Running Windows Thin PC RC on Hyper V

 [Updated:- 13 June 2011]

Microsoft had released Windows Thin PC RC and soon it going to RTM on 1 July 2011. The iso size is around 1.1 GB  and the operating system is based on Windows 7 and it came light with some few features:
a) Security enhancement such as AppLocker, BitLocker, Enhanced Auditing, and Streamlined User Account Control.
b) Power management
c) Manageability enhancement
d) Embedded enhancement
Recommended hardware specification:-
 1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
 1 GB RAM, 16 GB available hard disk space
 DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or later version driver
 Bootable DVD-ROM drive

Once I have download from Connect site, I have install into Hyper V Server which I’m going to use on my VDI testing environment. Below is the screen shot of the installation process.








Installation went out quite fast which took about 10- 15 minute.








Voila, I had 1 VM running Wonindows Thin PC running inside Hyper V. Time for me to perform more testing on VDI.

[updated 31 march 2011]
Dynamic memory result (not 100% accurate):-
Thin client (when idle):-

Windows 7 (when idle):-

Look like Thin PC os is using less memory.

Earth Hour 2011

In conjuction of Earth Hour 2011, once again http://www.ms4u.info/ is participating in this year Earth Hour.


Join us on 26th March 2011-8.30pm

VMM 2008 R2 SP1 has Released to Public

 

Finally SC team has released SP1 to public for VMM 2008 R2. If you’re interested or plan for an upgrade , please download from TechNet or MSDN site. I would strongly recommended that you do so.

How to upgrade ?

Please refer to my previous post:- http://www.ms4u.info/2010/12/upgrade-vmm-2008-r2-to-vmm-2008-r2-sp1.html

Good luck and enjoy the upgrade !

Patch Your Virtualization Infrastructure via VMM 2012 Beta

 

VMM 2012 perform patch for virtualization infra? Are you sure?

Guess this is finally come true. As least for me. In most corporate organization, they tend to deploy SCCM or WSUS to patch Microsoft system. But then, when I ask “How often do you deploy patch for your Virtualization Infrastructure especially Hyper V Host?”

The answer is “Never or not sure”. Gosh…why?

Customer answer:

1. Well, I’m not sure if I have perform patch or which patch on Hyper V machine. or

2. Not my scope of work. This job is handle by SCCM team.

When we check with SCCM team, I ‘m quite surprise that they never deploy a patch for the Hyper V host because no extra/special request on it.

Sound familiar, right !

Now with VMM 2012, you can perform this job without consult SCCM team.

At this moment for 1st version of VMM 2012, the system is rely on WSUS. You need to deploy WSUS on another location or same server as VMM 2012. If you deploy WSUS on remote computer, make sure you install WSUS Administration Console on VMM server. To get this, please download WSUS 3.0 SP2 from this link. On remote server which you use to install WSUS, just select WSUS on features which available in Windows Server 2008 R2.

Once complete the installation, do not configure extra settings except Hyper V OS and product languages. Uncheck other products and language which is not related to virtualization infra. Just remember your objective is to patch VMM Server,Library Server, Update Server and Hyper V hosts.

On VMM 2012 server, go to Fabric  | Select Update Server | Right click and select Add Update Server.

Fill up the information of your WSUS server and enter the correct credential.

Once added, click on Properties and configure additional setting for your WSUS server.

Then. perform Update synchronization by right click the update server and select “Synchronize” or just click on the ribbon.

Next is configure update baseline. Proceed to click Library | Update Catalog and Baseline | Update Baseline. Two sample baseline has created : Critical and Security Update baseline.

Select the baseline, click Properties and select Updates

You can deselect/ hide the update column. Just right click on the highlighted.

Then, remove unwanted windows update. For example: Itanium server update. Make sense to remove Itanium update because Hyper V cannot run on Itanium server.

Once you have complete, click on Assignment scope to start assign the update to relevant servers.

Click Ok and repeat the same step for Security Update.

Now at this stage, you have complete the installation and assignment. Next step is Scan the server for compliance.

1. Click on Fabric workspace, select Servers and click SCAN (on the ribbon).

Make sure the server has Compliant status. Any server which is not compliant, just click Remediate.

Cool right.

More options is available for update management. Give it a try and make your life easy and the most important is “Get Passed when audit time”.

Important Note:

a) Patch only to VMM Server, Library Server, Update Server and Hyper V Host.

b) Not applicable to patch guest virtual machine. You still require to use SCCM to patch your virtual machine.

Install and Uninstall - High Availability VMM 2012 Beta

 

This is what we have been waiting for since VMM 2008. Previously we cannot perform HA for VMM Server but now with VMM 2012, this is possible. Microsoft has received customer feedback positively and now let look into how to to setup High Availability VMM 2012 Beta.

To setup HA VMM, you need to configure the pre-requisite configuration.

