System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Do you want to know how Microsoft IT does Virtualization?

Come to the TechDays 2010 and attend the following session:

Virtualization in Microsoft IT

Lessons learned in 5 years of implementing Microsoft’s virtualization platform and System Center Virtual Machine Manager, driving from 5 pilot Virtual Server 2005 hosts to 1100 virtualization hosts with 7000 Hyper-V guests. The changes in the computing hardware, storage solutions and Networking implementations. And what we envision for the next two years.

Video New Efficiency: Introduction to Hyper-V and Windows Server 2008 R2 with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 - Dutch

This session focuses on the new capabilities of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2.

We will also covers the base architecture of Hyper-V and provides guidance on key areas high availability, live migration, deployment and managing your virtual infrastructure using System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.

TechNet: Join us at the Server and Client Virtualization day to learn more about Microsoft's virtualization technology.

TechNet Event: Learn how to use Virtualization from the Desktop to the Datacenter

TechNet Event: Learn how to use Virtualization from the Desktop to the Datacenter

Using products that span the desktop to the data center, you can bring capacities online in real-time, as needed; streamline and provision applications, services and data on-demand; accelerate backup and recovery, and enhance availability so that your users are well protected against system failure and service interruptions.
This event will consist out of two tracks one for Data Center Virtualization and one for Desktop Virtualization.

Following technologies will be covered:

• Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization
• Application Virtualization
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
• Windows Server 2008 R2 - Hyper-V
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager
• ….

" border="0" alt="clip_image001" src="http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/aralves/WindowsLiveWriter/TechNetEventLearnhowtouseVirtualizationf_CC97/clip_image001%5B8%5D_1.png" width="151" height="72" />

Server Virtualization Track:

Storage and Hyper-V: The Choices You Can Make and the Things You Need to Know

Storage and virtualization are two of the hottest technologies in IT right now -- and they're even better together. Microsoft is delivering new products into both spaces. , and Understanding the impacts that storage has on a server virtualization design is key to understanding and successfully building a virtual infrastructure. This session talks about where we are, where we've been, and where we are going. We give you the information you need to know to make the right storage decisions in this new virtual world.

Security Architecture and Best Practices for Hyper-V
It is critical to ensure that your virtualization infrastructure is secured and protected against malicious intent. This session will outline the security architecture of Hyper-V and provide guidelines and best practices from a security viewpoint.

Disaster Recovery and Failover Clustering:
As Windows Server operating systems become increasingly accepted in the large scale and high-end mission-critical parts of organizations, the requirements for disaster tolerance and business continuance become more and more important. The goal of this session is to cover the considerations on how you can build a complete solution with Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering to achieve not only High Availability, but also Disaster Recovery.

Microsoft’s Builds the Foundation for your Private Cloud

Learn about Microsoft’s Private Cloud Infrastructure offering and find out how the latest technologies, tools and resources which are enabling the foundation for a private cloud infrastructure. Learn about the two extensible FREE Dynamic Data Center Toolkits; Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Hosters (available now!) that enables hosting partners to offer managed

Client Virtualization Track:

Desktop Virtualization: Providing You with Clear Guidance

This business value session will review the different desktop virtualization solutions available and provide you with the context you need to create a meaningful and actionable plan to leverage Desktop Virtualization technologies to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and increase business agility.  You will learn about VDI, App-V, MED-V, and other virtualization options in the context of selecting the "right tool for the right job" for your business needs.

Desktop Virtualization – The App-V side
App-V explained, what it is, how it works, what is the relation to Desktop Virtualization and how can App-V help us to achieve the Optimized Desktop vision. We will discuss deployment options and show an App-V Sequence and Deployment demo.

MED-V Client Hosted Desktop Virtualization
Client Hosted Desktop Virtualization – How can MED-V help us to achieve the Optimized Desktop vision. The difference between managed and unmanaged XP mode and we will show a MED-V demo.

Speakers:

Isaac Roybal – Product Manager Virtualization – Microsoft Corp

Isaac Roybal is a Product Manager in Microsoft’s Virtualization Marketing team. His responsibilities cover the Cloud Computing Infrastructure Initiative from a private cloud perspective, Dynamic Datacenter Toolkits for both hosters and enterprises and the Dynamic Datacenter Alliance.  Isaac’s career started in Systems and Network Engineering working with Windows Server since NT 3.51. Prior to his current role, Isaac managed Microsoft’s Hyper-V and IIS product marketing efforts. He has been involved in IT for over 13 years (8 with Microsoft), received a Bachelor’s of Business Administration from New Mexico Highlands University and has his MCSE certification in NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and 2003.

Vijay Tewari – Program Manager Virtualization – Microsoft Corp

Vijay Tewari is a Principal Program Manager with the Windows Server Virtualization team at Microsoft. He has over 15 years of experience in the industry and has authored multiple specifications relating to systems management such as WS-Management. He owns the development of the Hyper-V role and the Microsoft Hyper-V Server.

Alexander Rublowsky - Group Manager, Desktop Virtualization for Windows Commercial - Microsoft Corporation

Alexander Rublowsky is responsible for leading Microsoft’s Desktop Virtualization Sales Strategy for Windows Client. Responsibilities include the sales management of  Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and Desktop Virtualization technologies like Virtualized Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Application Virtualization (App-V) and Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V).

Prior to managing Client Virtualization Sales Strategy, Rublowsky managed the Enterprise Partner Ecosystem for Windows Client including the development of the Application Compatibility Factory and led the Windows Client Deployment Team. Prior to joining Windows Client Rublowsky held Product Management, Product Marketing positions for product with revenue over $2.5 Billion and developed a unique demand based pricing strategy for Hardware Systems.  Rublowsky holds a Master Degree from the George Washington University’s GSPM and an undergraduate degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

" border="0" alt="clip_image001" src="http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/aralves/WindowsLiveWriter/TechNetEventLearnhowtouseVirtualizationf_CC97/clip_image001%5B8%5D_1.png" width="151" height="72" />

Updated virtualization guides: Windows Server Virtualization and System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

Updated virtualization guides: Windows Server Virtualization and System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
These guides, updated to reflect the features and functionalities of Windows Server® 2008 R2 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, outline the critical infrastructure design elements that are crucial to a successful implementation of these virtualization products.

The Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Windows Server Virtualization takes the reader through the process of designing components, layout, and connectivity in a logical, sequential order. Identification of the Hyper-V™ server hosts required is presented in easy-to-follow steps, helping the reader to design and plan virtual server datacenters.

The Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager assists readers in the design and implementation of SCVMM architecture, thus enabling centralized administration of physical and virtual machines. Identification of the VMM server instances required is one of the simple, seven-step design processes presented in this guide.

Download the IPD Guides for Virtualization at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/ee395429.aspx
Infrastructure Planning and Design streamlines the planning process by:

• Defining the technical decision flow through the planning process.
• Listing the decisions to be made and the commonly available options and considerations.
• Relating the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics.
• Framing decisions in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive alignment with the appropriate business landscape.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager: Updated IPD Guides

Hey All,

Microsoft has announced updated IPD Guides for SCVMM.  You can find more information here:

http://blogs.technet.com/technet_flash_feed/archive/2009/09/24/get-the-updated-infrastructure-planning-and-design-guides-for-virtualization-and-system-center.aspx

The download can be found here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/ee395430.aspx?SA_CE=VIRT-IPD-BLOG-SCVMM-2009-09-21

Cheers,

Mike

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and 2008 R2 Configuration Analyzer VMMCA

Hey All,

Microsoft just released the new VMMCA for vmm 2008 and vmm 2008 r2.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=02d83950-c03d-454e-803b-96d1c1d5be24&displaylang=en

Brief Description

Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and 2008 R2 Configuration Analyzer (VMMCA) is a diagnostic tool that you can use to evaluate important configuration settings for computers that either are serving or might serve VMM roles or other VMM functions.

Important

• You must install and run the VMMCA on the computer that either currently is or will become your VMM 2008 server.
• You should use this version of the VMMCA with VMM 2008 and VMM 2008 R2 only. To download the VMMCA for VMM 2007, go tohttp://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=132136.

The VMMCA is a diagnostic tool you can use to evaluate important configuration settings for computers that either are serving or might serve VMM roles or other VMM functions. The VMMCA scans the hardware and software configurations of the computers you specify, evaluates them against a set of predefined rules, and then provides you with error messages and warnings for any configurations that are not optimal for the VMM role or other VMM function that you have specified for the computer.

I will soon post a blog about the results of the VMMCA.

Thanks,

Alexandre Verkinderen

Session video Clustering and live migration with Hyper-V server R2 by Arlindo Alves

You want to make sure your Virtual machine are always up and running ? Come to this session and see for yourself how simple it is to make a Hyper-V Cluster,Live migrate Virtual Workloads and best of all: how you can do it for free !

Speaker:

Arlindo Alves started his career as an ICT consultant at a Microsoft Partner, with a strong focus and recognized expertise in server based computing. Today, Arlindo is an IT Pro Evangelist at Microsoft Belgium & Luxembourg, focusing on the next wave of technology innovations. As part of the IT Pro team he works closely with the technical community and maintains his own blog at http://blogs.technet.com/aralves

Session video about Windows Server Virtualization by Arlindo Alves

Speaker:

Arlindo Alves
Microsoft

Arlindo Alves started his career as an ICT consultant at a Microsoft Partner, with a strong focus and recognized expertise in server based computing. Today, Arlindo is an IT Pro Evangelist at Microsoft Belgium & Luxembourg, focusing on the next wave of technology innovations. As part of the IT Pro team he works closely with the technical community and maintains his own blog at http://blogs.technet.com/aralves

Windows Server Virtualization (Dutch)

Deze live meeting geeft u een grondig inzicht in de nieuwe virtualisatietechnologieën, zoals Hyper-V V2. Daarnaast bespreken we ook de nieuwe boot vanuit VHD-functionaliteit en hoe u VHD gemakkelijk native kunt creëren, monteren en gebruiken in Windows Server 2008 R2. We eindigen de presentatie met een overzicht van de nieuwe capaciteiten in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.

Windows Server Virtualization (French)

Cette session live meeting vous présente en détail les nouvelles technologies de virtualisation, y compris Hyper-V V2. Nous aborderons également le nouveau principe d’initialisation à partir de la fonction VHD et expliquerons comment créer, monter et utiliser facilement VHD en mode natif dans Windows Server 2008 R2. Nous terminerons cette présentation par une vue d’ensemble des nouvelles fonctions offertes par System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 MPSRPT Tool

Hey All,

Microsoft has released the Product Support Reporting Tool for SCVMM2008 and 2008R2

Use the MPS Reporting Tool to gather detailed system status and configuration information from the Virtual Machine Manager server of Virtual Machine Manager 2008 or 2008 R2 server as well as from all managed virtual machine hosts, library servers, and physical to virtual conversion (P2V) source computers. This version of the MPS Reporting Tool collects gathers data to help Microsoft Support Professionals diagnose error conditions experienced in Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.
The Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) version of the MPS Reporting Tool gathers the following diagnostic data for the VMM server, the virtual machine hosts and library servers that the VMM server manages, and physical to virtual conversion (P2V) source computers:

• Virtual Machine Manager traces
• Virtual Machine Manager database
• Windows event logs and virtual server event logs
• IP address
• Virtual Machine Manager setup logs
• SQL Server setup logs
• Registry information
• Open ports information
• System Information (msinfo)

You can download the tool here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4e3dc013-c299-4b80-9735-64a8b9fa60c7&displaylang=en

Cheers,

Mike

MVUG Event Securing Hyper-V

Securing Hyper-V (with the Winsec User Group)

Date and time: THURSDAY 1st October 2009, start at 18u30 until around 21u00.
Event Location: Microsoft BELUX - Corporate Village - Leonardo Da Vincilaan 3 - B-1935 Zaventem
Entry: Free
Registration: send a mail to benoit@mvug.be
Focus: with the rising popularity of virtualization, it is time to start thinking about how you secure your virtual environment. During this presentation, best practices for securing a virtual environment based on Microsoft’s Hyper-V are discussed, both from the angle of the Hyper-V host as from the angle of the guests. Further it will be shown how you can use Authorization Manager (AzMan) to provide role-based access control for Hyper-V, separating host administrators from guest administrators and precisely delegating control to them, which will also be shown using System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SC VMM).

