Windows Azure Pack Tools for VM Role

 

Today we are going to list down some of the useful tools for those that deal a lot with Windows Azure Pack especially related to VM Role.

Sample of Gallery Resources

Download from Web PI. You can refer to this link on how to get from Web PI.

VM Role Authoring Tool

If you’re interested to build own or modify existing VM Role for WAP, you can use a tool “VM Role Authoring Tool” from codeplex :- https://vmroleauthor.codeplex.com/ [Updated to ver 1.1 on 18 April 2014]. With VM Role Gallery Items, users can deploy and configure workload such as SQL Server, Exchange Server, Sharepoint Server, etc

This tool is used to author VM role artifacts – Resource Definition and Resource Extension Package.

VM Role components:-

Gallery Resource Import Tool (GRIT)

This tool simplify discovery and installation of VM Role Gallery Item, to help reduce manual errors when tagging virtual disk and import resource extension and definition.

To download, click here

For more detail, please refer to

• Configuring VM Role Gallery Items for WAP
• System Center Authoring Hub
• VM Role Authoring Guide
• VM Role Authoring Tool Ver 1.1 improvement
• Introducing GRIT

 

Microsoft Azure Operational Insights (formerly known as System Center Advisor)

We just exploring Microsoft Azure Operational Insights and wrote a simple blog about it. If you’re interested to know more, please feel free to visit our new site (www.ms4ucloud.info)

Click below link to redirect to the blog post :- http://www.ms4ucloud.info/2014/11/microsoft-azure-operational-insights_29.html

Connecting to AWS Add-Ins for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Good news folks, we are now officially launched our child site :- www.ms4ucloud.info which talked about any kind of cloud either private cloud, public cloud or hybrid cloud. Yes right, we are expanding and ms4ucloud will focus on 3rd party solution which related to cloud.

For the 1st post, we talked about on how to configure AWS-Ins for Microsoft System Center. Do check out our first post by clicking on this link:- http://www.ms4ucloud.info/2014/11/connecting-to-aws-add-ins-for-microsoft.html

Stay Tuned.

Error : “The assembly “Microsoft.SystemCEnter.VirtualMachineManager.UIAddIns.dll” referenced by the add-in assembly “Amazon.Scvmm.AddIn” Could not be found in the add-in package”

 

We encountered the following error message when trying to import Console-Add In :- AWS Add-in for Microsoft System Center.

We are using System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2

[Problem]

Encountered an error message when trying to import.

“The assembly “Microsoft.SystemCEnter.VirtualMachineManager.UIAddIns.dll” referenced by the add-in assembly “Amazon.Scvmm.AddIn” Could not be found in the add-in package”

Resolution:-

1. Close the VMM Administrator Console

2. Right click VMM Administrator Console and select “run as administrator”.

3. Try import the console Add-in again.

That should fix the problem.

Remote Desktop Connection Manager Ver 2.7 Has Released (RCDMAN)

One of my favorite tool RDCMan has just updated to version 2.7. We love this tool as it allow us to manages multiple remote desktop connection in one single console.

New features include:-

• Virtual machine connect to console support.

• Smart group – support for credential encryption with certificates

• Windows 8 remote action support – Support for Windows 8, 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2

Interested, please download from here

November 2014 Update Roll Up For Windows Client and Servers–Bug

Well, recently Microsoft just released November 2014 Update Rollup for Windows

• RT 8.1
• Windows 8.1
• Windows Server 2012 R2

This update rollup includes all previous updates since April 2014. For those that are interested, you can download from here. This round the update include fixes for Hyper-V that is running Generation 2 virtual machine that uses UEFI firmware support and that has the Secure boot option enabled.

At this moment, some people has feedback on backup issue after updated with Nov 2014. This information has confirmed in TechNet Blog:- Click here for more information. KB3000853 is the one that’s causing the problem and if you encounter similar problem, please uninstall it while MS team come out with a fix or interim solution is install KB2996928. This issue is isolated to Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 only.

Therefore we strongly recommend that you test this Nov 2014 Update in your test environment before apply to production environment or just hold on for a month.

Free StarWind Virtual SAN for Hyper-V and VSphere

 

Free StarWind Virtual SAN for Hyper-V

StarWind offers for Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs), Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) and Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) the 2-node fault-tolerant FREE version of StarWind Virtual SAN for Hyper-V. It features unlimited served capacity and runs on a minimalistic (just 2 hosts) hardware profile without any ties to hardware brand.

Request a FREE version here 

Free StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere

All VMware users can download the 2-node fault-tolerant FREE version of StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere.
It installs on top of the existing two free or licensed vSphere hosts, clustering them and creating a virtual SAN by "mirroring" DAS. The free version features unlimited capacity and runs on a minimal (just 2 hosts) hardware profile without vendor lock-in.

Download now

Convert Generation 1 VM to Generation 2 VM

 

Note:- Before we start, please do understand that this process is unsupported. Do it on your own risk and not guarantee that it will work. It is recommended to back up your existing virtual machine before convert to Gen 2.

Before we convert Generation 1 VM to Generation 2 VM, make sure the guest operating system is running either

• Windows 8.1
• Windows Server 2012 R2

Step 1

Download Convert-VMGeneration.ps1 script from Codeplex (Credit to John Howard). This script only allow conversion from Gen 1 to Gen 2. You cannot convert from Gen 2 back to Gen 1 VM.

Make sure existing Gen1 virtual machine has

• Turn off
• No check point
• Turn off Hyper-V Replica for this particular VM
• Not guest cluster VM using shared VHDX
• Turn off Windows Recovery Environment

“reagentc /disable”

• VM not pass through disk or differencing disk. If your virtual disk is using differencing disk, the script will try to convert to dynamic disk.

Step 2

Execute .\Convert-VmGeneration.ps1 –VMName Gen1 –Path “G:\VM\Gen1”

A new VM is created with the name (Generation 2).Boot the VM to verify that the conversion is successful. If everything working fine, then you can enable back Windows Recovery Environment by typing

“reagentc /enable”

Migrate Your Existing Database to Microsoft Azure SQL Database

 

We just play around with SQL 2014 and saw an option to migrate to Microsoft Azure SQL Database. Here is a quick test on the migration

1. Use SQL Management Studio

2. Right click database, select Task | Deploy database to Windows Azure SQL Database

3. Follow the wizard

4. On deploy settings, enter your Azure SQL Database Server and correct credential.

Select the Tier that your would like migrate to. At this moment, Web and Business Tier. Do take note that these Tier going to retired starting from next year Sept 2015. Just select Web Tier and we will change to supported Tier later.

5. Select Finish to start the migration

End result, make sure result indicated “Success”

Finally login to Microsoft Azure Portal, select SQL Database | Databases | select Scale tab and change your Web Tier to either Basic , Standard or Premium.

Different tier of Azure SQL Database:-

• Basic – small database (till 2GB) with a single operation at a given point in time. In term of reliability, it is per hour.
• Standard- workgroup and cloud application with multiple concurrent transaction. Database size till 250GB and reliability per minute.
• Premium – Mission critical, high transactional volume with many concurrent users. Database size till 500 GB with reliability per second.

* Basic, Standard and Premium tier will exit preview pricing on 1st Nov 2014.