Four new video demos are available for System Center Virtual Machine Manager on the TechNet TechCenter at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scvmm/bb688094.aspx.

Introduction to Scripting in VMM

Scheduling Virtual Machine Migrations

Creating Backups with Checkpoints

Viewing Job Information

Leave comments here letting us know what videos you'd like from us next.

The free (120 day) evaluation version of VMM is now live on the TechNet TechCenter. You can also try the eval version as a VHD and run it on a VM!

Download the 120-day trial software
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2007 provides a comprehensive management solution for the virtualized data center that enables increased physical server utilization and centralized management of virtual machine infrastructure.

Download the VHD
The preconfigured files come with all the necessary components to get VMM up and running quickly as a virtual machine. Once the VHD is downloaded and joined to a domain, you can begin testing all the functions of VMM including the Self Service Administration Portal and Intelligent Placement capabilities.

When it is time to move to the full version, all you have to do is uninstall the eval version using the "Retain data" option, then install the full version.

The Windows PowerShell Virtual Machine Manager Cmdlet Reference is now available in the download center. This doc presents the contents of the help available on the command line: Windows PowerShell Virtual Machine Manager command shell.

Leave feedback on how useful you find this doc on this blog - it'll help us detrmine whether to post the next version. Thanks in advance.

Check out the new Windows Live Translation beta on the new VMM TechCenter, and let us know the results for your language by leaving comments here.

Thanks in advance. Dank im Voraus. Merci à l'avance. Gracias por adelantado. Ringraziamenti in anticipo. 前もってありがとう。事先感谢。事先感謝。미리 감사합니다. Спасибо заранее. Dank vooraf. شكور مقدّما. Agradecimentos adiantado.

Rakeshm has recorded an excellet getting started with VMM video available here: http://technet.microsoft.com/scvmm/bb688094.aspx.

Check it out, leave feedback. Want to see more like this? Let us know if the next area of the product we should you'd like to see in this kind of format.

Also check out Keith's http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2007/09/06/everything-you-need-to-know-about-scvmm-in-15-minutes.aspx

One of our Beta users recently asked about programmatically setting some of the 10 custom properties for VMs so that it displays some useful information about the VM in the Host view of the VMM Administrator Console. For example:

•  Location of VHD on Channel 0
•  Virtual network on network adapter 0

One of the sample scripts in the soon-to-be-released Scripting Guide shows how to set a custom property on your VM, in this case, whether it needs VM additions

##################################################################################

# Connect to VMM server

##################################################################################

# Substitute the name of your VMM server and domain in this command:

$VMMServer = Get-VMMServer -ComputerName "VMMServer1.Contoso.com"

##################################################################################

# Find all the virtual machines without additions and update their custom property ##################################################################################

$VMs = @(Get-VM)

$VMsWithoutAdditions = @($VMs | where {$_.HasVMAdditions -eq $false})

if ($VMsWithoutAdditions -ne 0)

{

    Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "UPDATE CUSTOM PROPERTY"

}

foreach ($VM in $VMsWithoutAdditions)

{

    Write-Host "Setting Custom10 property as `"Needs VM additions`" on VM", $VM.Name, "..."

    $UpdatedVM = Set-VM -VM $VM -Custom10 "Needs VM additions"

}

Here is how you would populate Custom1 and Custom2 with the location of the VHD on channel 0 and the Virtual Network on NIC adapter 0:

$vm = get-vm -Name "My VM"
$vm | set-vm -Custom1 $vm.VirtualHardDisks[0].Location -Custom2
$vm.VirtualNetworkAdapters[0].VirtualNetwork }

The following script would populate these properties for all VMs managed by
SCVMM:

$vms = get-vm
foreach ($vm in $vms) $vm | set-vm -Custom1
$vm.VirtualHardDisks[0].Location -Custom2
$vm.VirtualNetworkAdapters[0].VirtualNetwork }

You can find the full instructions in the upgrade guide, and the upgrade.exe on the Microsoft Connect site (Windows Live ID required) at: https://connect.microsoft.com/vmm/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=8384

Now that VMM has RTMd, if you are a Beta 2 user, you may have some questions about the upgrade to RTM, assuming you want to retain your data?  If you do not want to retain your data, uninstall the Beta 2 version and perform a clean installation of the released version of VMM.

