Have you had an opportunity to look at the new System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta, yet? Are you confused as to all of the new features and capabilities and how do I learn about all of this good, new stuff?
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a place where I can get a guided evaluation of this product? Perhaps, I could join a community where I would have these new features all broken down for me in digestible chunks, taught to me by the folks that make the product, and have a forum for asking questions and sharing ideas with my peers.
Well, you can! Starting Thursday, May 26th, 2011 the Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta Community Evaluation Program begins.
For all the details and a link to sign up, see NEXUS SC: The System Center Team Blog.
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv
Have you ever wondered how we pull off an event like TechEd 2011 where we have to setup the demo environments at the different SIM Pods for all of the different products we have? If so then here’s a special behind the scenes view into how we did it":
With System Center our products are working together, and it isn’t something that we can show with just 1 VM. We can’t really rely on RDP’ing back to Corp, and it is really challenging to bring extra equipment (Pelican Cases, extra baggage charges, breakage, etc.). What we were able to do, was a brilliant little plan concocted by us and one of our partners, HynesITe.
They built us a Private Cloud to host all of the demo vms for the SIM TLC Pods. Using System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta, they created a “Cloud” for each POD, and we were able to log into the system and only see the VMs we had access to, but could manage them ourselves as needed. This showed the true tenants of Private Cloud. We had a shared environment, that was elastic as resource needs changed, it allowed for Self Service, and we were metered by use…
For all the details of what exactly went into building something like this, see Showing the Private Cloud on our own Private Cloud at TechEd 2011 on Nexus SC: The System Center Team Blog.
Hi everyone, Biddappa Berera here, and today I’d like to talk about the scaling of services deployed to hostgroups and private clouds in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012. A service in VMM 2012 is a logical grouping of virtual machines that the user can manage as a single entity. Each service is backed with a service template that contains the configuration details pertinent to the service.
A service can contain one or more tiers, each of which is made up of a number of virtual machines with identical configurations. The minimum, maximum and default number of virtual machines (instances) per tier can be configured on the computer tier template for that tier. A service is initially deployed using the default instance count for each tier.
During periods of higher load on the service it may be necessary to increase the number of virtual machine instances for the tier. Similarly, the number can be brought down during leaner load periods. To achieve these goals, VMM 2012 has two new operations. The number of virtual machines can be increased using the Scale Out action on a tier or the number of virtual machines can be decreased by removing a virtual machine (Scale In).
We will take a look at both these operations.
This section will use a single tier Web service that is configured behind a load balancer as an example.
In the Services workspace, a ‘Scale Out’ action is available on the ribbon via the Service tab. The same action is available on the context menu (displayed by right-clicking the selected object) after you select the service that you want to scale out. In VMM 2012, a single virtual machine can be scaled out per service at a time.
To scale out a service, just select the service and use the Scale Out action on the context menu or on the ribbon.
This action will launch the Scale Out Virtual Machine Tier Wizard.
Since the service has only one tier, we will select that tier from the Machine Tier drop-down list and proceed to the next wizard page.
On the next page, let us provide a name for the scaled out virtual machine instance and proceed.
On the next page, let us select a host for the instance based on the placement ratings and proceed.
The next wizard page provides us configuration settings for the new virtual machine, which can be edited as required. We shall retain the defaults and proceed.
The following wizard page specifies additional properties for the virtual machine instance which specify what action to take on the virtual machine when the host is started or stopped. We shall again choose the defaults and proceed to the summary screen.
The last wizard page displays a summary of settings.
After we are satisfied with the settings, we shall proceed to scale out the tier by clicking the Scale Out button. This action also closes the wizard.
We can monitor the progress of the job by viewing it in the Jobs workspace.
The scale-out operation creates a new virtual machine with a configuration that is identical to other virtual machines in the tier. It also deploys any applications, OS roles/ features that are required for that tier. Once this is done, the virtual machine that we are using in this example is configured behind the load balancer that is on the tier.
VMM 2012 automatically calculates the Upgrade Domain value for this virtual machine instance based on the Number of upgrade domains for the tier as well as the existing number of instances on the tier. Upgrade domains provide a partitioning of the virtual machines on a tier when servicing the service. All virtual machines in the same upgrade domain are serviced together. This allows virtual machines in other upgrade domains to remain connected to the service (allows the service to be up) during the servicing.