More information can be found on the MVUG site http://mvug.be/content/Events.aspx

System Center Virtual Machine Manager: Hosts having 0kb free memory

Hey All,

One of the big issues with SCVMM 2008 for me was that the memory available on the hosts is not correct.  If you are running quite a large environment with a lot of virtual machines, it is difficult to know how many you have left.  You can of course start calculating it manually but… ;-)

So here’s a screenshot of the problem

As you can see, all my hosts are giving zero kb free of memory.  That’s not exactly correct

Here’s how to solve this one:

On each host that has this problem, open the registry and go to the following key:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PerfOS\Parameters

If you see the key “Disable Performance Counters” then change it to 0.

Now you need to restart the WMI service on the host.  Please pay attention because it will restart other services too and you don’t want to do this during production hours…

After that the services are restarted, you can refresh your configuration in SCVMM and then you get the correct figures

Cheers,

Mike

Writing PRO Enabled Management Packs

Microsoft has just published a guide building a simple PRO-enabled management pack for Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2. This document gives an overview of creating PRO-enabled management packs and walks you through the steps required to create a simple PRO-enabled management pack.

Download here.

Alexandre Verkinderen

Virtual Machine Manager 2008: Cost Center

Hey All,

One of the nice things in Virtual Machine Manager is the Cost Center feature.  Although this seems like “just another field in the database”, it can come in handy when you need to prove to your management which business unit is using what resources.  Or, if the servers are used for certain projects, you can prove which project is using what.  This can be handy when you need more hardware and the management asks a prove if you are using everything you’ve got ;-)

In my example, I’ve added some cost centers to some servers.  You do this by double-clicking on the virtual server or by opening the properties of it.

As you can see, I’ve added the Cost Center MSS to this server (which is actually the business unit I’m working for ;-))

Now the fun starts when you have Operations Manager in place and you have imported the Virtual Machine Manager Management Pack into OpsMgr.  Now you get cool reporting.

In Virtual Machine Manager, I go to reporting and I have one interesting report called Virtual Machine Allocation

Ok, I hid the names of the cost centers but the important thing is that you can see that for each cost center I can see the # of VM’s, # of VM’s deployed, # in the library, # of processors, total allocated memory, number of disks, max disk space allocated and the number of nics.

Now the management has a great overview of who’s using all the hardware resources within the company.

Cheers,

Mike

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 RC public release available

The product team just announced that SCVMM 2008 R2 is publicly released.

Have a look at my previous post to know what changes in SCVMM 2008 R2

You can download SCVMM 2008 R2 from connect.microsoft.com

Microsoft Virtualization User Group Meeting – May 28th

The Belgian Microsoft Virtualization User Group organizes their second get together on May 28th and will talk about following topics:

Hyper-V scripting (Part2) - PowerShell
So, you want to Script Hyper-V ? After the April session where we discussed WMI and Hyper-v,
you can come to this session and you will discover how to use the James O’Neill's created library: PSHyperv.

What's new Hyper-V R2 and SCVMM 2008 R2

What are the new features of Hyper-V R2 and VMM 2008 R2 ? Come to this session and we will explain them for you.
Some of the features we will cover will be:

• Live Migration
• Hot addition/removal of Storage
• New optimized networking technologies
• Enhanced storage and cluster support
• SAN migration into and out of clustered hosts
• Expanded Support for iSCSI SANs

XP Mode and VPC 7 Demo
There will be a short demo of all the new features of Virtual PC 7 and XP Mode.

Timing:

17:30 – 18:00 Arrivals 

21:30 End of meeting

Location:

BDC SNACK - 1st Floor - Buro & Design Center
Heysel Esplanade B62
1020 Brussels
Belgium

MAP: http://www.bdc.trademart.be/map.html

Please register by sending an email to:anders@mvug.be

What’s coming in SCVMM 2008 R2 (RC)?

While SCVMM 2008 R2 is still in Beta the team is quietly working on improvements for the Release Candidate. There are some great new features coming up:

• Storage Migration where you will be able to migrate the storage of a VM within the same host or towards a new host. There will be some downtime but typical it will be less than 2 mins. Further will you be able to do storage Vmotion on VMWare hosts.
• Live Migration queuing allows you to do multiple live migration from one server. VMM will detect that the live migration fails and will try the live migration again for a period of time
• Rapid Provisioning  is a feature that allow you to create a new VM based on a template without the need to copy over the vhd file with the bits transfer. Now you will be able to point to a dummy disk and change the path of the vhd file by using the PowerShell cmdlets to deploy the new VM.
• Host compat check, before migrating the VM to another box we will check the compatibility of the Hardware if it’s not compatible we don’t move.

We also added some other features for that I encourage you to read the full post:

http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/archive/2009/05/11/scvmm-r2-rc-features.aspx

IT Infrastructure Software Spotlight – SCVMM and the cloud

Technology preview of System Center Virtual Machine Manager which is capable of managing Virtual Machines hosted in the cloud.

Slide decks: Windows Server Virtualization & Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2

Last week I had the opportunity to present at the Windays in Opitija in Croatia. The first presentation is about the Windows Server Virtualization technology Hyper-V. In this deck I focus onto the new features of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2.

In the second presentation I’ve talked about System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2. With VMM2008 R2 we align with the different changes that Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 includes.

Microsoft Mythbusters: Top 10 VMWare Myths

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Cmdlet Reference

Normal 0 21 false false false NL-BE X-NONE X-NONE

Nice,

Microsoft just released vmm 2008 cmdlet reference.....and it's about 442 pages long!

Have fun!

Abstract:

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 is a server application that you can use to manage virtual machines on a variety of virtualization platforms. As an alternative to using the VMM Administrator Console to administer your Virtual Machine Manager environment, you can use the cmdlets in the Windows PowerShell - Virtual Machine Manager command shell, which is an administrator-focused command-line shell. This document provides the Help topics for the VMM 2008 cmdlets.

Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Cmdlet Reference.docx

Grtz,

Alexandre Verkinderen

What is VMM 2008 R2 Beta and what are its new capabilities?

VMM 2008 R2 Beta is a comprehensive management solution for virtualized infrastructure that takes advantage of many of the great new features of Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta including:

• Live Migration: Enables the movement of running virtual machines from one virtual host to another with no downtime.
• Clustered Shared Volumes: Helps enable Live Migration and eliminates the previous one LUN per virtual machine requirement thus simplifying SAN administration.
• Hot addition/removal of storage: Allows the addition and removal of new virtual hard disks (VHDs) and iSCSI pass-through disks running on virtual infrastructure.
• Networking optimizations: two new technologies -- Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ) and Chimney - provide increased network throughput while reducing CPU load.

Call to action:

• Sign up for the beta: https://connect.microsoft.com/SelfNomination.aspx?ProgramID=3021&pageType=1&SiteID=799
• Download either the Full Software install or the pre-configured VHD

Free E-Learning Collection on Virtualization

This newly-released collection offers a comprehensive introduction to the Microsoft suite of Virtualization products. Collection 6333 includes four two-hour clinics, covering Hyper-V and Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, and Microsoft Application Virtualization.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/elearning/course/6333.mspx

Hyper-V: Virtual Machine Bus cannot find enough resources

A few weeks ago my colleague installed Hyper-V onto her laptop and she copied one of her Virtual Machines onto this server.
When she booted the server there where some issues with the virtual machine, the main issue was that the vmbus technology was not available.
After a bit of troubleshooting I find out where the problem was.

I’ve looked into the device manager and saw that the Virtual Machine bus failed to load.

In the details pane of this device you can see the following error:

The device cannot find enough free resources that it can use. Basically this means that the VMBus cannot load. This is due to the fact that this VM was build on a non Hyper-V platform and therefore using a wrong HAL. The HAL running in the VM must be an APIC HAL. Now with Windows Server 2008 and Vista you can force to detect the correct HAL during the boot process. This is disabled by default but I will show you how you can enable it. First, open the System Configuration tool by running “msconfig”.

Next click onto the “Boot” tab and select the “Advanced Options”.

Click onto “Detect HAL” and close the tool and reboot the server. Once the server is rebooting it will detect the new HAL and install everything that is needed. If you open the device manager again you will see that the VM is now a “ACPI x86-based PC” (you can find this under the computer settings).  After the reboot you can uncheck the “Detect HAL” option in msconfig.

I hope this helps.

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.2 Release for Beta!

Many of our customers do not know what computers are in their IT environment or what applications have been deployed.  The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 3.2 Beta makes it easier for customers and partners to quickly identify what servers, workstations, and network devices are in their IT environment. MAP also makes specific and actionable IT proposals and reports to help customers get the most value out of Microsoft products and infrastructure. Over 500,000 Microsoft customers and partners have already used the MAP Toolkit and its prior versions including one of our Luxembourg customers Banque de Luxembourg.

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is a scalable and agent-less assessment platform designed to make it easier for our customers to adopt the latest Microsoft technologies. In this latest version, MAP has expanded its assessment capabilities to include SQL Server 2008, Security Assessment Proposal, Forefront/NAP migration, Microsoft Online Services, as well as providing a Power Savings assessment to help your customers “go green.”

In summary, MAP 3.2 assessment areas now include:

• SQL Server 2008 Migration Proposals and Reports (NEW!) 
• Security Assessment Proposal (NEW!) 
• Forefront/NAP Readiness Proposals (NEW!) 
• Microsoft Online Services Migration Surveys, Proposals, and Reports (NEW!) 
• Power Savings Proposals (NEW!) 
• Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 Migration Proposals and Reports (NEW!) 
• Server Migration Reports and Proposals (Windows Server 2008 and “virtualized guests by hosts” reporting) (NEW!) 
• Server Consolidation Reports and Proposals (Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Hyper-V)
• Desktop Security Assessment to determine if desktops have anti-virus and anti-malware programs installed and up-to-date, or if the Windows Firewall is turned on
• Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 Hardware Assessment Reports and Proposal

Download Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.2 BETA (Live ID login and registration required

Read MAP Toolkit Case Study: See how Banque de Luxembourg benefitted from using the MAP Toolkit

SCVMM 2008 IS RTM!

System Center Virtual Machine manager is RTM! Microsoft made an announcement today on theire website!

Microsoft is pleased to announce the release to manufacturing (RTM) of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 – the next generation of Microsoft’s solution for managing the virtualized infrastructure. A key member of System Center – a centralized, enterprise-class suite of data center management products -- Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 enables customers to configure and deploy new virtual machines and centrally manage physical and virtual infrastructure from one console. New to this version of VMM is multi-vendor virtualization platform support, Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) and enhanced support of “high availability” host clusters, among other new features.

You can donwload an evaluation version here.

Greetz,

Alexandre

http://scug.be/blogs

Interesting Virtualization links

Whilst preparing for the TechNet Virtualization roadshow I came across some interesting links to help me with the configuration of the integration of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and System Center Operations Manager 2007.

Opsmgr 2007 Management Pack for Windows Server 2008:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3529D233-5E3E-4B51-8F66-5D6F27005EC3&displaylang=en

How to integrate SCVMM and Opsmgr 2007:

Please follow the following blogposts to integrate both products and have the Pro Tips enabled: http://blogs.technet.com/rakeshm/archive/2008/07/08/scvmm-2008-and-ops-manager.aspx

Hyper-V update for issues that may occur when you manage the Hyper-V role on the 64-bit editions of Windows Server 2008 by using SCVMM:

After the integration services are installed, performance counters for storage devices that are attached to the emulated IDE controller are not reported. For example, the performance counters for storage devices report 0 even though files are being transferred on the related storage devices.

Virtual machines may stop responding while performance monitor data is being collected.
The Hyper-V Networking Management Service may stop responding to incoming requests.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956589

TechEd IT Professional EMEA: Windows Server Track

With the TechEd IT Professional EMEA  coming closer I wanted to start share some of the top sessions in different tracks in this first post I will share with you what I think will be the 5 best rated or attended sessions in my track:

Windows Server 2008R2 Hyper-V: Feature Dive

Want to get a sneak peek at what’s new in Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008 R2? This session focuses on the new capabilities of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. The session also covers the base architecture of Hyper-V and provides guidance on key areas like storage management, performance and more.

