Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 Reviewer’s Guide Virtual machine technology offers compelling features, but also presents IT administrators with unique challenges. Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 addresses these challenges with a cost-effective, comprehensive management solution for virtual and physical machines.
Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 What’s New in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 .................................. 1 Live Migration.................................................................................................................................. 1 Support for Clustered Shared Volumes and Third Party CFS .....................................................
Installing the VMM Administrator Console ................................................................................. 18 Installing the VMM Self-Service Portal ........................................................................................ 19 Installing the VMM Agent ............................................................................................................. 20 VMM Use Scenarios ..................................................................................................
Introduction Virtual machine technology is transforming data center operations, allowing companies to reduce power, space, and cooling costs, and to respond faster to business needs. However, virtualization brings its own set of difficulties.
downtime and reduces the planned downtime associated with routine system maintenance. When Live Migration is coupled with VMM’s Performance Resource Optimization (PRO) feature you can create a dynamic IT environment, automatically reallocating virtual machine workloads based on resource utilization and available capacity.
Maintenance Mode The new Maintenance Mode feature in VMM 2008 R2 allows an administrator to specify that they will be performing maintenance tasks on a Hyper-V host. For example, if live migration is configured on the host, then all active virtual machines will be migrated off the host onto other available Hyper-V hosts during the maintenance period. If live migration is not available, then the state of all virtual machines on the host is saved.
VMM takes resource utilization a step further with end-to-end support for consolidating physical servers. It helps IT administrators overcome key pain points in the consolidation process in the following ways: Provides insight into how workloads perform in the old environment – VMM uses data gathered from System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) to assess which workloads are the best candidates for consolidation.
use of physical resources. VMM also works with System Center Operations Manager so that administrators can comprehensively manage both physical and virtual infrastructure. Increases Operational Agility In traditional data centers without virtualization, provisioning new machines is a lengthy process measured in days, weeks, or even months, making it difficult for IT departments to keep pace with the rate of business growth and change.
scenario with added controls for administrators, including assigning resources to groups as well as individuals, and setting quotas on available resources. Enables efficient operations through administrative delegation – Delegated administration makes virtual machine management for branch and departmental deployments more efficient by giving local administrators the ability to manage virtual machines in their own environment.
Works with the rest of the data center – Because of its Windows Server and System Center pedigree, VMM fits in well with the rest of the data center. VMM takes advantage of several Windows Server-based foundational services, such as Active Directory, Failover Clustering, Windows Remote Management (WinRM), WS-Management, and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
Workgroup Setup In a standalone setup, VMM runs on the same physical hardware as the virtual machines. A local SQL Server 2005 database stores library files. This configuration is ideal for small development teams that need to build virtual machines rapidly for test purposes. Co-Located Data Center Setup For a standard data center with co-located servers, VMM offers a management solution that monitors and controls both physical and virtual machines, as shown in Figure 1.
Management Toolset VMM empowers IT administrators with a toolset for virtual infrastructure management. The following list of components summarizes how these tools work. Administrator Console The Administrator Console, shown in Figure 2, provides administrators with a full suite of virtual machine management functions.
Operating system profiles Post-deployment customization scripts Sysprep answer files Hardware configurations Templates In small organizations within a single location, administrators can create the library on the same machine as the VMM application. For larger, distributed organizations, IT administrators can implement library stores at each data center location so they do not need to send files across wide-area networks (WANs) and incur associated performance penalties.
and Windows Server with familiar and powerful Microsoft Office system applications to deliver real-time information, support daily operations, and drive decisions. Self-Service Web Portal for Delegated Provisioning VMM also provides a Web portal from which authorized users can provision new virtual machines without directly involving IT staff. This capability especially targets software test and development teams, which often set up temporary virtual machines to try out new software.
Software Requirements The following charts detail the software requirements needed for VMM components. VMM server Operating system Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 with Hyper-V Windows Server 2008 x64 with Hyper-V Database If not already installed, the VMM installation process will install the Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 Express Edition SP3 on the local computer from the Setup Wizard.
Windows PowerShell™ 1.03 Notes 1 If not already installed, you can install this software from within the Setup Wizard. 2 Install this software from the following site: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69910. Installing the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 does not interfere with the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 components already installed. 3 If not already installed, you can install this software from the following site: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=77521.