After the job is completed, the scaled out virtual machine instance is listed under the service in the VM and Services workspace.
Windows PowerShell Method
To perform the same operation using the Windows PowerShell – Virtual Machine Manager command shell, we can use the following cmdlets:
New-SCVMConfiguration -ComputerTier -Name
This call will create a VMConfiguration for the computer tier that is being scaled out.
After this is done, we shall invoke placement on this VMConfiguration by using the following cmdlet:
Update-SCVMConfiguration -VMConfiguration
This will result in the VMConfiguration being updated with placement information such as the target and virtual machine path.
Finally, we can run the next cmdlet to scale out the tier:
New-SCVirtualMachine -ScaleOutVMConfiguration -Name
In VMM 2012, a tier is scaled in by using the Delete virtual machine action. In the VMs and Services workspace, a Delete virtual machine action is available on the context menu (displayed by right-clicking the selected object) after you select the virtual machine. The action is also available on the ribbon.
In order to scale in a service tier, the virtual machine must to be in a Powered off state.
When you select the Delete action, you will see a confirmation prompt. Selecting Yes causes the virtual machine to be deleted. Selecting No cancels the operation.
Deleting a virtual machine in VMM 2012 will remove all the configuration files and disks associated with it on the host.
After the operation is completed, the virtual machine will no longer be listed under the tier in the VM and Services workspace.
To perform the same operation using Windows PowerShell, we can use the following cmdlets:
Remove-SCVirtualMachine -VM
The VM parameter is the virtual machine that is being scaled in.
For services that are deployed in a private cloud, the scale-out action is available, albeit in a slight different form to account for the private cloud environment.
We will consider a single tier service that is deployed in a private cloud by a member of self-service user role as an example.
Selecting the Scale Out action from the context menu for a service or from the ribbon launches the Scale Out Virtual Machine Tier Wizard.
Since the service has a single tier, let us select that tier and proceed.
On the next wizard page we can provide any additional properties for the virtual machine and proceed. Notice that when a self-service user scales out a virtual machine in a private cloud, there was no host selection screen.
The next wizard page is the summary of settings.
To complete the operation, click the Scale Out button.
As with administrators, self-service users can monitor the job in the Jobs workspace.
After completion of the operation, the virtual machine will be listed under the tier in the VM and Services workspace.
New-SCVirtualMachine -ComputerTier -Name
This call will create a scaled out virtual machine for the computer tier using the name that was specified.
Scale-in for private cloud services is similar to that of services deployed to a host group. The operation is performed by using the Delete action for the virtual machine.
The virtual machine needs to be in a powered off state to be scaled in.
The Delete virtual machine action is available in the context menu or on the ribbon.
Similar to the hostgroup case, a warning is shown upon selection of the action. Selecting Yes on the dialog will result in the virtual machine being scaled in. After operation is completed, the virtual machine is no longer listed in the VM and Services workspace.
This call will remove the virtual machine that was input via the VM parameter.
Biddappa Berera | VMM Software Development Engineer
Hi everyone, Rajeet Nair here, and today I’d like to talk about troubleshooting Service Deployment in SCVMM 2012. As you probably know, one of the key new features in VMM 2012 is Service Deployment. Alaks Sevugan has posted blog entries that provide a good overview of Service feature set so if you haven’t reviewed these entries, now would be a good time to review them. In this post I will go over some troubleshooting tips to help diagnose service deployment failures.
Service deployment is a complex multi-step operation. The good thing is that when service deployment operation fails, VMM provides a lot of information about the exact state of the service and virtual machines, that can help guide a user through the next steps. Understanding the steps involved in service deployment will help diagnose the root cause of failures and move past them. So, we will take a look at the workflow involved in deploying a service. Figure 1 below shows a high level sequence of steps in service deployment.
figure 1
In most cases when service deployment fails, simply retrying the job should help you proceed further. The sections below will help you determine how far VMM got along in service deployment, so you can take any actions if needed before retrying the job.