Jeff Woolsey
Product Manager

Pushing the Limits of Windows

Windows manages many resources, both physical (such as RAM and CPUs) and logical (such as virtual memory, files, processes and handles). There are limits to the amount of these resources Windows makes available and when they are exhausted because of application resource leaks or oversubscription the system can operate with reduced functionality. This session explains how Windows manages these resources, each resource's limit, the internal constraints and implementation from which a limit derives and how to monitor resource usage. Demos using resource stressing tools highlight the impact of hitting some of these limits.

Mark Russinovich
Technical Fellow

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008: Advanced Features

Get a sneak peek at advanced features of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. This session discusses features such as VMware system management, Windows Server 2008 Cluster integration, Quick Migration, and advanced resource management.

Edwin Yuen
Technical Product Manager

Going Cold Turkey on the GUI: Server Core Setup Step-by-Step

For years you’ve known it: you’ve just GOT to get more familiar with the command line. You get things done faster, you can create simple batch files for automating many tasks, and, best of all, when you’re working from the GUI, then your boss starts to think, “hey, what IS that thing he/she’s using? We need to pay techie employees like them more money!” Well, Windows 2008 command-line-only Server Core has arrived, so here is your opportunity. Picking up where his popular “Command Windows from C: Level” talk left off, Mark Minasi walks you through the process of building a Server Core server from setup to initial configuration to full-blown DNS, Active Directory, and more. Every step includes the specific commands, options, and working examples to ease the path from "GUI admin" to "command-line ninja!"

Mark Minasi

Windows Server 2008 R2 Overview

This session will provide you an overview of the new technologies in Windows Server 2008 R2, the scenarios, features, benefits and the development philosophy behind the product. We will discuss new Management Technologies, Virtualization Enhancements, Scalability features and enabling the remote workforce.

Iain McDonald
General Manager

Also check out my interview with the Virtual TechEd crew:

October Edition of TechNet Magazine Online

Virtualization: An Introduction to Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008
The introduction of Hyper-V makes virtualization an even more compelling solution for IT environments. Get an overview of today’s virtualization market and see how Hyper-V improves the manageability, reliability, and security of virtualization.

Virtualization: Manage Your Virtual Environments with VMM 2008
System Center Virtual Machine Manager provides a consolidated interface for managing your virtual infrastructure. The latest version adds support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, as well as for VMware virtual machines. Explore the new features and get an overview of using VMM to centralize your management tasks.

Virtualization: Getting Started with Microsoft Application Virtualization
Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) allows you to deliver virtualized desktops to client systems throughout your organization. This simplifies system management and liberates employees from their desktops. Take a close look at how App-V works and discover how you can deploy it in your organization.

Virtualization: Achieving High Availability for Hyper-V
Consolidating servers onto fewer physical machines has many advantages, but it is extremely important that you plan for your systems to be highly available. Here’s a guide to using Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering to bring high availability to your Hyper-V virtual machines.

Virtualization: Backup and Disaster Recovery for Server Virtualization
Virtualization brings significant changes to disaster recovery. Here’s an introduction to how the Microsoft virtualization platform factors into your disaster recovery plan, as well as a deeper look into backup and restore options and considerations for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

Virtualization: Essential Tools for Planning Your Virtual Infrastructure
Is your infrastructure ready for virtualization? The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, a network-wide infrastructure assessment tool, can help you better understand your IT infrastructure and determine whether your systems are ready for upgrade or migration to a variety of technologies, including virtualization.

“Get Virtual Now” Launch event with Demo of “Live Migration”

Later tonight we will officially launch our new virtualization products with the “Get Virtual Now” campaign but the news is on the web now. Now you can virtualize from the data center to the desktop, and manage with the same tools you're already using for your physical infrastructure.

Here are some excerpt of the press release:

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, a new hypervisor-based server virtualization product, will be released within 30 days and be available at no cost via the Web. Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 provides a simplified, reliable, and optimized virtualization solution that allows customers to consolidate Windows or Linux workloads onto a single physical server. Hyper-V Server 2008 allows customers to leverage their existing patching, provisioning, management and support tools, processes and skills.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 will be released within 30 days. System Center Virtual Machine Manager enables customers to configure and deploy new virtual machines and centrally manage their virtualized infrastructure, whether running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 or VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3. System Center Virtual Machine Manager is part of the System Center suite of products, which provides centralized, enterprise-class management of physical and virtual resources across desktops and datacenters.

Microsoft demonstrated for the first time a live migration feature of Windows Server 2008 R2. Live migration utilizes the integrated hypervisor technology and high-availability features of the server operating system so that customers can move running applications between servers to accommodate changing, dynamic computing needs across a datacenter. In addition to other features, the next version of Microsoft Hyper-V Server will have live migration capabilities.

Watch the live keynote to see the Live Migration features from Windows Server 2008 R2 in action: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/virtualization/default.mspx

Last week Microsoft released Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, which gives desktop users a boost in fully harnessing the power of Windows Vista by streaming resource-heavy applications to the desktop. This helps eliminate potential software conflicts driving desktop stability and performance, while simultaneously enabling IT managers to centrally control key applications and their use. Application Virtualization 4.5 will be included as part of Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2008 R2, which is due for general availability in the coming weeks.

The Full press release

TechDays are coming to Luxembourg

The “TechDays 08” are coming to Luxembourg on Sept 30th, the registration for this event is open.

It’s a free event organized by the MS Belux team so be quick to register as places are limited.
During this event you will have the possibility to choose between two tracks one track for developers and one for IT Pro’s.

In the IT Pro track we will have Vista SP1 Deployment, Group Policy Preferences and a SQL 2008 session. We will finish the day with three Virtualization sessions which will help you to understand the Microsoft Virtualization offering from the desktop to the datacenter.

Check out the agenda here: http://www.microsoft.com/belux/techdays08/agenda.aspx.

How to Enable Reporting in Virtual Machine Manager 2007

This week I imported the virtual management pack in our opsmgr. Now I wanted to see my Opmsgr reports from my vmm 2007 console.