Other software Windows Remote Management (WinRM) 2 Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.03 Notes 1 On Windows Server 2003, the host must also have either the 32-bit or the 64-bit edition of Virtual Server 2005 R2 installed. 2 Before you add a host or a library server in the Administrator Console and before you install an agent locally on a host, you must first install WinRM. 3 Install this software from the following site: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84599.
Hardware Requirements The following charts detail the recommended minimum hardware requirements for VMM components. VMM server Processor CPU running at 2.
VMM agent Virtual machine host server requirements The minimum hardware requirements for each virtual machine host will vary depending on the number and type of guest operating systems, the applications you plan to install on the virtual machines, and the anticipated workload. For additional information, see the Virtual Server 2005 Deployment Guide on Microsoft TechNet or Windows Server 2008: Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide athttp://download.microsoft.
Installation This section provides step-by-step instructions for installing VMM components, including: VMM server VMM Administrator Console VMM Self-Service Portal VMM agent For detailed installation help, reference the Setup Help file included with the VMM download or product DVD. Important Before installing VMM components, see the System Requirements section to make sure you have all prerequisite software and hardware installed. Installing the VMM Server 1.
11. On the Installation Settings page, assign the ports you want to use for communications and file transfers between VMM components. If Windows Firewall is turned on, the wizard will attempt to add firewall exceptions for each port. Important You can change the default port settings to avoid conflicts with other applications in your environment. However, the port settings that you assign for the VMM server must identically match the port settings you assign when installing associated VMM components. 12.
7. On the Port Assignment page, do one of the following: a. Click Next to use the default port (8100) for the VMM Administrator Console to communicate with the VMM server. b. Assign a different port that you want to use for the VMM Administrator Console to communicate with the VMM server, and then click Next. Important The port settings that you assign for the VMM Administrator Console must identically match the port settings that you assigned in the VMM server. 8.
3. On the License Terms page, click I accept the terms of this agreement. 4. On the Prerequisites Check page, review any warnings or alerts about inadequate hardware or uninstalled software prerequisites. You can continue if you receive warnings, but alerts must be resolved before you can proceed with the installation. 5. On the Web Server Settings page, do the following: a.
You can also install an agent locally on a host in a trusted domain and then add that host by using the VMM Administration Console. Note When you install a VMM agent locally on a host on a perimeter network, the Agent Setup Wizard prompts you for an encryption key and for other information needed to access and manage the host and its virtual machines. The wizard generates a set of credentials for the local agent service account.
Important Make note of the encryption key that you use to create the security file. You must enter this key again when you are adding the host in the VMM Administrator Console. 8. On the Host network name page, do one of the following: a. Click Next to have VMM contact the host by using its local computer name. b. Click Use IP address to have VMM contact the host by using its IP address, and then click Next. 9. On the Ready to install page, click Install. 10.
Important The port settings that you assign for the agent must identically match the agent port settings that you assigned for agents in the VMM server. For more information about assigning ports, see About Assigning Ports in Virtual Machine Manager. 7. On the Security File Folder page, ensure that This host is on a perimeter network check box is clear, and then click Next. 8. On the Ready to install page, click Install.
corresponding workloads to determine virtualization candidates. However, this upfront effort yields results almost immediately as the number of servers is reduced and utilization rates increase. VMM supports active server consolidation with reports that identify the server best suited for consolidation. Fast, reliable P2V (Physical-to-Virtual) conversion tools and Intelligent Placement algorithms take the guesswork out of deciding on which physical host servers to place virtual machines.
Figure 3. VMM with Operations Manager can create a comprehensive consolidation candidates report After identifying underutilized servers, IT administrators need to convert their physical machines to virtual ones. Manually converting physical machines to virtual machines is slow and error-prone. VMM mitigates these problems by integrating P2V conversions into the management application and by providing timesaving tools such as the P2V wizard shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. The P2V wizard helps users convert physical machines to virtual machines VMM assists IT administrators in the important task of placing virtual machines on appropriate physical server hosts. Whether your organization’s goal is to balance loads among existing hosts or to maximize resource usage on each host, selecting the appropriate virtual machine host for a given workload is the key to maximizing the utilization of physical assets.
In addition, the VMM provisioning service can utilize storage-attached network (SAN) systems to facilitate the rapid provisioning of large virtual machine images. Administrator Provisioning Administrators can quickly build new virtual machines from the Administrator Console using templates provided from the VMM library. These templates are base configurations that help speed the deployment of new virtual machines and ensure standard hardware and software configurations are used.
