Change Run As Account on a Hyper-V Cluster in VMM

When you add a Hyper-V hosts to VMM, you must specify either a Run As Account (stored credentials in VMM) or manually enter the credentials. The Run As Account or the user you specify should be a local administrator on the host. If a Run As Account is provided, then it will be used while adding the host as well as for providing future access to the host during its lifetime. If credentials are entered manually, then they will only be used while adding the host. Once the host has been successfully added, the VMM service account will be added as local administrator on the host and used to provide any future access to it.

In other words, the VMM service account will end up in the group for local administrator on each host.

However, I often see customers who have deployed their own VMM server and added hosts manually with their own Domain Admin credentials. This is just fine for a demo or a lab, but should not be done in any production environment.

If this user is disabled, changes password or anything else, this will indeed break the communication between VMM and the (previously) managed hosts.

You may have noticed that once you have added your hosts – and also created a cluster, the Run As Account located on “Host Access” tab of the host properties are greyed out. This can’t be changed in the GUI and some people are doing drastically things like removing the cluster – and adding it back to VMM again with the correct Run As Account. However, if you are creating logical switches on the hosts in the right way, through VMM, you must re-deploy the switch configuration again afterwards. No good.

Lucky for us all, the solution is located in the API, using Powershell.

Here are some simple lines for you to change a Run As Account for a managed Hyper-V cluster in VMM (if the hosts are not clustered, you are able to change the Run As Account through the GUI)

$YourClusterName = Get-SCVMHostCluster -Name "YourClusterName"

$YourRunAsAccount = Get-SCRunAsAccount -Name "YourRunAsAccount"

Set-SCVmHostCluster -VMHostCluster $YourClusterName -VMHostManagementCredential $YourRunAsAccount

System Center User Group - Sweden

Hi everyone.
This is just a quick heads up for an upcoming event in Sweden this week.

On Thursday (24th), the System Center User Group in Sweden will have full day at Microsoft HQ, where you will find interesting topics from some interesting speakers.

Sign up at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/scugse-datacenter-gathering-tickets-10733587449

Agenda:

Place: Microsoft Akalla

Fee: Nope - it's free of charge.

0830-0845

Stefan Schörling / Anders Wendt – Welcome to Cloud OS

0845-0945

Kristian Nese – Cloud Fabrics

See how you really should build your cloud fabric to meet elasticity, multi-tenancy and lay the foundation for standardization and automation with Cloud OS.

1000-1100

Anders Bengtsson - Self Service and Automation for your Cloud

1115-1215

Patrik Sundqvist - Delivering Reporting and Chargeback for your Cloud

Lunch

1300-1330 Nutanix Session (Sponsor)

System Center and Nutanix

1345-1445

Christer Almlöf – What have we done with System Center

Reference on System Center

1500-1600

Mikael Nyström - Leveraging a Hybrid Cloud

Private Cloud + Microsoft Azure

Co-existence of WAP and HRM - Fixed!

Co-existence of WAP and HRM is now fixed!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2936967/en-us

Microsoft has released an Update Rollup (1) for Hyper-V Recovery Manager.

This update will eliminate the needs for the “Hyper-V Cloud Capability Profile” associated with the HW profiles on the VMs, that also must be present in the cloud in VMM.

Why do we get an Update Rollup that specifically removes this requirement?

When testing HRM and Windows Azure Pack together, we saw that the combination of this capability profile together with Gallery Items (VM Roles with SPF/VMM as resource provider in a VM Cloud) didn’t work very well together.

If you are familiar with VM roles, then you know that they are not associated with any hardware profiles, but uses only resdefpkg (imported in WAP) and resextpkg (imported in VMM). These artifacts will use their own settings and only bind to physical objects in the VMM library like VHD’s, scripts etc.

In other words: the deployment of a VM Role to a cloud with any cloud capability profile associated, would fail. Therefore, you could not have a cloud configured in VMM that could be used by both WAP and HRM.

This is now fixed and you must install the update on your VMM management server (where the HRM provider is installed) and perform a restart.

Hybrid Cloud with NVGRE (Cloud OS) - Updated Whitepaper

Hi everyone!

It's been quite the last weeks, right? But hopefully you should be able to understand why, after looking into our updated whitepaper.

We have published our updated whitepaper that also covers Windows Azure Pack!

You can download the whitepaper by using the same link as always, available here:

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Hybrid-Cloud-with-NVGRE-aa6e1e9a

Looking forward to your feedback!

A big thank you to Marc, Flemming, Stan, Daniel and Damian!

Whitepaper update!

Hi everyone. This is just a heads up for our upcoming update of our whitepaper.

Together with experts like Flemming, Damian, Daniel, Marc and Stan the man, we are proud to say that we are almost done with a major update.

We have added something very interesting to our whitepaper so that you can get the best experience on how to learn the configuration steps to deliver a multi-tenant infrastructure as a service cloud.

So, what have we done this time?

Windows Azure Pack plays an important role for the service provider cloud, as well as for the enterprises. 

We wanted to show how you can fully leverage the setup of a multi-tenant fabric, with NVGRE enabled, when using Windows Azure Pack together with Service Provider Foundation. Therefore, the scope was to add content that walks you through the configuration, so that you can have a complete WAP solution running, enabling the VM Cloud. 

