Windows Server blog by Kurt Roggen [BE]

“The Power of PowerShell: Advanced” session is online!

Kurt Roggen — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 19:05:47 GMT

My PowerShell session I presented last TechDays 2013 is online.
Below you find the session abstracts.

“Discover the power of PowerShell in this session. The sky is the limit…
But are you using PowerShell the right way? What about reusing and sharing your code?
What about creating your own functions and modules? What about creating objects?
Everything on how to make your code look and feel like “real” PowerShell cmdlets…
This session is 90% demo driven.”

The session covers the 3 base cmdlets that make PowerShell self-discoverable:

Get-Command
Get-Help
Get-Member

Eventually, we move into the more advanced stuff:

Writing functions with parameters
Moving those functions into a module
Creating comment-based help for your module
Allow your functions to accept objects from the pipeline
Make your functions return objects to the pipeline
Create a module manifest to provide module metadata
Create default formatting for your objects using .format.ps1xml files

Related reading:

Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) version 4

Kurt Roggen — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:00:00 GMT

This is a recording from the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack event on December 2, 2011, now available on Technet Edge.

It covers all basic AGPM concepts, the overall architecture and the GPO management approach taken with AGPM to provide real change management with rollback capabilities.

Enjoy!

Related reading:

Microsoft announces NAS Support for Hyper-V, recognizes NetApp as Development partner for SMB 2.2

Kurt Roggen — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:27:50 GMT

On Sept, 20, 2011, Microsoft announced the availability of new spec for SMB 2.2 at the Storage Developer’s Conference. Earlier this year, Microsoft asked NetApp to add support for SMB 2.2 in Data ONTAP for mission-critical Microsoft workloads on SMB including Hyper-V and SQL Server.

NetApp worked with Microsoft to understand the Microsoft design and recommended improvements to this new version of the SMB protocol.
SMB 2.2 offers greatly improved resilience to network and server outages over previous versions of SMB. With SMB2.2, Microsoft on NetApp customers can deploy enterprise Hyper-V workloads on NAS and gain all the benefits seen with the use of other hypervisors over file protocols.

SMB2.2 will be included in Windows Server 8 which is scheduled to be released in the 2012 (no dates have yet been announced).

Benefits of SMB 2.2 for NetApp and Microsoft Customers

1. Improved Flexibility

The new SMB 2.2 protocol in Windows Server 8 will allow Microsoft on NetApp customers to deploy Hyper-V over Ethernet-based storage using CIFs. This provides more flexibility in how customers can now deploy Microsoft apps on Hyper-V. Joint customers can deploy virtualized shared IT infrastructures on the networked storage architecture that best meets their needs.

The combination of NetApp’s Cluster mode architecture including unified storage with Microsoft’s support for virtualization using file and block based storage will enable joint customers to architect and deploy a true private cloud architecture that is both flexible and efficient. Customers need not worry about protocols. Instead, they can use the architecture that meets their needs and leverage NetApp’s market leading storage efficiency capabilities (deduplication, expand/reduce storage space on the fly, cloning, rapid backup and restore, cost effective DR) to meet business needs.

2. Improved Manageability and Scalability

Deploying Hyper-V over SMB offers manageability and scalability benefits. Ethernet-based protocols such as SMB simplify provisioning and management plus it also provides the flexibility for customers to rapidly move and re-purpose storage resources which are a key requirement in private cloud architectures. File-based implementations are also typically cost-effective as they do not require special Fibre Channel SAN expertise or training and allow IT teams to leverage standard Ethernet knowledge. Lastly SMB allows customers to scale their management tasks. It is much easier to manage and implement data protection for hundreds or even thousands of virtual machines on a NAS than it is on a SAN.

3. Continuous Availability (CA)

The new SMB protocol offers continuous availability features and when combined with NetApp’s HA and DR capabilities, offer joint customers a very highly available infrastructure that reduces application downtime.

4. Lower IT Costs

Support for Hyper-V over SMB can lowers costs. Microsoft on NetApp customers can leverage their existing Ethernet infrastructure and not have to spend on expensive Fibre Channel gear as well as leverage existing Ethernet skill sets. NetApp is one of the only vendors that can support both protocols in a single storage system, further lowering operational and capital costs.