What happens to my virtual machines, checkpoints and hosts when I uninstall by using the "Retain data" option and then run upgrade.exe?

Virtual machines (VM), checkpoints and host associations are preserved. Your hosts that are joined to a domain, and the VMs and checkpoints on them, are discovered after you perform the upgrade and are displayed in the Administrator Console. Any hosts that are on a perimeter network are also displayed after you remove and then add the agent locally. Agents on hosts that are not on a perimeter network are displayed in the Administrator Console as requiring an update.

What happens to my jobs, Self-Service accounts and Virtual Machine Administrator accounts?

Jobs, Self-Service Trusted Web Server accounts and Virtual Machine Administrator accounts are deleted. You must add the Self-Service and Virtual Machine Administrator accounts after you perform the upgrade.

What happens to my library servers and library resources?

Library servers and library resources, such as hardware configurations and operating system profiles, are preserved and appear in the Administrator Console after you perform the upgrade.

What happens to self-service policies, tags, and custom properties on VMs?

Self-Service policies are preserved. Tags and custom properties on VMs that you have created are preserved. After you add the hosts, the VMs, with their custom properties and tags, are displayed in the Administrator Console. 

What happens to my reports?

The information that is used for the reports is preserved, but you must uninstall the Beta 2 Management Pack and install the Operations Manager 2007 Management Pack. 

Upgrade Requirements

SQL Server tools must be installed. If you plan to run the upgrade.exe on a server other than the VMM server, you must first install SQL Server Native Client and tools (SQL Server Tools). You can install the SQL Server Native Client and SQL Server Tools from your VMM CD under the Prerequisites\SQLEXPR\1033 folder, or you can download the SQL Express Edition package at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=95583.

The command-line upgrade tool, upgrade.exe, uses the Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI) to connect to the VMM database. The account that is used to run Upgrade.exe must have DB Owner permission on the database.

Upgrade Limitations

·      You must use an account with appropriate permissions to the VMM database in SQL Server, whether the database is installed locally on the VMM server or accessed remotely, to retain your data when you uninstall Beta 2.

·      You must locally uninstall the agents on hosts that are on a perimeter network before you upgrade the VMM server.

·      You should perform a clean install of all agent certificates.

·      Self-Service Portal associations are lost. After you upgrade, you must re-associate any Self-Service Portal in the Administrator Console.

If you have a large number of Beta 2 Self-Service Web Portals, you can run the following Windows PowerShell commands on the VMM server before you perform the upgrade to export the computer names to a text file:

Get-VMMServer <Server Name>

Get-SelfServiceWebServer | Out-File -FilePath <Text File Name>

After you perform the upgrade, run the following Windows PowerShell commands on the VMM server to import the computer names that you saved before the upgrade:

Get-VMMServer <Server Name>

Get-Content <Text File Name> | ForEach-Object -Process {Add-SelfServiceWebServer -ComputerName $_}

·      During the upgrade, members of the following local user groups are deleted:

·      Virtual Machine Manager Administrators

·      Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portals

·      Virtual Machine Manager Servers

After upgrade you must add the members of these groups back if you want them to be the same as they were before the upgrade.

·      Any firewall port exceptions that you entered during setup remain when you upgrade Virtual Machine Manager.

·      If you used the default SQL Server instance name (MSSQLSERVER) when you installed Beta 2, you must not specify the instance name when you run the upgrade tool. For example,

upgrade.exe -server <computer name> -database VirtualManagerDB

You can find the full instructions in the upgrade guide, and the upgrade.exe on the Microsoft Connect site (Windows Live ID required) at: https://connect.microsoft.com/vmm/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=8384

Help is on the way for IT Pros that manage IT environments with fewer thatn enterprise numbers of machines. Today it was announced that:

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 Workgroup Edition will be available in January 2008, targeted at the Mid-market Virtual Machine management market.  VMM Workgroup Edition will manage unlimited number of VMs on up to five Virtual Server hosts at a price of $499 per license. 

