Virtual Machine Manager – Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34779

Orchestrator – Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34778

System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34607

App Controller – Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34781

Operations Manager – Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34780

Service Manager – Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34777

The Solution Accelerators team has started two new beta programs focused on tools, automation, and knowledge for System Center products. One program will provide Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) service templates and a SCVMM add-in to help you discover them. The other program will provide datacenter automation for private clouds using System Center Orchestrator. Datacenter automation for System Center Orchestrator enables you to automate operations of private cloud workloads such as SharePoint and Windows Server.

We invite you to join and participate in these beta programs.

To learn more about SCVMM service templates, join the beta program.

To learn more about datacenter automation for System Center Orchestrator, join the beta program.

We would also like invite you to join us for two Live Meeting sessions to learn more about these beta programs and provide the opportunity for you to give us feedback. Here is the information you need in order to join us for these Live Meetings sessions.

We welcome your participation in these beta programs and look forward to you joining us for these two Live Meeting sessions.

Sincerely,

Solution Accelerators Team
Microsoft Corporation

System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 Beta - Installable Bits (if you want to do that instead of VMs)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34607

App Controller – Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34781

Operations Manager – Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34780

Orchestrator – Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34778

Service Manager – Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34777

Virtual Machine Manager – Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34803

Data Protection Manager – Service Pack 1 Beta

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34779

Hello I am Dipti Goyal and I am a part of the System Center Virtual Machine Manager Team. System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM 2012) Service Pack 1 can now be configured with SQL 2012 Availability Groups and I am summarizing that process below.

Availability Groups

Availability groups are set of failover partners (a.k.a. availability replicas) that provide high availability to user databases in Microsoft SQL Server 2012.

Setting up an Availability Group

Step 1: Install Windows Cluster; create a Windows Server 2008 R2 two-node cluster using Windows Hyper-V and a Domain Controller.

Step 2: Install a Standalone SQL Server 2012 instance on both nodes.

· Use the domain account for the SQL service account.

· Open Port 1433 and 5022 or disable the Windows Firewall.

Step 3: Create a sample database on both SQL Server Instances, making sure the Recovery model is set to Full – See below:

Step 4: Back up this test database to a shared folder.

Step 5: Enable the AlwaysOn feature on both instances.

· Open SQL Server Configuration Manager

· Select SQL Server Services

· Right-click on your SQL Server (in our example it is named MSSQLSERVER) and select Properties

· Select the “AlwaysOn High Availability” tab and check "Enable AlwaysOn Availability Groups"

Step 6: Create an Availability Group

· Choose any one instance to become the PRIMARY (say Node1\MSSQLSERVER)

· Open SQL Server Management Studio on Node2\MSSQLSERVER

· Expand the Management folder

· Right-click “Availability Groups” and select “New Availability Group Wizard…”

· Click Next on the Introduction Screen

· Provide a name to the Availability Group

· Select the test database to be added into the Availability Group.

· Specify Replicas – Add the other instances (Node2\MSSQLSERVER) to assume the role of secondary for this user database

· Create an availability group listener.

· Specify the shared folder as location store the data.

· Assuming validation all passes, click Next and then Finish.

Step 7: Install VMM 2012 on the created Availability Group Listeners.

After installing the Availability Group (AG) successfully, you will see a resource that has the same name as the AG in the Failover Cluster Manager Panel. We can install VMM 2012 using the Listeners DNS name as database server.

After the VMM 2012 installation, go to SQL Server Management studio and change your VMM 2012 database’s recovery mode to full and do a backup. Then, go to Availability Databases and go through the Add Database wizard to add your VMM database to the Availability Databases.

Step 8: To test, failover from Node 1 to Node 2.

· Open Failover Cluster Manager, navigate to Services and applications ->’AG’.

· Right-click ‘Move this service or application to another node’ –> ’Move to Node 2’ (or whatever the name of your other node is)

If everything is configured properly then VMM 2012 should not have any issues with this action.

Dipti Goyal | SDET | Fabric Management

Get the latest System Center news on Facebook and Twitter:

App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/
ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/
Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm
Server App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv
Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center Essentials Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/

The Forefront Server Protection blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/fss/
The Forefront Endpoint Security blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

This Knowledge Base article talks about an issue where doing a host refresh in VMM generates MSiSCSI Event ID 113 every 30 minutes:

Symptoms

On a Hyper-V host that is managed by System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM 2008), an event ID 113 or event ID 1 is logged every 30 minutes or more:

Cause

Automatic or manual VMM Host refresh can create these events. VMM queries a WMI path during the scan of physical disks which includes iSCSI SAN disks.

WMI path: schemas.microsoft.com/wbem/wsman/1/wmi/root/wmi/MSiSCSIInitiator_MethodClass

Resolution

Some storage providers have confirmed this event can be seen and reproduced in some configurations when making WMI queries to the above namespace. This specific warning message can be safely ignored.

More Information

The symptom might also appears if a manual refresh of the host is initiated from VMM.

During the refresh, VMM is performing a scan for changes on the host machine, checking changes to items such as the following:

• Updates to virtualization host properties and status
• Updates to physical disks and SAN information
• Updates to networking information like physical nics and virtual switches

It is during the scan of physical disks and SAN information that the iSCSI devices are being polled and the above event is logged with a status of 0xefff0003 // ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND.

=====

For the most current version of this article please see the following:

2569351 - Host refresh in Virtual Machine Manager generates MSiSCSI Event ID 113 every 30 minutes

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookand Twitter:

App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/
ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/
Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm
Server App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv
Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center Essentials Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/

The Forefront Server Protection blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/fss/
The Forefront Endpoint Security blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

If you liked the original System Center Blogs app that was published last year for Windows Phone and Android, you’ll be happy to know that both apps have now been updated, plus there is a new version now available for iOS. The updates include bug fixes and feature additions as well as a current list of blogs that includes the major official Microsoft System Center related properties.

As before, these are apps I created via AppMakr (no affiliation) with the intention of simply making it easier for IT pros to keep up with all the latest news and information we publish regarding System Center, WSUS and our MDOP virtualization products. If you’re interested in more of the history and background behind this you can read about that in the original post here, but if you want to skip all that and jump straight to loading them up and checking them out you can do a simple search for System Center via your phone or you can view them on the web using the links below:

• System Center Blogs for Windows Phone
• System Center Blogs for Android
• System Center Blogs for iPhone

Enjoy!

