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Posts tagged SCVMM 2012
SCVMM 2012 – Preparing the Host Profile
Apr 18th
In the previous blogs I have explained how to create Run As Accounts & Profiles. I also discussed Out of Band Management and specifically how to Add the HP iLO2 OOB provider to SCVMM 2012. In this blog I focus on another preparatory step before we can start our Bare Metal Deployment and Cluster Creation: Preparing the Host Profile.
The Host Profile is like a combination of the Hardware Profile and OS Profile in SCVMM 2008 R2 but intended for defining the physical server rather than the virtual machine. Again a wizard is available to define such a Host Profile which is relatively straightforward:
- General: Host Profile Name & Description plus location of the VHD file to be used as the base image for the operating system
- Hardware Configuration: Selection of the Management NIC with a choice of DHCP or static IP address; Partition and Disk Configuration and Driver Options (for injection of a specific set of (filter) drivers
- OS Configuration: similar to the OS Profile in SCVMM 2008 R2 describing OS name, Run As Profile, Admin Password, Identity Information, Product Key, Time Zone and Scripts
- Host Settings: for adding the virtual machine placement paths
The preparation of the Host Profile starts off by clicking on the Library wunderbar, expanding Profiles and right-clicking Host Profiles: Create Host Profile.
SCVMM 2012 – Adding HP iLO as an OOB provider
Apr 15th
In the previous post I went into some detail about Out of Band Management (OOB) options in SCVMM 2012 and how bare metal servers can be discovered via an IP range via an OOB provider. After installation of SCVMM 2012 you’ll discover that HP iLO is not a standard option. However a custom OOB provider for HP iLO is offered and can be configured via the following procedure.
First of all we have to download the HP Lights Out Configuration Utility and install it on the SCVMM 2012 server. You can get this utility from HP’s Software and Drivers site and is located under the ProLiant server model and operating system version. If you install this program, take note of the installation directory which defaults to C:\Program Files (x86)\HP\cpqlocfg because next you’ll have to get the HP Lights-Out XML Scripting Sample for Windows. As a third step you must copy the files to same directory where you installed the iLO Configuration Utility.
SCVMM 2012 – Out of Band Management (OOB)
Apr 14th
As I wrote earlier in my blog on Deep Storage Integration in VMM 2012, Microsoft decided to embrace standards as much as possible in SCVMM 2012. This is also the case in the area of Out of Band Management (OOB). Microsoft supports several standards based options:
OOB is of course intended to take control of the bare metal machine using some kind of baseboard management controller (BMC). In the HP world we know OOB very well by the name of Insight Lights Out (iLO2 and iLO3). Dell has a BMC called DRAC which stands for Dell Remote Access Controller. IBM has a Remote Supervisor Adapter or RSA. OOB can serve several purposes. One is power state control (query status, power on and power off) but also to collect information about the server hardware (SMBIOS GUID, Manufacturer, Model, AssetTag, Serial Number) or to collect system hardware logs. The ultimate goal is to leave the bare metal untouched, yet under your total control.
We can think of several scenarios:
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Bare Metal Deployment
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Dynamic Optimization
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Power Optimization
The Out of Band Management interface in SCVMM 2012 is fully extensible and offers custom OOB Configuration Providers. Here is an example of such a provider in Powershell.
SCVMM 2012 – Setting Up Run As Accounts & Profiles
Apr 13th
As a preparation for my upcoming posts about Bare Metal Deployment of physical servers and another one on Cluster Creation with VMM 2012, I will first write a couple of introductory blogs.
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Setting Up Run As Accounts and Run As Profiles
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Out of Band Management
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Adding HP iLO as an OOB Management Protocol
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Creating Server Hardware Profiles
The main reason for creating Run As Accounts and Run As Profiles is to provide a container for a set of stored credentials. It is very convenient to configure this once in a central location and then easily use it in all sorts of configuration tasks or when delegating certain tasks to delegated admins.
What different categories of Run As Accounts are available?
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Profile Accounts – can be used for operating system profiles, application profiles, SQL Server profiles and host profiles
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Storage Device Account – for configuring the credentials of a storage array or storage management server
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BMC Account – for configuring a Base Management Controller such as HP iLO or Dell DRAC
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Host Computer Account – for configuring a virtualization host (Hyper-V, XenServer, VMware)
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Network Device Account – for configuring a network load balancer
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External Account – for access to an external computer of some other kind
SCVMM 2012 – Guest OS Profiles
Apr 13th
The SCVMM 2012 Library is quite different then the SCVMM 2008 R2 library. One of the new options available when configuring a Guest OS Profile is Roles and Features. From now on it is possible to select Roles and Features in the Guest OS Profile settings. The selected Roles and Features will be installed automatically when you deploy a Virtual Machine template and choose the appropriate Guest OS Profile. More >
New announcements for Virtual Machine Manager at MMS2011
Mar 22nd
Today Brad Anderson announced the availability of Virtual Machine Manager 2012 beta which can be downloaded for evaluation purposes. In an email from Carmen Summers who is Program Manager for Virtualization & Datacenter Management, it was stressed that VMM 2012 Eval should not be used for production.
Download location:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=e0fbb298-8f02-47e7-88be-0614bc44ee32
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 beta spotted on TechNet Downloads
Mar 17th
Microsoft seems to make the beta of System Center VMM 2012 available on Technet very soon. I just checked this page and saw a (still broken) link to the download of what we formerly referred to as Virtual Machine Manager vNext:
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