Virtual Machine Management

How to differentiate between two cmdlets with the same name

mlmich — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:59:00 GMT

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...(read more)

Taking advantange of Windows PowerShell Remoting and VMM cmdlets

mlmich — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:50:00 GMT

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...(read more)

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

mlmich — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 23:20:00 GMT

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...(read more)

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

mlmich — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:34:00 GMT

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

mlmich — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:57:00 GMT

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...(read more)

Working with VMware VI4 (aka vSphere)

mlmich — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:38:00 GMT

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,...(read more)

SCVMM 2008 R2 Release Date

mlmich — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:12:00 GMT

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

mlmich — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:12:00 GMT

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...(read more)

SCVMM 2008 R2 RC Public Release Available Now!

mlmich — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 02:45:00 GMT

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

mlmich — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:20:00 GMT

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...(read more)

New features in VMM 2008 R2

mlmich — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:49:00 GMT

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.asp...(read more)

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

mlmich — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:46:00 GMT

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...(read more)

Using the VMM Self Service Portal from a Win7 computer

mlmich — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:49:00 GMT

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...(read more)

VMM 2008 R2 beta is now released

mlmich — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:55:00 GMT

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

mlmich — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:29:00 GMT

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