Download System Center 2016 Virtual Machine Manager
Tuula Sturk
Connected to our virtual manager manager server via a remote desktop connection to attempt to view the status of the gateway and I get another error about the Virtual Machine Manager service not running.
Can I safely remove VMM 2012 from the first host without losing any virtual machines or data? Anything specific I should do to make reinstalling VMM go smoothly? (besides the obvious "have backups, know how to restore them"). Will it cause any VMs to get deleted, restarted, etc?
Where should I install VMM? The technet docs say ideally have a seperate SQL cluster to store the database on. I don't have the hardware or licenses for that. Just my two virtual machine hosts and the SAN. I'm thinking a virtual machine inside the cluster, with the caveat that if the VMM virtual machine has issues, I'll have to use the failover cluster and hyper-v manager tools to fix it before I can do anything through VMM. Any other issues I should be aware of?
I am trying to virtualize a server that is in production and cannot be turned off until late at night. I CAN turn the machine off and convert it over night and turn the machine back on as soon as it is complete but my boss would prefer I am able to do it while it is running like we have done for many others in the past.
To use VMM, you don't need a manual. Everything is absolutely self-explanatory if you have worked with virtualization software before. I only had problems with cloning virtual machines. It seems to be a bit unreliable. It failed twice after reaching 90% of the cloning progress. Virtual Machine Manager doesn't allow you to clone while VMs are running. So basically it just has to copy the VHD files. I wonder what can go wrong here. The error message wasn't helpful since it claimed that the connection to the host was lost which was not the case.
But in both cases I was able to get the new virtual machines working by using VMM's "Repair Virtual Machine" feature. What I like about cloning is that you can use it to copy a VM from host to host. I tried this with Windows Server 2003 and Linux as guest OS. It is also possible to move VMs. This feature is called migration. Unfortunately, VMM doesn't support live migration, that is, you can only move a VM if it is down.
Very useful is VMM's checkpoint feature. VMware calls them snapshots. Creating checkpoints allows you to restore a VM to a previous state. You can create multiple checkpoints of a VM. Unfortunately, this is also only possible when the VM is down. VMM shuts down the VM automatically, and restarts it after the checkpoint was created. In my test, this was done within a minute or so. The same applies when you restore a checkpoint. You can merge checkpoints if you need space on the host and if you are sure that you no longer need them. But VMM will also shut the virtual machine down then.
So I was trying to use sharing of ISO files instead of copying when mounting on virtual machines. The really helpful dialog box in System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2012 SP1 politely informs you that
Summary: Logically enough, when moving virtuals between hosts in VMM each host needs to be be part of the same network and so does the virtual which needs to be moved between the hosts. Larry Rayl also pointed out KB 2853203 (A live migration of a non-clustered virtual machine in Virtual Machine Manager fails with error 0x8007274D) which spells out the same resolution.
Scenario/Problem: In any IT infrastructure, performance of the servers is expected to meet specific thresholds. The same is true for virtual machines. How can you monitor the performance of your virtual infrastructure and use the information you obtain to help troubleshoot any issues you may be facing?
Solution: After you have installed the Hyper-V role, the Windows Performance and Reliability Monitor contains 24 specific counters for your Hyper-V environment. You can find detailed information on what counters to look at for specific resource issues at -us/library/cc768535.aspx. However, keep in mind that performance monitoring of a virtual machine is different from monitoring of a physical machine. Just one example is CPU monitoring. CPU utilization needs to be monitored in three different places:
Scenario/Problem: Your virtual infrastructure is growing at a very fast pace. You find that within a few months, you are going to have more than 200 virtual machines in your environment, and the count will continue to grow. You need a tool that will help you to stay in control of the virtual infrastructure.
Solution: The System Center VMM, a part of the System Center family of products used to manage IT infrastructure, enables you to take control and oversee the virtual infrastructure. It enables you to manage all your virtual machines and physical hosts. If you are familiar with VMware, this tool will compare with V-Center. An overview of some the benefits System Center Virtual Machine Manager are:
These tools and System Center VMM all require the purchase of a license. You can find pricing and licensing information for the VMM at www.microsoft.com/ systemcenter/virtualmachinemanager/en/us/pricing-licensing.aspx.
As you can see, the Service Center VMM can ease your job of managing the virtual infrastructure as it grows. You can even drill down your management to individual virtual machines by performing the following tasks on them:
Scenario/Problem: Microsoft has definitely made great improvements to its virtual technology with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. However, it still has a way to go when it comes to supporting virtual machines as well as VMware on ESX hosts. You want to stick with Microsoft products in your environment and need to know if its virtual technology is slated for improvements.
On the surface, it would seem that you have everything that you need in order to deploy and manage virtual machines. As you may discover later however, there are some things that are missing from Windows Server.
Of course even small shops tend to discover eventually that a single server Hyper-V server is inadequate. Even though a single Hyper-V server can host a number of virtual machines, the host server itself can become a single point of failure. If the host were to fail then all of the virtual machines that are running on it will also fail, thereby resulting in a major outage.
Microsoft provides two different methods that you can use to help avoid this problem. The preferred method is to deploy failover clustering. Failover clustering treats individual virtual machines as clustered resources. If a host server were to fail then clustered virtual machines are able to fail over to a different Hyper-V server where they can continue to run.
Of the other solution to preventing the Hyper-V server from becoming a single point of failure is to create virtual machine replicas. Replicas do not provide real-time failover capabilities the way that failover clustering does, but they do allow you to have a nearly up-to-date, standby copy of your virtual machines on a separate Hyper-V server.
As you can see in the figure above, the Hyper-V Manager is divided into three vertical columns. The column on the left lists the host server. The upper portion of the middle column lists all of the virtual machines that are running on the host. Although this particular arrangement seems logical enough, it is flawed in terms of scalability. As previously explained, most organizations that use Hyper-V in a production environment have more than one Hyper-V server. Even so, the Hyper-V Manager only displays the local server and the virtual machines that are running on it.
The second option is to use Windows PowerShell. You can use the Get-VM cmdlet to locate a virtual machine by name. Although this technique works pretty well, a lot of administrators are not comfortable working in PowerShell.
The third option is to use Virtual Machine Manager. Virtual Machine Manager can give you a consolidated view of your virtual machines across all of your host servers. It is even possible to use Virtual Machine Manager to view virtual machines that are running in VMware environments.
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