Step 1: Create group of VMs
This step is responsible for creation of all virtual machines that are part of the service and customizing their operating systems. Internally this step performs multiple “new vm from template” operations in parallel. If this step fails, it indicates that VMM could not create or customize one or more vms for the service. Note that since all vm creation tasks go on in parallel, there could also be some vms which were successfully created. The vms that failed creation/customization will have their Status field either set to CreationFailed or Customization failed. If the cause of failure is incorrect parameter specification on Template, you can fix the issue out of band and then retry the job. If VMM can detect that the VM has been customized successfully, it will proceed further with deployment. If the VM is in a state that cannot be fixed out of band, simply delete the VM through VMM and then retry the job. In this case VMM will go ahead and deploy the vm from scratch.
Step 2: Wait For VM Guest To Boot:
This step is responsible for ensuring that the VMs are up and ready state for application deployment. Here VMM tries to connect to the VM guest operating system using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). If this step takes too long (more than 20 minutes) it indicates that VMM server is unable to connect to vms. In this case first thing to check is if the VM was actually customized correctly and is joined to the domain. If not, this is a problem and user should find the root cause of the issue, for example
1. Is the vm connected to the correct network switch? If no, check the LogicalNetwork property on VirtualNetworkAdapter on source VM Template and on physical network adapters on host.
2. Was the correct credentials specified for joining domain?
Note that if VMM is unable to connect to the VM in 60 minutes, the job will timeout and cause the deployment job to fail.
Common Errors in this step include:
1. RPCServerUnavailable: This indicates VMM server is unable to connect to the VM guest. The above mentioned causes are the most common reason for this error. This error could also happen if there is delay in DNS replication, so VMM server is unable to connect to VM. Try pinging the VM using its FQDN and verify if the VM is reachable and correct IP is being shown by ping results. If no, you need to just wait for DNS replication to happen.
2. AccessDenied: This error indicates that VMM Server is unable to connect to the VM using the specified local administrator credentials. The most common reason for this error is that Administrator password specified in Guest OS profile does not match the administrator password in VM guest (the admin password was not cleared out from boot vhd while sysprepping it).
Again if the failure is due to environment issues, retrying the job will help move service deployment along to the next steps. If the error is due to incorrect parameters being specified in the template or Service Configuration, user will need to delete the service and redeploy after fixing the parameters.
Step 3: Deploy Applications to Computer:
This step is responsible for deploying applications into the vm guest. The steps involved here are:
3.1 Install VM Guest Agent:
To facilitate application deployment or roles/features installation, VMM deploys a guest agent inside the VM. If VMM fails to deploy guest agent inside a VM, it puts the VM.ApplicationDeploymentState to DeploymentFailed. VM.ServiceDeploymentErrorMessage will provide information on why the guest agent installation failed. If the error looks like it could be due to network/AD glitch, retrying the job should help move along to next steps of service deployment.
1. Another installation is in progress: If there are patches or updates being installed on the VM (through automatic updates) guest agent installation may fail with error indicating another installation is going on. In such cases, waiting for some time and then retrying the job should help proceed through service deployment.
2. VMM Server unable to communicate with VM using WinRM: This error shows up when patches have been installed on the vm and it requires a reboot of vm for WinRM communication to work. In this case user must reboot the vm and then retry the job.
3.2 Install Server Roles and Features
If server roles and features were specified in the Guest OS Profile, this step will go ahead and attempt to enable the roles and features.
3.3 Deploy SQL Profile
If SQL Server installation fails for some reason, user must go and fix the issue out of band. This is because on retry VMM will skip the failed SQL server installation step and proceed with next step in deployment.
3.4 Deploy Applications
In this step VMM server copies the application packages into the VM and then:
1. If Application Profile contains pre install GCE, execute the GCE.
2. Installs each application that was specified in the Application Profile
a. If preinstall GCE was specified for an application, execute the GCE.
b. Install application
c. If postinstall GCE was specified for application, execute the GCE.
3. If Application Profile contains post install GCE, execute the GCE.
1. GCE execution failed: If the GCE execution failed, user must examine GCE output and error logs to determine the cause of failure. Note that VMM does not rerun the failed GCE when job is retried so user must fix the issue manually or run the GCE himself before retrying the job.