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/
ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/
Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm
Server App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv
Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center Essentials Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/

The Forefront Server Protection blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/fss/
The Forefront Endpoint Security blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

There are some new technical documentation downloads available for VMM 2012. The available downloads include:

• System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager Technical Documentation
• System Center 2012 SP1 – Virtual Machine Manager Cmdlet Reference
• System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager Cmdlet Reference

You can find all of these documents at the following link:

Technical Documentation Download for System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6346

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/
ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/
Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm
Server App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv
Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center Essentials Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/

The Forefront Server Protection blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/fss/
The Forefront Endpoint Security blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Here’s a KB we just published that talks about an issue where attempting to perform a virtual machine conversion using the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) solution accelerator fails:

=====

Symptoms

Attempting to perform a virtual machine conversion using the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) solution accelerator returns the following status at completion :

Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter encountered an error while attempting to convert the virtual machine.

Details:
Heads values must be between 0 and 254.
Parameter name: value
Actual value was 255.

Cause

This can occur if the virtual machine being converted has a GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk attached. MVMC supports converting virtual machines that have Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioned disks attached but not virtual machines that have GPT disks attached.

Resolution

This is by design. MVMC does not currently support GPT disks.

More Information

Sample output from the log file:
258 11/02/2012 05:59:05 +01:00 [6] Progress message: 'Converting source virtual machine 'VM01''.
259 11/02/2012 05:59:21 +01:00 [6] System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Heads values must be between 0 and 254.
260 Parameter name: value
261 Actual value was 255.
262 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.Drive.MasterBootRecord.ChsTupleMemoryMap.set_Heads(Byte value)
263 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.Drive.MasterBootRecord.ChsTupleMemoryMap.Refresh()
264 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.IO.MemoryMap.CreateImpl(Type type, IAddressableRange addressableRange, Boolean refresh)
265 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.IO.MemoryMap.ReadMemoryMap(PropertyInfo propertyInfo, WriteData writeData)
266 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.IO.MemoryMap.HydrateValue(PropertyInfo propertyInfo, WriteData writeData)
267 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.IO.MemoryMap.Refresh()
268 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.IO.MemoryMap.CreateImpl(Type type, IAddressableRange addressableRange, Boolean refresh)
269 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.IO.MemoryMap.ReadMemoryMap(PropertyInfo propertyInfo, WriteData writeData)
270 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.IO.MemoryMap.HydrateValue(PropertyInfo propertyInfo, WriteData writeData)
271 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.IO.MemoryMap.Refresh()
272 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.IO.MemoryMap.Create[T](IAddressableRange addressableRange)
273 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.Utilities.Helpers.UpdateDriveGeometryHelper.VerifyAndFixDriveGeometry(IDrive drive, IAddressableRange mbrAddressableRange)
274 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.Drive.Vhd.FixedVhdDrive.UpdateFrom(IDrive source)
275 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.ServiceLayer.DriveConversionService.ConvertVmdkToVhd(String vmdkDrivePath, String vhdDrivePath, VhdType vhdType)
276 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.ServiceLayer.MachineConversionServiceImplementation.Phases.ConvertDisksService.ConvertDisksImpl(ISubject`1 conversionStepSubject, IDirectoryInfo2 vmdkDirectory, IDirectoryInfo2 vhdDirectory, Boolean dynamicDisks)
277 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.ServiceLayer.MachineConversionServiceImplementation.Phases.ConvertDisksService.ConvertDisks(ISubject`1 conversionStepSubject, IDirectoryInfo2 vmdkDirectory, IDirectoryInfo2 vhdDirectory, IMachineConfiguration machineConfiguration, IOSInfo guestOS, String guestDllDirectory, Boolean dynamicDisks)
278 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.ServiceLayer.MachineConversionServiceImplementation.Phases.ConvertDisksService.ConvertDisksToFixedVhd(ISubject`1 conversionStepSubject, IDirectoryInfo2 vmdkDirectory, IDirectoryInfo2 vhdDirectory, IMachineConfiguration machineConfiguration, IOSInfo guestOS, String guestDllDirectory)
279 at Microsoft.Accelerators.Mvmc.Engine.ServiceLayer.MachineConversionService.Convert(IMachineConversionRequest machineConversionRequest, Boolean dynamicDisks)
280 11/02/2012 05:59:21 +01:00 [6] _4127 End - Machine conversion

=====

For the most current version of this article please see the following:

2785521 - Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter fails with error: Heads values must be between 0 and 254

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/
ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/
Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm
Server App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv
Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center Essentials Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/

The Forefront Server Protection blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/fss/
The Forefront Endpoint Security blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Here’s a KB we just published that talks about an issue where performing an operation on a VM in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager fails with error 801:

=====

Symptoms

When performing any operation on a virtual machine (VM) in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), the job fails with the following error:
VMM cannot find the Virtual hard disk object' error 801

Cause

This can occur if VMM has orphaned records in the database showing snapshots that no longer exist.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, remove the orphaned objects from the database by following the steps below.

1. Stop the System Center Virtual Machine Manager service on the VMM 2012 server.
2. Back up the Virtual Manager database.
3. Open SQL Management Studio and run the following script on the VMM database:

BEGIN TRANSACTION T1

DECLARE custom_cursor CURSOR FOR
SELECT VHDId, VDriveId from
dbo.tbl_WLC_VDrive WHERE [VHDId] NOT IN
(SELECT VHDId from dbo.tbl_WLC_VHD WHERE VHDID IS NOT NULL)

DECLARE @VHDId uniqueidentifier
DECLARE @VDriveId uniqueidentifier

OPEN custom_cursor
FETCH NEXT FROM custom_cursor INTO @VHDId, @VDriveId

WHILE(@@fetch_status = 0)
BEGIN
if(@VHDId is NOT NULL)
DELETE FROM dbo.tbl_WLC_VDrive
WHERE VDriveId = @VDriveId
FETCH NEXT FROM custom_cursor INTO @VHDId, @VDriveId
END
CLOSE custom_cursor
DEALLOCATE custom_cursor

