Archive

Author Archive

Teched Australia 2010. What happens here

August 24, 2010 2 comments
 
The Teched Australia, occurring in Gold Coast, already started yesterday, August 23 and will be running until August, 27.
 
This year, as last year I will be in the TLG and also on August 26, presenting the MGT30-ILL : Technical Introduction to Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 ( from 1:45pm til 3pm ) : if you are here, I invite you to come.
 
There are some really good sessions, to nominate a few : SVR302-Hyper-V and Dynamic Memory, UNC302 : Exchange High Availability, DAT318 : Sql Server Hyper Cloud, SVR307:RemoteFX drilldown, and much more.
 
Don’t lose the sessions!
 
 
 
Categories: Microsoft

Requirements for the VMMSSP Dashboard

August 20, 2010 Leave a comment

The VMMSSP Dashboard integrates with an already functioning deployment of the self-service portal and has no additional infrastructure requirements.

It is assumed that the self-service portal and the VMMSSP database are configured in accordance with Microsoft installation guidance.

 

The following table lists the software requirements for the VMMSSP Dashboard.

 

 VMMSSP Dashboard Software Requirements

Infrastructure

Resource

 

 

Software

·         Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal

·         Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2

Note   Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP2 is supported as an alternative to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

·         Microsoft SQL Server® 2008

·         Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5

Browser

·         Microsoft Internet Explorer® 7.0 /8.0

 

 

Click here to download the VMSSP 2.0

 

In order to install the VMMSSP Dashboard, a user needs to be a member of the following security groups:

·         On the computer where you are installing the Dashboard: local Administrators group (in highly-secured environments, the user may need to be a member of the domain Administrators group).

·         Group with administrative permissions to the VMMSSP database.

·         Group with administrative permissions to the Windows SharePoint Services server farm.

Categories: Virtualization

How to use SHAREPOINT to show information about your virtualized environment

August 20, 2010 Leave a comment
 
Thanks for the SCVMM Team, now it is possible to display information from our Virtual environment in a SharePoint Portal, making easy to document.
 
You need to install the VMMSSP Dashboard
 

The VMMSSP Dashboard is designed to work with an existing self-service portal installation. The Dashboard queries the VMMSSP database and uses the resulting data set to present key infrastructure, resource, virtual machine, and charge-back metrics in a graphical format.

 

The VMMSSP Dashboard uses SharePoint Web Parts to manage and display data sets:

·         Microsoft Dashboard Configuration Web Part. Use this Web Part to create and modify the SQL queries that produce the data sets and the other properties that govern how the Dashboard displays the data sets.

·         Microsoft Dashboard Viewer Web Part. Use this Web Part to display the data sets. A Dashboard Viewer Web Part displays one data set at a time. The VMMSSP Dashboard can contain multiple copies of the Dashboard Viewer Web Part at once, each copy displaying a different data set. Be aware that as you add more copies of the Web Part to the site, and as you increase the amount of data displayed, the performance of the site may degrade.

 

The following figure shows how users can interact with the Web Parts to retrieve and display data.

 

 

Click here to download the VMSSP 2.0

 

Categories: Virtualization

Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 FREE DOWNLOAD

August 20, 2010 Leave a comment
 
 
VMMSSP (also referred to as the self-service portal) is a fully supported, partner-extensible solution built on top of Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, and System Center VMM.
 
VMMSSP is not an upgrade to the existing VMM 2008 R2 self-service portal. You can choose to deploy and use one or both self-service portals depending on your requirements.
 
You can use it to pool, allocate, and manage resources to offer infrastructure as a service and to deliver the foundation for a private cloud platform inside your datacenter.
VMMSSP includes a pre-built web-based user interface that has sections for both the datacenter managers and the business unit IT consumers, with role-based access control.
VMMSSP also includes a dynamic provisioning engine.
VMMSSP reduces the time needed to provision infrastructures and their components by offering business unit “on-boarding,” infrastructure request and change management.
The VMMSSP package also includes detailed guidance on how to implement VMMSSP inside your environment.

The self-service portal provides the following features that are exposed through a web-based user interface:

  • Configuration and allocation of datacenter resources: Store management and configuration information related to compute, network and storage resources as assets in the VMMSSP database.
  • Customization of virtual machine actions: Provide a simple web-based interface to extend the default virtual machine actions; for example, you can add scripts that interact with Storage Area Networks for rapid deployment of virtual machines.
  • Business unit on-boarding: Standardized forms and a simple workflow for registering and approving or rejecting business units to enroll in the portal.
  • Infrastructure request and change management: Standardized forms and human-driven workflow that results in reducing the time needed to provision infrastructures in your environment.
  • Self-Service provisioning: Supports bulk creation of virtual machines on provisioned infrastructure through the web-based interface.Helps business units to manage their virtual machines based on delegated roles.

Download here

Categories: Virtualization

Hyper-V Security Guide : Solution accelerator

August 10, 2010 Leave a comment
 
Looking for guidance, instructions, and recommendations to address key security concerns about server virtualization ? You should look at the Hyper-V Security Guide.
 

The Hyper-V Security Guide provides prescriptive guidance for hardening the Hyper-V role, including several best practices for installing and configuring Hyper-V with a focus on security. These best practices include measures for reducing the attack surface of Hyper-V as well as recommendations for properly configuring secure virtual networks and storage devices.

It also provides :

  • Methods for delegating virtual machine management so that virtual machine administrators only have the minimum permissions they require. It describes common delegation scenarios, and includes detailed steps to guide you through using Authorization Manager (AzMan) and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM 2008) to separate virtual machine administrators from virtualization host administrators.
  • Prescriptive guidance for securing virtual machine resources. It includes best practices and detailed steps for protecting virtual machines by using a combination of file system permissions, encryption, and auditing.

