Entries tagged with scvmm - TechNet Edge

Part 6 of 6: Overview of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (SCVMM wrap-up)

Kevin Remde — Sun, 31 May 2009 05:01:00 GMT

This is part six of the series: "Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager: A Technical Overview". I was running short on time during this presentation, so this last portion is rather rushed. We do discuss briefly the ability to do offline virtual machine servicing. We also clarify some misunderstandings around licensing of virtualized operating systems.

Part 5 of 6: Overview of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (Integration with Operations Manager)

Kevin Remde — Sat, 30 May 2009 05:01:00 GMT

This is part five of the series: "Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager: A Technical Overview". In this short screencast we discuss the integration between SCVMM 2008 and SCOM 2007.

Virtualization at TechEd09

Adam Bomb — Fri, 29 May 2009 07:01:00 GMT

I caught up with Edwin Yuen to get a tour of the Virtualization booths at TechEd09 and find out what's new in virtualization from Microsoft. He showed me Hyper-V, Virtual Machine Manager, Virtual PC (including Windows 7 XP Mode), VDI and more. I even managed to get Jeff Woolsey and Edwin both to talk a little about third party virtualization solutions <coughvmwarecough> and how their offerings compare to ours.
You can find out more info about the sessions on virtualization at TechEd by visiting www.msteched.com as well as the Microsoft Virtualization site at www.microsoft.com/virtualization

Part 4 of 6: Overview of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (User Roles and the Self Service Portal)

Kevin Remde — Fri, 29 May 2009 05:01:00 GMT

This is part four of the series: "Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager: A Technical Overview". In this portion we cover what user roles are, and then demonstrate the creation of a delegated administrator, as well as how the the Self Service Portal works.

Part 3 of 6: Overview of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (The SCVMM Library)

Kevin Remde — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:01:00 GMT

This is part three of the series: "Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager: A Technical Overview". In this episode we discuss and demonstrate how the SCVMM Library works.

Part 2 of 6: Overview of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (Common management of Hyper-V and VMWare)

Kevin Remde — Wed, 27 May 2009 05:01:00 GMT

This is part two of the series: "Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager: A Technical Overview". In this screencast we cover some of the new features of SCVMM 2008, and in particular we discuss and demonstrate the ability to manage both Hyper-V and VMware.

Part 1 of 6: Overview of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (SCVMM Administration)

Kevin Remde — Tue, 26 May 2009 23:04:00 GMT

In late March of 2009 I recorded one of the content portions of a Microsoft TechNet Event I presented in Madison, Wisconsin. From this footage, and by adding slides and re-recording the demos, I was able to create six screencasts.

This is part one of the series: "Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager: A Technical Overview". In this screencast (the longest of the six) we go over some of the basics, and then I demonstrate the main areas of the SCVMM 2008 administration console.

I hope you find it useful!

SCVMM Self-Service Portal with Laptop Part 4 of 4: Running Self-Service Portal, Rapid-Prototyping of

yung — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:16:00 GMT

This screencast walked through the steps to install Self-Service Portal followed by presenting the user experience in creating a VM using an assigned template and operating the created VM via Self-Service Portal UI.

The demo environment included MYHOST (my laptop running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise with Hyper-V Server Role) and 2 running virtual machines were APEX (the domain controller of contoso.corp) and SC (a member server with SCVMM installed) while MYHOST also joined the domain.

The following screencasts present the user experience and walk through the operations carried out from steps 5 to 11:

SCVMM Self-Service Portal with Laptop Part 3 of 4: Adding Library Server, Rapid-Prototyping of

yung — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:15:00 GMT

This screencast walked through the steps to add MYHOST into the SCVMM as a Library Server and the processes to create profiles, templates, and User Roles.

The following screencasts present the user experience and walk through the operations carried out from steps 5 to 11:

SCVMM Self-Service Portal with Laptop Part 2 of 4: Adding Host, Rapid-Prototyping of

yung — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:15:00 GMT

This screencast walked through the steps to add MYHOST into the SCVMM as a host.

The following screencasts present the user experience and walk through the operations carried out from steps 5 to 11:

SCVMM Self-Service Portal with Laptop Part 1 of 4: Overview, Rapid-Prototyping of

yung — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:14:00 GMT

A Self-Service Portal is basically a Web site to be installed on a web server with ASP.NET, IIS6 Metabase Compatibility, and IIS6 WMI Compatibility Server Role Services. By accessing the Self-Service Portal, authorized users can create and operate their own virtual machines (VMs) as permitted by each user's User Roles, while the created VMs are placed in a Library Server managed by the System Center Virtual Machine Manager, or SCVMM. A User Role here is essentially a policy with membership, authorized hardware and software profiles, allowed scope of operations, and assigned templates applicable for creating and manageing VMs using Self-Service Portal. In a Self-Service Portal session, an authorized user sees only those virtual machines that the user owns or is authorized to operate upon. And as a VM is created or deleted by a user, the user's quota points are subtracted or regained with the amount of quota points that the VM is assigned in an employed template. Once a user has quota points fewer than what are needed for creating a new VM, the user has reached the maximal number of VMs allowable for the applicable User Role to create.

