The virtualization of networks in SC VMM has created new possibilities and new challenges. First item of business with any new product is to understand what it is and is not designed to do. This post is intended to help with that.

This illustration was created in conjunction with peers on the VMM and Networking teams. If you find a mistake please contact me so I can evaluate your proposal. I’d love to have to make a change based on customer feedback! Thanks and I hope this helps.

This illustration has been created for educational use. Any inaccuracies in this image are the sole responsibility of the author (jonjor) and not of Microsoft.

Click the image below for a larger picture.

 VMM and Hyper-V Networking Interface Layout

Some very good articles on VMM networking below:

Step-by-Step: Hyper-V Network Virtualization - 31 Days of Favorite Features in #WinServ 2012 ( Part 8 of 31 )

http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2012/10/08/gettingstartedwithhypervnetworkvirtualization.aspx#.UR-s9Jko6pp

Virtual Networking in VMM 2012 SP1 – Part 1

http://blogs.technet.com/b/scvmm/archive/2013/01/08/virtual-networking-in-vmm-2012-sp1.aspx

System Center 2012 SP1 – Virtual Machine Manager

http://blogs.technet.com/b/scvmm/archive/2013/01/15/system-center-2012-sp1-virtual-machine-manager.aspx

Configuring Networking in VMM Overview

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg610596.aspx

  jonjor

What is Microsoft Orchestrator?! This blog now covers SC VMM as well as Orchestrator System Center components. To learn more about Orchestrator follow this link. Now on to troubleshooting…

The Runbook shown below is set up to monitor and send an alert for any new Application log events that have an Event ID of 808. This is a simple Runbook and is an ideal use of Orchestrator. There is a problem in that each time a new event such as the 808 event is logged to the event log, the Orchestrator Event Monitor executes a few times. It should fire only once per new event.

So how do we get around this? Simple. We use the Link following the Event Monitor activity as an additional filter. This of course is not an ideal setup, but it does get around an issue currently in Orchestrator 2012 SP1.

Here is the Runbook

Here are the details of the Event Monitor activity:

Here is the command we use to kick off the monitor.

Here we see that the event caused multiple firings of the Event Monitor.

Here, in the details of the link we set an Include filter for the same event. This will prevent the Event Monitor from firing more than once per new event log event.

With the additional Link setting in place we now have an Event Monitor that performs as we would expect. This issue should be corrected in a future release. No ETA at this time.

  jonjor

Sometimes a Host cannot be added to VMM, especially when there is a cluster involved. The steps below should resolve basic connectivity issues when adding a new host. For information about Hosts If this does not work, see the article just prior to this ‘Managing Hyper-V hosts using Virtual Machine Manager fails with Error: 0x8033803b. Extra remediation steps.’

Adding a Host and Enabling Connectivity

Step 1: Advanced Firewall settings

Open Advanced Firewall settings. Choose ‘Inbound Rules.’ Scroll to the bottom and make sure the five items below are enabled. Below only Windows Remote Management is enabled.

The image below shows all items enabled.

Step 2: Enable File Sharing Role

In ‘Roles and Features’ place a check in ‘File Server’. Reboot is optional but recommended.

  jonjor

Here’s one that might stump you occasionally. You open the Admin Console and instead of popping open you have to wait a few minutes before it opens. Once open all is fine. What happened?! It may have been looking for the SCOM server. If VMM and SCOM are integrated and the SCOM server is down, this can happen. Has this happened to you before? Check the Application event log on the VMM server for the event below. If you see it, this scenario was probably the case. The workaround is to have the SCOM server up when you open the VMM Admin Console.

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Microsoft.SystemCenter.VirtualMachineManager.2012.Monitor.FabricCloudMonitor
Date:          2/15/2013 12:21:49 PM
Event ID:      25935
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      VMM.Widget.com
Description:
AllChildHosts property is null. Can't compute capacity, so monitor wouldn't work

  jonjor

I just resolved a case where remediation as listed in the article below alone did not work, but there are a few things we commonly do that correct the problem. Just put these below what is already there as alternative additional steps. The manual removal and re-addition of the VMM agent is key. Thanks Thomas and Vlad!

KB2795043    Managing Hyper-V hosts using Virtual Machine Manager fails with Error: 0x8033803b after installing WMF 3.0
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2795043/EN-US

Re-install the VMM Agent

1. Remove the VMM agent from the Host using Programs and Features in the Control Panel

2. Re-install the agent using the latest ‘vmmAgent.exe’ in: C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012\Virtual Machine Manager\agents\amd64\3.x. Copy this file locally to the Host before installation.

Re-associate the Host with VMM

1. Follow this article to re-associate the Host with VMM. If this does not work or there are errors, follow step 2.

How to Reassociate a Host or Library Server

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh397799.aspx

2. Open the VMM Admin Console. Open a PowerShell session by clicking the PowerShell button in the top ribbon. Type the following, replacing <HostName> with the system being re-associated:

Reassociate-VMMManagedComputer –VMMManagedComputer <HostName>

- or -

Replace the server in the first line with the name of the VMM server. You will not need to specify the name of the Host to be added.

C:\> Get-VMMServer -ComputerName "VMMServer1.Contoso.com"

C:\> $Credential = Get-Credential

C:\> Get-VMMManagedComputer | where {$_.State -eq "AccessDenied"} | Reassociate-VMMManagedComputer -Credential $Credential

  jonjor