Figure 6. The Administrator Console provides configuration settings for a new virtual machine. Figure 7.
After you create the new virtual machine, VMM uses performance data from potential hosts to suggest optimal hosts for the new virtual machine based on a tailored algorithm. Finally, the virtual machine is placed on the physical host. Self-Service Provisioning One of the most commonly referenced virtualization scenarios is testing newly developed applications on virtual infrastructure. In test and development environments, IT professionals are constantly provisioning and tearing down virtual machines.
As shown in Figure 9, VMM alleviates this administration burden with a simply designed self-service Web portal where authorized test and development staff can provision their own virtual machine resources under preset controls. Provisioning a new virtual machine using the VMM self-service Web portal is a simple process consisting of several straightforward steps. After opening the VMM self-service Web portal, users choose from a prescribed list of virtual machine templates and initiate the setup process.
Figure 10. The self-service Web portal includes a mini-setup dialog Management of Microsoft and VMware Virtual Machines Managing ESX Server and Hyper-V VMM provides a centralized management platform for enterprise virtualization of both Microsoft virtualization products as well as VMware virtualization products. Many organizations are running both virtualization platforms, but before VMM 2008 they needed to manage each different product using separate and distinct management tools.
Figure 11. Virtual Machine Manager handles both ESX and Hyper-V servers. Managed servers are listed in the Host Groups pane on the left side of the screen. In this pane, the virtual servers are grouped by Development and Production roles, and include both Hyper-V servers and a VMware ESX server cluster named ESX35-Cluster running two ESX server systems. You can see the details of the each managed server in the Production group in the Virtual Machines pane shown in the middle of the screen.
Figure 12. The Add VMware VirtualCenter server dialog adds VMware server names to the VMM console Specify the VirtualCenter Server’s name in the Computer Name prompt. If the VirtualCenter Server uses the default management port, you can leave the value in the TCP/IP port field at its default value of 902. If your VirtualCenter Server uses a custom TCP/IP port then you will need to change that value to the VirtualCenter TCP/IP port.
Figure 13. Virtual Machine Manager controls VirtualCenter Server and ESX Server After adding the VirtualCenter Server, the VMMM management console can manage VMware VMs. In Figure 13, you can see that VMM can control the VMware Virtual Machine Stop, Pause, and Save State capabilities. High Availability with Failover Clustering Creating a highly available environment for virtual machines is every bit as important as it is for physical servers.
At the guest level, the virtual machine can be part of a cluster in which other cluster nodes can be virtual machines running on either the same or another host server. If a clustered virtual machine fails then the virtual machine guest can be failed over to another cluster node. However, setting up Failover Clustering for virtual host servers and guests can be a tricky manual process.
Figure 15. Adding a new VM to a Failover Cluster – Select the VM source The first step in creating a new, clustered VM is to select the VM source. You can create a new VM from scratch or you can use a previously created one. You can also use configure your new VM using common VM settings pre-configured using VMM templates. This example will demonstrate how to use a VM template as the basis for creating the new, clustered VM.
Figure 16. Adding a new VM to a Failover Cluster – Create a VM using a template The Select Virtual Machine Source window displays the existing templates that are stored in the VMM library. To create a new VM using one of the templates, select a template from the list then click OK. This will pull in the VM configuration settings saved with the template.
Figure 17. Adding a new VM to a Failover Cluster – Select the saved template After selecting the template containing the VM configuration information, click Next to display the Virtual Machine Identity dialog shown in Figure 18. Figure 18.
The Virtual Machine Identity dialog allows you to name the new VM and optionally add some text that describes the VM. In Figure 18, you can see that the new virtual machine is DevTest-Cluster1. The Owner information automatically fills in the current login information. You have the option to override this information if you want to create the VM with a different owner. You can also see that the description indicates that this VM will be part of a Failover Cluster.
After making changes to the hardware profile and specifying to add the VM to a Failover Cluster, click Next to choose the guest operating system used by the virtual machine as shown in Figure 20. Figure 20.
Figure 21. Adding a new VM to a Failover Cluster – Select the VM destination A new VM can be placed directly on a VM host or stored in the VMM library offline storage location that is primarily used to store inactive VMs. In this case, you need to add the VM to an existing VM host with Failover Clustering capabilities; therefore, you should place it on an active host. Select Place the virtual machine on a host to utilize VMM’s Intelligent Placement capabilities as shown in Figure 21.
