Hi Cluster Fans,
The System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta (SCVMM 2012) has just been released and there are some great high-availability and clustering features coming to simplify datacenter management.
Virtual Machine Manager has become a critical part of the datacenter or private cloud infrastructure, so keeping the VMM Server up and running is essential to maintain service continuity, monitor VMs and provision (or de-provision) VMs to respond to fluctuations in usage. Previously the VMM Server could be unavailable if it crashed, if the server hosting it crashed, or if that server needed to be shutdown for maintenance or patching. With VMM 2012 it is now possible to deploy the VMM Server on a Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster to give it high-availability and mobility between nodes. The failover can be planned (for maintenance) or automatic (in case of a failure) to ensure that VMM remains online. Deploying the VMM Server on a cluster is also very easy – simply begin the configuration on an existing cluster node and the installation process will detect that high-availability is possible and prompt for confirmation. An extra configuration step will appear asking for the standard client access information, such as the IP Address and a friendly name for the group. The VMM Server then should be installed on the other cluster nodes. It is important to note that the configuration of the VMM Library needs to be done on shared storage accessible by all nodes so that the VMM Server can always access the library regardless of which node it is running on. This can be done by creating a clustered File Server.
Virtual Machine Manager 2012 now offers comprehensive management of not only VMs, but also the entire fabric, including networking, storage & clusters. To simplify administration through a single console, it has become important to not only manage Hyper-V host clusters, but be able to deploy them through VMM, including tasks such as cluster creation, along with storage, network, and resource management. This can be done by selecting “Create Hyper-V Cluster” from the Fabric view. A wizard is launched prompting for the cluster name and domain credentials. Next Hyper-V hosts which will be nodes are specified, networking options are selected, Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) can be enabled, then cluster Validation is run, and now the highly-available infrastructure is ready for use. The cluster can even be streamlined as a part of a bare metal deployment during the configuration of the Hyper-V hosts. Furthermore, VMM 2012 gives the option of deploying standalone (non-clustered) VMs on a clustered host. This can be useful when virtualized domain controllers are being deployed because they should not all be clustered as this can lead to bad situation if the entire cluster shuts down. This is because the cluster needs access to a DC to start the clustered VMs, yet if all the DCs are on clustered VMs, then nothing can ever start – so having at least one DC on a non-clustered VM or on a physical server is required.
Cluster patching is one of the most tedious tasks which administrators are faced with as it requires live migrating VMs from a host, pausing the node, patching, rebooting, un-pausing the node, and live migrating VMs back to the host…and this process must be repeated for every node in the cluster. VMM 2012 has released a feature called Update Management which automates this process, saving admins many hours each year. After an admin has defined a baseline of patches which they want to deploy via WSUS, they can scan all the nodes to determine which hosts are not compliant (or are missing Security or Critical devices). Once the non-compliant hosts are identified, “Remediating” the cluster will start an orchestrated patching workflow which places a node into maintenance mode (which will pause the node and serially live migrate VMs from it), installs the missing patches, removes the node from maintenance mode, and then repeating the process for the other nodes in the cluster. Update management even supports Windows Server 2008 clusters and can be automated using PowerShell!
During the day-to-day operations of a datacenter certain hosts may get overloaded with VMs due to failovers, patching, new deployments or a variety of other conditions which can trigger VM movement. It is important to avoid overcommitting a host with VMs which require more server resources than that host can offer, such as memory or processing power. In VMM 2012 the Dynamic Optimization (DO) feature will monitor hosts and dynamically load balance the VMs across the cluster once certain thresholds are hit to avoid over-utilizing a specific host. DO has both an automatic mode, as well as manual configuration, which can proactively detect problems when CPU, memory, disk IO or network IO are approaching certain limits, and it has configurable “aggressiveness” (which defines how balanced the cluster should be). These checks are run every 10 minutes by default, and if an issue is detected the VMs will be live migrated to the best available node in the cluster. DO even supports VMware and Citrix XenServer clusters and equivalent live migration technologies. This feature is similar to the PRO-Tips technology available in SCVMM 2008 R2, but it does not require System Center Operations Manager, making it significantly easier to deploy, configure and manage.
Power Optimization (PO) is one of the best “Green IT” features to come out in a while and could save datacenters a significant amount of money by turning off unnecessary servers. PO is actually an extension of Dynamic Optimization (and only available in DO is in automatic mode), and it monitors the same server resources as DO. Once the user defines a power optimization schedule, VMM 2012 will analyze the hosts in the cluster. If it determines that the VMs can all run efficiently without one or more of the nodes and stay within the DO thresholds, it will live migrate VMs to other hosts and turn off the appropriate evacuated nodes. If utilization increases on the remaining active nodes such that one or more powered off nodes are needed again, they will be turned on and the cluster will be optimized by DO. During this process cluster quorum is tracked to ensure that the cluster remains online.