Virtual Machine Host System Requirements

VMM Library Server System Requirements

VMM Self-Service Portal System Requirements

To prototype a Self-Service Portal using a laptop, here are the steps:

Install Windows Server 2008 in a laptop and enable Hyper-V Server Role
Create VMs and construct a domain environment
Install SCVMM on a target VM in the domain
Optionally join the laptop into the domain
In SCVMM admin console, add the laptop as a host in the Active Directory Domain
In laptop, create a network share for later sharing VM resources like sysprep generalized images, iso files, disks, etc.
In SCVMM admin console, add the laptop as a Library Server with the network share
In SCVMM admin console, create hardware/software profiles and template, as needed
In SCVMM admin console, create User Roles and add members
Install Self-Service Portal from SCVMM media on a target web server and associate the Self-Service Portal with the SCVMM (this step may be included in step 3 if both SCVMM and Self-Service Portal are to be placed on the same server)
Log in Self-Service Portal as a Self-Service Portal User and start creating and managing VMs as permitted by the user’s User Roles

The following screencasts present the user experience and walk through the operations carried out from steps 5 to 11:

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 Rapid Prototyping

yung — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:32:00 GMT

This is a follow-up on Keith Combs' posting, Setting up your laptop to run SCVMM 2008. I have a demo environment configured with working Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.5 and Presentation Virtualization (i.e. Terminal Services) solutions. Now with SCVMM added, I can demo the management of IT infrastructure with physical and virtual computing resources, which is in my view the most critical piece of a virtualization solution.

Here's how I did it. My Lenovo T61P expanded with 8 GB RAM was installed with Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V enabled. In Hyper-V Manager, I have already had a demo environment, contoso.corp, with a number of virtual machines (VMs) in place. I added to the domain a VM running Windows Server 2008, and installed SCVMM 2008 Server and Admin Console in the VM. I then joined the parent partition to the contoso domain. At this point, there were two options to add the parent partition in SCVMM 2008:

As a Windows-server based host on an Active Directory Domain
As a Windows-server based host on a perimeter network

Notice if the host is to be added as one on a perimeter network, install SCVMM local agent on the parent partition and create a security file for encryption. The security file needs accessible from SCVMM admin console. I tried both and in either way, once my parent partition had been added as a host, all VMs running on the parent partition including the VM running SCVMM became manageable from SCVMM Admin Console. In essence, SCVMM was on a child partition while managing the Hyper-V parent (or root) partition in my laptop. Very interesting configuration, it is indeed.

Notice I made no additional effort in optimizing the performance or hardening the security. My objective here is to realize the capabilities with minimal operational requirements. Below I have documented the screenflows and will probably do a screencast later on this as well.

SCVMM 2008 Server and Admin Console installation screenflows
Adding A Host into SCVMM 2008 Admin Console
User Experience

Very straightforward processes and uneventful operations, I consider these installations are. Understanding the architecture is perhaps much more pertinent for prototyping this solution. Basically, run Hyper-V in the laptop and SCVMM in a VM. Join the parent partition to the domain where SCVMM is in. Install SCVMM local agent on the parent partition and from SCVMM admin console add the parent partition as a host in perimeter. Here want to thank Keith sine his posting saved me some research time.

VMWare vs. Microsoft Virtualization

David Tesar — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:30:00 GMT

Dai Vu starts off by giving some compete information on Hyper-V versus VMware ESX and then gets more specific with comparing the latest version of System Center Virtualization Machine Manger 2008 (SCVMM) with VMware’s VirtualCenter (vCenter).

Here’s how the flow of the interview goes:

1:26 – Addressing areas where he thinks Microsoft’s server virtualization solution is behind in comparison to VMware

1:55 – SCVMM 2008 vs. VirtualCenter

· SCVMM platform supports VirtualCenter

· Microsoft PRO vs. VMware DRS (Performance and Resource Optimization vs Dynamic Resource Scheduler)

5:39 – Challenge and solution with PRO automated alerts and remedial actions

6:49 – Areas where he thinks VirtualCenter 2.5 is ahead of SCVMM 2008

7:34 – Future of SCVMM

3rd-party review of SCVMM 2008 with some comparisons to Virtual Center

Download SCVMM 2008 Trial

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 RTM!

Adam Bomb — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:01:00 GMT

RTM = Release To Manufacturing. It means the product is done and the binaries have been sent to the CD printer.

SCVMM = System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Integrated, multi-vendor management for virtual environments, including Virtual Server, Hyper-V and VMware ESX. VMM 2008 also includes a new feature, Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) which enables customers to dynamically manage the performance of their virtual hosts and guests. It provides optimization awareness down to the workload level enabling customers to take either manual or automated remedial action once an unhealthy or inefficient machine state is identified.

Ok, what’s new in this version? Well, a couple of things:

· Now manages Hyper-V, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and the new Hyper-V Server 2008

· Now manages VMWare – if you can do it in the VMWare console, you can do it in SCVMM

· New key features: Cluster support, Delegated Administration and resource optimization with PRO

Can I get an eval copy? Sure. You can download it today here: System Center Virtual Machine Manager

SCVMM 2007 Checkpoints are the new UNDO

Keith Combs — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 04:36:00 GMT

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2007 has been released and one of my favorite new features is the Checkpoint management that is now possible. Spend ten minutes of your day watching the video demonstration to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

UNDO Disk Files

I'm sure many of you are used to using UNDO disk files with the virtual machines you are running on Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005. I pretty much have to with my demos. I've always enjoyed using UNDO and was shocked to see it is not supported in SCVMM. Why might you ask?

See the rest of this article on my blog.