I’ve been quiet for some days now, there is a lot going on with some interesting projects, and I’m getting back to deliver the last parts of the series during the next two weeks, after that I will be working in a cloud monitoring series with some nice features I’ve been delivered the last two weeks with some customers.

I got some feedback from a couple of you regarding how you want the next articles to be shaped, so I’m going to do them a little more graphical, if you have any suggestions please comment.

The firs step is going to be use our SCVMM server as a WSUS too, so let’s login with our SCadmin account and start the installation:

In the server manager go to “Add roles and features”:

Navigate trough the wizard to the server role page and select Windows Server Update Services:

Add the required features:

Continue with all the defaults until you reach the WSUS “Content” page, select a folder in your server to store updates:

Accept the defaults and confirm the install:

Wait a few minutes for the installation process and click close.

Now go to the WSUS console in the server manager:

Launch the post installation tasks from the upper flag in the server manager:

Right clock in your server name and select “Windows Server Update Services”:

You will get a wizard:

Navigate with the defaults trough the wizard until you are in the “Specify proxy Server”,  you will need to connect to the upstream server to continue, click “Start Connecting”:

Wait for completion and click Next:

Leave the English default and click Next:

• Unselect office products.
• Select System Center 2012 R2 – Virtual Machine Manager
• Unselect Windows and just select Windows Server 2012 R2.
• Click Next.

Select the classifications:

Select Synchronize Manually:

Select begin initial synchronization and finish:

Now go to SCVMM Console –> Fabric.

Right click in update servers and Add Update Server:

Use the following settings and add:

Note: If you have a remote WSUS you will need to install the WSUS console in the SCVMM servers.

In the next post I will show you how the compliance baselines for updates

In this post we will provision the storage for our cluster, a disk from our SMI-S provider for the Quorum and create the Cluster.

Assign the storage for cluster:

• In the Fabric tab –> Servers –>All hosts –> Standalone, you should see your 3 machines.
• Right click in each of your future cluster nodes and select Move to host Group.
• Select the Clusters group you created previously and Ok.
• Now you should have something like this:

• Right click the Clusters group folder and select properties.
• In the right navigation list, click Storage.
• Click the Allocate Storage Pools button.
• Select your pools and add them.
• Click Ok.
• Click the Allocate Logical units button.
• Click Ok.
• Right click in your Node1 host and select properties.
• Click storage from the left navigation list.
• Click add and disk.
• Click Create Logical Unit.
• Name it Quorum and put it in your slow storage pool.
• In the volume label type Quorum.
• Select do not assign a drive letter or drive path.
• Click Ok.

Now to the cluster creation:

• From the upper ribbon click Create–> Hyper-V Hyper-V Cluster, Click Next.
• Fill in a descriptive name and select your VMMaction account from browse, click Next.
• From the upper drop down list, select your Clusters group.
• Add your Node1 host and click Next.
• Select your Quorum and click next.
• Click Next.
• Create.
• Wait for the cluster creation.
• Back in the fabric right click in your new cluster and select, add cluster node.
• Add Node 2 to the cluster and click Add.
• Select your VMMaction credentials and click Ok.
• Wait for the completion.

If you get an error 25325 when creating the cluster, disable all Network Interfaces that have connectivity to the Storage server except one, so you only have one communication route.

We provisioned storage and entirely created a cluster from the SCVMM Console, stay tuned for the next post.

Hi all, thanks for being so supportive with this series, I’m really glad I can help and your support is keeping me going at a fast pace to deliver to you this series of posts.

Now let’s get to the fun technical part, we will be adding 3 hosts, two of them doesn’t even have Hyper-V installed, so we will do this from the SCVMM Console and add our storage to SCVMM

Prework:

• Install Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter in my 2 nodes.
• Add them to your domain.
• Connect them to my private lab network, as shown in my 3rd post of the series.
• Enable MPIO.
• Start the iSCSI initiator, just by hitting the windows key and searching for iSCSI and open it.
• You will need to install the storage provider in your storage server with this roles and features:

• And install MPIO.