2. Application Deployment Failed: If this step fails, user should examine application deployment logs inside VM guest and determine the reason for failure. If the failure was due to incorrect parameters being passed for application deployment, then:
a. Failed service instance and service configuration must be deleted
b. Incorrect parameter values must be fixed
c. Deploy a new service instance.
VM state fields:
Any time service deployment fails, VMM identifies the VMs that failed to deploy and marks their state so users can easily find them. VMM uses three fields on a VM to specify what state a VM is in and the cause for errors.
1. VM.Status field: If VMM fails to create a new vm or customize it, it will mark the VM status to CreationFailed or Customization Failed.
2. VM.ApplicationDeploymentState: If VMM fails to provision the VM guest for application deployment (e.g. Guest agent install, install roles and features, install SQL Profile, application installation, GCE execution) this field will be set to DeploymentFailed.
3. VM.ServiceDeploymentError: If a guest provisioning step fails for a VM, VMM will populate this field with the exact cause for failure of the step.
Wrapping Up:
I hope this post helps in providing better understanding of steps involved in service deployment. We welcome feedback on this process on VMM TechNet forum. Let us know if you encountered a problem that is not covered here, or if it helped you solve a problem.
Thanks!
Rajeet Nair | Senior Development Lead
Here’s another new System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Knowledge Base article we published this morning. This one tells you how to troubleshoot the "Not Responding" host status in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2:
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This article covers how to troubleshoot the "Not Responding" host status that appears in the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) Administrator Console. The "Not Responding" host status indicates that the VMM server cannot communicate with the host. If this communication is interrupted, even intermittently, you can expect the host status to change in the VMM Administrator Console.
Common errors that are logged in the VMM Administrator Console (Jobs view) when a Host status is Not Responding:
Error (2911) Insufficient resources are available to complete this operation on the server.domainname.com server. (Not enough storage is available to complete this operation (0x8007000E))
Error (2912) An internal error has occurred trying to contact an agent on the server.domainname.com server. (No more threads can be created in the system (0x800700A4))
Error (2916) VMM is unable to complete the request. The connection to the agent server.domainname.com was lost. (Unknown error (0x80338012))
Error (2915) The WS-Management Service cannot process the request. Object not found on the server.domainname.com server. (Unknown error (0x80041002))
Warning (13926) Host cluster clustername.domainname.com was not fully refreshed because not all of the nodes could be contacted. Highly available storage and virtual network information reported for this cluster might be inaccurate.
The Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer 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. The Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer does the following:
System Requirements:
Before you install the Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer, you must download and install the 64-bit version of Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer. To download the MBCASetup64.msi file, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=97952
Note The system requirements for Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer indicate that only Windows Server 2003 is supported. However, the Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer and Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer have been tested and are supported on 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
You must install and run the Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer on the computer that either currently is or will become your VMM server. To review the system requirements for the VMM server, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=133516
To download the Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=02d83950-c03d-454e-803b-96d1c1d5be24&displaylang=en
On all servers that host a VMM or Hyper-V role, verify the recommended hotfixes are installed: 2397711 Recommended hotfixes for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 962941 Recommended hotfixes for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
Virtual Machine Manager depends very much on the Windows Remote Management service for underlying communication. Therefore, the "Not Responding" status is very likely to occur because of an error in the underlying Windows Remote Management communication between the VMM server and the host computer. In this case, the status is "OK" shortly after you restart the host computer, however the status changes to "Not Responding" after 3 to 4 hours and jobs on the VMM server fail with errors like the example below:
Error (2927) A Hardware Management error has occurred trying to contact server server.contoso.com. (Unknown error (0x803381a6))
Recommended Action Check that WinRM is installed and running on server server.contoso.com. For more information use the command "winrm helpmsg hresult".
Additionally, if you stop the Windows Remote Management service at a command prompt, it takes much longer than usual to be completed. Sometimes, it can take up to five minutes to stop.
This problem can occur if the shared Svchost.exe process that hosts the Windows Remote Management service is backed up.
To resolve this problem, configure the Windows Remote Management service to run in a separate Svchost.exe process. To do this, open an elevated command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER.
