Hyper-V

SCVMM 2012 R2 agent update error

After updating  System Center Virtual Machine Manager to Update Rollup 4 (UR4), one of the post installation tasks is updating the VMM agents on the Hyper-V hosts. Updating the VMM agent can be performed from the VMM console or using PowerShell. On one of the Hyper-V hosts I got the following error when trying to update the VMM agent from the console:

Error (10429) An older version of the Virtual Machine Manager server is installed on <server>. The VMM agent on the VMM management server cannot be upgraded independently

Error

I didn’t found a reason why the VMM console was unable to update the agent on the Hyper-V host. The other hosts in the cluster are upgraded without a problem.

After some troubleshooting, the following steps resolved the VMM Agent update error:

  • Manually uninstall the VMM agent from the Hyper-V host
  • Copy the VMM agent from the VMM server to the Hyper-V host. The agent is default located on the following location on the VMM server: “Systemdrive\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Virtual Machine Manager\agents\amd64\3.2.7768.0\vmmAgent.msi”
  • Install the VMM Agent. When trying to install the VMM agent the following error occurred:

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Agent (x64) Setup Wizard ended prematurely

Ended prematurely

  • Open a Command Prompt (Run as Administrator)
  • Browse to the location where the VMM agent is stored
  • Execute the following command: msiexec /I vmmAgent.msi
  • In the SCVMM Console Reassociate the Hyper-V host and perform a cluster refesh

After these steps the updated VMM agent is installed on the Hyper-V server.

New free tool: Task Manager for Hyper-V

Task Manager for Hyper-V 1.0 is a new free tool from Veeam. Task Manager can connect to a individual Hyper-V hosts and display information about the host and the guest VMs. Real time CPU and memory utilization is displayed.  This can be useful when monitoring or troubleshoot Hyper-V server utilization. Task Manager for Hyper-V requires no installation and is free of charge.

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More information about Veeam Task Manager can be found here

Installing Update Rollup (UR) 3 for System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager

Update rollup (UR) 3 for System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager is released this week. This update includes a Linux guest agent upgrade to support the following new operating systems:

  • Ubuntu Linux 14.04 (32-bit)
  • Ubuntu Linux 14.04 (64-bit)

This update also includes the following:

  • Host DHCP extension driver upgrade
  • Several performance improvements??????
  • Several Management Pack package improvements

And a huge list of issues that are fixed. More information can be found in the Microsoft KB article found here, link.

The update can be installed by using Windows Update, WSUS or manual downloading the files and execute them. After the installation of Update rollup 3 execute the SQL Script against the SCVMM database. The SQL script is listed in the Microsoft KB. Don’t forget to update the VMM agents on all the infrastructure server.

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The update of the VMM agents doesn’t require a reboot. The Update Rollup 3 agent version is 3.2.7672.0.

Host DHCP extension driver upgrade

Update Rollup 3 includes an VMM DHCP server extension update for the Hyper-V host.  When using Hyper-V Network Virtualization networks with dynamic IP address allocation, the VM may not get an IP address for a few minutes after the reboot. The new DHCP extension fix this problem. To check the DHCP Extension driver version use the following PowerShell command on the Hyper-V host:

Get-WmiObject -Class win32_product -Filter ‘Name = “Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager DHCP Server(x64)”‘

The new Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager DHCP Server (x64) version is 3.2.7672.0. More information about the installation can be found here.

For more tips see my earlier blog post “Tips for deploying SCVMM 2012 R2 Rollup 2”, Link.