Test Lab Guides: System Center 2012 SP1 – Virtual Machine Manager

Microsoft just release new test lab guide “Test Lab Guides: System Center 2012 SP1 – Virtual Machine Manager”

These guides contain instructions for setting up a test lab that uses System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) – Virtual Machine Manager (VMM). The guides describe how to deploy a VMM management server and a host in the test lab, and then tell how to use those servers to deploy multiple virtual machines that can work together to provide services. The virtual machines that you can deploy include web servers and servers running SQL Server 2012. After you create VMM profiles and templates, such as the ones described in these guides, it is a straightforward process to deploy as many sets of virtual machines as needed.

Download include two files

1- Test Lab Guide: Deploy Virtual Machine Manager in System Center 2012 SP1

This guide explains how to set up a test lab that deploys VMM using two physical servers. This can help you learn to deploy VMM, and provide a foundation for learning how you might use VMM in your environment. The guide also shows how to use VMM to create a virtual machine and deploy it on a host system in the test lab. The guide includes a small amount of information and some links that are related to the deployment of virtual machines. This guide is designed to provide a foundation for other procedures and guides for VMM

2-Test Lab Guide: Use VMM to Deploy a Web-Based Application that Requires Multiple Virtual Machines

This guide contains procedures for setting up a test lab that is based on the foundation provided by the Test Lab Guide: Deploy Virtual Machine Manager. The procedures show how to deploy virtual machines by using profiles (such as application profiles) and templates (such as virtual machine templates and service templates).

The guide represent the templates and profiles that you can create when you perform the steps in this guide. With these templates and profiles, you can first deploy a web server, and then a pair of virtual machines—a web server and an instance of SQL Server—to represent virtual machines that could work together as a service that you provide to users.

You can get it from there

SCVMM 2012 VM Migration Error 2912

Symptom:

When you move VMs between different Windows 2008 R2 SP1 hosts you get this error

Error (2912)
An internal error has occurred trying to contact an agent on the Hostname server: NO_PARAM: NO_PARAM.
Unknown error (0x80072f0d)

Recommended Action
Ensure the agent is installed and running. Ensure the WS-Management service is installed and running, then restart the agent.

Cause:

1- VMM agent is not running

2- WMI or WinRM services are not running

3- VMM BITS port configuration need adjustment

 

Resolution:

Check VMM agent, WinRM, WMI Services and start if anyone stopped

  1. On Hyper-V Server, check if we have installed feature Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) feature.
  2. Open Regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Server\Settings
  3. Locate the BITSTcpPort name on the right. It’s data value should be 443
      a. Double click BITSTcpPort in order to modify the data. Make sure the Base is set to ‘Decimal’
      b. Change 443 to 765, or any other number less than 32768. Do not use a port that another protocol uses such as RDP (3389)
      c. Click ‘OK’ to save this value
  4. Restart the ‘Virtual Machine Manager’ and ‘Virtual Machine Manager Agent’ services on the SCVMM server. (On managed hosts simply restart the ‘Virtual Machine Manager Agent’ service’)
  5. Once complete on the SCVMM server and all Hosts you can continue using SCVMM

NOTE: Changing the BITS port for SCVMM does not affect BITS ports used by other applications or Windows itself.

Uninstall VMM Agent Error after Upgrade to SP1 Error 406

After Upgrade our VMM server from VMM 2012 to SP1 we faced an error with some of our Hyper-v Server as per blow picture

The error is related DCOM and privilege… We are using “Run As” Account with domain admin privilege and already checked DCOM Security part

After some digging I discovered that after the upgrade the Run As Accounts are corrupted so simply update the run as account password and try again and it will work

Uninstall VMM Agent Server Core with WMIC

After Upgrade our VMM server from VMM 2012 to SP1 we need to upgrade AMM Agents on all hosts, One of the hosts refused to upgrade through VMM and asked us to remove old version before upgrade

Using Core Configurator did not add too much, So I decide to use WMIC to uninstall VMM agnent

 

1. Open a command prompt.

2. Type WMIC and press Return. You will see a prompt that looks like this: 

      wmic:root\cli>

3. At the new prompt, execute the following command:

    product get name

This will generate a list of installed applications.

