Virtual Machine Management

How to differentiate between two cmdlets with the same name

2009-08-21T00:59:00Z

In some instances, more than one product can have a cmdlet with the same name. This blog post will show you how to specify a VMM cmdlet if another product has a cmdlet with the same name: If two Windows PowerShell modules contain cmdlets with the same name, use the following format to specify the one you want: < Module >\< Cmdlet > A typical output from PowerShell is the following if you don't fully differentiate between the cmdlets. << PS D:\Users\mlmich> get-help get-job Name...(read more)

Taking advantange of Windows PowerShell Remoting and VMM cmdlets

2009-08-16T18:50:00Z

Even though VMM does not officially support the Windows PowerShell Remoting feature of PowerShell v2, you can get this to work by following the guidelines in this blog post. Officially, to execute the VMM cmdlets you need to install the VMM Administrator Console on all client computers that need to use the cmdlets, but by following the steps in this post, you can run VMM cmdlets on a machine that has no VMM components installed at all! To illustrate how to use PowerShell remoting with the VMM cmdlets,...(read more)

How to properly share ISO files in VMM with Hyper-V

2009-08-15T23:20:00Z

In this blog post, I will talk about what is the proper way to share ISO files with VMM and Hyper-V when the ISO files reside in the VMM library (i.e. a file server share). First, you need to follow Jose Barreto's blog post on how to properly enable constrained delegation on the Hyper-V servers. You need to follow these steps for every Hyper-V host on which you want to create a Virtual Machine and attach a shared ISO. Additionally, these steps need to be followed for every library server that will...(read more)

Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP mode have a blog :)

2009-08-05T19:34:00Z

Check out the team blog site of the new Windows 7 features of Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode here http://blogs.technet.com/windows_vpc/...(read more)

Working with Windows PowerShell 2.0 advanced functionality

2009-07-17T03:57:00Z

hey everyone, today i have a guest poster on my blog. Laurie McKnight from the VMM team will illustrate some of the advanced functionality you can achieve with Script Functions, Script Modules and Binary Modules in PowerShell. How to save a PS 2.0 advanced function CAUTION: Methods that work but are **NOT** recommended are included but struck out . These method are included to clarify that using that method is not appropriate or not recommended. To distinguish one type of advanced function from others...(read more)

Working with VMware VI4 (aka vSphere)

2009-07-16T02:38:00Z

Even though VMM 2008 R2 (beta or RC) does not officially support VMware vSphere/VI4, we have a few customers that have gotten some of the functionality to work. However, one of the issues that can arise is a failure to find paths in ESX storage. Typically, a VM refresh (refresh-vm cmdlet) might fail with error 2903 - VMM would not locate the specified file [datastoreXXX]\...\...vmdk on the <vmware server name>. In some cases of creating a new Virtual Machine on an ESX server, the VMM Job could...(read more)

SCVMM 2008 R2 Release Date

2009-07-13T23:12:00Z

hey guys, If you are wondering when VMM 2008 R2 will release, this latest blog post by Rakesh will give you the inside track. http://blogs.technet.com/rakeshm/archive/2009/07/13/scvmm-2008-r2-release-date-information.aspx cheers....(read more)

How to get data (like the integration services version) from Msvm_KvpExchangeDataItem in Hyper-V

2009-06-10T21:12:00Z

Today, if you are using VMM, you can quickly and easily find out if your VM has the integration components installed by using this simple PowerShell script. << PS D:\Windows\system32> get-vm | select name, hostname, hasvmadditions, vmaddition | format-list Name : vmonmlmich HostName : car-1.contoso.com HasVMAdditions : False VMAddition : Not Detected Name : win2k8r2 HostName : AMUNRA.contoso.com HasVMAdditions : True VMAddition : Detected >> The problem is that VMM does not give you...(read more)

SCVMM 2008 R2 RC Public Release Available Now!

2009-06-06T02:45:00Z

hi all, today the VMM team released VMM 2008 R2 Release Candidate. You can read all about it here. http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/archive/2009/06/06/scvmm-2008-r2-rc-public-release-available-now.aspx Cheers....(read more)

Utilizing Virtualization and boot-from-vhd for making a dual-boot laptop

2009-06-02T05:20:00Z

I received my brand new Dell Latitude E4300 laptop today and I wanted to make sure i could boot both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 on it. Here is how virtualization came in handy. Instead of partitioning my laptop using two partitions (one for each OS) and wasting space, i created a single partition on the C:\ drive that encompasses the entire solid state disk (120GB). On the primary partition, i installed Windows 7 enterprise RC build (7100). Once that was installed and everything worked,...(read more)

New features in VMM 2008 R2

2009-05-11T20:49:00Z

In line with the Rapid Provisioning feature that i mentioned in my previous blog post, Vishwa, a PM from our team, just posted a comprehensive list of new features of VMM 2008 R2. Check it out here: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/archive/2009/05/11/scvmm-r2-rc-features.aspx...(read more)

Rapid Provisioning in VMM 2008 R2 using the UseLocalVirtualHardDisks and SkipInstallVirtualizationGuestServices flags