View the Virtual Machine Manager How To Videos here:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scvmm/bb688094.aspx.

More to come in the near future, watch that page.

The Troubleshooting Guide for SCVMM is live a http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83589 

Here are some general troubleshooting tips:

• For any host whose Status property is 'Not Responding,' find the source of the error using the Jobs view. Open the Jobs view, select a job, and click on the Change Tracking tab in the details pane. Then navigate down the jobs until you find a host job where the Status property changed from 'Responding' to 'Not Responding'. Once you find this job, click on the Summary tab of the details pane to understand why your host is marked as Not Responding.
• For any error involving online conversion of a physical server (P2V) and the Volume Shadow Copy Service (also called Volume Snapshot Service or VSS), first determine the VSS provider reponsible by scanning the application and system event logs on the source machine. Try to fix the issue indicated (such as not enoung disk space). Then, try restarting the service associated with the VSS writer failure message, and then try the convert physical server wizard again. 
• For any error that occurs after installation, isolate group policy as a possible factor by moving the virtual machine to its own organizational unit in Active Directory with a block on inherited policy, and trying to reproduce the problem. If you cannot reproduce the problem, it is likely that a group policy setting is a contributing cause. 
• For general database connection errors to a remote SQL server, check that the remote SQL server is running under an account other than Local System. If that is not the issue, check that the Service Principal Name (SPN) was created for the SQL service according to the instructions at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=88057.  For further instructions on setting up a remote SQL Server 2005 database, see Configuring a Remote Instance of SQL Server for Virtual Machine Manager at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=87356.
• If you are unable to open the Virtual Server Administration web site with an "Access denied" error after Virtual Machine Manger installation, it is likely because the enhanced security settings in Windows XP SP2 and in Windows Server 2003 SP1 prevent access to the Virtual Server Administration Web site. You must have sufficient DCOM permissions before you can use the Virtual Server Administration Web site to connect to Virtual Server 2005. For more information, see the KB article at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=87304.

Q: Does SCVMM replace VSMT? A: Pretty much yes. VSMT still works, but is not going to get an update. Now is a good time to switch to SCVMM :-)

Q: Is P2V in SCVMM "fire and forget"? A: Most Beta customers found that the convert-physical-server wizard yielded VMs that didn't need any "fixup" and did not require downtime. As a best practice, many go through the VM post-conversion and remove vendor-specific (no longer needed) hardware utilities and drivers. In the Beta, most customers who had any issues with P2V conversion fixed them by updating the source machine so that it had all current updates and patches, then retrying P2V. So, best practice reccomendation: ensure your source machine is up-to-date before P2V. Bad sectors on disk cannot be transferred during a P2V conversion. To avoid data loss, it is recommended that you run a disk maintenance tool such as Chkdsk on the source machine to detect and correct any file system errors before initiating the P2V process.
If you are going to do an offline conversion (the source machine is restarted into WinPE to image the hard disks), WAIK must be installed on the VMM server. To download the WAIK, go to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=86477.

Q: How much does it cost to P2V? A: Most P2V solutions charge a license fee per conversion. SCVMM allows you to convert an unlimited number of source machines that are running Windows 2000, 2003, and Windows XP. You can find the evaluation version here:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d4e8bc52-3c3b-4bae-b937-987da892fad7&displaylang=en. How many machines can you convert in 120 days?

Q: Does SCVMM convert VMware virtual machines (V2V)? A: Yes. See Virtualization Nation: How to V2V

Q: Can I convert a server that is not domain-joined? A: No, SCVMM P2V requires that the source machine is a member of a domain.

Q: What are the source machine requirements? A: Minimum 512 MB of RAM, and one of the following supported operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 4 (SP4)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 or later
• Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later

If you are going to do an offline conversion (the source machine is restarted into WinPE to image the hard disks), WAIK must be installed on the VMM server. To download the WAIK, go to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=86477.