Figure 22. Adding a new VM to a Failover Cluster – Select the virtual machine host VMM’s Intelligent Placement feature evaluates available virtualization hosts and recommends the most suitable host using a five-star rating scale shown in Figure 22. An ideally suited host rates as five gold stars. Hosts that VMM determines are not suitable have no gold stars. As Figure 22 shows, hosts can be either Microsoft or VMware servers.
Figure 23. Adding a new VM to a Failover Cluster – Select the host storage path In the Select Path dialog, you can choose the SAN LUN that you want to use to store your new VM. In Figure 23, notice that you can’t select the C drive - the wizard only shows the SAN LUNs because SAN storage is required in order to add a VM guest to Failover Cluster. After selecting the storage location for the virtual machine the wizard prompts you to select a virtual network.
Figure 24. Adding a new VM to a Failover Cluster – Select the VM network The Select Networks dialog allows you to select the virtual network(s) that you want to connect to the VM’s virtual network adapters. Each network adapter and available virtual networks are listed in the dialog. Virtual networks that match the location requirements specified for the virtual network adapters are prefixed with an asterisk. In this case, there is only a single virtual network to choose.
Figure 25. Adding a new VM to a Failover Cluster – Choose additional VM properties The Additional Properties dialog allows you to control the actions VM will take when the virtual server host starts and stops. The VM can automatically start and then automatically shut down when the virtual server host shuts down. In this example, the VM is set so that it must be started manually after the physical host starts. When the virtual server host stops, the VM will automatically save its state.
Figure 26. Adding a new VM to a Failover Cluster – Review the VM settings summary The Summary screen allows you to confirm the virtual machine settings before you deploy the virtual machine to the selected host. If the host is a Microsoft Hyper-V system, the deployment process will automatically install the Hyper-V Integration Components in the new VM.
Note To create a virtual machine capable of Live Migration, a Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster must already be created and added to VMM. You can then add one of the cluster disks as a CSV for the Failover Cluster. The New Virtual Machine Wizard will take care of all required cluster configuration settings such as adding a cluster service for the virtual machine with no additional manual configuration required.
Figure 28. Adding a new VM for Live Migration – Name the virtual machine First, give the new virtual machine a name and optionally add a description of the virtual machine. In Figure 28, the new virtual machine is named vWS08-SP01 and the owner is CONTOSO\administrator. Click Next to customize the virtual machine’s hardware configuration as shown in Figure 29.
Figure 29. Adding a new VM for Live Migration– Configure the processor The initial values in the Configure Hardware screen are filled in from the [New] hardware profile. At this point, you can customize any of the hardware settings. For example, you can alter either the amount memory or the number and type of virtual CPUs that are available to the virtual machine.
Figure 30. Adding a new VM for Live Migration – Configure availability The Availability section of the virtual machine’s configuration settings adds the virtual machine to a Windows Server Failover Cluster. This is a requirement for Live Migration. To make the new VM part of a Failover Cluster, check Make this VM highly available as shown in Figure 30. Click Next to continue the virtual machine configuration process.
Figure 31. Adding a new VM for Live Migration– Select Destination The Select Destination dialog controls where the virtual machine will be created either on a Hyper-V host or stored in the VMM library. Select Place the virtual machine on a host to create the virtual machine directly on a Hyper-V host and then display the Select Host dialog that shown in Figure 32.
Figure 32. Adding a new VM for Live Migration– Select Host Select the host for your VM by highlighting the desired host in the Select a host for the virtual machine window. In Figure 32, you can see that the host WS08R2-S1.contoso.com is selected. Click Next to select the path on the storage system where the virtual machine files will be created.
Figure 33. Adding a new VM for Live Migration– Select Path The Select Path dialog enables you to specify where the virtual machine configuration and virtual hard disk (VHD) files will be stored. In order to use Live Migration the Virtual machine path must point to the mount point used by Clustered Shared Volumes. By default, the mount point is located at %SystemDrive%\ClusterStorage\Volume1.
Figure 34. Adding a new VM for Live Migration– Select Networks The Select Networks dialog allows you to select the virtual network(s) that you want to map to the virtual machine’s virtual network adapters. Virtual networks that match the location requirements specified for the virtual network adapters are prefixed with an asterisk. In Figure 34 you can see that the virtual network adapter will be mapped to a previously defined Hyper-V virtual network named External Virtual Network.