Note Make sure that you type the command exactly as it appears here. Notice the space after the "=" symbol. c:\>sc config winrm type= own
If the command is completed successfully, you see the following output: [SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS
1. On each server open an elevated command prompt to perform the following steps.
2. Windows 2008R2 AND Windows 2008 SP2 machines. Use the following command to increase the default value for WinRM timeout.
winrm set winrm/config @{MaxTimeoutms = "1800000"} 3. Windows 2008R2 AND Windows 2008 SP2 machines. (Windows 2008 R2 servers may report not needing this step)
winrm set winrm/config/Service @{MaxConcurrentOperations="200"} 4. Windows 2008R2 AND Windows 2008 SP2 machines. (Windows 2008 SP2 servers may report not needing this step)
winrm set winrm/config/Service @{MaxConcurrentOperationsPerUser="400"} 5. Windows 2008R2 AND Windows 2008 SP2 machines:
net stop winrm net start winrm net start vmmagent
This problem also occurs because the VMM server computer account is removed from the local Administrators group on the host computer. This setting may be caused by the "Restrictive Groups" Group Policy setting.
For more information about this cause, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 969164Virtual Server or Hyper-V host may have a status of "Not Responding" or "Needs Attention" due to Restricted Groups group policy setting
To resolve this problem, move the VMM server and host computers to a new organizational unit (OU) that blocks inheritance of all Group Policy objects.
You must disable TCP Offloading in Windows, in the registry, and in any network adapter teaming management software that is being used. You must check all these locations to make sure that TCP Offloading is completely disabled. This operation must be performed on both the VMM server and the host computer.
Locate all network adapters in the registry under the following subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
There are additional subkeys under this subkey that are named with four digits, starting with "0000." Locate the subkeys that show the physical network adapter names on the details pane. Find the "DriverDesc" value on the details pane. This value should contain the name of a network adapter, such as "HP NC360T PCIe Gigabit Server Adapter." For each of these subkeys, make the following changes:
Disable all vendor-specific offloading. Set values for any entries that include the word "Offload" to "0" (disabled). For example, these entries include the following:
To disable TCP Offloading in Windows, use the following registry entry for task offloading for the TCP/IP protocol: Subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\TCPIP\Parameters
Entry: DisableTaskOffload Type: REG_DWORDYou can set this registry entry to 1 to disable all task-offloading from the TCP/IP transport.
Many vendors have some forms of offloading capabilities built into their teaming management software. Such offloading can appear in many forms and is usually vendor-specific.
For more information about offloading, visit the following Microsoft Developer Network Web site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa938424.aspx
Some other causes that are potential causes of this problem include the following:
You can put the VMM accounts into the appropriate groups according to the following. VMM server machine account:
The account for actions in VMM:
The information above was published today in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article written by Mike Briggs:
KB976640 - How to troubleshoot the "Not Responding" host status in SCVMM 2008 and in SCVMM 2008 R2
If you’ve been following the blogging efforts of the System Center support and product teams for any length of time then you know we have quite a few different blogs based on the technology or product we focus on. For example, we have the App-V blog, the DPM blog, the ConfigMgr 2007blog, Nexus SC plus many many more, and we do that because sometimes maybe you want DPM info but don’t care about App-V (or vice versa), but what if you’re like so many of our customers and actually do use most of the System Center products together and you want an easier way to track all the content we publish? Well that’s a common request that we get so I decided to setup a single site that mirrors all of the feeds from our most popular System Center sites all in one place. Now by subscribing to a single site you can get all of your favorite System Center content pushed right to your desktop. Here are the feeds I’m mirroring:
I named this blog System Center Unlimited mainly because that’s kind of what it is, an unlimited view into the official System Center universe, so if this sounds like something you’d like then check it out at the link below and let me know what you think:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcentertech
And don’t forget, you can still get all this same information by following me on Twitter or by becoming a fan on Facebook.
Enjoy!