Based on the info on technet this is the procedure the configure your vmm for reporting:

Use the following procedure to enable reporting in Virtual Machine Manager after you deploy the Server Virtualization Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007, set up your report server in Operations Manager, and have the Operations Manager administrator add you to the Report Operator role in Operations Manager. For more information about deploying the Management Pack, see Setting Up Reporting.

Until you perform this procedure, Reporting view is not displayed and reports are not available in the Virtual Machine Manager Administrator Console.

To enable reporting in Virtual Machine Manager

1. In Administration view, click Settings in the navigation pane, and then, in the results pane, click Reporting Settings.

2. In the Actions pane, under Settings, click Modify.

3. To enable reporting, in the Reporting Settings dialog box:

a. Select the Enable reporting check box.

b. Specify the URL for the Operations Manager report server in the following format: http://<OpsMgrReportServer>/reportserver, where <OpsMgrReportServer> is the name of your report server and /reportserver is the default name of the report server virtual directory.

4. To add Reporting view to the Administrator Console, close and reopen the console.

5. To display Reporting view, click the Reporting button beneath the navigation pane.

6. To display the Virtual Machine Manager reports, click Reports in the navigation pane.

The results pane lists the Virtual Machine Manager reports. If you do not see any reports, you might not have been added to the Report Operator role in Operations Manager. Contact your Operations Manager administrator to arrange this.

Grtz,

Alexandre Verkinderen

http://scug.be/blogs

TechNet Spotlight: TechEd IT Professionals 2008 Videos

TechEd IT Professionals 2008- Available Videos

TechEd IT  Professionals 2008 Event Page: http://www.microsoft.com/emea/spotlight/event.aspx?id=104

Links to Session Videos:

• Introduction to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Susan Sauls
• Intro to SQL Server Data Services,  Soumitra Sengupta
• The Spy Who Hacked Me! , Alex Smolen, Rudolph Araujo
• How Microsoft SQL Server Helps You to Lower Your Cost of Storage, Torsten Grabs
• Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008: Overview, Edwin Yuen
• Advances Microsoft SQL Server PowerShell Tips and Tricks, Dan Jones
• Technical Introduction to Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007, Jason Buffington
• Introduction to Microsoft Forefront Code Name "Stirling", Brad Wright
• Windows, PowerShell, and Windows Management Instrumentation: Unveiling Microsoft's Best Kept Secret,  Ben Pearce
• Windows Logins Revealed, Mark Minasi
• Windows Security Boundaries Mark Russinovich
• Deploying Windows Server 2008 Hyper V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Best Practices Edwin Yeun, Alan Stewart
• Deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Ryan Casey
• Microsoft System Center Service Manager Paul Ross, Travis Wright
• Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V: Scripting & Programmatic Management for Fun & Profit (VBS & PowerShell), John Kelbley, Alexander Lash

Virtualization Solution Accelerators

Here is a list of the different Virtualization Solution Accelerators we have at Microsoft:

1. Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 for Hyper-V and App-V - http://www.microsoft.com/MAP
   
2. Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides for Hyper-V, App-V and SCVMM 2008 http://www.microsoft.com/IPD
   
3. Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501231.aspx
   
4. Security Compliance Management Tool http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc677002.aspx
   
5. Windows Server 2008 Security Guide http://www.microsoft.com/WSSG
   
6. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit http://www.microsoft.com/deploymentlidays

There will be some breakout sessions covering the Solution Accelerators at TechEd IT Professional

Updating your Virtual Machines and SCVMM to support Hyper-V RTM

Today I finally found the time to update my demo environment which was still based on Hyper-V RC0 and SCVMM 2008 Beta. I want to share all the steps needed to perform the upgrade and updates. My demo environment consists out of 3 physical servers, one dc and two Hyper-V machines all in the same domain. My SCVMM 2008 Beta is running as a virtual machine on Hyper-V.

First of all I’ve deleted all my snapshots and then updated my Hyper-V machines to RTM by installing the KB950050 which is now available through windows update. Installing this update requires a reboot and  also make sure to take the following guidelines into consideration:

• Saved state files are not supported between the Release Candidate (RC) and the release version of Hyper-V. All virtual machines should be shut down correctly before you install the release version of Hyper-V.
  Note If you have already applied the release version of Hyper-V, virtual machines in a saved state will not start.

• Snapshot files are not supported between the Release Candidate (RC) and release version of Hyper-V. All virtual machine snapshots should be deleted by using the "Delete Snapshot Subtree" option for each virtual machine.
  Note After you delete the snapshots and after you shut down the virtual machines, the changes that exist in the snapshot files (.avhd files) will merge into the parent virtual hard disk file (.vhd).
  This operation can take a while. To verify that the snapshots have merged into the parent virtual hard disk file, locate the snapshots, and then verify that no .avhd files exist.

Note The saved state and snapshot files are compatible if you are upgrading from Release Candidate 1 (RC1) to the release version of Hyper-V.

The next step is to install the same patch onto my Domain Controller so I have the new Hyper-V management tools installed.

So I have now updated my 3 physical machines to the latest updates and in the next steps I will update all my virtual machines.

The last step in the process is to install the SCVMM 2008 patch, unfortunately I found out that I had an older version of SCVMM Beta (2.0.3193.0) running and I had to upgrade this one to the latest beta version  (2.0.3194.0) and then apply the patch needed to support Hyper-V RTM. The SCVMM patch can be found onto connect.microsoft.com

The upgrade process is pretty straightforward and takes not much time but be aware of the reboots needed.

Presenting @ KulenDayz

Last Saturday I presented at an event in Croatia called KulenDayz (aka Cool’n’days). Kind of funny to present at a Sausage (salami) event. Sausage? Yes Kulen means sausage and actually it’s a local spicy sausage, tastes nice.

This event is organized by the community for the community. So my journey towards Croatia started with a short flight to Zagreb where I spent a few hours into the Microsoft office. Then we had to travel for almost 4 hours towards the event location in Beli Manastir.

I really enjoyed to be there I must say that the community did a tremendous job organizing this event. The location is perfect, I have a very nice hotel room with my personal steam bath :).

