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Virtualization and Management: Community Evaluation Program for the Microsoft System Center 2012 Private Cloud
Whoever might be interested…
Microsoft would like to invite you to participate in Microsoft System Center 2012 Private Cloud Community Evaluation Program which will provide a structured approach to creating your Private Cloud environment and a well-managed datacenter.
Members of this community will evaluate the pre-release versions of Microsoft®System Center 2012 with guidance from the product team and through sharing of experiences and best practices among a community of peers.
To join the program, please fill out the application available here. This will help the CEP team gather relevant information about your organization and your environment. Accepted members will be invited to the program portal on Microsoft Connect by October 25. Once you have been added to the site, you will be notified of upcoming meetings and have access to product downloads and evaluation materials.
For more information on this and other available programs, visit theCommunity Evaluation Program Home Page on Microsoft Connect.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012. What’s new in the RC version?
Microsoft is about to launch the SCVMM 2012 for those who tried the beta version and as myself enjoyed, we will now be able to try also the Release Candidate version.
To download : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/gg678609
My recommendation to managege for up to 150hosts:
2 Processor, Dual-Core, 4GB Ram ( minumum ), 40 GB free space. Remember SCVMM 2012 requires Standard,Entrepise or Datacenter version of SQL Server ( you CAN’T use SQL express anymore ) and you must use a case-insensitive instance of SQL Server
As with the previous release there are a number of improved features for you to take advantage of. With this release you will be able to do:
- Setup Upgrade
- *New in RC -Upgrade- Setup will support the following upgrade paths
- VMM 2008 R2 SP1 > VMM for System Center 2012 RC > VMM for System Center 2012 RTM
- VMM for System Center 2012 RC > VMM for System Center 2012 RTM
- *New in RC -Upgrade- Setup will support the following upgrade paths
- Fabric Management
- Hyper-V and Cluster Lifecycle Management – Deploy Hyper-V to bare metal server, create Hyper-V clusters, orchestrate patching of a Hyper-V Cluster
- *New in RC:
- ISO or CD-based OSD for environments with DHCP without WDS
- OSD will now convert dynamic to fixed type of VHD destination
- All network adapters on host can be configured during provisioning
- *New in RC:
- Ability to bypass cluster validation during cluster creation
- Run cluster validation reports on-demand
- New cluster status tab to view an aggregated status, plus the cluster validation report
- Ability to see current CSV owner in the properties of the cluster
- *New in RC:
- Third Party Virtualization Platforms – Add and Manage Citrix XenServer and VMware ESX Hosts and Clusters
- Network Management – Manage IP Address Pools, MAC Address Pools and Load Balancers
- *New in RC:
- Simplification of the logical networks in the Fabric workspace
- Ability to see IP addresses that are in use from a IP pool
- Added support for Microsoft Network Load Balancer
- Gateway and DNS are no longer mandatory fields for logical networks
- Load balancer can now support affinity to logical networks
- *New in RC:
- Storage Management – Classify Storage, Manage Storage Pools and LUNs
- *New in RC
- Create persistent sessions to iSCSI array and logon initiator to array
- Better scalability of storage operations – LUN create, snapshot, clone, masking, and unmasking
- Option to create storage groups per cluster (BETA only supported creation of storage group per node in a cluster)
- Enablement of MPIO feature when provisioning a new Hyper-V server
- Automatic MPIO device claim
- Support for arrays that implement OnePortPerView
- *New in RC
- Update Management- Keep your SCVMM Fabric Servers (SCVMM roles, hosts, and clusters) up-to-date with patches.
- *New in RC:
- Share a WSUS root server between System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2/ System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Beta
- Hyper-V Cluster Orchestration- Nodes put into VMM Maintenance Mode can be set to trigger Maintenance Mode in Operations Manager.
- *New in RC:
- Hyper-V and Cluster Lifecycle Management – Deploy Hyper-V to bare metal server, create Hyper-V clusters, orchestrate patching of a Hyper-V Cluster
- Resource Optimization
- Dynamic Optimization – proactively balance the load of VMs across a cluster
- Power Optimization – schedule power savings to use the right number of hosts to run your workloads – power the rest off until they are needed.
- *New in RC:
- Set Operations Manager Mode for powered down hosts
- *New in RC:
- PRO – integrate with System Center Operations Manager to respond to application-level performance monitors.
