SC VMM 2008 R2 Planning

Microsoft IT Camps - Virtualization

Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2

System Center VMM 2008 R2 provides centralized administration and management of your virtual environment Server Consolidation Performance & Resource Easy VM Deployment Optimization (PRO) VM Library Intelligent Placement Manage hosts
Manage Hyper-V hosts Manage Virtual Server 2005 R2 hosts Manage VMware hosts Mange Failover Clusters

Manage and Deploy VMs

Machine Conversions VM Mobility Self-Service Portal Datacenter Scale & Scripting

Components of VMM 2008 R2

VMM Server VMM Database (SQL) VMM Library Hosts Host groups VMM Agents VMM Self-Service Portal

VMM Administrator Console

System Requirements
Hardware Requirements Processor
x64 2 GHz+

Software Requirements
Supported operating system
Windows Server 2008 +

SQL Server 2005+ Window components

PowerShell Windows Remote Management (WinRM) .NET Framework 3.0+ Windows Automated Installation Kit 1.1+ IIS 7.0+
IIS 6 Metabase Compat., IIS 6 WMI Compat., Static Content, Default Document, Directory Browsing, HTTP Errors, ASP .NET, .NET Extensibility, ISAPI Extensions, ISAPI Filters, Request Filtering

RAM
2 GB+

Hard disk space

10 GB+

VMM Configuration Analyzer

VMMCA diagnostic tool (free download) Evaluate configuration settings for servers to host VMM roles
VMM Server VMM Administrator Console VMM Self-Service Portal

Requires Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer (free download)

VMM Server
Runs the VMM service to run actions, transfer files, control communication, connect to VMM database First component to install Maximum of 400 hosts & 8,000 VMs per VMM Server Considerations
VMM Server must be a domain member Installing VMM Server directly on a failover cluster is not supported
Can be installed in a clustered VM (not managed by VMM)

VM Migration is not supported for virtual machines with VMM Server installed Install VMM server on dedicated machine or with other VMM components

VMM Database
Microsoft SQL Server database
VMM comes with SQL Server 2005 Express

Stores information viewed in VMM

VMs, VM hosts, VM libraries, Jobs

Considerations
Local or remote instance SQL Server Express Database is limited to 4 GB (up to ~150 hosts) No support for SCOM integration with SQL Server Express Security between VMM server and remote library server Additional disk space for database

VMM Library
Contains
File-based resources: VHDs, ISOs, Script VM templates Unused VMs Hardware & Guest OS Profiles PowerShell scripts Sysprep answer files

The VMM server is the default library server Each library server can have multiple library shares High availability achieved with failover clustering
VMM Library must be separate from VMM Server

Locate Library servers near the VM hosts to speed up deployment time

VMM Self-Service Portal

Optional, web-based component Original version updates to SSP 2.0 (free download) Allows users to create and manage their own VMs Admins can limit the user
VM hosts, Actions The number of users using a portal The number of virtual machines available via Self-Service Portal Are users allowed to create new virtual machines using Self-Service Portal Self-Service Portal is not supported if VMM is installed on a domain controller
Network traffic may interfere too much with critical AD traffic

Considerations

Enterprise Topology
Remote Library Server

Windows PowerShell Administrator Console

Virtual Machine Hosts

External Network (DMZ)

Web-based Delegated Provisioning UI

Brisbane

London
Virtual Machine Hosts Remote Library Server Virtual Machine Hosts

Remote Library Server

VMM Administrators
3 Security Groups
VMM Administrators VMM Self-Service Portals VMM Servers

Security best practices

Limit file system permissions by using ACLs for library shares for VMM Admins, VMM Servers account & Self-Service Users (as appropriate) Make user connections as secure as possible Can use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) on the web portal

Standardize VM
Plan VMs for each server role Store VMs in library for quick deployment Use VM templates
Hardware profile Virtual hard disk Guest operating system profile

Hardware Profiles
A library resource containing hardware specifications Can be applied to new VMs or a VM template Ensure consistent hardware configurations Managed in library view Created from scratch, from a template, or hardware configuration of existing VM Settings
BIOS, Processor, Memory, Floppy drive, COM1 and COM2, IDE devices, Network adapter, Priority, Availability

Guest OS Profiles
A collection of OS settings that can be used in a VM template during creation of any VM Database object Not associated with any virtual machine Settings Identity information - Computer name
Keep the * for a random name

Admin Password Product Key

Can import from a Sysprep answer file

Time zone Operating system Domain/Workgroup Answer file [GUIRunOnce] Commands

Takeaways
Carefully plan the physical locations of the different server roles Separate user roles with different operational rights Standardize VMs for different server roles with templates and profiles