There are several MVP from the region that came to the event to talk to other members of the community and to my surprise I was not the only Belgian guy in the room, one of our own MVP’s Marc Gregoire also traveled to Croatia to join the event.

I had quite some attendees at my Hyper-V session and I told them at the end of my session that I would be around during the day and if they had any questions around Hyper-V they just could grab me and buy me a beer. I had to drink many beers :)

I hope they will invite me back next year.

SCVMM 2008 Beta – Hotfix for Hyper-V RC1

Install this update to enable Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta (VMM) to function with Release Candidate 1 (RC1) to the Hyper-V role. After you install this update, you may have to restart your computer. Once you have installed this update, it cannot be removed

Download: http://connect.microsoft.com

Note: Before installing this hotfix your Hyper-V needs to be RC1. With this update you cannot manage Hyper-V RC0 hosts.

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition evaluation VHD's

Windows Server 2008 Evaluation Enterprise Edition and Server Core Evaluation Virtual Hard Drive Images are now available for Hyper-V and Virtual Server

• Download the Hyper-V VHD's from here
• Download the Virtual Server VHD's from here

Hyper-V RC1 released

Earlier this week we released the Hyper-V RC1 package to the connect.microsoft.com site.

What has been improved:

In addition to bug fixes and stability improvements we also made some additional changes largely based on feedback from customers

• Integration Components For Windows Server 2008 guest’s included in Integration Services Setup Disk
• New Graphics for Hyper-V Manager and Virtual Machine Connection – including a “Now” icon in the snapshot pane
• IPv4 Address Migration - when creating a new Virtual Network bound to an adapter with a static IPv4 address the IPv4 settings are migrated to the new virtual adapter

Here are the different updates:

Windows Server 2008 x64 Hyper-V RC1 Update - KB950049

This is the Hyper-V RC1 package for Windows Server 2008 x64. This package must be installed on Hyper-V server’s (physical machines). 

Windows Server 2008 x86 Hyper-V RC1 Update – KB950049

This is the Hyper-V RC1 package for Windows Server 2008 x86. This package includes only the Hyper-V Management Components for Full Windows installs and the Hyper-V Integration Components for Server 2008 x86

Hyper-V Management For Windows Vista SP1 –KB949587

• Windows Vista SP1 – x86 Update
• Windows Vista SP1 – x64 Update

Note Updating to RC1 is a permanent operation.  Once installed, it cannot be uninstalled.  So you can’t got back to RC0 or Beta after installing RC1.

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2008/05/20/hyper-v-rc1-release-available-on-microsoft-download-center.aspx

Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta Part II

In the first part of this blogpost I’ve explained how you can install and what to expect during the installation of the server components of SCVMM 2008 Beta.

Now we are going through the Console installation ( not much to go through though) and I’ll show how to add a Hyper-V host to SCVMM both using the console or by using PowerShell.

First you install the console and here again it’s very straightforward. First we show you some legal license terms, do a prerequisite check and ask for the installation location/

I’ve installed this onto my Windows Server 2008 (x64) box and the install process added the .Net Framework and PowerShell feature before installing the SVMM Console. After this setup you can run the SCVMM console.

Let’s now add my Hyper-V host.

First of all you need to define which host you will add a domain joined, one in the perimeter or another host.

Fill in the Host server name and go on with the installation. As you can see SCVMM detects which kind of Virtualization technology your host machine is using in my case it was Hyper-V. In the following screens you need to define to which host group you are going to add this machine, define the default storage paths and enable the remote control capability.

In our case we will add this server to the All hosts group and enable the Remote control capability, also not the view script button. Here you have the choice either you click on install or you click on view script and you will then be able to copy the PowerShell script to add this host through PowerShell instead of using the console. Here is how this script looks like:

$Credential = get-credential
$VMHostGroup = Get-VMHostGroup -VMMServer localhost | where {$_.Path -eq "All Hosts"}

Add-VMHost -VMMServer localhost -ComputerName "hysrv02.virtual.local" -Description "" -Credential $Credential -RemoteConnectEnabled $true -RemoteConnectPort 5900 -VmPaths "e:\" -Reassociate $false -RunAsynchronously -VMHostGroup $VMHostGroup

I used the PowerShell script and it went fine, once you run the script there is a job scheduled. You can monitor all steps executed during the job by clicking onto the jobs console.

This is the actual console after adding the host, as you can see on the screenshot he detected all my virtual machines running onto this host.

In the coming days weeks I will be playing with this software more extensively and share my findings with you.

Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta Part I

As I mentioned in me previous post System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 Beta is available for download and as a coincidence (believe it or not but it's true) I installed the bits today to test this new management tool.

The installation process of SCVMM is very straightforward during the setup you have 4 different options you can Install in this post we will focus on the Server and Administration tool, furthermore I’ll show some screenshot's on how to add a Hyper-V host machine and how it recognize my VM’s running onto the physical box.

First I did run the Server setup process.

The install process checks if all pre-requisites are met based on the Hard- and Software Requirements.

Next you need to specify the installation path note that this is not the location where we will store the VM Library it’s just for the SCVMM program files.

Here you have the option either to use an existing SQL Server 2005 Server or to install the SQL Server Express edition, know that the express edition has some limitations compared to the full blown server.

The next step is to define the Library share, this is the location where you can store the different VM templates, offline VHD’s, ISO, scripts, etc ….

By default SCVMM will create the MSSCVMMLibrary share as shown on the above screenshot but you can easily select another share and this can be a local share or an existing share onto a file server for example.

With the installation almost done you now need to define which ports SCVMM will use for the server connection, agent connection and file transfer. If your’e firewall is enabled the install process will try to open those ports.

This concludes the installation of the server components. Now we need to install the management console to be able to manage our virtual environment, note that this can be installed onto another server.

In the part II of this blogpost I’ll go through the Console installation.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta available

It has been announced at MMS conference during Bob Muglia his keynote System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta is publicly available at the connect site.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 enables customers to configure and deploy new virtual machines and to centrally manage their virtualized infrastructure, whether running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 or VMware ESX Server. When used in conjunction with the broad System Center management suite, customers can use SCVMM 2008 to effectively manage both their virtualized and physical servers and applications.

