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This document provides answers to frequently asked questions about System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM).
Q. What is System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008?
A.
Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM) is a comprehensive virtual management solution optimized for Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Virtual Server, and VMware infrastructures. VMM 2008 enables easy and fast consolidation of physical servers onto virtual machine infrastructure and rapid provisioning of new virtual workloads. Through a single console, VMM facilitates centralized management of both physical and virtual machine infrastructures, and increases physical server utilization through virtualization. VMM also features Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) which, in conjunction with System Center Operations Manager 2007, uses administrator-set rules and policies to dynamically react to poor performance or potential failure of virtualized hardware, operating systems, or applications. Featuring integration with the familiar tools of System Center, VMM 2008 is a smart solution for leveraging the IT Department’s existing administrative skills with physical servers as they embrace a virtualized environment.
Q. When will System Center Virtual Machine Manager be available to customers?
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 was released in October 2008 and appeared on the Microsoft November price list.
Q. What are the business benefits of System Center Virtual Machine Manager? What does VMM do?
Optimized for new hypervisor-based virtualization, VMM 2008 manages virtual machines running on Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Virtual Server and VMware ESX infrastructure. It further enables increased physical server utilization by making possible simple and fast consolidation on virtual infrastructure. This is supported by consolidation candidate identification, efficient Physical-2-Virtual (P2V) conversion, and Intelligent Placement of workloads based on performance data and capacity planning models. New Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) functionality allows VMM to respond dynamically to alerts and system failures. VMM enables rapid provisioning of new virtual machines by the administrator and allows certified individuals to self-provision in the safety and control of a “test lab” environment. Finally, VMM provides the central management console to manage all the building blocks of a virtualized data center.
Q. What virtualization platforms are supported by VMM?
VMM 2008 will work with and provide value to customers of any size as long as they are using Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Hyper-V Server, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1, and/or VMware ESX with Virtual Center.
Q. Are you supporting V2P (Virtual to Physical conversion) in VMM 2008?
The product is currently not slated to support V2P functionality. However, we are working with partners to make sure that solution exists for customers.
Q. Are you supporting V2V in VMM 2008?
Yes, VMM 2008 is capable of converting a VMware VMDK to a VHD.
Q. Will VMM scale? How much?
Yes. A single instance of VMM is designed and tested to support 400 hundred physical virtualization hosts and up to 8,000 thousand guest operating systems running on those hosts.
Q. What languages will VMM support?
VMM 2008 supports the following languages: English, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), and Korean.
Q. Can I use VMM 2008 to manage a failover cluster on computers running Windows Server 2008?
Yes. When you use VMM 2008 to manage a failover cluster on computers running Windows Server 2008, you can add the entire cluster in a single step. VMM 2008 automatically detects node additions and removals to the cluster. In addition, VMM 2008 enables you to manage (create, migrate, remove, and so on) highly available virtual machines (HA VMs) from the VMM Administrator Console or from the VMM command shell.
Q. What are the prerequisites to install and use System Center Virtual Machine Manager?
To use VMM 2008 on a single computer, you need:
x64 architecture–based server with 2.8 GHz or faster processor clock speed and with hardware-assisted virtualization support enabled in the BIOS
2 GB of RAM recommended
200 GB of available hard-disk space
DVD-ROM drive
Other Prerequisites and Dependencies:
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or later (must include Hyper-V)
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (included in installation)
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (included in installation)
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with Service Pack 2 (included in installation) or Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard or Enterprise Editions with Service Pack 2 (separate installation)
Microsoft Windows PowerShell 1.0
Microsoft Windows Remote Management (WinRM)
Microsoft Internet Information Server 7.0 (needed for Self-Service Portal only)
Actual requirements and product functionality will vary based on your system configuration and the features you choose to install. The system requirements for SCVMM are also subject to change. For more details and the most up-to-date information, please refer to the documentation at www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm.