4. At the prompt, execute the following command:
product where name="Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Agnet (x64)" call uninstall

5. When prompted, input “Y” to confirm that you wish to uninstall the application and press Return.

The application will be uninstalled.

Service Templates and Service Template Explorer Beta now available for download!

Microsoft team is pleased to announce that the Microsoft Service Templates for System Center 2012 and the Microsoft Service Template Explorer is now available for beta download and review!

The service templates enable you to automate the hydration of workloads, such as server roles available in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012. This beta release includes service templates and the Service Template Explorer for System Center 2012 SP1. The service templates allow you to quickly hydrate a Windows workload on a Microsoft private cloud. The Service Template Explorer is an add-in that you can use in System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager to quickly discover and download new service templates from Microsoft.

Download the beta materials from the Connect site:

https://connect.microsoft.com/site14/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=47328

Tell us what you think!

We value your input.Download the Service Templates and Service Template Explorer Beta and send us your feedback by January 25, 2013. To send your feedback:

• Use the Feedback link on Connect to submit bugs and suggestions. Please search the feedback location for this beta release to see if your feedback has already been submitted before sending yours to help us reduce duplicate results.
• Send your questions or feedback about this beta release to MCATFeedback@microsoft.com.

VMM Tricks: Remove old VMM server name from VMM Server navigation pane

One question on VMM forums was “How to remove old vmm2012 server name from VMM Server navigation pane?”

 

Answer is simple: check these tables “In this case it was [tbl_VMM_Server]

check these tables

[tbl_VMM_Server]

[tbl_DR_VMMRegistrationDetails]

[tbl_VMM_Server]

 

Please note that direct editing VMM database may affect VMM Server so please do that carefully

VMM Tricks: VM Migration failed with Error (2912): An internal error has occurred trying to contact an agent on ServerFQDN

Symptom :

When you try to migrate a VM between two Hyper-V hosts using VMM, it fails with

“Error (2912): An internal error has occurred trying to contact an agent on the Server FQDN. (Element not found (0×80070490))”.

 

---

Description:

“0×80070490” means “Element not found” and “Certificate not found”. This issue may be caused by a problem with the Host certificate (incorrect name, IP instead of FQDN or NetBIOS) or the certificate is missing from the VMM server.

---

Resolution:

The possible solution is to remove the managed host from the VMM server and also delete any residual certificates from the host on the VMM server, and then re-add the host. use the following steps:

1. On the SCVMM server, remove the managed host from the console. The steps on how to remove a managed host are outlined in the following TechNet article:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc956121.aspx

2. Locate, backup, and delete any certificates for the Host computer.

A. Open the Certificate console on the SCVMM server.

• Open a new mmc and add the certificates snap-in.
• Select the option of ‘computer account’ and ‘local computer’.
• Select Finish and Ok to load the snap-in.

B. The certificates for the Host computer can be in any of the following locations.

I. Personal Certificates.

II. Trusted People (if the host is W2K8).

III. Trusted Root Authorities (If the host is W2K3).

C. In each store, expand the Friendly Name field and locate the certificate[s] for the Host server that have a Friendly Name starting with ‘SCVMM_CERTIFICATE_KEY_CONTAINER’ followed by either the FQDN / IP address / NetBIOS name of the Host server and delete them.

3. Re-add the host in SCVMM which recreates the certificates as needed.

For more information about this solution, please refer:

Error 2912 when a Virtual Machine Manager 2008 operation fails due to a certificate issue: "Element not found (0×80070490)"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971264

VMM Tricks: SCVMM 2008 R2 Adding Cluster Warning13926

Symptons :

When you try to add Hyper-v Cluster to VMM 2008 R2 you get warning 13926.

Host cluster ClusterFQDN was not fully refreshed because not all of the nodes could be contacted. Highly available storage and virtual network information reported for this cluster might be inaccurate.

Recommended Action

Ensure that all the nodes are online and do not have Not Responding status in Virtual Machine Manager. Then refresh the host cluster again.

Cause

This issue could be caused by the following factors: WinRM does not work on the machine intended to be a managed host, account issue.

