How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 7: Adding our hosts

Hi all, thanks for being so supportive with this series, I’m really glad I can help and your support is keeping me going at a fast pace to deliver to you this series of posts.

Now let’s get to the fun technical part, we will be adding 3 hosts, two of them doesn’t even have Hyper-V installed, so we will do this from the SCVMM Console and add our storage to SCVMM

Prework:

Install Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter in my 2 nodes.
Add them to your domain.
Connect them to my private lab network, as shown in my 3rd post of the series.
Enable MPIO.
Start the iSCSI initiator, just by hitting the windows key and searching for iSCSI and open it.
You will need to install the storage provider in your storage server with this roles and features:

And install MPIO.

Adding the servers:

Go to the console and the Fabric Tab.
Right Click in the All Hosts Folder under Servers.
Select Create a Host Group and name it Standalone.
Repeat the process to create a Clusters group.
Right click in your Standalone group and Add Hyper-V Hosts and Clusters.
Select Windows Server computers in a trusted Active Directory domain and click Next.
Create and select your VMMaction Run As Account from browse and click next.
Remember to add as local admin your VMMaction account, this will be the one we use to manage the servers.
Fill in your Storage computer name and click Next.
Check the box to select your server and click Next.
In the Host Setting select your Standalone host group and click Next.
Finish and check the Jobs for success.
Repeat this steps for node1 and node2 computers.

Creating the Storage Pools. I decided to go with 2 Storage Pools 1 for SSD and another for HDD, so let’s create them in the Storage server.

Go to your Storage server and open server manager.
Select File and Storage Services from the left pane.
Select Storage Pools.
In the right upper corner click tasks and New Storage Pool.
Click Next.
Name it, mine are Fast for SSD, and Slow for HDD, click Next.
Select the disks you want to add to the pool and click Next.
Create.
Repeat for all the pools you need.
Now go back to Storage Pool and from the tasks of virtual disks, select New Virtual Disk.
Click Next.
Select your storage pool and click Next.
Give it a descriptive name, click Next.
Select the type of layout by checking the description, I’m using simple for my lab, click Next.
Select Fixed and click Next.
Select the max size or the amount you want to assign, click Next.
Clock Create.
Go through the new volume wizard with all the defaults just changing the volume name.

We have all our storage configuration in place.

Now let’s add the storage to SCVMM:

Go to your SCVMM Server and open the Console.
Select the fabric tab, right click in File Servers under Storage and Add Storage Devices.
Select Windows-based file server, click Next.
Fill in your storage server name and select your VMMaction account from browse, and click Next.
Wait for the discovery and click Next.
select your Storage Device and click Next.
Finish.
Now right click providers and Add Storage Devices.
Select SAN and NAS devices discovered and managed by a SMI-S provider, click Next.
Select SMI-S WMI, fill in your storage server name and select your VMMaction account.
Wait for the discovery and select the device, click next.
Select the units for the virtual disks you created.
Create a classification like Gold and another like Silver, to differentiate our fast ssd pool from the HDD one.
Finish.