Pre-requisite:-

1. Setup Failover Cluster using Windows Server 2008 R2 Ent/Data Center Edition. Once you have finish configure up to CSV level, then you can execute setup.exe on VMM 2012 CD.

2. Setup SQL Server 2008 R2 on another VM

Let me show you some important snapshot of the configuration that you need to configure.

3. SQL Server Command Line Utilities on each cluster node. It is available on SQL CD and you just need to tick only the component :- Management Tools.

4. Tick VMM Server and VMM Administrator Console.

A dialog box prompt to user and detected VMM is install on cluster node. Click Yes to start the HA VMM installation. The next picture will show in thumbnail , which is less important. If you are interested, please click on each thumbnail to view in larger size.

5. Leave default the installation path

6. Specify the VMM SQL Server computer name

7. Specify the VMM Cluster Configuration. Enter VMM cluster name and cluster ip address.

8. Specify Account configuration. Select domain user account as service account. Example:  “vmmsvc”. Assign vmmsvc as the local administrator group as well.

On the Distributed Key Management, specify the domain controller CN. Example:-

“CN= NEWDC3, DC=systemcenter, DC=local”

Domain controller server name: NEWDC3

Domain:- systemcenter.local

9. Leave default the port number

10. On Library configuration, you cannot the library. To setup VMM library, you need to configure high available VMM Library using File share cluster.

11. Review the summary and click Install.

12. Once you have complete the 1st node, proceed to 2nd node. Repeat step 1 – 11. On step 4, a dialog box will prompt the user to join as additional node. Click Yes.

Continue with the steps and you will notice that majority of the configuration is “Read Only”.

Once complete the installation, open the console and enter

VMMHA: 8100 (this is the cluster name that you have set previously)

Voila, you have successful setup HA VMM 2012.

Next step, how to remove?

1. On 2nd node cluster. Use the VMM CD and execute setup.exe. Select Remove component and select VMM Server.

2. Then, repeat the same process on 1st node cluster. On the 1st node, you will receive this dialog box.

Click Yes to remove.

3. On Database options, select remove database and enter the correct credentials.

Stay Tuned for more post on VMM 2012 Beta…

VMM2012 Beta has released to public

 

Well …well…the time has come. Finally after a long period of TAP, VMM 2012 has released to beta version and currently available to public. Therefore it is time for me to share some guide on VMM 2012.

Let start by looking into the pre-requisite requirement.

Note:- This is beta version is not meant for production use. Therefore i advise that you to test on non production environment.

Requirement:-

1. You need supported SQL Server. Compare to VMM 2008 R2, you no longer can use SQL Express Edition. Supported SQL server are

a) SQL Server 2008 Standard /Enterprise

b) SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard/Enterprise

2. Supported operating system: Windows Server 2008 R2 or higher. To setup high availability VMM, you need to deploy Enterprise or Data Center Edition.

3. WINRM 2.0 (by default available on the operating system.

4. MS .Net framework 3.5 SP1

5. WAIK for Windows 7 . Get it from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=194654 as this is separate download and did not come with VMM 2012 Beta.

6. Windows Powershell 2.0

7. Web Server IIS for Self Service Portal.

8. For VMM Library, minimum supported operating system is Windows Server 2008.

9. Lastly, make sure VMM 2012 server is join to domain.

Get the above pre-requisite install before start VMM 2012 installation.

Next question is “What is the supported virtual machine host?”

In VMM 2012, the supported virtual machine host are

a) Hyper V (Hyper  Server 2008, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2)

b) Vmware (Must have Vmware Vcenter Server 4.1)

c) Citrix XenServer. New ! . Citrix XenServer 5.6 with Feature Pack 1 and installed with Integration Suite Supplement Pack for VMM. To manage Citrix XenServer, you can manage directly without Xencenter integration.

If you still have MS Virtual Server 2005 R2, it is no longer supported. You can either migrate to Hyper V or use VMM 2008 R2 to manage it.

Above figure is the summary of VMM 2012 features. I will explore more detail on my next post. First, let look on installation.

The Setup installation of VMM 2012 is quite simple and straightforward. Here is some VMM Setup installation picture:-

a) Specify the VMM Server and SQL Server. In this lab, I have install SQL Server together with VMM.

b) Specify a local system account or domain service account. In this scenario, i am using “vmmsvc” user account. Make sure, you have added vmmsvc into local administrator group before click Next.

c) Specify VMM Library.

Installation process will take a while. Once complete, you can open the VMM Administrator Console.The new console has included with ribbon and the feel and look is similar as Microsoft Office interface.

Excited to know more, please stay tuned for more post about VMM 2012 Beta in www.ms4u.info.

To download, please go to

a) VMM 2012 Beta Evaluation – Click here

b) VMM 2012 Beta Evaluation (VHD) – Click here

Cheer, Lai