- *New in RC:
- Support added for System Center Operations Manager 2012 Beta
- VMM will ship two sample PRO Packs: Cluster scale out and Service scale out MPs
- *New in RC:
- Cloud Management
- Abstract server, network and storage resources into private clouds
- Delegate access to private clouds with control of capacity, capabilities and user quotas
- Enable self-service usage for application administrator to author, deploy, manage and decommission applications in the private cloud
- Service Lifecycle Management
- Define service templates to create sets of connected virtual machines, OS images and application packages
- *New in RC:
- Service Designer and Specialization UI enhancements
- Added ability to use Service Template Patterns
- *New in RC:
- Compose operating system images and applications during service deployment
- *New in RC:
- IP-based provisioning
- New application instance view
- *New in RC:
- Scale out the number of virtual machines in a service
- Service performance and health monitoring integrated with System Center Operations Manager
- Decouple OS image and application updates through image-based servicing
- *New in RC:
- Streamlined ability to enable OS VHD updates to a Service Template
- Publish updated Service Templates in order to update Service Instances
- *New in RC:
- Leverage powerful application virtualization technologies such as Server App-V
- Define service templates to create sets of connected virtual machines, OS images and application packages
I hope you enjoy as much as I enjoyed!
Post comments about your SCVMM 2012 experience!
SCVMM 2012 Storage and Load Balancer Provider downloads
In SCVMM 2012, in
order to have Storage and Load Balance integration you will need the Provider.
For the Storage you
will need the SMI-S provider and for the Load Balance you will need their
custom provider.
If you are looking for
the download links for the SCVMM 2012 Storage and Load Balance Providers, here
is the list:
| Type | Manufacturer | Version | Link/Instructions | Additional Information |
| Load Balancer | F5 | 3.0.0.175 | Click here | Registration required |
| Citrix | 0.9.0 | Click here | ||
| SMI-S Provider | NetApp | 4.0 X2 | Click here | Registration required |
| EMC | 4.2.1 | Click here | Registration required |
|
| HP | 9.3 | Built-in to HP StorageWorks CommandViewEVA |
Requires SMI-S CIMOM to enabled |
|
| Dell | Click here for MD32x0/i and MD36x0/i Storage Array |
Registration required |
Storage : SMI-S Provider tested for vs.1.4
| Vendor |
| Brocade |
| Dell |
| EMC Corporation |
| Hewlett-Packard |
| Hitachi |
| Huawei Symantec |
| IBM |
| LSI, Engenio Storage Group |
| PMC-Sierra |
Source : http://www.snia.org/ctp/
SCVMM 2012 : Ports commnications for Firewall Configuration
When you install the SCVMM 2012 you can assign some of the ports that it will use for communications and file transfers between the VMM components.
Note: Not all of the ports can be changed through VMM.
The default settings for the ports are listed in the following table:
| Connection type | Protocol | Default port | Where to change port setting |
| SFTP file transfer from VMware ESX Server 3.0 and VMware ESX Server 3.5 hosts | SFTP | 22 | |
| VMM management server to P2V source agent (control channel) | DCOM | 135 | |
| VMM management server to Load Balancer | HTTP/HTTPS | 80/443 | Load balancer configuration provider |
| VMM management server to WSUS server (data channel) | HTTP/HTTPS | 80/8530 (non-SSL), 443/8531 (with SSL) |
These ports are the IIS port binding with WSUS. They cannot be changed from VMM. |
| VMM management server to WSUS server (control channel) | HTTP/HTTPS | 80/8530 (non-SSL), 443/8531 (with SSL) | These ports are the IIS port binding with WSUS. They cannot be changed from VMM. |