Adding the servers:

• Go to the console and the Fabric Tab.
• Right Click in the All Hosts Folder under Servers.
• Select Create a Host Group and name it Standalone.
• Repeat the process to create a Clusters group.
• Right click in your Standalone group and Add Hyper-V Hosts and Clusters.
• Select Windows Server computers in a trusted Active Directory domain and click Next.
• Create and select your VMMaction Run As Account from browse and click next.
• Remember to add as local admin your VMMaction account, this will be the one we use to manage the servers.
• Fill in your Storage computer name and click Next.
• Check the box to select your server and click Next.
• In the Host Setting select your Standalone host group and click Next.
• Finish and check the Jobs for success.
• Repeat this steps for node1 and node2 computers.

Creating the Storage Pools. I decided to go with 2 Storage Pools 1 for SSD and another for HDD, so let’s create them in the Storage server.

• Go to your Storage server and open server manager.
• Select File and Storage Services from the left pane.
• Select Storage Pools.
• In the right upper corner click tasks and New Storage Pool.
• Click Next.
• Name it, mine are Fast for SSD, and Slow for HDD, click Next.
• Select the disks you want to add to the pool and click Next.
• Create.
• Repeat for all the pools you need.
• Now go back to Storage Pool and from the tasks of virtual disks, select New Virtual Disk.
• Click Next.
• Select your storage pool and click Next.
• Give it a descriptive name, click Next.
• Select the type of layout by checking the description, I’m using simple for my lab, click Next.
• Select Fixed and click Next.
• Select the max size or the amount you want to assign, click Next.
• Clock Create.
• Go through the new volume wizard with all the defaults just changing the volume name.

We have all our storage configuration in place.

Now let’s add the storage to SCVMM:

• Go to your SCVMM Server and open the Console.
• Select the fabric tab, right click in File Servers under Storage and Add Storage Devices.
• Select Windows-based file server, click Next.
• Fill in your storage server name and select your VMMaction account from browse, and click Next.
• Wait for the discovery and click Next.
• select your Storage Device and click Next.
• Finish.
• Now right click providers and Add Storage Devices.
• Select SAN and NAS devices discovered and managed by a SMI-S provider, click Next.
• Select SMI-S WMI, fill in your storage server name and select your VMMaction account.
• Wait for the discovery and select the device, click next.
• Select the units for the virtual disks you created.
• Create a classification like Gold and another like Silver, to differentiate our fast ssd pool from the HDD one.
• Finish.

In the next post we will build the cluster from the console too, that’s really cool right?

I’m adding an index post so it’s easier for you to browse through this series of posts.

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 1: Lab Setup

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 2: VMM Setup

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 3: Preparing for WDS with VMM

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 4: Installing WDS for SCVMM

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 5: Setting up Networking

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 6: Bare Metal Deployment

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 7: Adding our hosts

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 8: Create a cluster from the console.

Now let’s check the prerequisites for the Bare Metal Deployment:

• Your motherboard should support BMC (Baseboard Management Controller), I am actually using an old 2nd generation Xeon I had around to test this. you can get a SuperMicro MB and a Xeon CPU for less than $400, because my newer workstations doesn’t support it.
• Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) versions 1.5 or 2.0.
• Data Center Management Interface (DCMI) version 1.0
• System Management Architecture for Server Hardware (SMASH) version 1.0 over WS-Management (WS-Man)
• Custom protocols such as Integrated Lights-Out (iLO).

Now that we have the prerequisites we will need a profile for our hosts:

• You will need to copy our template VHDX to the library share in the SCVMM server.
• From the host where you have the VHDX go to run and \\scvmm.
• Copy the VHDX to the Library share.
• Go to the SCVMM Server and open the Console.
• Go to the Library tab.
• Right click in profiles –> Create Physical Computer Profile.
• Select a descriptive name and select VM Host, click next.
• Click browse to find the VHDX you just imported, if you can’t find it just refresh the library, click next.
• Leave the defaults, but remember that sometimes specially for newer hardware you will need to provide the drivers, and tag them to be used for certain models or manufacturers, click next.
• Fill in the information for general settings and click next.
• You can leave the placement path configuration for later, click next.
• Review the options and finish.

To deploy the new host:

• In the Fabric Tab right click and select Add Hyper-V Hosts and Clusters.
• Select Physical computers to be provisioned as virtual machine hosts, click Next.
• Select a preconfigured run as account with the credentials for your BMC Interface and select the protocol for the Out of band Management, click Next.
• Select the discovery scope, selecting your preferred one, I will use a specific IP address, click Next.
• Select the host group to assign this host and the profile, click Next.
• Select a computer Name, and Next.
• Finish.

That’s It, in the Next post we will add all the hosts and create our cluster.