Resolution

1. Check the status of hosts in VMM.
2. Run command winrm id on every hosts.
3. Run command winrm id and winrm qc on the problematic machine which is intended to be a managed host. If there is any error message, please let me know.
4. Run command winrm id –r:ProblematicMachine to check if we can establish a connection. 5. Refresh problematic machine manually on cluster.
6. Check if SCVMM computer account in local admin group in hosts.

Please give me the detailed description of your SCVMM topology, for example the name of VMM server, the name of every node within cluster, and the IP addresses.

Please install the following hotfixes on the server intended to become a managed host. Please first do a full system backup.
1. 968936 A rollup hotfix package for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering WMI provider
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968936
2. 971403 The “Win32_share” WMI class cannot enumerate file shares or create file shares on a node in a Windows Server 2008 failover cluster
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;971403
3. 970520 The Wmiprvse.exe process creates a memory leak on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 if you remotely monitor this process by using the WMI interface on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;970520
4. 2008835 Adding a single node cluster into System Center Virtual Machine Manager may take an extended period of time and complete with a warning (13926)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-US;2008835

VMM tricks: SCVMM SP1 Beta Refresh Windows 2012 Cluster cause Error 2910

After building new Windows 2012 Cluster, Migrate VMs from Windows 2008 R2 Cluster to new 2012 Cluster using VMM 2012 SP1 beta. Now trying to refresh Hyper-V hosts in new Windows 2012 we see these errors

Error (2910)
VMM does not have appropriate permissions to access the resource  on the server.
Access is denied (0×80070005)

Recommended Action
Ensure that Virtual Machine Manager has the appropriate rights to perform this action.

Error (2910)
VMM does not have appropriate permissions to access the resource C:\Windows\system32\qmgr.dll on the server.
Access is denied (0×80070005)

Error (2910)
VMM does not have appropriate permissions to access the resource C:\ on the server.
Access is denied (0×80070005)

Recommended Action
Ensure that Virtual Machine Manager has the appropriate rights to perform this action.

 

A fast search got me to this forum post ..  Wes Kroesbergen provided a solution that worked like magic

 

Try the following:

====================================================

reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
winrm set winrm/config/service/auth @{CredSSP="True"}
winrm set winrm/config/winrs @{AllowRemoteShellAccess="True"}
winrm set winrm/config/winrs @{MaxMemoryPerShellMB="2048"}
winrm set winrm/config/client @{TrustedHosts="*"}
winrm set winrm/config/client/auth @{CredSSP="True"}

====================================================

If WinRM is turned on and enabled via GPO, some of the other parameters that VMM appears to need do not get set. When you run WinRM /QC it only checks two values, and says ‘hey, everything is enabled’ without checking these other params.

VMM tricks : Delete VM from VMware cause “Invalid datastore path”

System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) enables you to deploy and manage virtual machines and services across multiple hypervisor platforms, including VMware ESX and ESXi hosts. In VMM, support for ESX is optimized for virtual machine and service management. VMM enables you to manage and provide resources from multiple hypervisors and make the resources available to private cloud deployments, all from a common user interface and common command-line interface (CLI).

VMM 2012 helps customers to migrate from VMware to Hyper-v using V2V feature. I saw a common case that happened for 2 of my customers

Symptons :

When you try to delete VM that are hosted on VMware Cluster from VMM Console or Sync VMM with vCenter you get this error.

 

Error (2947)
Virtual Machine Manager cannot complete the VirtualCenter action on the server XYZ.Domin.Local because of the following error: Invalid datastore path ‘[ESX_Datastore] ‘
Unknown error (0×194)

Recommended Action
Resolve the issue and then try the operation again.

 

Cause

This error happens after migration of VM from VMware to Hyper-V using VMM. if you delete the “VM files, Storage” from VMware cluster using the vCenter console “not the VMM Console “ and then try to Refresh VMware Cluster you still able to see the VM. If you tried to delete it again from VMM Console you will get this error

Resolution

You can use PowerShell to force remove that VM:

$VM = Get-VM -Name "VM Name"
Remove-VM -VM $VM –Force