scvmm

Manage Azure VMs with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)

With Update Rollup 6 it is possible to add one or more Azure subscriptions to SCVMM 2012 R2. When the Azure subscription is added in SCVMM, it is possible to perform some basic actions such as:

  • Add and Remove one or more Azure subscriptions by using the VMM console.
  • See a list view with details and status of all role instances in all deployments in that subscription.
  • Manually refresh the list of instances.
  • Perform basic actions on the instances:
    • Start
    • Stop
    • Shutdown
    • Restart
    • Connect via RDP

To add the Azure Subscription to SCVMM 2012 R2 UR6 following these steps:

1. Install UR6 to System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2012 R2, link.

2. Create a self-signed Azure management certificate. The self-signed must have a key length of at least 2048 bits and should reside in the Personal certificate store. To create a self-signed management certificate, the makercert tool is used. Makecert is part of  Windows SDK. The SDK can be downloaded here, link.

Install the SDK and choose as feature to install “Windows Software Deployment”. After the installation copy the makecert tool to the SCVMM server.

3. Create the self-signed certificate with makecert with the following command:

makecert -sky exchange -r -n "CN=<CertificateName>" -pe -a sha1 -len 2048 -ss My "<CertificateName>.cer"

Example:

makecert -sky exchange -r -n "CN=ivobeerensazure" -pe -a sha1 -len 2048 -ss My d:\install\ivobeerensazure.cer

4. The certificate needs to be present in the Current User \ Personal store of the computer running the VMM console.

5. To upload a management certificate to Azure, go to the Settings page in the Management Portal, and then click MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATES.

6. In SVVMM start the Add Azure Subscription Wizard, click the Azure Add Subscription button. The wizard is a single page dialog box:

SCVMM

  • Display Name: Enter the display name
  • Subscription ID: The subscription ID can be found on the Azure website under settings
  • Certificate: Add the self-signed certificate by using the browse button

After the Azure subscription is added, the Azure Virtual Machines are listed in SCVMM:

azure

Basic actions can be performed on the Azure VMs such as:

stopstart

UR6 adds support for managing Azure VMs. The management is very basic. So hopefully on the next releases the management support for Azure VMs will be improved.

Tips for installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2 Update Rollup (UR5)

Here are some tips for installing System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager Update Rollup (UR5):

      • UR5 is available from Microsoft Update or by manual download. If you are not installing UR5 through Microsoft Update (e.g. you’re downloading the update and then installing it), you must install using elevated privileges. If you do not do this the update may fail silently.
      • During the UR5 installion the System Center Virtual Machine Manager & Agent will be stopped
      • 3
      • After the SCVMM UR5 server component, reboot the VMM server before installing the UR5 console
      • Before Update Rollup 5, you had to manually update the System Center Virtual Machine Manager DHCP Server (x64) component. As of Update Rollup 5, this is no longer required. When updating the agent on the server the DHCP server components is updated too.
      • Agents DHCP
      • The new SCVMM UR5 agent build version is: 3.2.7895.0
      • The Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager DHCP Server (x64) build version is still 3.2.7768.0
      • Make sure to update the agent on all the infrastructure servers such as the Update Server and library server. In VMM click on Fabric- Server for a complete overview
      • Updateagent
      • Refresh the cluster after updating the agents
      • When starting the VMM console the following error appears:
      • pipeline error
      • This error is permission related. To solve this error add the “Authenticated Users” group to the AddInPipeline directory and assign read and execute rights. The installation of VMM can be found under: <Driveletter>:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Virtual Machine Manager\bin\AddInPipeline.
      • Update 24-02-2015: Microsoft released a hotfix for UR5 that addresses replica and smb shares issues. The link to the KB can be found here, link.

For all the details on SCVMM 2012 R2 UR5, see the following:

  • KB3023195 – Description of the security update for Update Rollup 5 for System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager, link

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.

2014-08-01_14h21_25

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.