Seit heute ist der Release Candidate des System Center Virtual Machine Managers 2012 verfügbar. An dem Release merke ich, dass es mit großen Schritten in Richtung finale Version geht und der SCVMM 2012 ein wichtiger Baustein im Bereich Private Cloud von Microsoft ist.

Natürlich wurden zahlreiche Bugs behoben und die Performance optimiert. Außerdem wurden div. weitere Funktionen eingebaut.

Herunterladen kann man die RC Version als ISO zum Selber installieren oder als vorbereitete VHD.

Einen Gesamtüberblick über die Rahmenbedingungen und weiterführende Links ist hier zu finden.

Auf der Connect Seite https://connect.microsoft.com/site799/ sind die VHD und zusätzlich noch eine Test- und Demo Applikation namens “Stock Trader” zu finden. Diese Applikation kann in den SCVMM als Service integriert werden.

Hier eine Zusammenfassung über die neuen Funktionen im SCVMM 2012 RC:

  • Setup Upgrade
    • VMM 2008 R2 SP1 > VMM 2012 RC > VMM 2012 RTM
    • VMM 2012 RC > VMM 2012 RTM
  • Fabric Management
    • Hyper-V and Cluster Lifecycle Management – Deploy Hyper-V to bare metal server, create Hyper-V clusters, orchestrate patching of a Hyper-V Cluster
      • ISO or CD-based OSD for environments with DHCP without WDS
      • OSD will now convert dynamic to fixed type of VHD destination
      • All network adapters on host can be configured during provisioning
        • Ability to bypass cluster validation during cluster creation
        • Run cluster validation reports on-demand
        • New Cluster status tab to view an aggregated status and a cluster validation report
        • Ability to see current CSV owner in the properties of the cluster
    • Third Party Virtualization Platforms – Add and Manage Citrix XenServer and VMware ESX Hosts and Clusters
    • Network Management – Manage IP Address Pools, MAC Address Pools and Load Balancers
      • Simplification of the logical networks in the Fabric workspace
      • Ability to see IP addresses that are in use from a IP pool
      • Added support for Microsoft Network Load Balancer
      • Gateway and DNS are no longer mandatory fields for logical networks
      • Load balancer can now support affinity to logical networks
    • Storage Management – Classify Storage, Manage Storage Pools and LUNs
      • Create persistent sessions to iSCSI array and logon initiator to array
      • Better scalability of storage operations – LUN create, snapshot, clone, masking, and unmasking
      • Option to create storage groups per cluster (BETA only supported creation of storage group per node in a cluster)
      • Enablement of MPIO feature when provisioning a new Hyper-V server
      • Automatic MPIO device claim
      • Support for arrays that implement OnePortPerView
    • Update Management- Keep your VMM Fabric Servers (VMM roles, hosts, and clusters) up-to-date with patches.
      • Share a WSUS root server between System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2/ System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Beta
      • Hyper-V Cluster Orchestration- Nodes put into VMM Maintenance Mode can be set to trigger Maintenance Mode in Operations Manager.
  • Resource Optimization
    • Dynamic Optimization – proactively balance the load of VMs across a cluster
    • Power Optimization – schedule power savings to use the right number of hosts to run your workloads – power the rest off until they are needed.
      • Set Operations Manager Mode for powered down hosts
    • PRO – integrate with System Center Operations Manager to respond to application-level performance monitors.
      • Support added for System Center Operations Manager 2012 Beta
      • VMM will ship two sample PRO Packs: Cluster scale out and Service scale out MPs
  • Cloud Management
    • Abstract server, network and storage resources into private clouds
    • Delegate access to private clouds with control of capacity, capabilities and user quotas
    • Enable self-service usage for application administrator to author, deploy, manage and decommission applications in the private cloud
  • Service Lifecycle Management
    • Define service templates to create sets of connected virtual machines, OS images and application packages
      • Service Designer and Specialization UI enhancements
      • Added ability to use Service Template Patterns
    • Compose operating system images and applications during service deployment
      • IP-based provisioning
      • New application instance view
    • Scale out the number of virtual machines in a service
    • Service performance and health monitoring integrated with System Center Operations Manager
    • Decouple OS image and application updates through image-based servicing
      • Streamlined ability to enable OS VHD updates to a Service Template
      • Publish updated Service Templates in order to update Service Instances
    • Leverage powerful application virtualization technologies such as Server App-V

Generell sind Beta und RC Versionen nur in einer Test Umgebung einzusetzen!

Viel Spaß beim Virtualisieren

Alexander Ortha (Technischer Berater Microsoft Server Virtualisierung & Private Cloud)

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