The following content has been added:

·         Adding the VM Cloud Resource Provider – we will see how we can add the VMM cloud we will be creating in part 1 into Windows Azure Pack and use this foundation for our IaaS services.

·         Adding gallery Items to the VM Cloud – create and add Gallery Items to the VM cloud, so that tenants who subscribe to the plan, can deploy sophisticated services by simply clicking on a few buttons.

·         Configuring Remote Console with RD Gateway – We want to provide our tenants with the option of remote into their virtual machines, without requiring the VMs to be on a connected network.

·         Creating Plans – we will include our VM Cloud in a Plan so that tenants can subscribe and deploy workloads in our multi-tenant fabric, which also will cover explanation of our management stamp, architecture and modeling of clouds in VMM for use with Plans.

·         Tenant experience – the look and feel, as well as the experience for our tenants when subscribing to Plans.

·         Creating VM networks – how to create VM networks – using NVGRE in the fabric, combining both NAT and S2S VPN for hybrid environments.

·         Deploying workloads – deploy Active Directory Domain Controllers, SQL Servers and other customized VM roles to simplify the tenant experience.

When can we download the updated whitepaper?

The updated content should be available in the end of this week (we will let you know), and as always, we are looking forward to your feedback!

How do you learn and adopt new technology?

I have been an MVP for almost 3 years now. I remember how everything started.
It was back in 2010 and I wanted to get ahead and become certified on Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2.
It was this new exam, "Virtualization Administrator 2008 R2". Quite cool, but I was wondering how I should manage to learn all the required stuff. It was in total 3 exams, two MCTS exams and one MCITP.
The scope did also include stuff like Remote Desktop Services, Microsoft Desktop Optimization Toolkit, App-V and not just server virtualization with Hyper-V and VMM 2008 R2.

I searched through the internet and was hoping to find some official books from Microsoft Press about this exam, but no luck.
I had my own lab, containing two physical servers that I could play around with to simulate a Hyper-V cluster, running every workload as virtual machines. From there, I started to search for information and ended up in the TechNet forums.

- Yes, the TechNet forums should not only get me addicted, but also prove to be the best learning platform I've ever seen.
I started to participate in the Hyper-V forum and Clustering forum. Not 100 % sure on every answer I fired, but soon I began to harvest some points. It was almost like a game. I tested the challenges the forum users had submitted in my own lab, gave the result of my testing and recommendation on how to fix the issues. It was very valuable for me, and it still is.

This has evolved a bit, and I am now moderating over 10 forums, especially the Cloud and VMM forums, but also two new forums; Hyper-V Recovery Manager and Windows Azure Pack.
I consider this as key, since I am working exclusively with this technology and also have to take some responsibility to get back to the community with help, workarounds and important information, and of course - I learn a lot, each and every day.

When I meet my customers and start talking about all the new technologies from Microsoft, some of them are skeptic. "It has not been around for so long", "we don't know any other who's using this" and "we don't want to be the pioneers on this one". By showing them that there is a huge community out there (already) on the technology, is extremely important. I have shown customers both the HRM and the WAP forum, and they can see that it is already very active. This is important for Microsoft, customers, partners and the community. To be an early adopter, you must stay ahead and see the problems before you see it in a production environment, and this is why I am spending hours each week to try to track trends, known issues and pitfalls as well as try to explain how to fix them. I test and do a lot of research as part of my role, and the forums is crucial.

Anyhow, I was trying to explain how I learn new technology, and get experience beyond what's possible by just reading articles and blogs besides of testing. People do things in a very different way, and by seeing more ways of doing so, gives me a better understanding of practically everything.

To summarize, you don't need a Microsoft Press book that covers the basics for an exam. The information is most likely out there already, and it is your responsibility to get hands-on and the skills required in order to pass.

As a side note and also for inspiration: have you ever heard about Jack Andraka? If not, search for that name on the internet.
He was 15 years old when he was awarded (Gordon E. Moore Award) for his cancer research - using only the internet (Google and Wikipedia). .

Software-Defined Networking with WSSC 2012 R2 Jump Start

Hi everyone.

As you may be aware of, we have been working extensively with network virtualization, as part of a software defined datacenter with the 2012 R2 releases.

Microsoft's Virtual Academy will soon have a new Jump Start, focusing solely on software-defined networking.

If you want to ask questions, you are more than welcome to do so during the event. I will, together with several experts be sitting in the expert panel to answers questions related to the topic.

Software-Defined Networking with Windows Server and System Center Jump Start

Free online event with live Q&A with the networking team: http://aka.ms/SftDnet

Wednesday, March 19^th from 8am – 1pm PST

Are you exploring new networking strategies for your datacenter? Want to simplify the process? Software-defined networking (SDN) can streamline datacenter implementation through self-service provisioning, take the complexity out of network management, and help increase security with fully isolated environments. Intrigued? Bring specific questions, and get answers from the team who built this popular solution!

Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 are being used with SDN implementations in some of the largest datacenters in the world, and this Jump Start can help you apply lessons learned from those networks to your own environment. From overall best practices to deep technical guidance, this demo-rich session gives you what you need to get started, plus in-depth Q&A with top experts who have real-world SDN experience. Don't miss it!

Register here: http://aka.ms/SftDnet

Check out the www.MicrosoftVirtualAcademy.com for other free training and live events.