COMMIT TRANSACTION T1

More Information

This resolution can also be used for 801 errors when perfoming a Physical to Virtual conversion (P2V). Information on that solution can be found here:

959596 - Description of the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 update to address physical to virtual (P2V) issues (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959596)

=====

For the most current version of this article please see the following:

2756886 - Performing an operation in Virtual Machine Manager fails with error 801

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/
ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/
Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm
Server App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv
Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center Essentials Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/

The Forefront Server Protection blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/fss/
The Forefront Endpoint Security blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Alvin Morales here, and today I wanted to talk for a moment about how you can control the timeouts for multiple migrations in VMM 2012. In System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager Service Pack 1, we now allow multiple migrations to occur and we can set the maximum number of concurrent jobs in the properties of the host. For example, if we set the migration value to 2 then the third job (and fourth job, etc.) will be queued so that there are never more than 2 migration jobs running at the same time. By default a queued job will wait 15 minutes for the other jobs to complete before it times out and fails the job. If the job times out and fails then you will see errors similar to the following in the VMM Admin Console:

Error (23007)

Migration timeout because: VMM cannot complete the host operation on the <machineFQDN> server because of the error: Storage migration for <VMName> was not finished because maximum storage migration limit '2' was reached, please wait for completion of an ongoing migration operation (Virtual machine ID 2425AE00-994F-40D7-A69B-1D1F9BAB9783).

Resolve the host issue and then try the operation again.

A VMM Trace will show events similar to this:

00005365 9.20626545 [388] 0184.0008::06/24-23:57:57.717#04VirVMTask.cs(211): GetFinalResult, got error: 32768 => [Storage migration for 'VMName' was not finished because maximum storage migration limit '2' was reached, please wait for completion of an ongoing migration operation (Virtual machine ID 29FF9E76-1475-48B9-893E-2F98705B3735).]
00005366 9.20648384 [388] 0184.0008::06/24-23:57:57.717#16DeployVmSubtask.cs(10151): Win8 live migration failed with error

00005367 9.20675373 [388] 0184.0008::06/24-23:57:57.717#16DeployVmSubtask.cs(10151): Microsoft.Carmine.WSManWrappers.WSManException: VMM cannot complete the host operation on the <machineFQDN> server because of the error: Storage migration for 'VMName' was not finished because maximum storage migration limit '2' was reached, please wait for completion of an ongoing migration operation (Virtual machine ID 29FF9E76-1475-48B9-893E-2F98705B3735).

Fortunately for us, the timeout value can be increased so that each job will wait longer before failing. To increase the timeout between jobs, follow the steps below:

1. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Server\Settings

2. Create a new DWORD value

3. Set the name to be LiveMigrationQueueTimeoutSecs

4. Set the value to be 00000708 HEX. This will set the Timeout to 30 minutes and is a good place to start. 

5. Restart the VMM service

That should do the trick but you may need to experiment with this value to find the right one for your environment.

Alvin Morales| Senior Support Escalation Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

System Center All Up: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/
System Center – Configuration Manager Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
System Center – Data Protection Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
System Center – Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center – Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
System Center – Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center – Virtual Machine Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

Windows Intune: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The AD RMS blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmssupp/

The Forefront Endpoint Protection blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Alvin Morales here again, and today I wanted to talk briefly about an issue that I ran across in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM 2012) Service Pack 1 but is probably applicable to non-SP1 (RTM) VMM 2012 as well.

The issue you can run into is that when adding hosts, the process starts but fails at 66% and returns an error similar to the following:

Error (2927)
A Hardware Management error has occurred trying to contact server "servername.domain" :n:CannotProcessFilter :HRESULT 0x8033801a:No instance found with given property values. .

WinRM: URL: [http://"servername.domain":5985], Verb: [INVOKE], Method: [AddPeerCertificate], Resource: [http://schemas.microsoft.com/wbem/wsman/1/wmi/root/scvmm/AgentManagement]

Unknown error (0x8033801a)

Recommended Action
Check that WinRM is installed and running on server "servername.domain". For more information use the command "winrm helpmsg hresult".

This can occur if the Virtual Machine Manager agent is not started. When the process tries to sync up certificates, it fails and thus fails the job. In a trace you will likely also see errors such as this:

FAILED. The WS-Management service cannot process the request. The WMI service or the WMI provider returned an unknown error. HRESULT 0x8004100e

A Hardware Management error has occurred trying to contact server "servername.domain" :n:CannotProcessFilter :HRESULT 0x8033801a:No instance found with given property values. .

WinRM: URL: [http://"servername.domain":5985], Verb: [INVOKE], Method: [AddPeerCertificate], Resource: [http://schemas.microsoft.com/wbem/wsman/1/wmi/root/scvmm/AgentManagement]

Fortunately the resolution is an easy one - start the System Center Virtual Machine Manager agent.  Now as a side note, you may find that the System Center Virtual Machine Manager agent isn’t running for a reason (e.g. the service is failing). If that’s the case then of course you’ll need to troubleshoot the cause of that so that the service will start successfully. When I ran into this, the service was failing due to performance counter corruption and restarting the WMI service or using winmgmt /salvage repository fixed the issue, although as they say, your mileage may vary.

Alvin Morales| Senior Support Escalation Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

System Center All Up: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/
System Center – Configuration Manager Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
System Center – Data Protection Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
System Center – Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center – Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
System Center – Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center – Virtual Machine Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

Windows Intune: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The AD RMS blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmssupp/

The Forefront Endpoint Protection blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

We’ve been getting a couple support calls regarding this issue so you may want to give this article a quick read. If attempts to manage Hyper-V hosts in VMM fail then check and see if Windows Management Framework (WMF) 3.0 (KB2506143) is installed on a Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V host. If so then this KB article will tell you how to fix it:

2795043 - Managing Hyper-V hosts using Virtual Machine Manager fails with Error: 0x8033803b after installing WMF 3.0 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2795043)

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

System Center All Up: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/
System Center – Configuration Manager Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
System Center – Data Protection Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
System Center – Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center – Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
System Center – Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center – Virtual Machine Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

Windows Intune: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The AD RMS blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmssupp/

The Forefront Endpoint Protection blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Here’s a recent KB about an issue where attempting to migrate a VM with an attached shared ISO using System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 or System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager fails with:

Virtualization platform on host Host_Name.domain.com does not support shared DVD ISO images.
Remove the shared ISO image from hardware profile or select a different host.

