SCVMM Fabric Controller Script – Update

Some weeks ago, I wrote this blog post (http://kristiannese.blogspot.no/2014/12/scvmm-fabric-controller-script.html ) to let you know that my demo script for creating management stamps and turning SCVMM into a fabric controller is now available for download.

I’ve made some updates to the SCVMM Fabric Controller script during the Holidays – and you can download the Powershell script from TechNet Gallery:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/SCVMM-Fabric-Controller-a1edf8a7

In this update, you’ll get:

More flexibility

Error handling

3 locations – which is the level of abstraction for your host groups. Rename these to fit your environment.

Each location contain all the main function host groups, like DR, Edge, IaaS and Fabric Management

Each IaaS host group has its corresponding Cloud

Native Uplink Profile for the main location will be created

A global Logical Switch with Uplink Port profile and Virtual Port Profiles will be created with a default virtual port profile for VM Roles

Custom property for each cloud (CreateHighlyAvailableVMRoles = true) to ensure HA for VM roles deployed through Windows Azure Pack

Please note, that you have to add hosts to your host groups before you can associate logical networks with each cloud created in SCVMM, so this is considered as a post deployment task.

I’ve received some questions since the first draft was uploaded to TechNet Gallery, as well as from my colleagues who have tested the new version:

·         Is this best practice and recommendation from your side when it comes to production design for SCVMM as a fabric controller?

Yes, it is. Especially now where the script more or less create the entire design.

If you have read our whitepaper on Hybrid Cloud with NVGRE (Cloud OS) (https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Hybrid-Cloud-with-NVGRE-aa6e1e9a ), then you can see that we are following the same principals there – which helped us to democratize software-defined networking for the community.

·         I don’t think I need all the host groups, such as “DR” and “Edge”. I am only using SCVMM for managing my fabric

Although SCVMM can be seen as the primary management tool for your fabric – and not only a fabric controller when adding Azure Pack to the mix, I would like to point out that things might change in your environment. It is always a good idea to have the artifacts in place in case you will grow, scale or add more functionality as you move forward. This script will lay the foundation for you to use whatever fabric scenario you would like, and at the same time keep things structured according to access, intelligent placement and functionality. Changing a SCVMM design over time isn’t straightforward, and in many cases you will end up with a “legacy” SCVMM design that you can’t add into Windows Azure Pack for obvious reasons.

Have fun and let me know what you think.

SCVMM Fabric Controller Script

We are reaching the holidays, and besides public speaking, I am trying to slow down a bit in order to prepare for the arrival of my baby girl early in January.

However, I haven’t been all that lazy, and in this blog post I would like to share a script with you.

During 2014, I have presented several times on subjects like “management stamp”, “Windows Azure Pack”, “SCVMM” and “Networking”.

All of these subjects have something in common, and that is a proper design of the fabric in SCVMM to leverage the cloud computing characteristics that Azure Pack is bringing to the table.

I have been visiting too many customers and partners over the last months just to see that the design of the fabric in VMM is not scalable or designed in a way that gives some meaning at all.

As a result of this, I had to create a Powershell script that easily could show how it should be designed, based on one criteria: turning SCVMM into a universal fabric controller for all your datacenters and locations.

This means that the relationship between the host groups and the logical networks and network definitions need to be planned carefully.

If you don’t design this properly, you can potentially have no control over where the VMs are deployed. And that is not a good thing.

This is the first version of this script and the plan is to add more and more stuff to it once I have the time.

The script can be found at downloaded here:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/SCVMM-Fabric-Controller-a1edf8a7

Please note that this script should only be executed in an empty SCVMM environment (lab), and you should change the variables to fit your environment.

Once the script has completed, you can add more subnets and link these to the right host groups.

The idea with this version is really just to give you a better understanding of how it should be designed and how you can continue using this design. 

Setting Static IP Address on a VM Post Deployment

This short blog post is meant to show you how you can grab an IP address from a VMM IP pool for your virtual machines post deployments.

Recently, I found out that during specific DR scenarios with ASR (E2E), you have to use static IP addresses for some of your VMs, depending on the actual recovery plan you have created (but that is a different blog post).

In order to allocate an IP address from the VMM IP Pool, you can use the following lines of powershell:

$vm = Get-ScvirtualMachine -Name “NameOfVM"

$staticIPPool = Get-SCStaticIPAddressPool -Name "NameOfIPPool"

Grant-SCIPAddress -GrantToObjectType "VirtualNetworkAdapter" -GrantToObjectID $vm.VirtualNetworkAdapters[0].ID -StaticIPAddressPool $staticIPPool

Set-SCVirtualNetworkAdapter -VirtualNetworkAdapter $vm.VirtualNetworkAdapters[0] -IPv4AddressType static

Check the job view in VMM to see which IP is allocated to the vNIC on the VM and ensure that these settings are reflected within the guest operating system as well.