Download of the Hyper-V Security Guide.

 

Categories: Virtualization

SCDPM 2010 : How to add support for Hyper-V Item Level Recorevey

August 3, 2010 Leave a comment

 

You must have the Hyper-V role enabled on the DPM 2010 server to perform item-level recoveries. During item-level recovery, DPM has to mount the VHDs of the protected virtual machines.

DPM 2010 supports item-level recovery (ILR), which allows you to do granular recovery of files, folders, volumes, and virtual hard disks (VHDs) from a host-level backup of Hyper-V virtual machines to a network share or a volume on a DPM protected server.

 

 

 
 
Categories: Virtualization

DPM 2010. PowerShell Script to auto protect VMs as they get added to a CSV Cluster

August 3, 2010 Leave a comment

 

In any virtualized environment, adding new VMs is a frequent operation. While backup administrators can protect an entire Hyper-V host using the DPM Management Console, the protection group had to be modified manually to include the new virtual machines that have come up on the Hyper-V host.

There a PowerShell script, created by Angad Pal Singh (DPM Team). To Download Script :  AddNewClusteredVM.ps1 

The script for clustered servers (AddNewClusteredVM.ps1) takes as input the following two values in order:

This example takes the following values as input:

csv01.contoso.com – replace this with the name of your Hyper-V cluster

dpm-server01.contoso.com – replace this with the name of your DPM server

 

PS C:Program FilesMicrosoft DPMDPMbin> .AddNewCLusteredVM.ps1 csv01.contoso.com "Protection Group 2"

 

The script performs the following tasks:

1. Takes FQDN of protected cluster and name of protection group as input.

2. Searches for the protected cluster and the protection group.

3. Runs inquiry on the cluster to get the list of resource groups.

4. Runs parallel inquiry for each resource group and obtains the list of unprotected virtual machines under them.

5. Adds the unprotected virtual machines to the protection group.

6. Saves the changes to the protection group and exits.

Important:

· Shared disks that may be listed under the resource groups of your Hyper-V cluster are not Hyper-V data sources, and are not considered for automatic addition using this script.

· Any new virtual machines that are finally added to a protection group are scheduled for immediate replica creation, overriding any existing protection group behavior. You may modify the respective script to change this after referring the specific cmdlet help option.

 

Categories: Virtualization

Disk2vhd : new version

August 2, 2010 Leave a comment
 
A new version of the Disk2vhd( v1.62 ) was released by By Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell

 

Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk – Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online.

Command Line Usage

Disk2vhd includes command-line options that enable you to script the creation of VHDs. Specify the volumes you want included in a snapshot by drive letter (e.g. c:) or use "*" to include all volumes.

Usage: disk2vhd <[drive: [drive:]…]|[*]> <vhdfile>
Example: disk2vhd * c:vhdsnapshot.vhd

Download NOW

Categories: Virtualization

HowTo monitor the NIC used by a Virtual Machine in a Hyper-V cluster

July 29, 2010 Leave a comment
 
Let’s say you are using Hyper-V Cluster and you have the VM clustered. What happens is that your machine does not failover when the NIC used for that machine has a problem. E.g. Network cable unplugged. Have you noticed that? Have you tested your cluster for this yet? 

The best approach is to use NIC Teaming. But in case your solution(Hyper-V Host Clusters) does not support  don’t support NIC Teaming, then one approach to workaround this, is to add a cluster resource script to the Cluster Group.

Interested? Clique the link below to get the script, with short instructions.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/robertvi/archive/2008/12/05/howto-monitor-the-nic-used-by-a-virtual-machine-in-a-hyper-v-cluster.aspx

Categories: Virtualization

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 : New Features

July 29, 2010 Leave a comment
 
 
Have you downloaded the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP 1 Beta yet?  Make sure you check out the new SP1 Beta Resource page on Microsoft.com as well as the TechNet SP1 page — and don’t forget to grab the download here
 
For Windows Server 2008 R2, SP1 Microsoft will be introducing two new features: Microsoft RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory. These features are designed to meet the increasing needs of customers as they utilize virtualization in their environments with Windows Server 2008 R2. You can read more about RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory on the Windows Server Division WebLog.
 
Dynamic Memory is an enhancement to Hyper-V in R2 and allows IT administrators to pool all the memory available on a physical host and dynamically distribute it to virtual machines running on that host as necessary. That means based on changes in workload, your VMs will be able to receive new memory allocations without a service interruption. For a deeper look at Dynamic Memory check here.
 
RemoteFX is the latest addition to Microsoft’s desktop virtualization stack. Using this new feature in Windows Server 2008 R2, you’ll be able to deliver an even richer and more user-transparent desktop virtualization experience. RemoteFX functions independently of any graphics stack and supports any screen content, including rich content like Silverlight or Flash. It also enhances the end-user’s hardware experience with support for USB redirection. Because it uses virtualized graphics resources, RemoteFX works on a wide array of target devices, which means you can deploy it over both thick and thin client hosts and a wide variety of network configurations. For some more information on RemoteFX check here.
 
So don’t wait – go ahead and deploy… you know you want to! 😉
 

The Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta helps keep your PCs and servers on the latest support level, provides ongoing improvements to the Windows Operating System (OS), by including previous updates delivered over Windows Update as well as continuing incremental updates to the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 platforms based on customer feedback, and is easy for organizations to deploy a single set of updates.

The public beta is best suited for IT pros, tech enthusiasts and developers who need to test the service pack in their organization or with the software they are developing.

In order to download and install the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta you must currently have a Release to Manufacturing (RTM) version of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 already installed. The Beta is available in English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.

To learn more about piloting, deploying and managing Windows 7, visit the Springboard Series on TechNet.

 

Categories: Virtualization