Q: Um, how do I do a P2V? A: See How to P2V

Q: One last thing, what happens if I get into trouble with P2V? A: Check the troubleshoting guide here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83589 

A general TS tip is: find the source of the error using the Jobs view. Open the Jobs view, select a job, and click on the Change Tracking tab in the details pane. Then navigate down the jobs until you find the job where the Status property changed from the Thing You Want, such changing from "Responding" to 'Not Responding'. Once you find this job, click on the Summary tab of the details pane to understand the soruce of the trouble. If we have done our job reasonably well, once you see the source, the fix should be pretty self-evident and easy.

Q: Does SCVMM convert VMware virtual machines (V2V)? A: Yes. You must put the following files from the source VMware virtual machine in the Virtual Machine Manager library:

• A .vmx file, which is a VMware virtual machine configuration file. A .vmx file is the text file that describes the properties and structure of a virtual machine, including name, memory, disk assignments, network parameters, and so on.
  
• One or more .vmdk files, which are not passed directly as input to the wizard but are listed in the .vmx file. A .vmdk file is a VMware virtual hard disk that contains the virtual machine's guest operating system, applications, and data. Supported VMWare virtual hard disk formats include the following:
  
• monolithicSparse
• monolithicFlat
• vmfsSparse
• vmfs
• twoGbMaxExtentSparse
• twoGbMaxExtentFlat

During the conversion process, the Convert Virtual Machine Wizard converts the .vmdk files to .vhd files and makes the operating system on the virtual machine compatible with Microsoft virtualization technologies. The virtual machine created by the wizard matches VMware virtual machine properties, including name, description, memory, disk-to-bus assignment, CD and DVD settings, network adapter settings and parameters, and so on.

The Convert Virtual Machine Wizard supports the conversion of VMware virtual machines that are running any of the following guest operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 4 (SP4) or later
• Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later
• Windows XP SP1 or later

If you use the Convert Virtual Machine Wizard to convert a VMWare-based virtual machine running any operating system not in the preceding list, the virtual machine might not start up or might not function correctly. To ensure a successful conversion, you must first modify the guest operating system to one of the listed supported operating systems.

Some conversions of a VMWare-based virtual machine whose guest operating system is Windows might require that additional system files and drivers be added to the internal cache. In this case, when you run the Convert Virtual Machine Wizard, if additional files or drivers are required, do the following:

• Use information provided in an error message that appears when you run the wizard to identify what updates or drivers are required.
• Obtain a copy of those update or driver files and copy the files to the Patch Import directory on the Virtual Machine Manager server (the default path is <C>:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007\Patch Import).
• Run the Add-Patch cmdlet to extract those patches and populate the patch cache.
• Run the Convert Virtual Machine Wizard again (or use the New-V2V cmdlet).

Depending on the configurations of the source and destination machines, this process may take some time to complete. To review the progress and results of the conversion, open the Jobs window. By default, the Jobs window opens when the wizard closes. To open the Jobs window at any time, click the Jobs button on the toolbar in the VMM Administrator Console.

And, of course, since everything in VMM can be done in PowerShell (get-command | where {$_.implementingtype -like "*VirtualMachineManager*"}), here you go:

$c = get-VMMserver localhost
$vmhost = get-vmhost -VMMServer $c  -ComputerName hostname

$vm = $c | new-V2V -vmxpath \\machine\share\vmx_path -VMHost $vmhost -Path
d:\vm\ [-Name vmname]
or
$vmx = $c | new-VMXMachineConfig -vmxpath \\machine\share\vmx_path
$vm = $c | new-V2V -MachineConfig $vmx -VMHost $vmhost -Path d:\vm\ [-Name
vmname]

or
$vhd = $c | copy-VMDK -Path d:\vm\ -VMHost $vmhost -vmdkpath
\\machine\share\vmdk_path

for more details:

help <cmdlet>, e.g. help new-v2v
or
get-command new-v2v| format-list
(get-command new-v2v).definition

You can read a little background on Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service here. There are several steps for setting it up. Some early adopter customers have had some trouble once they have installed the Self-Service portal. Often, the admin will go to the portal, and try to login to check out how the web-page works.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 is Gold - see you at launch.

:-)

Check out the new TechCenter.

Meet some of the virtualization MVP bloggers:

Andrew Dugdell's blog

Genta Watanabe's blog

Guilherme Antonio Whitaker Carnevale's blog

Peter Mathias Forster's blog (in German)