Get Ready for today’s LiveMeeting on PowerShell: Discover the Power of PowerShell – Part 2 (Advanced)

Kurt Roggen — Thu, 12 May 2011 10:42:30 GMT

I’m doing a second LiveMeeting on PowerShell (advanced – starting at level 300, up to 400) and again it is 95% demo-driven!! All information is be available in the slides, but merely as reference material… you will hardly see any of these slides…

The Live meeting will be in Dutch, but I‘m also looking at redoing them in English based on the enormous interest…
For now, find the links for the Dutch PowerShell Live Meetings below:

Ontdek de kracht van PowerShell - Deel 2 – 12 mei 2011 – 14:00-15u30

In deze sessie bekijken gaan we een versnelling hoger en bekijken we volgende zaken:

Automatiseren van Windows administratie
PowerShell Remoting
Je eigen cmdlets en modules schrijven

PowerShell LiveMeetings: Discover the Power of PowerShell

Kurt Roggen — Wed, 04 May 2011 08:08:55 GMT

I’m doing a couple of LiveMeetings on PowerShell (both basic and advanced) and are 95% demo-driven!! All information will be available in slides, but merely as reference material… you will hardly see any of these slides…

The Live meetings will be in Dutch, but I‘m also looking at redoing them in English based on the enormous interest…
For now, find the links for the Dutch PowerShell Live Meetings below:

Ontdek de kracht van PowerShell – Deel 1 - 5 mei 2011 - 14u00-15u30 - Registreer

Vraag je je af hoe te beginnen aan PowerShell? Ontdek hoe eenvoudig het kan zijn: eens je de basisconcepten van PowerShell onder de knie hebt en met slechts enkele basis commands kan je al snel zeggen "the sky is the limit". In deze webcast bekijken we algemene PowerShell concepten aan de hand van een aantal demo's.

Ontdek de kracht van PowerShell - Deel 2 – 12 mei 2011 – 14:00-15u30 – Registreer

In deze sessie bekijken gaan we een versnelling hoger en bekijken we volgende zaken:

Automatiseren van Windows administratie
PowerShell Remoting
Je eigen cmdlets en modules schrijven

I’m joining SCUG.be as SCVMM blogger

Kurt Roggen — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 22:13:51 GMT

I will be (cross)posting on SCUG.be (the Belgian System Center usergroup) on both SCVMM 2008 R2 and SCVMM 2012 with 1 purpose: sharing knowledge and information.

Hope you enjoy it, too!!

Kurt Roggen [BE]

SCVMM PRO Tips & SCOM 2007 R2 CU3

Kurt Roggen — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 07:14:00 GMT

Be careful when implementing SCVMM PRO Tips with SCOM 2007 R2 CU3. Cumulative Update 3 will break the PRO Tips with Event ID 26319 appearing.
You should implement SCOM 2007 R2 CU4 to solve PRO related issues.

Also interesting to know is that CU4 adds SQL 2008 R2 upgrade support for SCOM 2007 R2.

Download here

For more information: KB 2449679

SCVMM 2012 Fabric: Storage Integration with HP EVA

Kurt Roggen — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:38:00 GMT

Hans Vredevoort, Cluster MVP, created a great post on storage integration included with VMM 2012 BETA.
In this blog he focuses on the Storage integration which can be accessed from the Fabric wunderbar.

One of the new features in VMM 2012 is integration with SAN storage arrays. The primary reason for this is of course there is not much point in building a Hyper-V Private Cloud without some sort of Fiber Channel, iSCSI or Shared SAS based type of shared storage.

Very much focusing on the standards that are available, Microsoft decided to employ the SMI-S Provider for this purpose, with VDS as a temporary option for backwards compatibility. Apart from managing software I had not had the pleasure to work with SMI-S before and I guess it is new for most of my readers. So let me first delve into what SMI-S really is.

SMI-S is short for Storage Management Initiative Specification and was defined under auspices of SNIA, the Storage Networking Industry Association. SMI-S defines a method for the interoperable management of a heterogeneous Storage Area Network (SAN), and describes the information available to a WBEM Client from an SMI-S compliant CIM Server and an object-oriented, XML-based, messaging-based interface designed to support the specific requirements of managing devices in and through SANs.

For the complete story: Hyper-V blog by Hans Vredevoort: VMM 2012 Fabric- Deep Storage Integration

SCVMM 2012 BETA Overview

Kurt Roggen — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 07:55:00 GMT

Bookmark the SCVMM Blog, so you can come back again and again to learn more about VMM 2012 Beta!
Eric Winner, Principal Program Manager on the SCVMM team just gave a great overview of what is included with VMM 2012 BETA.

VMM 2012 features deep investments in server application virtualization, service design and service modeling all of which can be used to efficiently offer an on-premises private cloud. This is not the SCVMM of yesterday. It is packed full of new and exciting features!

SCVMM 2012 offers key new features that include:

· Fabric Management

Hyper-v life cycle management (deploy to bare metal, configure, manage, patch)

Hyper-v Cluster Management (create cluster, configure, orchestrated patching of a hyper-v cluster)

Multiple Hypervisor Management (Hyper-v, VMware, Citrix XenServer)

Network Management

Storage Management

· Cloud Management

Private Cloud Management

· Self-service Usage

Self-service user experience enriched with ability to use the VMM console.