Hopefully this information helped you understand the benefits of these new System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 features related to Failover Clustering so you are encourage to try out the Beta today to get higher availability and simplified management while saving your IT department some money!
Symon Perriman Technical Evangelist Private Cloud Technologies Microsoft
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
We just published this one today so you’ll want to check this out if you’re seeing errors sharing an ISO in SCVMM:
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When using the System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 R2 console to share an ISO file during new virtual machine creation and placing it in the Hyper-v hosts, the following error may occur:
Virtualization platform on host XXXXXXX does not support shared DVD ISO images. Remove the shared ISO image from hardware profile or select a different host ID: 11028
You must attach the shared ISO image file to the virtual machine after you create the virtual machine. You cannot attach the file during virtual machine creation.
1. First Place the VM’s on the Hyper-V hosts. 2. Then attached the ISO file using the following steps:
To configure a virtual machine to share an ISO image:
1. In Virtual Machines view of the VMM Administrator Console, right-click the virtual machine, and then click Properties. 2. Click the Hardware Configuration tab. 3. In the left pane, under Bus Configuration, click IDE devices, and then select the IDE device that is being used to capture the ISO image file. 4. Under Capture mode, select Existing image file, and then use the Browse button to select the shared ISO image file in the VMM library that you want to use. 5. To share the image file from the VMM library instead of attaching a copy of the image to the virtual machine, select the Share image file instead of copying it check box. 6. Click on OK.
For detailed information on enabling shared ISO images for Hyper-V Virtual Machines in SCVMM see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee340124.aspx
VMM, SCVMM, VMM2008, VMM2008R2 ,SCVMM2008R2, 11028 ,Share ISO in SCVMM, ISO sharing in VMM,does not support shared DVD ISO images.
For the most current information please see the following Knowledge Base article:
KB2567412 - Sharing an ISO file during new virtual machine creation in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 results in "shared ISO" error ID: 11028
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
The steps below demonstrate how to remove a node from a cluster that is managed by System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (SCVMM). In my example I have used a cluster named CLU224544 and I have 2 nodes. Both are physical boxes with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and the Hyper-V role installed. It’s a CSV cluster and is managed by SCVMM 2008 R2:
If we want to remove the standalone host from SCVMM then we can do it from the SCVMM console via the Administration ->Managed Computers tab:
To remove the node, simply right-click and select Remove:
Now if we are managing a cluster then we won’t be able to remove a cluster node from here. Even if you click "Remove" it will not remove the node. In order to remove the cluster node you first need to Evict the node from the cluster. You can do this from the cluster administration console as shown below:
Once you Evict the node from the cluster you have two options:
1. Go to the SCVMM console and refresh the host manually:
2. Wait for the automatic refresh to happen.
Either way, once the Refresh job is done you will see that the node is listed as a standalone host:
Here you can see that the cluster node is not available for removal:
After removing the node you see that host blr2r19-14 is no longer a part of the cluster so now you can remove it as a host. You can do this either from the screen below or from the Administration –> Managed Computers tab:
Dhaval M Bhadeshiya | System Center Support Engineer
If you are adding a new node to an existing cluster that is being managed by System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (SCVMM), or if you had to rebuild a node of a cluster and need to add it back, here are the steps that are required:
First, here is the existing cluster:
We will add one more node so that we have nodes:
Next go to the SCVMM server and run a refresh:
Once the refresh is done we will see the new node in a pending state:
Next, right-click on the node and select "add to host cluster":
Once the node is added you will see both nodes\hosts back in SCVMM console as a cluster:
Note that when we add the host to SCVMM it installs the agent remotely onto it automatically. For Windows Server 2008 (except Core) we can install the client from the GUI manually if required. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb740757.aspx for more details. If you are using Windows Server 2008 Core you will need to follow the method below to install the SCVMM agent:
1. Install the VC Redist first, which is located on the SCVMM disk at : [DVD]\prerequisites\VCRedist\
2. Install the SCVMM agent by launching the following MSI command:
For 64-bit OS, msiexec.exe –I [DVD drive]\amd64\msi\Agent\vmmAgent.msi; For 32-bit OS, msiexec.exe –I [DVD drive]\i386\msi\Agent\vmmAgent.msi;
For 64-bit OS, msiexec.exe –I [DVD drive]\amd64\msi\Agent\vmmAgent.msi;
For 32-bit OS, msiexec.exe –I [DVD drive]\i386\msi\Agent\vmmAgent.msi;
Here’s a new Knowledge Base article we published this morning that talks about an issue you might run into when trying to install System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. This one deals with an accounts/permissions issue and fortunately it’s an easy one to resolve:
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 (SCVMM 2008 R2) setup may fail with the following error message during the Virtual Machine Manager Server portion of setup:
Unable to connect to the VMM database because of a general database failure. Ensure that the SQL Server is running and configured correctly, then try the operation again. ID: 2605. Details: SQL error code: 15247
%ProgramData%\VMMLogs\ServerSetup.txt will have entries similar to the following:
[6/3/2011 4:00:18 PM] Data : bcpPath = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\bcp.exe" [6/3/2011 4:00:18 PM] * Exception : => Unable to connect to the VMM database because of a general database failure.Ensure that the SQL Server is running and configured correctly, then try the operation again.Microsoft.VirtualManager.Setup.Exceptions.BackEndErrorException: Unable to connect to the VMM database because of a general database failure. Ensure that the SQL Server is running and configured correctly, then try the operation again. ---> Microsoft.VirtualManager.DB.CarmineSqlException: Unable to connect to the VMM database because of a general database failure. Ensure that the SQL Server is running and configured correctly, then try the operation again. ---> System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: User does not have permission to perform this action. at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection) at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject stateObj) at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.Run(RunBehavior runBehavior, SqlCommand cmdHandler, SqlDataReader dataStream, BulkCopySimpleResultSet bulkCopyHandler, TdsParserStateObject stateObj) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataReader.ConsumeMetaData() at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataReader.get_MetaData() at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.FinishExecuteReader(SqlDataReader ds, RunBehavior runBehavior, String resetOptionsString) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReaderTds(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, Boolean async) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReader(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, String method, DbAsyncResult result) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReader(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, String method) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior behavior, String method) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior behavior) at Microsoft.VirtualManager.DB.SqlRetryCommand.InternalExecuteReader() --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at Microsoft.VirtualManager.DB.SqlRetryCommand.InternalExecuteReader() at Microsoft.VirtualManager.DB.SqlRetryCommand.ExecuteReader(Int32[] expectedDSColumns) at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Setup.Helpers.SetupDatabaseHelper.RemoveSqlLogin(String connectinString, String loginName) at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Setup.Configuration.DBConfigurator.GrantCarmineDBAccess() at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Setup.Wizard.Configurator.GrantCarmineDBAccess() at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Setup.Wizard.BackEnd.ConfigureServer() at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Setup.Wizard.VMInstaller.Configure() *** Carmine error was: DatabaseFailure (2605); SQLServer; 15247 --- SqlException details ----------------- System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: User does not have permission to perform this action. at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection) at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject stateObj) at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.Run(RunBehavior runBehavior, SqlCommand cmdHandler, SqlDataReader dataStream, BulkCopySimpleResultSet bulkCopyHandler, TdsParserStateObject stateObj) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataReader.ConsumeMetaData() at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataReader.get_MetaData() at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.FinishExecuteReader(SqlDataReader ds, RunBehavior runBehavior, String resetOptionsString) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReaderTds(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, Boolean async) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReader(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, String method, DbAsyncResult result) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReader(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, String method) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior behavior, String method) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior behavior) at Microsoft.VirtualManager.DB.SqlRetryCommand.InternalExecuteReader() Error = 15247 Index #0 Source: .Net SqlClient Data Provider Number: 15247 State: 1 Class: 16 Server: servername\instance Message: User does not have permission to perform this action. Procedure: sp_helplogins Line: 72
This may occur if the following conditions both apply:
The SQL commands will initially be executed in the context of the user account running setup, not the service account. After installation, the service account will be used for normal operations.
To allow setup to complete successfully in this scenario, hold down the SHIFT key and right-click on setup.exe on the Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 installation media. Choose Run as different user and then enter the credentials for the service account with sysadmin rights on the VMM server.
Notes:
For the most current version of this article be sure to view it directly from the source here:
KB2562909 - System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 setup fails with Error 2605
Have you ever wanted to know how to create and deploy a stand-alone virtual machine with a blank virtual hard disk (.vhd) using System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012? If so then we have the video for you. Microsoft’s own Tessa Wooley just posted a great how-to video demo that covers this entire process from start to finish:
Enjoy!
I was checking out what’s new over on the TechNet Wiki this morning and came across a neat SCVMM article written by a Microsoft Partner who goes by the screen name Pronichkin. In it he talks about the cause and resolution to a scenario where you get an error message when you try to install System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal (VMMSSP) 2.0. The error is “Either the specified server name is not valid, or the server is not reachable”:
You're installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal (VMMSSP) 2.0 server application. You reach the “Connect the VMMSSP server component to the VMMSSP database” wizard page. You supply the address of your stand-alone SQL Server machine. Then you click on the “Get Instances...” button. You expect to see the list of your SQL Server instances. But instead you receive the following error message.
Either the specified server name is not valid, or the server is not reachable.
You can get all the details here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3325.aspx