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Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Cisco, Microsoft Team Up For Data Center Virtualization Solutions

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Cisco has announced that is partnering with Microsoft to deliver data center virtualization solutions designed to provide improved scalability and operational control of Microsoft Windows Server “8” virtual environments.

The Cisco Nexus 1000V distributed virtual switch and the Cisco Unified Computing System with Virtual Machine Fabric Extender (VM-FEX) capabilities will work with the Windows Server Hyper-V hypervisor to provide customers with Cisco networking features that are constant across both virtual and physical networks while supporting customers’ existing IT management processes.

The Cisco Nexus 1000V distributed virtual switch adds the dynamic provisioning and management capabilities of Cisco NX-OS Software to Windows Server Hyper-V to simplify the operations of virtual networking infrastructures as extensions of physical networks.

It also provides full VM-level visibility, security controls in a virtualized environment that are consistent with their Cisco physical network.

By working with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) management tools, the Cisco Nexus 1000V will help network, virtualization and server administrators gain efficiency in collaboratively managing multi-tenant and mobile virtual environments. It also helps them to obtain real-time data for troubleshooting of virtual environments.

The Cisco Nexus 1000V and VM-FEX solutions for Hyper-V will be available when Windows 8 Server is released to the market.

Microsoft Releases System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 RTM

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Microsoft has released System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008, its enterprise management console for its hypervisor platform Hyper-V. You can download a free trial version here.

From Softie Keith Combs’ blog:

Highlights of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

  • Support for VMs Running on Windows Server 2008
    • System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 was designed to fully utilize the foundational features and services of Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Hyper-V™ Server. This includes Hyper-V’s 64-bit architecture, attack hardened security model, fail-over cluster support (see below) and others.
    • Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM) supports the management of hosts running Hyper-V and VMM can actually enable Hyper-V remotely from the VMM 2008 console.
    • VMM 2008 integrates with new clustering support in Windows Server 2008 to allow for fault-tolerant and cluster aware virtual machines to be created
    • VMM 2008 supports all Hyper-V functionality while providing VMM-specific functions, such as Intelligent Placement, the Self-Service Portal, and the integrated Library.
  • Multi-Vendor Virtualization Platform Support
    • In addition to support for Hyper-V, VMM 2008 integrates multi-hypervisor management into one tool with its support for virtual machines running on VMware ESX infrastructure and Microsoft Virtual Server.
    • VMM 2008 provides comprehensive support for VMware VI3 including moving virtual machines among virtual hosts with no downtime via VMotion, through integration with VMware’s Virtual Center.
    • VMM 2008 specific features such as Intelligent Placement, consolidation candidate recommendations and others can be run against virtualized infrastructure on any supported platform.
    • Windows PowerShell™ scripts for customization or automation are also supported across Hyper-V, VMware ESX or Virtual Server implementations
  • Host Cluster Support for “High Availability” Virtual Machines
    • With greatly expanded support for failover clusters, VMM 2008 improves its “high availability” capabilities for managing mission-critical virtual machines. VMM 2008 is now fully cluster-aware meaning that it can detect and manage Hyper-V host clusters as a single unit.
    • New in this version of VMM is automatic detection of virtual hosts that are added or removed from the cluster – thus easing the burden on the administrator to manage this function.
    • In VMM 2008, creating a high availability virtual machine (HA VM) has never been easier. Gone are the complex multi-step manual processes from before – now, an administrator clicks a simple checkbox which designates a VM as highly available. Behinds the scenes, VMM orchestrates the creation of that HA VA which includes instructing the Intelligent Placement feature of VMM 2008 to recommend only hosts that are part of a host cluster for the newly minted HA VM.
    • Improved HA VM management features of VMM 2008 include the Failover Cluster Management Console for various cluster-related tasks such as designation and management of cluster reserves, letter-less disk drives, guest clusters, among others.
    • VMM 2008 also supports VMware host clusters in which the nodes of the cluster are VMware ESX Servers.