· Service Lifecycle Management

Author service templates

Deploy VMM authored services

Version and update authored service template

Apply new versioned service templates to deployed virtualized services using image-based servicing.

In general we expect customer to follow the below high-level scenario flow:

· Setup Virtual Machine Manager

· Create and configure the datacenter fabric

· Create and delegate clouds

· Author service templates, then deploy and update services running on the clouds.

Like I stated earlier, in the coming days the SCVMM team will publish a blog series that will focus on helping users get started with SCVMM 2012 beta. These blogs post simply highlight the features sets and provide useful tidbits from the feature area program manager’s on SCVMM team. For actual step-by-step guidance our top notch staff of technical writers have SCVMM 2012 Beta Documentation available on TechNet.

For now, I’ll leave you with a pictorial view of the areas for managing your fabric, clouds and services as well as our new drag-and-drop visual service designer. Stay tuned for more details in the days and weeks to come.

Datacenter Fabric- Server Management

Once you have VMM 2012 Beta installed lets take a walk through the SCVMM 2012 User Interface to help you understand the features within each workspace.

Below we start out in the Fabric workspace at the top node called Servers. Within the image below there is detail about the operations you perform in the Server Node within the Fabric Workspace.

Datacenter Fabric- Network Management

Next, while still in the fabric workspace we navigate down to the Networking Node. In the slide below there are details about the operations you perform in networking section within the fabric workspace.

Datacenter Fabric- Storage Management

Last but not least in the Fabric workspace is the Storage Section. The slide below provides you a screen shot of this space and details what operations are performed within the storage node in the Fabric workspace.

Private Cloud Creation

Now, we move over to the VMs and Services Workspace. Within this workspace depending upon your user role you will see virtualized workloads running on clouds or within host groups. In the image below see details about operations within private cloud node inside the VMs and Services work space.

Service Creation Designer

Once you have your SCVMM 2012 Fabric all setup to run virtualized workloads SCVMM provides you the ability to create virtualized services within the Service Designer tool. The below image details features within the Service Designer.

Resources and Feedback:

Use the SCVMM Community Forums to obtain general help, guidance, and assistance with the SCVMM 2012 Beta. You are welcome to submit suggestions or bugs via the feedback link on the SCVMM 2012 Beta Connect Site. When submitting bugs, please attach trace log details to help our team diagnose the issue. Information on collecting trace logs is provided in the SCVMM 2012 Troubleshooting Guide on SCVMM 2012 TechNet Library.

TechNet Library

· The SCVMM 2012 TechNet Library is the definitive content source for all step-by-step instructions.

We look forward to your feedback!

Eric Winner, Principal Lead Program Manager- SCVMM

Source: System Center Virtual Machine Manager Product Group Blog : SCVMM 2012 Beta Overview

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012 Beta Documentation

Kurt Roggen — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 05:23:00 GMT

Be sure to check out this 421 pages of documentation on VMM 2012 BETA installation, configuration, management, patch management and many more…
Probably everything you ever wanted to know about the SCVMM 2012 BETA.

Some topics covered:

Installing a VMM Management Server
Update Remediation using WSUS
Creating Private Clouds
Rapid Provisioning using SAN Copy
Deploying, Managing and Servicing Services
Scaling Out a Service
Creating User Roles

Download here

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 SP1 Available Now!

Kurt Roggen — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:11:44 GMT

On behalf of the SCVMM product team and I am proud to announce the availability of SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1 RTM.

Support for new features of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Dynamic Memory: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V supports Dynamic Memory enabling customers to better utilize the memory resources of a Hyper-V host. VMM 2008 R2 SP1 allows administrators to create and deploy Virtual Machines onto Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V hosts and will report on the memory currently in use for these VMs where Dynamic Memory is enabled. Using Dynamic Memory for supported VMs allows for more efficient utilization of memory, with consistent performance, and higher consolidation ratios.
Microsoft RemoteFX: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 introduces a new set of end user experience enhancements with Microsoft RemoteFX. VMM 2008 R2 SP1 allows administrators to create and deploy Virtual Machines with RemoteFX enabled to qualified Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V hosts. This enables a rich, local-like desktop environment over the network.

GET IT NOW

Greg Cusanza- Program Manager, SCVMM

Source: SCVMM Product team blog

Related reading:

TryCatch.be – SCVMM 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 features

SCVMM 2012 BETA: Installing a standalone VMM Management Server

Kurt Roggen — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:09:22 GMT

This scenario is the installation of a standalone VMM Management Server, where both VMM Server and VMM Database (SQL Server only) live on the same box, actually a virtual machine in my case.
By placing the virtual machine in a Hyper-V cluster, you also achieve HA for VMM, but it will not provide any high availability at the application level (for both VMM and SQL). So you are not protected from VMM failures or SQL failures… There are many installation variations, but with VMM 2012 you are able to achieve complete high availability for VMM and it’s surrounding components (SQL, Library, Self-Service Portal).