The long and short of this is that shared ISOs are not supported during the migration process but you can read about it here:

2792049 - Error ID 11028 when migrating a VM with attached shared ISO in Virtual Machine Manager (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2792049)

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

System Center All Up: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/
System Center – Configuration Manager Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
System Center – Data Protection Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
System Center – Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center – Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
System Center – Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center – Virtual Machine Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

Windows Intune: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The AD RMS blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmssupp/

The Forefront Endpoint Protection blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Welcome to the New Year and to a series of blog postings that will cover how to define, configure and manage Virtual Networks in VMM 2012 SP1. Over the next six months, we plan to cover the following topics using the initial blog “getting started with network virtualization” below as a starting point.  Later posts in this series will go into more details and drill into specific settings and scenarios that may be of interest to you as you start to make use of this technology in your environment.

Feel free to suggest additional topics in the comments section as we develop the series and we’ll consider them for future blog entries.  We look forward to your feedback and comments.

Assumptions

The focus of the blog series will be virtual networks and the new features introduced in VMM 2012 SP1 and given that, we assume that you have already upgraded to VMM 2012 SP1 and are ready to start taking advantage of the new features and functionality.

We also highly recommend that prior to working through the blog, you familiarize yourself with network virtualization and some of the key concepts and terms. The below link provides a good basis from which to start: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134230.aspx

Introductions

As the primary authors and editors of the series, Damian Flynn (LionBridge Architect and Microsoft MVP) and Nigel Cain (Senior Program Manager, Windows Server and System Center) have been working together as part of LionBridge’s participation on the System Center 2012 SP1 TAP for well over a year. Together, they have presented a number of sessions on creating and managing Private/Hosted Clouds with System Center 2012 at TechEd and MMS and, over the last year, have been discussing the benefits of virtualized networking, how to migrate from pre-existing (pre-VMM 2012 SP1) networking and architecture best practices with Greg Cusanza (Microsoft PM - VMM networking feature owner), Alvin Morales (Microsoft Beta Support Engineer) and a number of others with a view to sharing these findings more generally. We hope this blog will help answer some of the key questions you have on virtual networking and help you get the most of your investment in System Center – Virtual Machine Manager.

Getting Started with Virtual Networking

In this first blog of the series, we will walk through the basic steps you need to follow in order to create an isolated network on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V servers using System Center 2012 SP1- Virtual Machine Manager . This blog will form the foundation of our future postings which will drill into more detail.  You’ll definitely want to bookmark this one as we will come back to it. Thanks to Alvin Morales from CSS Beta Support for helping build out this initial posting.

Note that in the following sections we are assuming you are working in a new environment and will use VMM to configure all elements of virtual networking. In reality, you may have existing Hyper-V hosts with some or all components of networking already pre-configured. We will discuss how to work with these environments in later blog posts.

Network Virtualization

The documentation for SC 2012 SP1 – VMM states that network virtualization provides the “ability to run multiple virtual network infrastructures, potentially with overlapping IP addresses, on the same physical network. With network virtualization, each virtual network infrastructure operates as if it is the only one that is running on the shared network infrastructure. This enables two different business groups that are using VMM to use the same IP addressing scheme without conflict. In addition, network virtualization provides isolation so that only virtual machines on a specific virtual network infrastructure can communicate with each other.”

The rest of this document will walk you through the steps required to configure network virtualization “so that only virtual machines on a specific virtual network infrastructure can communicate with each other”. In later blog postings, we’ll talk about how you would use this concept as a basis for a service in which your customers will “bring their own network”.

1 Create a Logical Network

A logical network is used to organize and simplify network assignments for hosts, virtual machines and services. As part of logical network creation, you can create network sites to define the VLANs, IP subnets, and IP subnet/VLAN pairs that are associated with the logical network in each physical location.

http://technet.microsoft.com/library/gg610588.aspx

Note that if you are planning to create an isolated network, you must check the option to “Allow new VM networks created on this logical network to use network virtualization”. As later stages of this process build on this logical network concept, if the option is not checked, it may be necessary for you to delete and recreate your logical network to get the desired behavior.

When you create a logical network, you can create one or more associated network sites. A network site associates one or more subnets, VLANs, and subnet/VLAN pairs with a logical network. It also enables you to define the host groups to which the network site is available.

2 Create an IP pool for the logical network

To ensure that each virtual machine has an IP address which can be used on the host network, network virtualization requires that you create an IP pool. IP addresses from this pool are otherwise known as Provider Address (or PA). The IP addresses you provide here will be routable between your Hyper-V hosts.  We’ll cover more about this in later blogs, but you can find more information on IP address pools here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg610590.aspx

3 Define a Logical Switch

You can consistently configure identical capabilities for network adapters across multiple hosts by using port profiles and logical switches. Port profiles and logical switches act as containers for the properties or capabilities that you want your network adapters to have across multiple hosts. Instead of configuring individual properties or capabilities for each network adapter on each host, you specify the capabilities in port profiles and logical switches, which you can then apply to the appropriate adapters. You can find more information on logical switches and port profiles at the following location:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj721570.aspx

The following walks through the steps necessary to create a logical switch. The terms may be slightly confusing, but later blogs will add more details.  Please note that the order of tasks is important and you will need to create an uplink port profile and virtual network adaptor port profile(s) before you can create the logical switch itself.

3.1 Create an Uplink Port Profile

The Uplink port profile defines the load balancing algorithms for teaming as well as linking the switch with the network site(s) that you defined in a logical network.

As we will talk about in the blog on virtual switches, be sure that the hosts you want to deploy this virtual switch to have been configured to support the logical network(s) you select below.  Otherwise, you will be unable to assign the switch to that host.

3.2 Define Virtual network adapter port profiles

A number of network adapter port profiles have been created by default for your convenience.   These profiles allow you to configure settings such as Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ), IPsec task offloading and Single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) that can be applied to a given virtual network adaptor. You can also configure security to prevent MAC address spoofing, DHCP guard, router guard, guest teaming, IEEE priority tagging as well as the minimum and maximum bandwidth.  For more information, see the following article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj628155.aspx.