Figure 35. Adding a new VM for Live Migration– Additional Properties The Additional Properties dialog allows you to specify the virtual machine’s actions when the Hyper-V host is started and stopped. It also gives you the ability to specify a guest operating system. Click Next to display the Summary screen shown in Figure 36.
Figure 36. Adding a new VM for Live Migration– Summary On the Summary dialog, you can confirm the virtual machine settings and then click Create to create the new virtual machine. If the host is a Microsoft Hyper-V system the Hyper-V Integration Components is automatically installed in the new virtual machine. After the virtual machine has been created and you’ve installed a guest operating system, you can use Live Migration to move the virtual machine to another Hyper-V host.
Figure 37. Initiating a Live Migration To manually initiate a Live Migration, right-click the virtual machine and then select the Migrate option from the context menu (as shown in Figure 37.) This will display the Select Host dialog shown in Figure 38.
Figure 38. Selecting the Live Migration Destination VMM’s Intelligent Placement feature recommends the most suitable hosts for a Live Migration target using a five-star rating like the one shown in Figure 38. For example, hosts that VMM determines to be unsuitable have no gold stars. In Figure 38 you can see that the Hyper-V host named WS08R2-S2 has been selected as the Live Migration target. Click Next to display the Summary dialog you see in Figure 39.
Figure 39. Confirming the Live Migration selections The Summary dialog allows you to confirm the source host and destination target for the Live Migration. Click Next to start the Live Migration and open the Jobs window shown in Figure 40.
Figure 40. Running Live Migration In the Jobs window, you can see the Live Migration progress in the Status column. In addition, you can see the progress of the specific Live Migration job steps in the lower right portion of the window. After the Live Migration has completed, the virtual machine will be running on the target host as shown in Figure 41.
Figure 41. After the Live Migration has completed In Figure 41, you can see that the vWS08-SP01 virtual machine has been moved to the WS08R2-S2 host. Reducing Planned Downtime using Maintenance Mode VMM 2008 R2’s new Maintenance Mode can also help reduce planned downtime of the virtualized guests by setting up a Hyper-V host for maintenance activities.
virtual machines to another host. Figure 42. Starting maintenance mode To place a Hyper-V host in maintenance mode, expand the Host Groups navigation tree and right-click on the Hyper-V host that you want to place into maintenance mode, as you see in Figure 42. From the context menu, select the Start maintenance mode option. This will display the Start Maintenance Mode dialog you see in Figure 43.
Figure 43. Selecting Live Migration for highly available VMs The Start Maintenance Mode dialog enables you to choose which action you want VMM to take on the virtual machines running on a selected host. You can either select to live-migrate HA-enabled virtual machines to other hosts or you can elect to simply save the state of all running virtual machines.
Figure 44. Running maintenance mode In Figure 44, you can see the migration symbol next to the vWS08-SP01 virtual machine. This virtual machine is live migration-enabled and starting maintenance mode has initiated a live migration from the WS08R2-S2 host to the WS08R2-S1 host. If more than one virtual machine is live migration-enabled the subsequent live migrations will all be queued. After the live migrations have finished, the remaining virtual machines will have their state saved.
Figure 45. Stopping maintenance mode Selecting the Stop maintenance mode option will take the host out of maintenance mode and will restore the state of the virtual machines that were running. Optimizing Storage with Quick Storage Migration Quick Storage Migration helps you optimize your virtual machine storage by rapidly moving virtual machine assets to different storage locations.
To use Quick Storage Migration, open the Virtual Machines view in the Virtual Machine Manager, then right-click on the virtual machine that you want to move, as shown in Figure 46. Figure 46. Starting storage migration To use Quick Storage Migration, select Migrate storage from the context menu. This displays the Select Path dialog that you see in Figure 47.
Figure 47. Selecting the target storage path The Select Path dialog enables you to choose the target storage location for both virtual machine configuration files and virtual hard disk files. In this case, the virtual machine’s files are located on the Hyper-V host’s local C: drive, which is not highly available. When the Select Path dialog is initially displayed the current path used by the virtual machine is shown in the Location column.
Figure 48. Selecting the CSV mount point The Select Destination Folder dialog allows you to navigate to the target folder to which you want to migrate the virtual machine’s storage assets. To migrate an existing virtual machine to Cluster Shared Volumes, expand the Cluster Shared Volumes node and select a cluster disk that has been previously configured for CSV. This will move the virtual machine’s storage and enable it to take advantage of the benefits of CSV.