Some of the key features of SCVMM 2008 are:

• Clustering support. You will now be able to support Quick-Migration functionality
• Performance Resource Optimization, this allows Operation Manager support.
• Delegated administration.
• Support for managing Hyper-V and VMware ESX

You can download the beta from: http://connect.microsoft.com/

Notes From the Field: Virtualization Strategy @ the customer

Last week I gave a System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 session for a Belgian partner and I had the opportunity to talk to some of the IT Pro's who attended my session and here is an excerpt of a mail I received from one of those IT Professionals who relies on our Technology to run their infrastructure.

Following your presentation and our discussion, I would like to provide you with more information on my current virtualization strategy & projects :

Strategy

A resources optimization initiative set off a new Infrastructure Strategy. The core approach is centralizing IT resource management achieve consolidation and move forward to a more dynamic infrastructure while reducing costs.

High Level Description and Scope

The main scope is reducing the number of legacy servers via Virtualization Technology. The new Infrastructure relies on high-speed SAN and IP network. The backbone builds on Microsoft System Center and Virtual Server Technologies and SQL 2005 as highly available datatier

Pillars

            Secure

The Infrastructure meets our customers highest security requirements including advanced auditing, reporting, use of strong Kerberos Based authentication and authorization along with SSL encryption

            Integrated

The backbone fully integrates with Active Directory, Exchange and MOM 2005 legacy Infrastructure

            Available - Resilient

High Availability is achieved using Virtual Server 2005R2SP1 and Microsoft Cluster Integration. The resiliency is achieved via System Center Data Protection Manager which provides advanced snapshots and ability to quickly recover virtual machines.

            Scalable and Flexible

The infrastructure has been designed to adapt to the customer demands. Flexibility is achieved via System Center Virtual Machine Manager which delivers fast and efficient provisioning from a single management console. Furthermore the design is ready for next generation Hypervisor Hyper-V

Competitiveness

The chosen solution is highly economical and achieves 45% difference with VMWare competitor while bringing unique advantages.

Hyper-V Network Switch

Hyper-V is changing the way networking works if you compare it to Virtual Server. Today I was reconfiguring my Hyper-V server and suddenly I've lost my RDP connection. Why did I lost my connection to the server? Well I was reconfiguring the networking settings and I wanted to add a network adapter to all my existing Virtual Machines. I created a new network which I called the external network because it was bound to my physical network interface. The moment I clicked on apply the connection was lost. I had to connect my screen and keyboard again to find out what happened, after troubleshooting a bit I saw that my NIC configuration was changed from static to DHCP address.

Why is this happening because when you create a Virtual Network with your physical NIC the way the Parent Partition connects to the network is changed.

The parent partition is actually using a Virtual Nic witch is connected to the physical one through the Virtual Network switch. Ben Armstrong wrote an interesting post about how the networking component changed in Hyper-V

http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/01/08/understanding-networking-with-hyper-v.aspx

Notes From the field: Virtualization, Data Protection Manager and Operations Manager

As promised I'm writing another post about what feedback I receive from our IT Pro's in the IT Pro Momentum Program.

Hyper-V: Installing W2K8 and Hyper-V was very easy.  We’re heavily using Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 and Virtual Machine Manager, and there’s virtually no learning curve in moving to the new version.  Testing of one machine proved that it functioned as expected.  However, it’s only one piece in the puzzle, and with our previous solution, Virtual Server is only one of three distinct parts: Virtualization, Management with VMM, and backups with DPM.  Since the VMM and DPM portions aren’t available, it becomes a solution we can’t truly put through its paces.  I’m anxiously awaiting the Beta of each of those before we get any further.  Also, we plan on soon testing clustering, but are awaiting the installation of a Compellent SAN in February before we can proceed with that piece.  My hope is that by the time we have the SAN installed, the VMM and DPM products will have released their betas, and we’ll be able to fully implement Hyper-V for our Test environment.

SCOM: Installing SCOM was very easy.  Finding and installing the Management packs proved a bit more difficult.  It took me awhile to find the Virtualization Management pack, as I think several websites/blogs/etc. said it should be on Microsoft Connect, but the Beta was already closed.  I think I may have been looking in the time between the Management Pack’s Beta and RTM phase, but I’m not sure.  Looking back and trying to remember, I think the management pack had once been called a virtual server management pack, but then it’s name was changed to Virtualization Management pack.   I also had trouble finding the Data Protection Manager 2007 Management pack, though the 2006 MOM pack was available.  I also had trouble finding the current Dell Management pack, and once found, I had trouble using it.  The installation was simple enough, but once installed, it started generating an enormous amount of errors on all the machines.  I’m not sure why.  The errors were WMI related.  It may have had to do with versions of OpenManage, firewalls, or something totally different.  Not sure on that one.

The part that I’ve found most difficult so far with SCOM is customizing the overrides and rules.  Just installing the management packs and walking away results in an extreme number of unnecessary emails, so for the time being, I’ve turned email off.  For example, I might get twenty emails that servers can’t be contacted, followed by twenty emails 1 minute later saying that the problem is resolved.  I didn’t find configuring overrides for these emails to be as intuitive as I’d like.  I’ve not yet had time to find a book that describes how to properly configure the overrides, so that’s where this installation is waiting at the moment.

Deploying and managing an infrastructure is not always the easiest thing to do it requires a lot of skills, skills that can be learned through either the TechNet sites or by following a training in one of our training centers. A course, webcast or whitepaper's are different ways to increase your knowledge but you will (and I did) learn the most in real life environments. It's great to hear how IT Pro's are using our Technology within their infrastructure, do you want to share your experience with other IT Pro's just let me know and I'll put it onto this blog.

If you are looking for the Virtual Server 2005 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007, stop looking you can download it from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=de65b061-49bb-4619-9b2c-31d0f165221f&DisplayLang=en

Data Protection Manager 2007 Management Pack Guide for Operations Manager 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=81a7287d-4e55-499a-b7e3-4ea8cc992fb3&DisplayLang=en

Data Protection Manager 2007 Management Pack for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=fe7b09bd-cef0-4b96-9ffd-910e6be7fcea&DisplayLang=en