In terms of getting started, just accept the default list of port profiles for now.  We’ll come back to these and how and why you should configure them in a future blog posting.  For now, just remember that you can use virtual adaptor port profiles to define quality of service and to take advantage of some of the features provided by your host hardware.

3.3 Define Port Classifications

A port classification is essentially a label used to group profiles together, it is used in a similar manner to storage classifications in VMM in the sense they are used to hide complexity from users working with a cloud. As with port profiles before, we will accept the default list of classifications for now and discuss these in a later blog.  If interested, you can find more details on port classifications and how they are used in the following article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj628153.aspx.

3.4 Create the Switch

At this point, you can link the different port profiles and classifications in the form of a logical switch which can then be assigned to one or more Hyper-V hosts. Future blog posts will cover logical switch configuration and design choices in much more depth.  For now, just enter a name for the new logical switch and accept the default setting (unchecked) for SR-IOV as shown below.

You can find more information on logical switches in VMM 2012 SP1 at the following location: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj628154.aspx

On the Uplink settings page of the Create Logical Switch Wizard, you need to indicate whether the logical switch will be connected using either a teamed or a stand-alone physical network adapter and, by specifying one or more uplink port profiles, the list of logical networks that it will be connected to.

The remaining task is to specify which port classifications will be available on this switch. These classifications control the properties such as the security settings and restrictions on network bandwidth that will be applied to the virtual network adapters that are connected to this switch.

In this example above, the switch will include only a medium bandwidth profile, which essentially means that all virtual machines that connect to the network (using this switch) will have their maximum bandwidth limited to a range defined by the VMM administrator.

4 Assign the logical switch to a host

The next step is will assign the logical switch we created to a host. You will need to go to the host properties and select the virtual switch section. In the new Virtual Switch button you will select “New logical switch” and assign the physical network adaptors which will be linked to the switch as shown.

Note: If the physical network adapter you selected will also be used to pass management traffic back to VMM, you will need to create a (new) Virtual Network Adapter and assign it to a VM network that has no isolation.  See the later section on VM networks andhttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj628156.aspx for more details.

Once you apply the logical switch to the host in SC 2012 SP1 - VMM, it will create a virtual switch on the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V host.

5 Create a VM (Virtual Machine) Network

New to SC 2012 SP1 - VMM is the fact that all virtual machines need to be connected to a Virtual Machine (VM) Network to be able to use and access network resources. You can find and define these networks through the VMs and Services section of the console.  Please note that VM networks are not fabric components and hence are located in a different part of the console. The Create VM Network Wizard will introduce the key steps required to set up an isolated network. We will return to this topic in future blog posts – you can find more information on Virtual Machine Networks here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj628157.aspx

The Isolation screen allows you to enable Isolation and the IP version you want the isolated network want to use.  You can also select No Isolation if you want to have the VM network provide virtual machines with direct access to the logical network.  This configuration essentially replicates the behavior you would find in SC 2012 – VMM.

Using isolation, you need to define the subnet which the virtual machines will be using. This will allow the virtual switch to create the network virtual routing tables. This will also help define the IP range used in the IP pool for the virtual machine network.

By default, the Virtual Network has no external connectivity, meaning that virtual machines connected to it will only be able to communicate with other virtual machines on that network as the dialog below suggests. In short, you need a VPN Gateway Device to provide a VPN link to an external network or a Gateway Device which allows machines on the virtual network to communicate with other local networks supported by that Hyper-V host in the local datacenter. For now, you can accept the default of no external connectivity.

Note that the remote and local networks options (highlighted) are greyed out in the dialog below as no gateway “provider” has been defined in VMM. We will discuss this and the different types of Gateways and why you would use them in much more detail in the blog posts on Hosting scheduled for later in the year.

6 Create an IP pool in the VM Network

Next, you need to define the IP range that can be assigned to virtual machines connected to this network.  These addresses are referred to as customer addresses (CA). Be aware that when you create the range the first IP will be assigned to the switch.  This means you will also have one less usable address in the range. You can create multiple IP ranges within the same customer address space. More information can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj721574.aspx

As an example, based on the subnet defined for your Virtual Machine (VM) Network, you will then create the IP pool. Assuming the subnet is 10.10.10.0 and the addresses for the pool start at 10.10.10.2 through 10.10.10.254 based on the mask, VMM will automatically reserve the first IP of the range (10.10.10.1) for assignment to the virtual switch. The reserved IP address is utilized by the network virtualization filter as a gateway between additional subnets in the same customer address space. You can also reserve IP addresses for other uses.

7 Assign the VM Network to a Virtual Machine

Once the virtual network has been created, virtual machines (VM) can be connected to it using the network adapter configuration settings – see example screenshot below. In the connectivity section of the dialog, simply assign the virtual machine to your new VM Network.

NOTE: Be aware that the MAC address assigned to the interface will be static rather than dynamic to allow the virtual machine to retain its MAC address as it migrates between hosts in your environment. As you are utilizing virtual networking, hosts require an additional update to the network virtualization (MS_NETWNV) lookup tables to ensure the MSNETWNV filter maintains connectivity and the MAC address is essentially used as part of the unique identifier for your virtual machines’ network traffic.

The assigned static MAC address will be taken from a MAC address pool. You can find more information about the use of MAC addresses pools from the following location: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg610632.aspx.

Summary

We hope these overview steps gave you an idea of how to configure virtual networks. In the upcoming blogs, we will talk about each of the components in turn, providing more detail around key design decisions and the implications of those decisions.

-Nigel Cain & Damian Flynn

This morning we announced the general availability of System Center 2012 SP1.   You can read more about the release on the System Center blog:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2013/01/15/system-center-2012-sp1-is-generally-available.aspx

Here are some general changes in Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) in the System Center 2012 SP1 release that you might need to consider:

• The VMM Self-Service Portal is no longer supported in System Center 2012 SP1. Instead, we recommend that you use System Center 2012 SP1 - App Controller as the self-service portal solution. For more information about App Controller, see App Controller.
• Self-service users can now use the VMM console instead of the VMM Self-Service Portal to perform tasks such as deploying virtual machines and services.
• High availability with N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) is no longer supported. VMM is compatible with virtual (synthetic) fiber channels that are configured for virtual machines in Hyper-V.