Figure 49. Selecting the target storage path The selected destination path is now returned to the Select Path dialog. In Figure 49 you can see that C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1 is the target storage location. The C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1 path is the default mount point for Windows Server 2008 CSV. Click Next to display the Summary screen shown in Figure 50.
Figure 50. Confirming the storage migration selections The Summary dialog lets you confirm your quick storage migration choices, and displays the name of the virtual machine to be migrated along with your source and target virtual machine hosts. If you need to make changes, you can click Previous and page back through the earlier steps in the wizard. Click Move to start the migration.
Figure 51. Running storage migration Starting the quick storage migration process displays the Jobs window shown in Figure 51. The quick storage migration progress appears in the Status column. In addition, the progress of the specific quick storage migration job steps is shown in the lower right portion of the Jobs window. When a quick storage migration is initiated, the virtual machine continues running while VMM copies the virtual machine’s virtual hard disk (VHD) in the background.
Figure 52. After the storage migration has completed After the quick storage migration has completed, the virtual machine’s configuration, snapshots, and virtual hard disk files will have all been moved to the new destination location. In this example, quick storage migration moved the virtual machine to the CSV mount point, making the virtual machine highly available and enabling it for live migration.
Figure 53. Verifying the new VM settings On the Hardware Configuration tab, you can select the virtual hard disk name to confirm that the quick storage migration moved the virtual machine to the new CSV storage location. In addition, scrolling down through the virtual machine’s properties reveals that the virtual machine is also now highly available. This enables you to use live migration with the virtual machine.
To hot-add storage to a virtual machine, open Virtual Machine Manager’s Virtual Machine view and select a virtual machine that is running the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system.. Figure 54. Opening the VM properties for Hot-Add As you can see in Figure 54, you can right-click the Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machine name to display a context menu. You can then select Properties to display the virtual machine’s properties as you can see in Figure 55.
Figure 55. Selecting the New Disk option for the running VM To hot-add storage, click the Hardware Configuration tab. If the guest operating system supports hotadd for storage, the Disk icon will be highlighted as shown in Figure 55. Click the Disk icon to add a virtual hard disk to the virtual machine configuration and display the new storage pane, as shown in Figure 56.
Figure 56. Creating a new dynamic disk You can elect to add an existing virtual hard disk or you can create a new virtual hard disk. To create a new virtual hard disk, select the Create a new virtual hard disk option and then select the type and size for the virtual hard disk. In Figure 56 you can see that the new virtual hard disk will be a dynamic disk and that it will initially have a maximum size of 40 MB. Click OK to add the virtual disk to the running virtual machine.
Figure 57. After hot-adding storage to the running VM Performance Resource Optimization (PRO) The VMM Performance Resource Optimization (PRO) feature provides monitoring and correction of problems for virtual machines managed by VMM. PRO leverages the capabilities of Operations Manager to provide management of both the physical virtual server host as well as the virtual machines running on that host.
Figure 58. VMM PRO integrates with Operations Manager Using PRO, the administrator can set up tips to display when a given operations threshold has been exceeded. PRO tips can be text descriptions that an operator must manually respond to or they can be scripts either that take action automatically or when the operator interacts with the PRO tip. In this example, the operator can click the PRO tip icon at the top the screen to display the PRO Tips dialog shown in Figure 59.
Figure 59. The PRO Tips dialog provides diagnostic instruction VMM’s PRO tips display the pre-defined diagnostic message that the administrator has created as the appropriate response for the given operations condition. In this case, the remedial action in the PRO tip states, ―Add another IIS server to the Order Tracker Web farm‖.
Figure 60. The PRO Tips console provides success-failure feedback when implementing the PRO tip Figure 60 shows the Operations Manager console after implementing the PRO tip. The yellow warning icon is gone from the Pro Tip console and the Order Tracker Web server farm and all of the Web servers now have green check marks indicating that everything is with the pre-defined operational thresholds.
For example, a global organization may create a delegated administrator to manage just the VMs in their Washington locations. This delegated administrator would then be able to work only with the VMs in the group defined as Washington. The delegated administrator for Washington would not be able to work with or even see other host groups, hosts, clusters and VMs that may be available. To create a delegated administrator role, select the New User Role option from the User Role section of the Actions pane.