Hi everyone, Konstantin Zoryn here, and today I’d like to talk about importing and exporting Templates in SCVMM 2012. System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 (VMM 2012) allows creating service and virtual machine templates and there are many configuration details captured inside the templates such as hardware description, operating system settings, application settings, network configuration, etc. The ability to save a template as a file on the disk can be very handy when you want to back up a good version of the template or share a template between different environments or multiple VMM installations. This blog post will describe new Import/Export Template actions available for templates in VMM 2012.
Let’s start with template exports. This article will use service template as an example. However, same functionality is available for virtual machine templates as well.
In the Library workspace, an Export action is available on the ribbon, on the Service Template tab. The same action is available on the context menu (displayed by right-clicking the selected object) after you select templates that you want to export. One or many templates can be exported at the same time.
To export templates, just select the templates and use the Export action on the context (right-click) menu or on the ribbon.
The Export action opens the Export Template Resources dialog box.
The following options are available as part of the export operation:
· Override existing export files. If the file with the same name is present at destination location it will be overridden.
· Export sensitive template settings. If this option is cleared, the exported service template will not contain any private information. That includes passwords, product keys, and application and global settings that are marked as secure.
· Encrypt template settings. This option allows to specify an encryption password for sensitive template settings if choose to export them. Note, that only content of the sensitive setting is encrypted.
· Location – Specify a destination folder path. The destination path doesn’t need to be on the library server. It can be any network share or local disk location accessible by the Admin Console user. The default file name is a combination of name and release properties of the template, e.g. “StockTrader Service Template.v1.xml”.
Please note that VMM 2012 Beta only exports and imports single XML file containing metadata about the template. All physical resources must be exported and imported out of band.
“View Script” button opens Notepad window with PowerShell script for the operation:
Use the Import Template action in the Library workspace to import a service or virtual machine template in VMM 2012. Open Home tab on the ribbon, then select the Import Template action.
This starts the Import Package Wizard. On the Select Package page, You will be asked to select a template file on the disk. There is an option to choose importing sensitive template settings (password, product keys, etc.) as part of the import operation or ignore them.
The next page of Import Package Wizard - Configure References - displays all external resources used in the package. The screen below shows references for a sample service template.
The references include two categories of external resources:
The Usage column contains the name of the machine tier or the application host template where the resource is used.
When you import a template, VMM tries to find the best match for each resource in the destination VMM environment, and displays a warning icon if no match is found. The default mapping is done by matching the Name and Release properties of the resource.
It is also possible to specify different resource mapping using the pencil icon in the rightmost column of the table. The red X icon clears selected resource mapping.
The ability to remap resource references can be very useful if the same resources have different names in the source and destination VMM installations. For example, a base operating system VHD could have the name Win2k8R2Ent.vhd in the original VMM deployment, but have the name “Windows 2008 R2.vhd” in VMM where service template is being imported.
If VMM 2012 does not find an appropriate mapping, and the user does not provide one, the reference to the resource is removed, template is put into “Needs Attention” state and a warning appears on the Import Template job.
The summary of the Import operation is displayed in the end of the wizard. “View Script” button opens Notepad window with PowerShell script for this operation.
After Import job is complete service template appears on the Service Template tab of the Library workspace. Service Template Designer can be used to do further configuration of the template.
Konstantin Zoryn | Software Development Engineer II
I just wanted to let you know about a couple of our System Center support engineers that were recently profiled on Microsoft’s Customer Service & Support (CSS) People First blog. There’s a chance that you might have talked with one of these guys if you’ve worked with any of our System Center products and needed to call us for help with an issue, so if you ever wondered what they look like or where they come from then here’s your chance. And even if you haven’t had the pleasure of working with either, they offer some great insight into what it’s like working in our CTS support organization and at Microsoft as a whole.
The first is Rich Pesenko, a Senior Support Escalation Engineer who specializes in Operations Manager and Mobile Device Manager: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/peoplefirst/archive/2011/04/20/profile-richard-presenko.aspx
Also profiled is our virtualization lead Steve Thomas (aka The Mad Virtualizer) who is also a Senior Support Escalation Engineer and he specializes in App-V, MED-V, VDI and SCVMM: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/peoplefirst/archive/2011/05/06/profile-steve-thomas.aspx
Hi everyone, Alaks Sevugan here, and today I’m going to talk about updating your Services. We have already seen how image based composition makes deployment a breeze, however most of you probably deploy an application once - so the real power in composition is derived from how services are maintained and updated.