Q. What capabilities will the System Center Virtual Machine Manager deliver?
Resource Optimization and Server Consolidation:
Capability
Description
Performance and Resource Optimization
Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) is a new feature of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, which helps customers ensure that their virtual machine hosts and guests are operating in the most ideal and efficient manner. PRO uses administrator-set rules and policies to dynamically respond to poor performance or potential failures of virtualized hardware, operating systems, or applications. Relying on tight integration with System Center Operations Manager 2007, PRO monitors most infrastructure variables down to the workload level, giving administrators unparalleled awareness of the health and efficiency of their IT infrastructure. When alerts do occur, PRO technology can either manually raise the alarm or automatically respond dynamically by adjusting existing resources, creating new resources, or moving virtual machines from one physical host to another. Together, VMM and PRO help provide an organization with a true self-tuning virtual environment.
Multi-vender Virtualization Support
Along with Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Virtual Server support, VMM 2008 supports the VMware ESX virtualization environment (through Virtual Center). This allows organizations with multiple virtualization platforms to preserve their current technology investments and allows these heterogeneous platforms to coexist through one unified management console.
Simple Identification of Consolidation Candidates
The first step in migrating from a physical data center where every workload exists on its own physical server is to identify the appropriate physical workloads for consolidation onto virtual hardware. This selection process is not as easy as one might think. A workload that has a very high variance in performance, such as a workload that only runs once a month but requires 100% of the physical resources when it does, may not be appropriate for consolidation on virtual hardware.
VMM leverages the existing historical performance data in the System Center Operations Manager database to list the consolidation candidates in rank order.
Fast and Reliable P2V
Converting a physical machine to a virtual machine is currently a slow, disruptive, and frequently failure-prone experience. The server must be rebooted into a “pre-execution” state and then the entire contents of the server must be copied over the network to a different server and written to a file.
VMM radically changes the P2V experience by providing an easy and intuitive wizard and by using block-based differencing technology and the Volume Shadow Copy Services to create the virtual machine at disk speed.
Intelligent Placement
The act of putting a given virtual workload onto a physical virtual host server is what we call placement, and it is at the crux of maximizing the utilization of physical assets.
VMM employs Intelligent Placement—a deep and holistic approach to placement that differentiates it from alternative solutions. First, historical performance data from System Center Operations Manager is used to understand the characteristics of the workload from a resource consumption perspective. Second, performance data from the various physical virtual hosts are considered. Third, pre-selected business rules are factored into the equation. Finally, each workload has models associated with it that contain knowledge from the entire life cycle of the workload, which are factored into the placement decision.
Rapid Provisioning of New Virtual Machines
The virtualized data center relies on the ability to maintain very large image files (.vhd) which, unlike physical servers, can be hard to organize and share among administrators.
VMM provides a complete library to centralize and manage all the building blocks of the virtual data center. The library organizes not only the offline virtual machines, but also the various virtual machine building blocks, like virtual hard disks, cd/dvd media images, hardware configurations, and templates. Each image in the library has models or rich meta data that enable more controlled management. The library brings a new tool to the administrator’s arsenal: templates. The template is a new object that enables an administrator to create approved virtual machine configurations that serve as a gold standard for subsequent virtual machine deployments. The template contains both software and hardware configuration to assure consistency in the data center on both dimensions.
Virtual infrastructure is commonly used in test and development environments where there is consistent provisioning and tear down of virtual machines for testing purposes. While this task is far easier with virtual machines than with physical hardware, it typically still requires some IT involvement. With System Center, administrators can delegate this provisioning role to end users while maintaining precise control and manageability. Appointed test and development users are associated with a specific set of physical servers or server groups on which they can provision virtual machines. The administrator can even set up quotas to limit physical resource over-allocation to a given tester or developers, and lease times to confirm proper tear down of the virtual machine. The end user is presented with a very simple Web page that enables virtual machine provisioning within these controls preset by the administrator.
Q. Does the System Center Virtual Machine Manager require System Center Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, or Data Protection Manager?
No, VMM will run standalone and does not require these products. However, the PRO feature of VMM 2008 will not run without System Center Operations Manager 2007. For companies that are not running SQL Server, it does include a version and licenses the use of SQL Express, which is technically necessary for VMM.
