list
Batch delete items in the list

Partial code snippet

You will find default batch size set to 250 items in my project. From my testing, making batch size smaller or larger just decreased performance. This was sweet spot for me. In my run, I averaged 850 deleted items per minute. You can test your own processing performance and adjust batch size accordingly. You can download compiled console application from my OneDrive and you can start deleting items in no time. Run the application by using following command: deleteworkflowhistory.exe “[yoursiteurl]” “[List Name]” “[User Name]” “[Password]” Make sure to replace tokens with your own values. If you do not use startup parameters you will be prompted by the application to enter values for each parameter. If you like to dig little deeper, complete source code for this project is available on my OneDrive as well. I hope you will find this project useful and it will save you some time while trying to delete items from large lists. Cheers,