VMM Setup is split up into several steps:

Software and Hardware Pre-requisites check
Database configuration
Account configuration (Service Account and Distributed Key Management)
Port configuration
Library configuration (Default SCVMM Library Server and Share)

NOTE: If during the setup you encounter any problem, consult the log files that are located in the %SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\VMMLogs folder.

Using VMM Setup, you are able to do 3 things:

Install the VMM Management server

Install the VMM Console (including VMM PowerShell cmdlets)

Install the VMM Self-Service Portal

Both hardware and software prerequisites are checked.
For more information, see System Center TechCenter: SCVMM 2012 System Requirements and Supported Operating Systems

Make sure you meet the Software Prerequisites: Supported versions of

OS: Windows Server2008 R2 (Full Installation) only
WinRM 2.0, PowerShell 2.0
.NET Framework 3.5 SP1
WAIK 2.0 or above (for Windows 7)
VMM Database: SQL 2008 SP2 or higher (NO SQL Express edition)
VMM Self-Service Portal: IIS 7.5 components

WAIK (for Windows 7) no longer ships with VMM 2012 and need to be downloaded separately here.

Make sure you meet the Hardware Prerequisites:

Memory: Minimum 2 GB
Processor
Disk space

Our installation scenario will have the VMM Database hosted on the SQL Server running locally on the same box as the VMM Server.
You require a full version of SQL Server 2008 SP2 or higher. SQL Server Express no longer ships with VMM 2012 and is no longer supported.

Service Account:

If you plan to use shared ISO images with Hyper-V virtual machines, you must use a domain account.
If you are installing a highly available VMM management server, you must use a domain account.

Distributed Key Management:

If you are installing a highly available VMM management server, you must use distributed key management to store encryption keys in ADDS.

Assure that the specified VMM service account is member of the local group Administrators.

Port Configuration:

VMM Server <> VMM Console, SSP: Uses by default port 8100

BITS: Uses by default HTTPS port 443

WinRM 2.0: Uses by default HTTP port 5985

Bare-metal Hyper-V Host deployments:
- VMM Server <> WDS: Uses port 8102
- VMM Server <> WinPE agents: Uses port 8101
- VMM Server <> WinPE TimeSync: Uses port 8103

Still required to create a default SCVMM library share. However, with VMM 2012 you are able to remove it once you have your “real“ library servers up and running.

Review of the installation summary

VMM 2012 Beta installation in progress.

Related reading:

TechNet TechCenter: Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012
What's New in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Public Beta is available for download

Kurt Roggen — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 19:27:13 GMT

The next generation of Microsoft’s virtual infrastructure management software is available for public download here

Download SCVMM 2012 Beta Evaluation sources here

Download SCVMM 2012 Beta Evaluation provisioned VHD here

SCVMM 2012 brings a lot of new functionality:

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 (DO) – proactively balance the load of VMs across a cluster
- Power Optimization (PO) – schedule power savings to use the right number of hosts to run your workloads – power the rest off until they are needed.
- Performance and Resource Optimization (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

For more information: SCVMM 2012 TechNet Library

In the upcoming weeks, you can expect some blog posts about many of the topics above…

IMPORTANT: SCVMM 2012 Beta is NOT Supported in production environments.

Hyper-V Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) Update to Support Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Kurt Roggen — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:53:39 GMT

The Hyper-V BPA updates some issues in the previous BPA and also correctly handles the new Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX features in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. No new rules have been added.

Windows Server blog by Kurt Roggen [BE]

“The Power of PowerShell: Advanced” session is online!

Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) version 4

Microsoft announces NAS Support for Hyper-V, recognizes NetApp as Development partner for SMB 2.2

1. Improved Flexibility

2. Improved Manageability and Scalability

3. Continuous Availability (CA)

4. Lower IT Costs

Get Ready for today’s LiveMeeting on PowerShell: Discover the Power of PowerShell – Part 2 (Advanced)

PowerShell LiveMeetings: Discover the Power of PowerShell

I’m joining SCUG.be as SCVMM blogger

SCVMM PRO Tips & SCOM 2007 R2 CU3

SCVMM 2012 Fabric: Storage Integration with HP EVA

SCVMM 2012 BETA Overview

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012 Beta Documentation

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 SP1 Available Now!

Support for new features of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

SCVMM 2012 BETA: Installing a standalone VMM Management Server

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Public Beta is available for download

Hyper-V Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) Update to Support Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 & Windows 7 SP1 available on TechNet