Virtual Machine Management : VMM

Issues when trying to add a single-node cluster under management in VMM

mlmich — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:33:00 GMT

A few folks have been experiencing errors and long delays in adding a single-node (i.e. a 1 node cluster) cluster under management in Virtual Machine Manager. This issue stems from the fact that VMM has an overcommitted property for each cluster. By default,...(read more)

How to get the audit trail records from a VMM Job

mlmich — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:03:00 GMT

Today, in VMM, you can open the Administrator Console and click on the Jobs view to see all the Jobs in VMM. When you select an individual job, you can click on the "Change Tracking" tab and view any changes that were recorded in VMM as part of this job....(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)

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.

Issues with adding a host to VMM when the computer has more than 16 processors

mlmich — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:58:00 GMT

It has come to our attention that trying to add a computer with more than 16 processors (for example a quad six-core machine with 24 processors) is crashing the VMM server with the following exception:

System.InvalidOperationException: Nullable object must have a value.

at System.Nullable`1.get_Value()

at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Engine.Adhc.WindowsHostDataProperties.GetProcessorData()

at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Engine.Adhc.WindowsHostDataProperties.PopulateProperties()

From a Hyper-V perspective we support up to 24 cores (requires a QFE http://blogs.msdn.com/taylorb/archive/2008/09/23/24-core-support-for-hyper-v-hosts.aspx). We have a few workarounds for VMM to work in this case (either do #1 or implement #2 and #3):

You can limit the number of CPUs via msconfig to 16 (we know this solution is not ideal in this case, but wanted to document it anyway)
Go to BIOS, then navigate to Advanced Setup>Clustering Mode and set it to Physical (default is Logical)
Use Bcdedit to add USEPHYSICALDESTINATION and set to YES. This forces the physical APIC to be used.

cheers.

How to enable server-optimized garbage collector for VMM

mlmich — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:38:00 GMT

If your VMM implementation has over 150 hosts, we strongly recommended that you enable server-optimized garbage collector (GC) on the VMM server instead of the default workstation garbage collector. This can significantly reduce the CPU utilization on the VMM server and improve your performance for parallel VMM operations.

To accomplish this, simply create a new filed named vmmservice.exe.config and place this file in the same location as vmmservice.exe (VMMservice.exe is located in the bin directory of the VMM server role installation)

This file should have in it the following information (bold and indented). If you want to know more about this option, read this link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=102219

<configuration
   <runtime>
      <gcServer enabled="true"/>
   </runtime>
</configuration>

SCVMM 2008 Releases Management Pack Update

mlmich — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:53:00 GMT

We have been getting a lot of excitement and questions about the reports for the VMM 2008 MP. With this blog post we can announce that this update is ready and available for download today.

This update to the MP includes updated reports for all platforms that we manage (VS, Hyper-V, and VMware) :

· Virtualization Candidates - Helps identify physical computers that are good candidates for conversion to virtual machines. The Virtualization Candidates report displays average values for a set of commonly requested performance counters for CPU, memory, and disk usage, along with hardware configuration, including processor speed, number of processors, and total RAM.

· VM utilization - Provides information about your virtual machines. For the identified time, this report shows average usage and total or maximums for virtual machine processors, memory, and disk space.

· Host Utilization - Shows the number of virtual machines running per host. For the identified time and host group, this report shows average usage and total or maximums for host processors, memory, and disk space.

· Host Utilization Growth - Shows the percentage growth of host resources and number of virtual machines running for the identified time period.

· VM Allocation - Provides information you can use to calculate chargeback to cost centers for virtual machines.

This release also includes a key change to the PRO class model which enables some additional partner integration. Keep an eye on the VMM PRO partner page here, for updates and access to partner PRO enabled management packs.

You can find the MP here on the Microsoft download site:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d6d5cddd-4ec8-4e3c-8ab1-102ec99c257f&displaylang=en

This post was written by Alan Goodman, a Program Manager on the VMM team.

Trying to add Windows Server 2008 R2 as a host to VMM 2008?

mlmich — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:59:00 GMT

we have several customers that tried to add a Windows Server 2008 R2 as a host in VMM 2008.

Our team has not validated that R2 will work with VMM 2008 and it is officially not supported. However, for the few of you that tried to add a Windows Server 2008 R2 Core edition as a host in VMM and failed, you need to first enable WOW64. This is needed for Hyper-V on R2. To do that, run this command from the hyper-v server.

ocsetup ServerCore-WOW64

Once that is done, try to add this host in VMM again and that should work.

Before you run the command above, you could get the following errors when trying to add this host under management:

Error (410)

Agent installation failed on <servername>.

(Not enough storage is available to process this command (0x8))

The windows installer service could not be accessed. This can occur if you are running Windows in safe mode, or if the Windows Installer is not correctly installed....