| BITS port for VMM transfers (data channel) | BITS | 443 | During VMM setup |
| VMM library server to hosts file transfer | BITS | 443 (Maximum value: 32768) | During VMM setup |
| VMM host-to-host file transfer | BITS | 443 (Maximum value: 32768) |
|
| VMM Self-Service Portal to VMM Self-Service Portal web server | HTTPS | 443 | During VMM setup |
| VMware Web Services communication | HTTPS | 443 | VMM console |
| SFTP file transfer from VMM management server to VMware ESX Server 3i hosts | HTTPS | 443 | |
| OOB Connection – SMASH over WS-Man | HTTPS | 443 | On BMC |
| VMM management server to in-guest agent (VMM to virtual machine data channel) | HTTPS (using BITS) |
443 | |
| VMM management server to VMM agent on Windows Server–based host (data channel for file transfers) | HTTPS (using BITS) |
443 (Maximum value: 32768) |
|
| OOB Connection IPMI | IPMI | 623 | On BMC |
| VMM management server to remote Microsoft SQL Server database | TDS | 1433 | |
| Console connections (RDP) to virtual machines through Hyper-V hosts (VMConnect) | RDP | 2179 | VMM console |
| VMM management server to Citrix XenServer host (customization data channel) | iSCSI | 3260 | On XenServer in transfer VM |
| Remote Desktop to virtual machines | RDP | 3389 | On the virtual machine |
| VMM management server to VMM agent on Windows Server–based host (control channel) | WS-Management | 5985 | During VMM setup |
| VMM management server to in-guest agent (VMM to virtual machine control channel) | WS-Management | 5985 | |
| VMM management server to VMM agent on Windows Server–based host (control channel – SSL) | WS-Management | 5986 | |
| VMM management server to XenServer host (control channel) | HTTPS | 5989 | On XenServer host in: /opt/cimserver/cimserver_planned.conf |
| VMM console to VMM management server | WCF | 8100 | During VMM setup |
| VMM Self-Service Portal web server to VMM management server | WCF | 8100 | During VMM setup |
| VMM console to VMM management server (HTTPS) | WCF | 8101 | During VMM setup |
| Windows PE agent to VMM management server (control channel) | WCF | 8101 | During VMM setup |
| VMM console to VMM management server (NET.TCP) | WCF | 8102 | During VMM setup |
| WDS provider to VMM management server | WCF | 8102 | During VMM setup |
| VMM console to VMM management server (HTTP) | WCF | 8103 | During VMM setup |
| Windows PE agent to VMM management server (time sync) | WCF | 8103 | During VMM setup |
| VMM management server to Storage Management Service | WMI | Local call |
|
| VMM management server to Cluster PowerShell interface | PowerShell | n/a | |
| Storage Management Service to SMI-S Provider | CIM-XML | Provider-specific port |
|
| VMM management server to P2V source agent (data channel) | BITS | User-Defined | P2V cmdlet option |
I am Speaking at Teched Australia 2011
I am absolutely thrilled to announce I will be presenting the following two sessions at Tech.Ed Australia 2011 :
| SCVMM 2012: Deployment, Planning, Upgrade
This session provides a scenario rich detailed walk through of VMM 2012 deployment, planning, and upgrade scenarios. Come and learn how to best plan your next VMM rollout |
| SCVMM 2012 Fabric Lifecycle: Networking and Storage
This session provides a scenario rich detailed walk through of new and more robust networking and storage features in VMM 2012. In this session you will learn how to discover, configure, and provision networking |
Came along! It will be an excellent session.
Tech.Ed Australia 2011 is on the Gold Coast between the 30th August and the 2nd September, registrations are now open. Find out more at http://australia.msteched.com/
SCVMM 2012 Management ports and protocols. Detailed
Here are the list of ports/protocols for the new SCVMM 2012.