The following tables summarize VMM enhancements and other changes in the System Center 2012 SP1 release.

Deploying VMM
There are enhancements to the matrix of supported versions of operating systems and other required software.  For a complete list of supported and required configurations, see System Requirements for System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager.

System Center 2012 SP1 – Virtual Machine Manager now manages Windows Server 2012 which delivers numerous enhancements to the Microsoft Hyper-V features, as follows:

• Large virtual machines
• Clusters that can support a larger numbers of nodes
• Storage management through SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative – Specification)

See the Supported Storage Arrays section in Configuring Storage Overview.

Ability to manage vSphere 5.1 and Citrix XenServer 6.0.  For more information about Citrix, see Managing Citrix XenServer Overview. For more information about vSphere see How to Add VMware ESX Hosts to VMM and How to Configure Network Settings on a VMware ESX Host.

Configuring Fabric Resources in VMM - Networks
There is a new model for virtual machine networking, including network virtualization and virtual local area networks (VLANs) for network isolation.

Network Virtualization

How to Create a VM Network in System Center 2012 SP1

You can now manage the Hyper-V extensible switch, including deployment and configuration of virtual switch extensions using a new logical switch concept.

How to Add a Virtual Switch Extension Manager in System Center 2012 SP1

SC 2012 SP1 – VMM provides network virtualization that includes support for using Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to assign customer addresses using Network Virtualization with Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE) to virtualize the IP address of a virtual machine.

Network Virtualization

Software-defined networking is new with support for Hyper-V network virtualization and switch extension management. This allows a constant network configuration in the datacenter.

Configuring VM Networks and Gateways in System Center 2012 SP1

Configuring Ports and Switches for VM Networks in System Center 2012 SP1

How to Add a Virtual Switch Extension Manager in System Center 2012 SP1

SC 2012 SP1 – VMM introduces the concept of a logical switch that allows you to manage individual switch instances across multiple Hyper-V hosts as a single entity.

How to Create a Logical Switch in System Center 2012 SP1

SC 2012 SP1 – VMM provides the ability to deploy and manage third-party switch extensions, such as Cisco 1KV and InMon. For organizations that have investments in these third-party products, these can be integrated into VMM.

How to Create a Logical Switch in System Center 2012 SP1

Configuring Fabric Resources in VMM - Storage
SC 2012 SP – VMM now supports file shares that leverage the new 3.0 version of the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol that is introduced in Windows Server 2012. VMM in this release includes support for designating network file shares on Windows Server 2012 computers as the storage location for virtual machine files, such as configuration, virtual hard disk (.vhd/.vhdx) files and checkpoints.

SMB 3.0 file shares provide the following benefits when they are used with VMM in this release:

• Hyper-V over SMB supports file servers and storage with improved efficiency compared to traditional storage area networks (SANs).
• If you use SMB 3.0 file shares as the storage locations for virtual machine files, you can "live migrate" virtual machines that are running between two standalone Hyper-V hosts or between two stand-alone Hyper-V host clusters. Because the storage location is a shared location that is available from the source and destination hosts, only the virtual machine state must transfer between hosts.

You can create SMB 3.0 file shares on standalone Windows Server 2012 file servers and on clustered Windows Server 2012 file servers. If you use a standalone file server, you can designate an SMB 3.0 file share as the virtual machine storage location on a Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V host cluster. However, this is not a highly available solution.

For more information about SMB 3.0 in Windows Server 2012, see Server Message Block Overview.

For more information about how to create a highly available SMB 3.0 file share, see Scale-Out File Server for Application Data Overview, and steps 1 and 2 of the Deploy Scale-Out File Server scenario that is linked to from that topic.

The new Windows Standards-Based Storage Management service replaces the Microsoft Storage Management Service in System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager. The new service uses the Windows Storage Management application programming interface (API), a WMI-based programming interface that is included in Windows Server 2012. This new API enables you to discover storage by using multiple provider types.

Important

The Windows Storage Management API supersedes the Virtual Disk Service (VDS) interface. Therefore, if you are using a storage array that uses only the VDS hardware provider (and not SMI-S), storage area network (SAN) transfer capabilities will no longer be available. A SAN transfer enables you to migrate a virtual machine from one location to another when the virtual hard disk is located on a storage array. The logical unit number (LUN) that contains the virtual machine is remapped from the source computer to the destination computer instead of transferring the files over the network.

In this release, VMM supports the following types of storage providers and arrays:

• SMI-S CIM–XML, which existed in System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager. For more information about the supported storage arrays, see the Supported Storage Arrays section of Configuring Storage Overview.
• Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP)
  Supported array: Dell EqualLogic PS Series using iSCSI.

Configuring Storage Overview

Now with SP1 there is support for auto (dynamic) iSCSI target systems, such as the Dell EqualLogic PS Series. System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager supports only static iSCSI target systems.

Thin provisioning of logical units through VMM is now possible. Your storage array must support thin provisioning and thin provisioning must be enabled for a storage pool by your storage administrator.

SC 2012 SP1 – VMM supports integration with third-party SANs and file-based storage on a Windows Server 2012 file server.

Configuring Fabric Resources in VMM - Hyper-V
SC 2012 SP1 – VMM now supports using a virtual hard disk that is in the .vhdx format as the base operating system image.

Also new is operating system deployment that utilizes deep discovery and Consistent Device Naming (CDN). CDN allows VMM to predictably assign network interface controllers (NICs) to the correct networks and teams.

During the discovery process, you can run deep discovery to see more detailed information about the physical computer hardware before you deploy the operating system. In this release, deep discovery functionality is only partially enabled. You can view the physical network adapter information, information about the CPU, and the amount of memory. You can configure network options such as logical switches, and you can change the settings for the network adapter that VMM automatically designates as the management network adapter.

How to Discover Physical Computers and Deploy as Hyper-V Hosts in VMM

How to Create a Host Profile in VMM

SC 2012 SP1 – VMM also provides support for

• physical network adapter configuration as follows:
• IP configuration
• Logical switch creation
• NIC Teaming
• Support for host vNIC configuration.
• Support for startup disk selection as part of operating system deployment.
• Enhanced default auto disk selection logic as part of operating system deployment.