VMM vNext will have full support for Windows Server 2008 R2. We will have announcements about that release in the next few weeks.

Running the Virtual Machine Manager server component inside a Virtual Machine

mlmich — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:16:00 GMT

Running VMM inside a Virtual Machine is a fully supported way of running VMM. Our team tests this scenario and we have some customers deploying VMM in such an enviroment. If you would like to deploy VMM in such an environment, it is recommended to place the SQL server in a separate server, especially if your environment size will be substancial. SQL server can either be on a physical machine or on a virtual machine. Guidance on running SQL server as a virtual machine on Hyper-V can be found here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/9/4/d948f981-926e-40fa-a026-5bfcf076d9b9/SQL2008inHyperV2008.docx.

Because the VMM server component does not offer any high availability options, you can't make VMM a highly available application. However, there is a way to accomplish that by running VMM inside a Hyper-V Virtual Machine that is highly available. That way, when that VM fails over to another host, the VMM server fails over as well and can survive a hardware failure on the source host. This is a supported configuration for VMM. However, there are some gotchas that you have to be careful of in this scenario:

Make sure you don't migrate the Virtual Machine VMM is residing on from within VMM. This will fail the task and kill the VMM service in the process.
As per my comment above, the same restrictions on the DB apply here as well. Keep SQL in a remote server. SQL can also be clustered for high availability.

By keeping the VMM component inside a VM that is highly available, it means that on failover the VMM server's name and identity are left intact. Users can still connect to it and the host machines will authenticate the same server, so everything from a VMM perspective will work the same.

Update: With VMM 2008 R2 and Hyper-V R2 in Win2k8 R2, we are able to add two more scenarios to running the VMM server inside an HA VM:

Now the VM containing the VMM server can be live migrated from one host to another without any loss of service and no Jobs will fail
If you have installed the Administrator Console to a remote machine, it will not lose connection to the HA VM containing the VMM server during the live migration

Azman permissions for VMM-managed Hyper-V hosts

mlmich — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:18:00 GMT

When VMM starts managing a hyper-v host, it takes full control of the Azman XML file that contains the permissions for Hyper-V. In fact, VMM will create a new copy of the file in a separate directory location and point hyper-v to that file (the file name is HyperVAuthStore.xml and is located inside the installation folder of VMM).

This, however, has some implications to 3rd party software that also want to have privileges to execute WMI calls against Hyper-V (if, however, this 3rd party software runs as local system or as a local administrator then everything works fine :) ). When VMM creates this new file, the only permissions listed are the ones VMM knows about and are as follows:

VMM Administrators are given full access to the VM/Hyper-V, including console access to the VM
VMM Delegated administrators have no access to the VM or Hyper-V
End User Role members are given console access to the VM if their User Roles has this privilege defined

This means that any privileges defined in the old Azman file will be lost once VMM takes control of the host. Every 30 minutes, VMM will also run a refresher that will update this file and ensure that the only privileges to VMs are the ones that VMM knows about. However, if any 3rd party software makes any changes to role definitions or role memberships in the root scope of the file, VMM will preserve them. So if you want to integrate with a VMM managed Hyper-V host, you can make your changes as listed above after VMM takes control of the host and VMM will preserve them.

In the next release of VMM, we are making a few changes in this area. Instead of ignoring all changes from the AZMAN XML file when we add a host in VMM, we will instead import any role definitions and role memberships from the root scope of the existing XML file (initialstore.xml) and add them to HyperVAuthStore.xml's root scope. No other scopes will be preserved.

When you remove a hyper-v host from management, in VMM 2008 we will revert the pointer from HyperVAuthStore.xml to initialstore.xml (or whatever the previous azman store was for hyper-v). This means that any changes made to HyperVAuthStore.xml while this host was under management in VMM are lost. You will need to ensure that the proper privileges are applied after the fact.

In the next release of VMM, we will solve this problem as well, making sure that any changes made to the root scope of HyperVAuthStore.xml are preserved during the removal of a host from management. The root scope changes are the only privileges that will be left behind for Hyper-V.

To find our the current Azman file that Hyper-V uses, you can query this registry key on the Hyper-V host: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Virtualization\StoreLocation

Getting an incorrect SAN migration option during clone-vm in VMM

mlmich — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:20:00 GMT

If you have a Failover Cluster managed by VMM 2008, it is possible that you will get a placement page similar to the one below if you try to clone a Highly Available Virtual Machine that is part of the cluster. The placement page in the new-vm wizard below incorrectly states that the transfer type will be SAN. New Virtual Machines are always transfered (or created) over the LAN because we need to copy the binaries over to the target location for the VM. That copy is always done using BITS.

You can go ahead and ignore this transfer type and select the Host that best matches your needs for this Virtual Machine and complete the wizard. Our team is investigating a fix for this :)