Q. Is the Microsoft SQL Server that is required included with VMM?
Yes, during setup the administrator can either choose an existing SQL instance to use or VMM will install a local version of SQL Express.
Q. How does this product integrate with System Center Operations Manager?
First, System Center Operations Manager 2007 is a necessary component for the Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) feature of VMM to run properly. Operations Manager 2007 passes VMM system alerts and alarms, which are either brought to the attention of the VMM administrator or can be automated to have VMM respond in some preconfigured fashion.
Secondly, Operations Manager 2007 is used to identify what we call consolidation candidates. To identify the appropriate workloads for virtualization it is not as simple as listing all of the servers that are currently requiring low CPU. There are issues of “spiky” or high variance workloads and high I/O workloads, which must be taken into consideration. The performance data stored in Operations Manager is used to create a consolidation candidates report that takes all of these issues under consideration.
Third, Operations Manager is the enterprise monitoring solution for both physical and virtual machine infrastructure. VMM doesn’t create an additional, parallel monitoring system to be configured and supported.
Q. Does VMM require Active Directory?
Yes, Active Directory is required for security purposes to ensure that access to images on the network is authenticated and secure. Active Directory also provides tremendous benefits by allowing the VMM administrator to identify and understand all the physical servers running virtual machines that are installed in the customer environment and the use of Distributed File System to replicate images automatically across the network.
Q. How does VMM being built with PowerShell change what the IT administrator can do with this product?
PowerShell offers an easy scripting interface to all functionality, lightweight integration with other products or processes, bulk operations, or sequenced operations. VMM contains over 170 PowerShell commandlets, each with extensive help entries and code samples. With “view code” buttons throughout the UI, administrators can easily see and modify PowerShell scripts for future use. The centralized library can be used to store and share commonly used PowerShell scripts.
Q. Does this product enable “live” migration or zero downtime migration of workloads across physical servers?
Yes, when used with the VMware’s Virtual Center product, VMM can move workloads across physical hosts via VMotion. In a Hyper-V environment there is a short service interruption as workloads are moved via Quick Migration. The length of that service interruption will depend on the time needed to copy the files from one source server to the target, and will be sensitive to storage and network infrastructure. The migration wizard will automatically detect SAN infrastructure and will enable the admin to choose to migrate files over SAN at much faster pace.
Q. How is Virtual Machine Manager 2008 licensed?
Enterprise customers may acquire VMM 2008 in two ways:
VMM 2008 comes as part of the Server Management Suite Enterprise (SMSE), which includes System Center Operations Manager 2007, System Center Configuration Manager 2007, and Data Protection Manger 2007.
VMM 2008 is also available as a standalone product outside the SMSE.
For mid-market customers:
VMM 2008 Workgroup Edition comes with the same feature set as the enterprise-ready version except that it is limited to managing five physical hosts.
Q. What is the Server Management Suite License Enterprise?
It is a licensing suite that includes the management licenses for our System Center management products targeted at enterprise customers (VMM 2008, Operations Manager 2007, Configuration Manager 2008, and Data Protection Manager 2007). The management licenses are for management of servers, not PCs or other client devices.
Q. How much do the versions of VMM 2008 cost?
VMM 2008 costs as follows (prices listed are estimated prices and reflect the starting prices (Open NL) of licenses available through volume licensing):
VMM 2008 Enterprise as part of SMSE: includes the Enterprise Server management licenses for Operations Manager 2007, Configuration Manager 2007 R2, Data Protection Manager 2007, Virtual Machine Manager 2008; the Management Server license for Virtual Machine Manager 2008; and, rights to manage an unlimited number of operating system environments on a single server. Cost is $1,497
VMM 2008 Enterprise Standalone: includes VMM’s enterprise management license plus the server management license. The VMM 2008 management Server software is also included. Cost is: $896
VMM 2008 Workgroup Edition: Includes management server software and management licenses to manage 5 physical host servers. Cost is $505.
For additional information, please see: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/virtualmachinemanager/en/us/pricing-licensing.aspx.
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