Testing an install of Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager on Windows 2012

Testing an install of Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 on Windows 2012

June 1, 2013 Windows Server 2012 No comments

What is Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager? Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is a management solution for the virtualized datacenter, enabling you to configure and manage your virtualization host, networking, and storage resources in order to create and deploy virtual machines and services to private clouds that you have created A deployment of VMM consists of the following: Pre-Requisites Your servers may slightly differ as to how many roles you put on one server but you will generally need the following. I am going to presume you have a Domain Controller and a Hyper V Server.

1 x Windows 2008 or Windows 2012 Domain Controller
1 x Windows 2012 Server running Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager
1 x Windows 2012 Server running Microsoft SQL Server 2008 or 2012
1 x Windows 2012 Server running Hyper V 2012 Server for testing VMM. Note: You will need to add hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = “FALSE” and mce.enable = “TRUE” and vhv.enable = “True” to the .vmx file if this server is a VM running on VMware
For System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager: Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7
For VMM in System Center 2012 SP1: Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows 8. SCVMM Management Server only requires the Deployment Tools and Windows PE components.
For System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager: At least Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
For VMM in System Center 2012 SP1: Microsoft .NET Framework 4, or Microsoft .NET Framework 4.
The computer on which you install the VMM management server must be a member of an Active Directory domain.
The name of the computer on which you install the VMM management server cannot exceed 15 characters.
The SCVMM machine name can’t include –SCVMM- for example My-SCVMM-Server but can be called SCVMM.
If using Dynamic memory the start-up RAM must be at least 2048 MB. This demo uses 4096 MB of RAM.
It is also recommended that the SQL Command Line Tools and Native Client Tools are also installed on the SCVMM server. See links at the end of this article. We have used the SQL 2012 versions here.
Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, on the computer that you are configuring is the minimum required to complete this procedure.

Extra Notes on SQL Server In System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) you can take advantage of the AlwaysOn feature in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 to ensure high availability of the VMM database. To configure SQL Server with the AlwaysOn feature, complete both procedures below. For more information about the AlwaysOn feature, and AlwaysOn availability groups see the followings:

Before you begin the installation of the VMM management server, ensure that you have a computer with a supported version of Microsoft SQL Server installed and running. Unlike VMM 2008 R2, System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager will not automatically install an Express edition of SQL Server Instructions

Firstly make sure you have Windows Server 2012 installed on your VMM Server
Click Manage > Install Roles and Features on your VMM Server

Select Installation type as Role based or Feature based installation

Select Destination Server

Go to Roles and select Web Server (IIS)

Click Add Features > Next

Select Features

Read the Information

Add Windows Authentication

Check Install Information and tick Restart if required

Click Install

Next Install Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit which you should have downloaded and copied to your VMM Server ready to install
Note this seems to take long to install!
The Windows ADK is a collection of tools that you can use to customise, assess and deploy Windows Operating Systems to new computers, is a pre-requisite for VMM 2012 SP1 and is used for bare metal deployment of Hyper-V Servers
Specify Location

Join the Customer Improvement Program

Accept the License Agreement

Select the Features to Install. You generally need Deployment Tools and Windows Pre-Installation Environment (Windows PE)

Click Install

On the SCVMM server – install the SQL 2012 Native Client with SQL 2012 Command Line Utilities to follow
SQL Native Client contains runtime support for applications using native code APIs (ODBC, OLE DB and ADO) to connect to Microsoft SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2 and 2012. SQL Native Client is used to enhance applications that need to take advantage of new SQL Server 2012 features

Accept the License Agreement

Choose your Features in the Feature Selection Box

Install

Next Install SQL 2012 Command Line Utilities
The SQLCMD utility allows users to connect to, send Transact SQL batches from and output row set information from SQL Server 2008, 2008 R2 and 2012. It is used to enhance applications that need to take advantage of new SQL Server 2012 features

Accept License Agreement

Click Install

Next go to your SQL Server 2012 Server
Attach the SQL ISO
Run the Installer > New SQL Server stand-alone installation

Setup Support Rules will run > Click Next

Choose Specify the free edition

Accept the License Terms

Select Next to Install Product Updates if connected to the internet

You will see the status of the updating

Check Setup Support Rules

Choose SQL Server Feature Installation

Select All on the Feature Installation and choose where you want to install the Shared Feature Directories

Check Installation Rules

Just keep the Default Instance for now – MSSQLSERVER

Check Disk Space Requirements

Check SQL Server Service Accounts and add your own as required

Check Collation

Database Engine Configuration > Choose Mixed Mode and add the Domain Admin

Choose Data Directories

Check Analysis Services Settings

Reporting Services Configuration > Choose Install Only

Distributed Replay Controller > Just add the current user

Distributed Replay Client

Check Error Reporting

Installation Configuration Rules check

Ready to Install

Click Install

Don’t forget to go into SQL Server Configuration Manager > SQL Server Network Configuration > Protocols for MSSQLSERVER and enable Named Pipes and TCP/IP

Restart SQL Services once this is done and it should look like the below

I also found I had to add my Domain Admin account to the Local Administrators group on the SCVMM and SQL Server or I got a message saying “Setup cannot connect to the specified SQL Server Instance. Ensure the server name is correct etc”
I also found that I add to adjust the hosts file in c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc on both the SCVMM Server and SQL Server and add in a mapping for the SQL Server
Now you are ready to install Microsoft VMM
Launch the Installer
Click Install

Choose Features
Select VMM Server, VMM Administrator Console

Put in Product Registration Information > Name, Organisation and Product Key if you have one. If not it will enter Evaluation Mode

Accept the License Agreement

Choose an option for the Customer Service Program

Turn on Microsoft Update

Select Installation Location

Pre-Requisite Checking will then run. You can see I need to put more memory in my VM

Put in your Database configuration. In my case I am using a separate SQL 2012 Server called DACVSQL002
Change the Database Name if you want to and the port is usually 1433
If you find you experience connection errors, then you will need to adjust firewall ports

Put in Service Account Information
Ignore Distributed Key Management for now
DKM is used to store VMM encryption keys in Active Directory Domain Services. By default, using the Windows Data Protection API (DPAPI) VMM encrypts some data in the VMM Database (for example the Run As account credentials and passwords) and this data is tied in to the VMM server and the service account used by VMM. However with DKM, different machines can securely access the shared data. Once a HA VMM Node fails over to another node, it will start accessing the VMM database and use the encryption keys conveniently stored under a container in AD to decrypt the data in the VMM database

Check Port Configuration Information

Specify a Share for the Virtual Machine Manager Library

Check the Installation Summary

Install

Once finished it should look like the following

If there is a problem with setup completing successfully, consult the log files in the %SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\VMMLogs folder. ProgramData is a hidden folder.
Connect to VMM Console