| From | To | Protocol | Default port |
Where to change port setting |
| VMM management server | P2V source agent (control channel) |
DCOM | 135 | |
| Load Balancer | HTTP/HTTPS | 80/443 | Load balancer configuration provider | |
| WSUS server (data channel) | HTTP/HTTPS | 80/8530 (non-SSL), 443/8531 (with SSL) |
These ports are the IIS port binding with WSUS. They cannot be changed from VMM. | |
| WSUS server (control channel) | HTTP/HTTPS | 80/8530 (non-SSL), 443/8531 (with SSL) |
These ports are the IIS port binding with WSUS. They cannot be changed from VMM. | |
| VMM agent on Windows Server–based host (data channel for file transfers) |
HTTPS (using BITS) |
443 (Maximum value: 32768) |
||
| Citrix XenServer host (customization data channel) |
iSCSI | 3260 | On XenServer in transfer VM | |
| XenServer host (control channel) | HTTPS | 5989 | On XenServer host in: /opt/cimserver/cimserver_planned.conf | |
| remote Microsoft SQL Server database | TDS | 1433 | ||
| VMM agent on Windows Server–based host (control channel) |
WS-Management | 5985 | VMM setup | |
| VMM agent on Windows Server–based host (control channel – SSL) |
WS-Management | 5986 | ||
| in-guest agent (VMM to virtual machine control channel) |
WS-Management | 5985 | ||
| Storage Management Service | WMI | Local call |
||
| Cluster PowerShell interface | PowerShell | n/a | ||
| P2V source agent (data channel) | BITS | User-Defined | P2V cmdlet option | |
| VMM library server | hosts file transfer |
BITS | 443 (Maximum value: 32768) |
VMM setup |
| VMM host-to-host file transfer | BITS | 443 (Maximum value: 32768) |
||
| VMM Self-Service Portal | VMM Self-Service Portal web server |
HTTPS | 443 | VMM setup |
| VMM Self-Service Portal web server | VMM management server |
WCF | 8100 | VMM setup |
| Console connections (RDP) | virtual machines through Hyper-V hosts (VMConnect) |
RDP | 2179 | VMM console |
| Remote Desktop | virtual machines |
RDP | 3389 | On the virtual machine |
| VMM console | VMM management server |
WCF | 8100 | VMM setup |
| VMM management server (HTTPS) | WCF | 8101 | VMM setup | |
| VMM management server (NET.TCP) | WCF | 8102 | VMM setup | |
| VMM management server (HTTP) | WCF | 8103 | VMM setup | |
| Windows PE agent | VMM management server (control channel) |
WCF | 8101 | VMM setup |
| VMM management server (time sync) | WCF | 8103 | VMM setup | |
| WDS provider | VMM management server |
WCF | 8102 | VMM setup |
| Storage Management Service | SMI-S Provider | CIM-XML | Provider-specific port |
|
| VMM management server | VMware ESX Server 3i hosts |
HTTPS | 443 | |
Others
| Connection Type | Protocol | Default port | Where to change port setting |
| OOB Connection – SMASH over WS-Man | HTTPS | 443 | On BMC |
| OOB Connection IPMI | IPMI | 623 | On BMC |
|
BITS port for VMM transfers (data channel)
|
BITS | 443 | VMM setup |
| VMware ESX Server 3.0 and VMware ESX Server 3.5 hosts | SFTP | 22 | |
| VMware Web Services communication |
HTTPS | 443 | VMM console |
Note: When you install the VMM management server you can assign some of the ports that it will use for communications and file transfers between the VMM components.
SCVMM 2012: Private Cloud Management. Got it!?
It’s great pleasure to see how far Microsoft SCVMM went with the SCVMM 2012.
Belevie me, it’s a whole new product.
So, if you are seriuos about Private Cloud Management, that’s the product you will look into.
•Fabric Management
◦Hyper-V and Cluster Lifecycle Management – Deploy Hyper-V to bare metal server, create Hyper-V clusters, orchestrate patching of a Hyper-V Cluster
◦Third Party Virtualization Platforms – Add and Manage Citrix XenServer and VMware ESX Hosts and Clusters
◦Network Management – Manage IP Address Pools, MAC Address Pools and Load Balancers
◦Storage Management – Classify storage, Manage Storage Pools and LUNs
•Resource Optimization
◦Dynamic Optimization – proactively balance the load of VMs across a cluster
◦Power Optimization – schedule power savings to use the right number of hosts to run your workloads – power the rest off until they are needed.
◦PRO – integrate with System Center Operations Manager to respond to application-level performance monitors.
•Cloud Management
◦Abstract server, network and storage resources into private clouds
◦Delegate access to private clouds with control of capacity, capabilities and user quotas
◦Enable self-service usage for application administrator to author, deploy, manage and decommission applications in the private cloud
•Service Lifecycle Management
◦Define service templates to create sets of connected virtual machines, os images and application packages
◦Compose operating system images and applications during service deployment
◦Scale out the number of virtual machines in a service
◦Service performance and health monitoring integrated with System Center Operations Manager
◦Decouple OS image and application updates through image-based servicing.
◦Leverage powerful application virtualization technologies such as Server App-V
Note: The SCVMM 2012 Beta is NOT Supported in production environments.
Download SCVMM 2012 Beta Now
Altaro
Recommended Books
System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Cookbook