2009-05-07T13:46:00Z

At MMS 2009, our team announced a new feature of VMM 2008 R2 called Rapid Provisioning. This feature is not available in VMM 2008 R2 beta, but it will be available in the upcoming release candidate and in the RTM version. This feature was implemented in response to customers requests. In VMM 2008, the only way to deploy a new virtual machine is to copy the VHD from the library to the host over the network using BITS. Depending on the size of VHD and the available bandwidth, this could take several...(read more)

Using the VMM Self Service Portal from a Win7 computer

2009-04-05T01:49:00Z

We have seen a lot of cases of customers trying to view the Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal (SSP) UI from a computer running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7. If the portal is running VMM 2008, it is likely that you can't view the connections to a Virtual Machine and you are getting error "Virtual Machine Manager failed to connect to the virtual machine because the guest operating system's computer name XXX could not be resolved by the Domain Name System." This error occurs because...(read more)

VMM 2008 R2 beta is now released

2009-03-16T19:55:00Z

The much anticipated VMM 2008 R2 beta is now released. You can go to http://connect.microsoft.com/ and sign up for the beta. Click on "Connection Directory" and sort by the newest beta programs or search for "System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 Beta"

What's New in VMM 2008 R2 Beta

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM) is a comprehensive management solution for managing virtualized infrastructure running on Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2 and VMware ESX through Virtual Center. Recently, Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta was released which included significant feature improvements to Hyper-V-the underlying hypervisor platform. A corresponding beta version of VMM R2 - the next version of VMM - is due for release shortly. VMM R2 Beta leverages the new platform enhancements and extends the feature set of VMM 2008. This overview highlights the most important new and significantly enhanced features in the VMM 2008 R2 Beta:

Support for new features of Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta

Live Migration: - Seen through the VMM console, this enables administrators to move virtual machines from one machine in a virtual host cluster to another with no downtime. This allows administrators greater flexibility in responding to planned or unplanned downtime, provides higher machine availability and more robust fault tolerance within virtualized infrastructure. The basic requirements for Live Migration are that all hosts must be part of a cluster and host processors must be from the same manufacturer. Additionally all hosts in the cluster must have access to shared storage. No changes are required to existing virtual machines, network, or storage devices in moving from Quick Migration to Live Migration other than upgrading to beta versions of Windows Server 2008 R2 and VMM 2008 R2.
Hot addition/removal of VHDs: Allows the addition and removal of new virtual hard disks (VHDs) on a running virtual machine. This enables storage growth in virtual machines without downtime. Additionally, ‘live" VHD management allows administrators to take advantage of additional backup scenarios and readily use mission critical and storage-intense applications (eg: SQL Server and Exchange).
New optimized networking technologies: VMM 2008 R2 Beta supports two new networking technologies - Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ) and TCP Chimney - providing increased network performance while demanding less CPU burden. NICS that support VMQ, create a unique virtual network queue for each virtual machine on a host that can pass network packets directly from the hypervisor to virtual machine. This speeds throughput as it bypasses much of the processing normally required by the virtualization stack. With TCP Chimney, TCP/IP traffic can be offloaded to a physical NIC on the host computer reducing CPU load and improving network performance.

Enhanced storage and cluster support

Clustered Shared Volumes (CSV): Provides a single, consistent storage space that allows virtual hosts in a cluster to concurrently access virtual machine files on a single shared logical unit number (LUN). CSV eliminates the previous one LUN per virtual machine restriction and coordinates the use of storage with much greater efficiency and higher performance. CSV enables the Live Migration of virtual machines in and out of the shared LUN without impacting other virtual machines. Enabling CSV on failover clusters is straightforward and easy to monitor through the VMM administrator's console; many storage configuration complexities prior to CSV have been eliminated.
SAN migration into and out of clustered hosts: This allows virtual machines to migrate into and out of clustered hosts using a SAN transfer, which automatically configures the cluster nodes to recognize and support the new workload.
Expanded Support for iSCSI SANs: Previously, only one LUN could be bound to a single iSCSI target whereas now -- with VMM 2008 R2 Beta -- multiple LUNS can be mapped to a single iSCSI target. This provides broader industry support for iSCSI SANs allowing customers more flexibility in choosing storage providers and iSCSI SAN options.

Streamlined process for managing host upgrades:

Maintenance Mode: Allows administrators to apply updates or perform maintenance on a host server by safely evacuating all virtual machines to other hosts on a cluster using Live Migration or putting those workloads into a saved state to be safely reactivated when maintenance or upgrades are complete. Maintenance mode is enabled for all supported hypervisor platforms on Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta.

Other VMM 2008 R2 Beta enhancements

Support of disjoint domains: Reduces the complexity of reconciling host servers with differing domain names in Active Directory and DNS. In these situations, VMM 2008 R2 Beta automatically creates a custom service principal name (SPN) configured in both AD and DNS allowing for successful authentication.
Use of defined port groups with VMware Virtual Center: On installation, VMM 2008 R2 Beta will present available port groups for VMM's use with VMware Virtual Center thus allowing administrators to maintain control over which port groups are used.

How to detect if your hardware can run Hyper-V

2009-02-16T20:29:00Z

The Virtualization Detect (DetectVp.EXE) tool is the logo test for checking if the system meets the requirements for Microsoft Virtualization Software. This test checks virtualization support for both Intel and AMD processors.

You can find this tool here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd424588.aspx