Virtual Machines and Services
SC 2012 SP1 – VMM provides support for deployment of services to virtual machines in a domain or workgroup that does not have a trust relationship with the domain of the VMM management server.

Preparing to Create Services in VMM

In Hyper-V only, support is provided for the deployment of services to virtual machines that are not connected, where the service instance does not have network connectivity to the VMM management server, to a VMM library server, or to both.

Preparing to Create Services in VMM

Now in SC 2012 SP1 – VMM when you are deploying a virtual machine as part of a service and creating a SQL Server profile, there is added support for SQL Server 2012 as an instance of Microsoft SQL Server.

How to Create a SQL Server Profile in a Service Deployment

SC 2012 SP1 – VMM provides the following enhancements to application profiles:

• For the deployment of application packages, added support for updated versions of the following applications:
  • Web Deploy 3.0
  • Data-tier Application Framework (DAC Fx) 3.0
  • Server App-V SP1
• Support for application profiles that run multiple scripts before and after installing an application on a virtual machine, and if a script fails, the capability to rerun if specified to do so in the profile.
• Support for deploying MSDeploy packages to existing Internet Information Services (IIS) servers, whether they are virtual or physical, managed by VMM or not (Web Application Host).

How to Create an Application Profile in a Service Deployment

You can now add Windows Server 2012 roles and features when creating and deploying services, such as the Windows Server Update Services role.

There is now support for IIS application hosts, which allow you to deploy websites into pre-existing IIS web farms.

How to Apply Updates to a Deployed Service in VMM

SC 2012 SP1 – VMM adds support for the new version of the virtual hard disk format that is introduced in Windows Server 2012. This new format is referred to as VHDX. Compared to the older VHD format, VHDX has a much larger storage capacity of up to 64 TB. The VHDX format also provides data corruption protection during power failures. Additionally, it offers improved alignment of the virtual hard disk format to perform well on large-sector physical disks.

Support for VHDX includes the following:

• You can convert a virtual hard disk for a virtual machine that is deployed to a Windows Server 2012-based host from the .vhd to .vhdx virtual hard disk format. The conversion includes any associated checkpoints.
• If you create a new virtual machine with a blank virtual hard disk, VMM determines whether the format should be .vhd or .vhdx, depending on the operating system of the host that is selected during placement. If it is a Windows Server 2012–based host, VMM uses the .vhdx format. If it is a Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1–based host, VMM uses the .vhd format.
• If you provision a physical computer as a Hyper-V host, you can specify a .vhdx file as the image for the base operating system.
• You can use VMM to "rapidly provision" any virtual machines that use VHDX-based virtual hard disks from SAN-copy capable templates.
• A VMM library server that runs Windows Server 2012 automatically indexes .vhdx files.
• In addition to the small and large blank .vhd files that were available in previous versions of VMM, the VMM library in System Center 2012 SP1 also contains both a small (16 gigabytes (GB)) and a large (60 GB) blank .vhdx files.

For more information about the benefits of the VHDX format in Windows Server 2012, see Hyper-V Virtual Hard Disk Format Overview.

Rapid Provisioning of Virtual Machines Using SAN Copy Overview

You can now provision a physical computer as a Hyper-V host. When you provision a physical computer as a Hyper-V host, you can use a Windows Server 2012-based virtual hard disk that is in the .vhdx or .vhd format as the base operating system image.

For background information about adding a physical computer as a Hyper-V host, see Adding Physical Computers as Hyper-V Hosts Overview.

Linux-based virtual machines are now fully supported with the following:

• Added settings for Linux-specific operating system specialization when you are creating a Linux-based virtual machine template.

  Important: These settings are supported only when the Linux virtual machine is deployed on Hyper-V.

• Ability to include a Linux virtual machine template in a service template that deploys a multi-tier application or service.
• Updated Windows PowerShell cmdlets to support this new functionality.

How to Create a Virtual Machine Template

Requirements for Linux-Based Virtual Machines

You can now configure availability options for virtual machines on Hyper-V host clusters by using the VMM console, without having to open Failover Cluster Manager.

Configuring Availability Options for Virtual Machines in System Center 2012 SP1 Overview

Live Migration
SC 2012 SP – VMM supports live migration outside a cluster. This is in addition to supporting live migration within a cluster. Live migration outside a cluster allows you to perform live migration between two standalone computers that are not cluster nodes.

For more information about live migration in Windows Server 2012, see the following topics:

• Virtual Machine Live Migration Overview
• Virtual Machine Storage Migration Overview
• Migrating virtual machines and storage in System Center SP1 - Virtual Machine Manager

Live migration between nodes in two different clusters is also now supported. You can migrate between nodes within a cluster, or between nodes in different clusters.

Migrating Virtual Machines and Storage Overview

How to configure live virtual machine and storage migration in System Center SP1 - Virtual Machine Manager

Storage migration, which allows for the migration of virtual machine storage is now supported. You can migrate storage in order to update the physical storage available in Hyper-V, or to mitigate bottlenecks in storage performance. Storage can be added to either a standalone computer or a Hyper-V cluster. Then, virtual machines can be moved to the new storage while they continue to run.

Migrating Virtual Machines and Storage Overview

How to configure live virtual machine and storage migration in System Center SP1 - Virtual Machine Manager

SC 2012 SP1 – VMM also supports live VSM. By using live virtual system migration (VSM) you can migrate both virtual machines and storage in a single action.

Migrating Virtual Machines and Storage Overview

How to configure live virtual machine and storage migration in System Center SP1 - Virtual Machine Manager

You can perform multiple concurrent live migrations of virtual machines and storage. The allowable number of concurrent live migrations can be configured manually. Attempted concurrent live migrations in excess of the limit will be queued.

Migrating Virtual Machines and Storage Overview

How to configure live virtual machine and storage migration in System Center SP1 - Virtual Machine Manager

VMM Console
Integration of third-party user interface (UI) add-ins for the VMM console can now extend the functionality of the console. For example, you can create console add-ins that will allow you to do the following:

• Add ribbon entries in the VMM console to launch web browsers and Windows applications directly from the ribbon.
• Enable new actions or additional configuration for VMM objects by writing an application that uses context that is passed regarding the selected VMM objects.
• Embed custom Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) UI or web portals directly into the VMM console’s main views to provide a more fully integrated experience.

