System Center 1807 release is officially available. This includes a new updated version for both Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) and Operations Manager. SCOM 1807 highlights a big update to features such as HTML5 and Widgets.
See the URL for more info, the latest release! https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2018/07/24/system-center-1807-available-now/
Stay tuned, as I will follow up with a step by step guide for the install, and exploring the new features in the latest release!
Problem: Cannot to deploy a logical switch (vSwitch) to a Windows Server 2016 node.
Environment: 2x10GB Network Cards – IBM Flex Chassis (not that matters…)
Error:
An internal error has occurred trying to contact the ‘hypervserver01.domain.com’ server: : .
WinRM: URL: [http://hypervserver01.domain.com:5985], Verb: [INVOKE], Method: [GetFinalResult], Resource: [http://schemas.microsoft.com/wbem/wsman/1/wmi/root/scvmm/AsyncTask?ID=1001]
Unknown error (0x80041008)
Recommended Action
Check that WS-Management service is installed and running on server ‘hypervserver01.domain.com’. For more information use the command “winrm helpmsg hresult”. If ‘hypervserver01.domain.com’ is a host/library/update server or a PXE server role then ensure that VMM agent is installed and running. Refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2742275 for more details.
Solution: In my case, I tried the following. Ultimately, it came down to my last case (enabling the physical network card).
winrm set winrm/config/Listener?Address=*+Transport=HTTP '@{Port="5985"}'
Finally got some time to installing and play around with SCVMM (System Center Virtual Machine Manager) 2016 this weekend. Along with the installation and configuration, I figured to snapshot the installation and configuration. Below are the steps I have taken to get a PoC (Proof of Concept) of SCVMM installed.
For this installation, I will be installing SCVMM 2016 on Windows Server 2016 (with UI) and on a virtualized machine within a Hyper-V (2016) environment. There is no fancy storage here, so I will omit that for this configuration/blog post.
Prerequisites, you will need some service accounts:
You can use PowerShell to quickly create the accounts, see here:
#create scvmm service accounts New-ADUser -Name "SCVMM_SA" -GivenName SCVMM -Surname SA -SamAccountName scvmm_sa -UserPrincipalName scvmm_sa@ravilocal.com; -AccountPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString “Passw0rd” -AsPlainText -Force) -PassThru | Enable-ADAccount New-ADUser -Name "SCVMM_ADMIN" -GivenName SCVMM -Surname ADMIN -SamAccountName scvmm_admin -UserPrincipalName scvmm_admin@ravilocal.com; -AccountPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString “Passw0rd” -AsPlainText -Force) -PassThru | Enable-ADAccount #create scvmm admins security group, add scvmm_sa and scvmm_admin to the group New-ADGroup SCVMM_ADMINS -GroupScope Global -GroupCategory Security Add-ADGroupMember SCVMM_ADMINS -Members SCVMM_SA Add-ADGroupMember SCVMM_ADMINS -Members SCVMM_ADMIN #create sql sa account New-ADUser -Name "SQL_SA" -GivenName SQL -Surname SA -SamAccountName sql_sa -UserPrincipalName sql_sa@ravilocal.com -AccountPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString “Passw0rd” -AsPlainText -Force) -PassThru | Enable-ADAccount
Once you have done this, I then added the SCVMM accounts to the Local Administrators group on the server.
Next, you will need to prep you server with the Windows Automated Deployment Kit (ADK) and SQL Command Line Utilities.
Download the Windows ADK for Windows 10.
You will need to install the Deployment Tools and Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) features.
Then I downloaded the SQL Server Command Line Utilities 11 along with ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server. Both of these downloads can be found below.
Once complete, I then installed a new SQL instance on my SQL 2016 SP1 machine, called it “SCVMM16“.
After that, then I was rebooted my SCVMM server, and I was ready to start the SCVMM 2016 install.
Executing the Setup.exe as the Local Administrator…
Connect to a SQL instance. If you need to know the SCVMM SQL requirements, go HERE.
Since this is a PoC, and not being prepped for a Production environment, I can go ahead and skip the Distributed Key Management, although this is required and recommended if you’re deploying in a HA/Production environment.
Double check the default ports are open for the install, or update the ports as needed to correspond to your environment.
Since this a fresh install, and I did not setup an external SAN storage, I will keep this as default, and configure later.
Double check and confirm the summary details before proceeding — no going back after this….
Once you’re ready, go ahead and hit Install. For me, the install took about 15 minutes.. Good time for a walk and fresh air. 🙂
Sweet!! Now we are ready to roll.
Next steps (I will do that next and blog soon…)
Until then, happy SCVMM’ing!
Just logged into my MSDN account, and looks like both Windows Server and System Center 2016 have been released to the general public. Sweet!
This blog post should have been posted quite some time ago, however, after numerous revisions and the details in the post, you’ll understand why.
In this post I will demonstrate creating a converged network fabric in SCVMM 2012R2. This converged network will consist of logical network adapters, QoS, NIC (vNIC) teaming, and network adapters.
Step 1, Understand your infrastructure
To begin, my environment is using a Cisco UCS (B200 M4) back end, with Cisco Nexus 9K switches and of course Hyper-V (Windows 2012R2) as its hypervisor. The UCS profile used here, has been provisioned with 7 vNICs and dedicated VLANs for each vNIC to isolate the traffic between the networks. The 7 vNICs for the following jobs (see below). All vNICS have a 10GB interface.
Server-A and Server-B vNICs we will team, but we will get into that later.
Step 2, we need understand what all these vNICs are intended for. The logical networks below illustrate the purpose of each network.
Please refer to Microsoft article further details, HERE.
