Recently we had an issue with our production SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1 server. One day, out of the blue, when you tried to launch the console and connect you would get the following error:

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This is actually a SQL error. To remediate you need to add sa to the dbo role for the VMM database called VirtualManagerDB. If you followed the default install process SCVMM R2 installs SQL 2005 and has no management tools installed. You can download and install the SQL Server Management Studio and add the sa account to the dbo role or you can do it with an osql command. My co-worker Andrew did it via OSQL using the following commandâ€¦

osql -E -S SCVMMR2\MICROSOFT$VMM$ -Q "USE VirtualManagerDB; EXEC sp_changedbowner ‘sa’"

Service Manager AV Exclusions

Microsoft has a great wiki that outlines all the AV exclusions required for all the different Enterprise products you may have deployed in your organization. It covers everything from AD to SQL, Failover Cluster Service to IIS, ISA and more. You can find the Windows Anti Virus Exclusions list here.

Also included in the list is the System Center suite of products, with the exception of Service Manager. While I am sure Microsoft will get around to updating the wiki you can use the list of files, folders and processes below to create an exclusion list for Service Manager.

Service Manager Folders

The following folder should be excluded from real time AV scanningâ€¦

%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft System Center\Service Manager 2010\Health Service State\*

Service Manager Processes

The following processes should be excluded from real time AV scanningâ€¦

%programfiles%\Microsoft System Center\Service Manager 2010\HealthService.exe

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RunAs Radio – Rodney Buike Builds Private Clouds with System Center 2012!

Richard talks to Rodney Buike about how System Center 2012 facilitates the construction of private clouds. This is where System Center all comes together – utilizing Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, Service Manager and Orchestrator to create effective private cloud infrastructure in your own data center. Rodney talks about how each of the System Center components work together to simplify the deployment of services – beyond the individual VM and into a suite of VM, networking rules, storage, etc. Each of the System Center products bring something to the table in this scenario. You should already be using them for their core purposes, now take it to the next level!

Listen to the 36 minute podcast hereâ€¦..

RunAs Radio – Rodney Buike Virtualizes His Desktop!

While at TechDays in Toronto, Richard talks to Rodney Buike about virtualizing desktops. Rodney digs into how Citrix’s XenDesktop can let you use Windows 7 applications on your iPad! The conversation also explores the use of application virtualization to minimize storage use and simplify software updates, as well as an approach to using desktop virtualization to keep older workstations up and running for longer. VDI is coming of age, and Rodney digs into how to get things done.

Listen to the 30 minute podcast hereâ€¦

Live Migration NIC Binding

In a typical Hyper-V R2 cluster built on Microsoft’s best practices will have 6-8 NICs depending on the SAN type (iSCSI or FC) including:

Management Network VM Network VM Network CSV Network Live Migration Network Cluster Heartbeat Network iSCSI MPIO (or FC adapter) iSCSI MPIO (or FC adapter)

One common issue that comes up in this scenario is failed Live Migrations, Quick Migrations will work but live ones will not.Â Â Â When you attempt a Live Migration and it fails due to “A cluster networkÂ is not available for this operation” it is caused by improper NIC Binding Order on the Hyper-V Hosts.Â When this happens two events are created in the Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V High Availability\Admin event log on the destination server.Â Look for EventID 21126 and 21111

Your first thought will be to check that all the cluster resources are online and you will find they are.Â When this happens you need

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Common P2V Conversion Errors

I recently completed a project converting a clients production network of 70+ servers to virtual machines for a lab environment.Â SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1 was used to perform a physical to virtual conversion of all the physical servers.Â While the large majority converted without any issues at all there were a few errors encountered along the way that were easy to fix.

VSS Writer did not respond within the expected time interval – Error 13243

This was an interesting error that came up twice and both times the fix was the same.Â While the error looks like an issue with VSS it is actually a profile issue.Â When I attempted to log on to the server to investigate the VSS issue the logon would fail with a User Profile Could Not Load error.Â I’ve seen this before on desktop PCs when the user

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Sharing ISOs in SCVMM Library

When you are deploying new VMs with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 you have the option to mount an ISO image to install the OS from.Â When you do this the default behaviour is to copy the ISO file from the library to the location where the VM is being created.Â This causes two things to happen, first you have to copy the ISO over the network and second you end up losing that storage space as the ISO remains in the VM file location.

SCVMM allows you the option to share the ISO rather than copying it.Â While the data in the ISO still gets copied over the network during the install, the ISO isn’t saved to the VM file location and in the long run this will save you some space.Â

To implement this you need to configure some

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P2V Conversions with SCVMM

System Center Vitrual Machine Manager 2008 R2 provides the capability to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine.Â You have two options to complete this task, online and offline.

For most physical machines in your environment an online P2V conversion will work.Â During an online conversion the source machine remains online and responding to requests.Â With an online P2V, VSS takes a snapshot of the system and that snapshot is converted to a VM.Â There are a few times when an online P2V is not recommeneded or available including:

LegacyÂ OS – Windows 2000 SP4 and earlier cannot be converted online.Â In order to P2V a legacy OS you must use the offline feature. Domain Controllers – Microsoft does not recommend or support online P2V of domain controllers Losing Data – Since VSS takes a snapshot any changes to the system or data will not be part of the converted VM.Â Consider offline P2VÂ for

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Using Pro Tips in SCVMM 2008 R2

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and Operations Manager 2007 R2 can be integrated to provide reporting and a feature called Performance Resource Optimization (PRO).Â Using PRO, Operations Manager will pass alerts raised in relation to the virtualization hosts and/or VM(s) to the Virtual Machine Manager console through something called a Pro Tip.

Pro Tips

Implementing PRO and reporting is pretty straight forward but before you start add the SCVMM Service Account to the SCOM Advanced Operators role as it will require permissions to SCOM.Â Once complete insert the SCVMM install media into your SCOM server and run the SCVMM Setup.

Pro Tips 1

Select Configure Operations Manager.Â You will need to provide some basic information including the SCVMM servername, service account credentials and the tool will install the SCVMM Management Console on the server as well as importing the SCVMM 2008 R2 management packs.

(Note: You will have

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MPIO, MCS, IPv6 and iSCSI

Sorry for the alphabet soup title but I thought some explanation was due in regards to iSCSI redundancy options and issues you may have with IPv6.

Multi-path I/O (MPIO) and Multiple Connections per Session (MCS) are two options you have to provide load balancing and redundancy to your iSCSI connections.Â MPIO and MCS are the same but different.Â MPIO leverages Device Specific Modules (DSM) to manage the requests over multiple paths.

MCS is part of the iSCSI protocol and allows for teaming of iSCSI connections.Â In order for this to work your SAN vendor must support it and your virtualization platform must support it as well.Â VMWare supports MPIO but not MCS and Hyper-V supports both.

Whichever you choose is not relevant but there is something you should be aware of in regards to MCS.Â MCS does not support using both IPv4 and IPv6 with the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator.Â If you have IPv6

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SCVMM 2008 Console Error