Virtual Machine Manager Add-in SDK in the TechNet Wiki.

There are several significant performance enhancements to the VMM console. Load times are decreased and the performance of sorting and filtering views is significantly improved. For viewing job history, jobs are now loaded incrementally and the views have a richer set of data-filtering options, reducing the effect of large sets of jobs on console performance.

Overview pages in the VMM console now display various reports about usage and capacity metrics for services, tenants and clouds.

Additional Improvements

Performance and scalability:

• Increased the scale of a VMM management server to be able to manage 600 hosts and 12,000 virtual machines.
• Support for a 64 node cluster.
• Performance enhancement to the VMM console.

Integration with Operation Manager as follows:

• Ability to use Operations Manager to view information related to application hosts, load balancers, and user roles while also being able to monitor virtual machines, services, host systems, network adapters, and other elements of the fabric.
• Receive notifications from Operations Manager if the load on a cloud has exceeded a chosen threshold of fabric capacity. Concurrently review other clouds for available excess capacity that can be reallocated to meet the demand.
• Generate reports that track the resource usage of each configured service or service user, to aid in capacity planning.

Configuring Operations Manager Integration with VMM

In App Controller in System Center 2012 Service Pack 1, the following new features are available:

• Upload a virtual hard disk or image to Windows Azure from a VMM library or network share
• Add a virtual machine to a deployed service in Windows Azure
• Start, stop, and connect to virtual machines in Windows Azure
• Copy a virtual machine from VMM to Windows Azure
• Deploy a virtual machine in Windows Azure to create a cloud service
• Add a Service Provider Framework (SPF) hosting provider connection

We’ve posted a few KB articles for System Center 2012 SP1 and since they were timed to go out with the release of the SP1 bits I didn’t want to dedicate a separate post for each. Instead I’ve listed them here just so you’ll be aware of what they are. Nothing really major, just a couple support tips and FYIs we saw during that beta that might save you some time if you happen to run across them. Enjoy!

2709539 - Regional settings default to English when deploying a virtual machine using a template on System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2709539)

2800073 - System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager SP1 Maintenance Mode Causes Refresh Errors 13926, 2606 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2800073)

2798383 - System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager SP1 Does Not Recognize Newly Imported Highly Available Virtual Machine (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2798383)

2798507 - Creating a VM from a template on an ESX host fails with error 2947 in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager SP1 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2798507)

2798842 - System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager SP1 cannot increase the number of CPU Cores during a P2V conversion (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2798842)

2798911 - System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager SP1 cannot create a VM in the cloud that has an underscore in the name (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2798911)

2798926 - System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager SP1 fails to shut down a virtual machine (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2798926)

2797597 - Suse Linux Enterprise Server 11 is missing from the Linux OS list in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2797597)

2795033 - A Virtual Machine Manager Library share on Highly Available File Server displays an incorrect status (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2795033)

2799257 - How to convert between VHD and VHDX formats in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2799257)

2798401 - System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager SP1 Service Deployment fails with error 22011 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2798401)

2800610 - Static IP is missing from a virtual switch created with System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager SP1 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2800610)

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

System Center All Up: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/
System Center – Configuration Manager Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
System Center – Data Protection Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
System Center – Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center – Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
System Center – Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center – Virtual Machine Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

Windows Intune: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The AD RMS blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmssupp/

The Forefront Endpoint Protection blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Here’s a new KB article we published today. This one walks you through the steps necessary to enable debug logging and collect an ETL trace in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager. This probably isn’t something you’d ever want to do on your own but if you work with our support team and they decide they need an ETL trace then this will help you gather that information.

2801185 - How to enable debug logging in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager SP1 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2801185)

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

System Center All Up: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/
System Center – Configuration Manager Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
System Center – Data Protection Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
System Center – Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center – Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
System Center – Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center – Virtual Machine Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

Windows Intune: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The AD RMS blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmssupp/

The Forefront Endpoint Protection blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Here’s a new KB article we published today on App Controller. This one describes an issue where attempting to install App Controller to a remote SQL server it fails if the name of the SQL server starts with a number or you specified the IP address of the SQL server rather than its name.  You  can get all the details here:

KB2802110 - Installation of App Controller to a Remote SQL Server fails with Exception Error Code: 0x80131500 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2802110)

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

System Center All Up: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/
System Center – Configuration Manager Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
System Center – Data Protection Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
System Center – Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center – Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
System Center – Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center – Virtual Machine Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

Windows Intune: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The AD RMS blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmssupp/

The Forefront Endpoint Protection blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Here’s a new KB article we published today. This one talks about an issue where you can get error 2606 when starting a new job in VMM 2012. Error 2606 can occur when a new job is started if there’s another job that already has locks on the db. It’s pretty standard behavior but the KB shows you how to figure out what objects locks currently exist. See the KB article below for all the details:

KB2795040 - Starting a new job in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager fails with error 2606 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2795040)

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

System Center All Up: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/
System Center – Configuration Manager Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
System Center – Data Protection Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
System Center – Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center – Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
System Center – Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center – Virtual Machine Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

Windows Intune: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The AD RMS blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmssupp/

The Forefront Endpoint Protection blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

With System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM 2012) SP1, we now allow multiple migrations to occur and we can specify the maximum number of concurrent migration jobs in the properties of the host. What this means is that if we set the migration value to 2 then the third migration job will be queued until one of the earlier jobs is complete, and by default this job will wait 15 minutes before it times out and fails the job. If you’re seeing migration timeout errors then you can increase that time with a simple Registry tweak. See the KB article below for all the details:

KB2790310 - How to increase the timeout for Migration Jobs in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2790310)

J.C. Hornbeck| Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news onFacebookandTwitter:

System Center All Up: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/
System Center – Configuration Manager Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
System Center – Data Protection Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
System Center – Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center – Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
System Center – Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center – Virtual Machine Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

Windows Intune: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The AD RMS blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmssupp/

The Forefront Endpoint Protection blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/