Figure 62. Create User Role dialog - Add users to a delegated administrator role. The Add Members dialog lets you select the users that are authorized for the new delegated administrator role. Click Add to display the Active Directory (AD) Select Users, Computers, or Groups dialog that you can see in Figure 45. You can use the Object Types button to search for existing users or groups, or you can enter the users or group name in the Enter the object names to select box.
Figure 63. Create User Role dialog - Add the Delegated Administrator role to VMM While this example illustrates adding a single AD group to the VMM delegated administrator role, you can add multiple AD users and groups by repeatedly using the Add button and selecting additional AD users and groups as needed. After you have added all users and groups to the delegated administrators role, click Next to specify the objects that a delegated administrator can manage.
Figure 64. Create User Role dialog - Specify the object scope for the delegated administrator role In Figure 64, you can see that the delegated administrator’s role can be granted rights to the host groups New York, Hong Kong, and Redmond as well as the rights to all VMM libraries. This allows the administrator to have full administrative control over the VMs in these host groups.
Figure 65. Create User Role dialog - Summary of the delegated administrator’s role. The Summary dialog allows you to confirm all configuration choices that you made while creating the NYAdmin delegated administrator role. If you want to change any of the settings, you can use the Previous button to page back through the prior dialog screens. Click Create to set up a new delegated administrator role.
Figure 66. A PowerShell script controls the function for creating a delegated administrator PowerShell is a new command line shell and scripting language that enables administrators to quickly construct integration solutions and integrate VMM with established tools and procedures. VMM 2008’s integration with PowerShell makes it easy for the administrator to create scripts that can be used to automate all of the administrative functions that can be performed with VMM.
Intelligent Placement System Center VMM uses a smart, holistic approach to placement called Intelligent Placement, which differentiates the solution from alternative products. Intelligent Placement works with both Microsoft and VMware virtualization platforms. When choosing physical hosts for virtual machines, IT administrators need to pay special attention to small details, such as the processor and memory specifications of host servers.
Figure 67. The Intelligent Placement report provides an easy-to-understand “ranking” of host candidates. Load-Balancing or Resource-Maximization Administrators use one of two default algorithms to tune the Intelligent Placement results. The loadbalancing algorithm is meant for situations in which the administrator wishes to equally distribute workloads across a set number of servers.
virtual machine live migration to an alternate Hyper-V host that has available capacity. This enables resource utilization level to drop back within the accepted thresholds. Management of Microsoft and VMware Virtualization Platforms A key point that sets VMM 2008 apart from other virtualization management solutions is its ability to manage virtual machines running on both Microsoft virtualization hosts as well as virtual machines running on VMware hosts.
Figure 69. Managing Microsoft and VMware virtual machines – Selecting virtual machine hosts VMM’s Intelligent Placement feature shows all available hosts for the virtual machine ranked according to their suitability. Both VMware and Microsoft hosts are listed as possible migration targets. Under the Transfer Type column, the Live option shown next to the ESX Servers indicates that the migration will take advantage of VMotion to move the VM to that host with no downtime.
is easy to lose track of analogous assets in a virtual data center. The VMM library serves as a centrally managed repository for templates and other building-block resources, as shown in Figure 70. This service helps keep important virtual assets from being duplicated, misfiled, or even deleted. Figure 70.
automatically detects and utilizes existing storage-attached network (SAN) system infrastructure where available. This capability, coupled with the distributed storage architecture of Virtual Machine Manager, facilitates the movement of large virtual machine images at top speeds. Offline Virtual Machines Administrators can store entire offline virtual machines in the VMM library.
Virtual Machine Manager Integration with Windows Server and System Center VMM takes advantage of an IT department’s existing Windows Server and System Center expertise, minimizing the need for extensive retraining of administrators and Help Desk personnel. Best Choice for Windows System Center integrates with, and simplifies management of, the Microsoft systems and applications many organizations already have in place.
Microsoft SQL Server System Center integrates with familiar tools and technologies like Microsoft SQL Server. System Center uses a SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008 database—located locally or clustered remotely— to store performance and configuration data. In addition, reporting in VMM takes advantage of familiar SQL Server Reporting Services through Operations Manager.
Operations Manager and Data Protection Manager provides centralized management for all physical and virtual servers. Conclusion VMM effectively addresses the key pain points in migrating from a physical to a virtual infrastructure with easy-to-use conversion tools and insight into server and workload performance. Once a virtual data center is established, VMM empowers administrators an essential set of management tools.