Update Process
Let’s walk through how updating a service works. Once the application has been deployed, either the application has to be updated or the OS has to be updated or the machine characteristics have to be updated. Remember, a deployed service is always linked to the service template it was created from. Service templates contain all the VM template definitions.
Here is a typical workflow for updating a Service:
Update Types
VMM will support two types for updating a service – regular updates and image based updates.
In regular updates, changes in the service template are applied to the service instance without replacing the OS image e.g. if you update memory of the VM there is no need to change the OS. Similarly if the new version of the template contains next version of an app, we can go ahead and replace the existing version of the app without losing the app state and this can be done without replacing the OS image.
In image based updates, we will go ahead and replace the old OS image with new image composed of OS and app – again without losing app state. A typical example of this can be moving from existing OS image to an OS image with new patches.
Regular Update
Let’s walk through how Regular updating works. Here is the typical workflow:
Imaged Based Update
Let’s walk through how Image based updating works. Here is the typical workflow:
This shows you how we are able to compose OS, roles/features, applications and the state and manage the lifetime of a service.
So in summary, by making the deployment and updating of a service this easy, you spend less time worrying about root cause analysis and investigation, since you can simply re-deploy from a updated known good configuration and keep service up and running. It also significantly reduces configuration drift, since hundreds or even thousands of services and virtual machines can be composed from only a handful of identical operating system images.
Alaks Sevugan | Senior Program Manager
Hi everyone, Alaks Sevugan here. So, have been following my previous posts on Services Overview and Service Templates? If not, this will be a good time to review the blog posts. In this post, I will be covering how to customize and deploy a Service in VMM 2012.
Let’s say that you have created a service template using the service designer and you are ready to deploy the service. You need to select which Cloud or Host group, you want the service to be deployed to. VMM will run the intelligent placement algorithm for placing multiple VMs in the service on the most appropriate hosts in the host group or cloud in the environment - this will be based on VM requirements and available host resources.
· When the target is a host group, you will be given a preview of each VM in the service and the suitable host it be deployed to. And as part of customizing the deployment, you can choose a different host if you need to.
· When the target is a Cloud, hosts are hidden from the preview and you can customize any of the settings for the deployment or change some of the VM properties.
Ability to provide overrides as a part of Service deployment enables you to author a Service Template once and deploy it to multiple environments – test, dev, production etc., without having to change the Service Template for each environment.
Service Deployment Preview
This is the Service deployment preview in VMM. You can see that this Service has been deployed to the Seattle Test Cloud and none of the host information is shown. Setting values, like database name, connection string etc. that need to be provided as a part of deployment can be provided here as shown.
Service Deployment
Once you have customized and you are happy with the preview, you can go ahead and deploy the service. Here is a typical flowchart that explains Service Deployment:
Job Trail for Service Deployment
As the service is being deployed in VMM, the job trail in the Jobs views gives you the current status of the deployment. All the VMs in each tier are deployed in parallel. Once the VMs are deployed, the applications in each tier are deployed in parallel based on the deployment order.
If the job fails for any reason, the job can be restarted and the job will continue from where it left off. If the job continues to fail, then the specific VMs can be deleted and the job restarted, so the VM get recreated.
If the service deployment job fails, the system does not roll back any changes. You need to delete the failed service and redeployed the service, if the service has to be deployed from the beginning.
Here is a typical Service Deployment Job Trail:
Deployed Service in VMM
When the Service is being deployed or the Service is deployed successfully, the Service can be viewed in the “VM and Services” navigation bar. Here is a typical screenshot for the Services deployed to the host groups:
Deployed Service in OpsMgr
Once a service is deployed, here is a typical layout of what a deployed Service diagram looks like in OpsMgr. This layout is for a Petshop service - Petshop service has 3 tiers Web Tier, Mid Tier and a SQL Tier. This Service Diagram is generated as the Service is being deployed in VMM.
This completes the Service authoring and deployment blogs. In the next blog we will look at how to manage the updates to the Service.
Until next time…enjoy creating, customizing and deploying Services in your environment.