Microsoft To Release System Center VMM 2008 Soon

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Diane Prescott, Product Manager, System Center at Microsoft posted an article on the official SC blog today sharing that the launch of the next version of Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is imminent, specifically in Q4 2008. The beta was formally introduced by the company end of April 2008.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 will be available as a stand-alone product, while the current version only comes bundled with Server Management Suite Enterprise. Prescott also said something about the pricing structure:

“[SCVMM 2008] will follow the licensing model set forward by the SMSE. It will be sold as a per-device enterprise server management license (ML) and will include rights to the management server. Because we’ll be selling the VMM 2008 enterprise server ML on a per-device basis, which makes sense in the context of virtualization, we’ll be targeting a price which will be approximately 10-15% less than the SMSE at that time it’s generally available. Additionally, because of the new value and functionality being added to the various System Center offerings over the next year, including VMM, Operations Manager and Configuration Manager, we will be implementing a price increase to the SMSE of approximately 10-15% in the same time frame. We’re still working on the specifics regarding the pricing and licensing of VMM 2008 and the SMSE and we’ll have further details to share in early August.”

Next to support for Hyper-V, SCVMM 2008 will also offer management capabilities for VMware ESX environments, allbeit through VirtualCenter.

Microsoft

Microsoft Introduces Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool

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Microsoft has announced the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool which aims to help organizations maintain virtual machines that are stored offline in a Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager library. While stored, virtual machines do not receive operating system updates. The tool provides a way to keep offline virtual machines up-to-date so that bringing a virtual machine online does not introduce vulnerabilities into the organization’s IT infrastructure.

The tool combines the Windows Workflow programming model with the Windows PowerShell interface to bring groups of virtual machines online just long enough for them to receive updates from either System Center Configuration Manager 2007 or Windows Server Update Services. As soon as the virtual machines are up-to-date, the tool returns them to the offline state in the Virtual Machine Manager library.

This Solution Accelerator includes the following components:

  • Executive Overview. Available online only on Microsoft Technet. Summary for business and technical managers that briefly explains how this Solution Accelerator can fit into an organization’s IT infrastructure management strategy.
  • OfflineVMServicing_x64 and OfflineVMServicing_x86. Setup files for the tool, for 64 bit and 32 bit versions of Windows Server® 2003.
  • OfflineVirtualMachineServicingToolGettingStartedGuide. Getting Started Guide, in docx and doc formats. Provides information about how the tool works, explains prerequisites for the tool, and describes how to install and configure the tool.
  • Offline_VM_Servicing_Tool_Release_Notes.rtf. Notes provide information about this release, describe known issues in the tool, and include feedback instructions.
  • Offline_Virtual_Machine_Servicing_Tool_Help. Help file for the tool. Provides instructions for using the tool.

If you would like to download the tool, or get some more information, click here.

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Updated, Now Supports Hyper-V

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Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), released in beta end of April, has been updated to enable it to function with Release Candidate 1 (RC1) to the Hyper-V role. Note that the VMM server and all of the hosts in your environment must be running Hyper-V RC1. After you install the update, you will not be able to add hosts running Hyper-V RC0 to your VMM environment.

[Source: Windows Virtualization Team blog]

NetWrix Aims To Simplify Management of Virtual Machine Environments

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NetWrix Corporation, a provider of identity management, compliance and change management solutions for Active Directory and virtual machine environments, announced that it has broadened its scope in the IT change management solutions by offering two new products that simplify the ability to manage virtual machine environments while supporting both the VMware Infrastructure 3 and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager platforms. Titled Change Reporter for VMware Infrastructure 3 and Change Reporter for Virtual Machine Manager, the new software products are designed to expand the capacity to audit, manage, monitor, analyze and report any changes made to virtual machine environments. The new products will become a part of the integrated NetWrix Change Management Suite.

NetWrix

“The decision to enter into the virtualization software market allows NetWrix to best meet the needs of its ever-expanding customer base,” said NetWrix President and CEO Michael Fimin. “We understand that change auditing is an important process for controlling the management of growing virtual machine environments and introducing the unified change auditing and change management processes will help to enhance the effectiveness of IT departments. Hundreds of customers already leverage our change management platform for Active Directory and we just applied the same proven technology to VI3 and VMM-based environments.”

Both products are available for free. In addition to the free version, NetWrix also offers a commercial version of these products that further expand the reporting capabilities. The upgraded version allows IT managers to monitor the activities of all personnel within the department and provides them with a detailed summary of all changes on a daily basis. This version records all administrative activity and e-mails daily reports to IT managers, detailing every change in virtual environment configuration, including containers, resource pools, and all other objects. Collected audit data is archived and can be stored for years. The archiving function allows organizations to analyze any policy violations, adhere to security best practices and ensure regulatory compliance.

[Source: press release]