Step 3, SCVMM – Create Logical Network(s)
Within SCVMM, you will now need to create your logical networks within the Fabric pane. As mentioned, I am using VLANs to isolate my traffic. I am also planning to have 15 VM network environments with each having its own dedicated VLAN, VLAN 101 through 116, ie. 10.47.101-116.x. Likewise, dedicated VLANs for iSCSI, Live Migration, etc.
Here you need to specify the IP subnet and VLAN ID, and apply it to your Host(s) group.
Step 4, SCVMM – Create IP Pool(s)
Once you create all of your logical networks, you can now create IP Pools. IP Pools will allow you to manage your logical network, and ensure there are no duplicate IPs consumed. You can also reserve IPs for VIPs, etc. In the screenshot below, as you can see, within my “Production” VM network traffic, my IP range states at 10.47.101.100/24 and ends at 10.47.101.252. This allows 155 IPs to be used. If the IP Pool is soon to be exhausted, this setting configuration can be changed to increase the scope. But for now, I know 155 IPs is more than enough.
By right-clicking on the Logical Network you just created, select “Create IP Pool“.
You will need to bound the IP Pool to the Logical Network.
Choose, “Use an existing network site” and ensure the right network site and IP subnet populated.
Here, I am defining a range of IPs for my Pool. Although I know 155 IPs are more than enough, and will never need all 254 IPs, I am comfortable with the range starting at 100.
As you can see here, I have also specified the Gateway and provided 2 DNS servers for the IP Pool. When a new VM will be created, all of the IP Properties will be pulled from here and populated once the VM has been built.
At the end of all this, your Logical Network Fabric could look something like this, with your Logical Networks and IP Pools per network.
Step 5, SCVMM – Create VM Networks + IP Pools
Within the VMs and Services pane, we will now need to create VM networks. This will be assoicated to our Logical Networks we just created. Within the creation process, we will need to specify the Logical network bound to this VM network. Here I created IP Pools again. I find this process of IP Pools a bit odd/redundant. I have IP Pools in both the Logical Network and the VM Network.
Step 6, SCVMM – Creating Uplink Port Profile
Now we need to create the Uplink Port Profile for our VM Production Traffic. Unfortunately with SCVMM 2012 R2 UR8, SCVMM does not come with a default Uplink port profile, so we must create one. Microsoft best practice indicates using a Dynamic and Switch Independent for the Hyper-V workload.
Now we will need to bound all the networks we previous created to the Uplink Port Profile. Here VMM will tell the hypervisors how they are connected and mapped to the network fabric. iSCSI traffic, Live Migration, VM Production, CSV-Heartbeat, etc.
Step 7, SCVMM – Create Logical Switch
Now we will create the logical switch, or also known as a vSwitch. The logical switch is the last part of the fabric puzzle. This logical switch will contain the Uplink Port Profile along with the Virtual port profiles (if we chose to manage QoS via SCVMM).
Within the Logical Switches – Fabric, we will create a new Logical switch. In my scenario, I have not made use of SR-IOV (Single Root – Input Output Virtualization).
We will use the default Microsoft Windows Filtering Platform for our vSwitch extension.
Here will will specify the uplink port profile(s) that will be associated to the logical switch. We will Team the mode, and add our Production Uplink/Network sites.
We will need to specify the port classifications for each virtual port for the logical switch. Here you can see we are using three classes, high, medium and low bandwidth. 
Step 8, SCVMM – Assign Logical Switch to Hypervisor
Finally, we now need to assign the logical switch to our hypervisor(s). Navigate to (each) the host group within the fabric work-space and within each hypervisors properties, navigate to the Virtual Switches. Select “New Virtual Switch“. Here we will specify which (in our case only 1) Uplink port profile to use on the physical adapter. Since my two vNICs will be teamed, I will have two (2) adapters bound to the same Uplink port profile.
Now you are ready to start building machines, making use of your network fabric, and maximizing System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012R2’s power.
If you have any questions, please drop me a line, and/or need some guidance.
Cheers!
SCVMM 2012R2 – Error 25100 – VMM is Unable to delete the logical network
This error will occur when you are trying to delete a logical network which still has resources bound to it.
After creating some virtual machines that were bound to this logical network, I realized there was no communication between the VMs. This was a result of not selecting the VLAN-based independent network as I chose “one connected network”. I went back to each VM and removed the network adapter/logical network. I then tried to delete the logical network and was presented with this error.
Within the SCVMM Fabric and right-clicking the Logical Network in question and viewing its Dependent Resources, I was able to view that there were numerous “Temporary Templates” still associated to the Logical Network. Since time was not of the essence, I could not wait for SQL and/or SCVMM to flush the data on its own time/interval. So, therefore I forcefully removed the dependencies. Here is how:
As mentioned, if you right-click on the Logical Network and view its Dependent Resources, you will get something similar to this. Take note of the name of the string.
Now, launch the SCVMM PowerShell Console (Run as Administrator), and run the following cmdlet, “Remove-SCVMTemplate -VMTemplate “<templateID>“.
If the template ID was inputted correctly, you should have got the following output:
You will need to repeat this cmdlet for all of the dependent template IDs.
Hope that helps!
Adding a Hyper-V host to SCVMM is pretty straight forward, I would only hope so, since they are both Microsoft products. Well, as quick as it is to add a Hyper-V host, adding an ESX/vCenter is just as quick. Here are the steps I took to add an ESX host and vCenter appliance to SCVMM 2012 R2.
Some prerequisites, well, I am assuming you have already deployed an ESX/ESXi server which also has a vCenter appliance installed and configured with a static IP and hostname. In my lab, I have vCenter installed on the ESX host itself. I am also assuming your SCVMM and ESX/ESXi environment(s) are able to communicate with one another.
SCOM & Other Geeky Stuff 