Managing vSphere and Hyper-Vwith SCOM 2012June 2012

Brien Posey – Microsoft MVP

About Me Freelance Technical Writer and 8 Time Microsoft MVP Previously CIO for a national chain of hospitals and

healthcare facilities Served as a network administrator for some of the

nation’s largest insurance companies and for the Department of Defense at Fort Knox

Agenda A Hypervisor Agnostic World Introduction to the Veeam Management Pack for

VMware Upgrading to System Center Operations Manager 2012 Five Common Upgrade Gotchas Upgrade Resources

A Hypervisor Agnostic World With the release of Hyper-V 3.0 Hyper-V and VMware

will offer similar capabilities. An organization’s choice of hypervisor will become les

important. It will become more common for organizations to use a

mixture of hypervisors. Those hypervisors need to be managed.

Use Your Existing Management Infrastructure System Center Operations Manager is the management

tool of choice for managing Hyper-V. Veeam offers a SCOM 2012 management pack for

VMware. This management pack allows Hyper-V and VMware to

be managed side by side through a single pane of glass. VMware is no longer seen as a black box.

The VMware management pack is installed in a way that should be familiar to SCOM admins.

Management Pack Components The Veeam Management Pack for VMware consists of

three components:● Nworks Enterprise Manager – The Nworks Enterprise Manager

(nworksEMS.exe) is the server component that establishes connectivity between SCOM 2012 and VMware

● Nworks Enterprise Manager WebUI – The nworks Enterprise Manager WebUI (nworksUI.exe) provides the graphical user interface for the nworks Enterprise Manager.

● Nworks Virtual Infrastructure Collector – The nworks Virtual Infrastructure Collector (nworksVIC.exe) is responsible for collecting monitoring data from the VMware hosts.

Importing the Veeam Management Pack

Configuring the connectivity SCOM 2012 agents cannot be installed on VMware

hosts. The nworks Enterprise Manager provides VMware

Connectivity.

Confirming the Connection A dashboard view confirms connectivity to VMware.

Hypervisor Monitoring Considerations The VMware management pack reports on virtual machine health. The health report is based on the hypervisor’s view of the VM. VMware cannot look into a Windows virtual machine. You should install SCOM agents in the individual VMs for comprehensive

monitoring.

Hypervisor Monitoring The Veeam Management Pack for VMware monitors

VMware hosts in the same way as SCOM monitors Windows Server.

VMware alerts are displayed alongside Windows Server alerts.

Management Pack Guidance Clicking on an alert provides expert guidance.

VMware Filtering The Veeam Management Pack for VMware

automatically creates VMware specific views. This keeps you from having to dig through Windows

alerts to locate VMware alerts. You can also use these views to drill down through the

VMware infrastructure.

VMware Topology

Is the Upgrade Worth it? In a multi hypervisor organization, this solution is

essential for management. SCOM natively monitors Hyper-V and Windows Server

(and Microsoft server applications) The Veeam Management Pack for VMware adds

VMware monitoring capabilities. You must upgrade to SCOM 2012 to be able to fully

manage Hyper-V and VMware.

SCOM 2012 Upgrade Hurdles Upgrading to SCOM 2012 is fairly straight forward. As with any software upgrade, there are some gotchas

that you need to be aware of. We will cover the top five.

Gotcha #1 – The Upgrade Path Allowed:

● SCOM 2007 R2 to SCOM 2012● SCOM 2012 RC to SCOM 2012 RTM● Beta to RC to RTM

Not Allowed● Pre SCOM 2007 R2 to SCOM 2012● SCOM 2012 beta to SCOM 2012 RTM

Gotcha #2 – Upgrade Order Legacy SCOM servers must be upgraded in a specific

order. That order is:● Secondary Management Servers● Gateways● Agents● Root Management Server● Root Management Server upgrade is blocked if other management and

gateway servers are still running SCOM 2007 R2● Root Management Server upgrade won’t be blocked (but warning will

be issued) if legacy agents still exist. These agents won’t work with SCOM 2012.

Gotcha #3 – Management Packs SCOM 2007 R2 Management Packs are compatible

with SCOM 2012 Some third party management packs will have to be

replaced due to reliance on modules, templates, etc.

Gotcha #4 – In Place Upgrades In place Upgrades from SCOM 2007 R2 are allowed,

but the server must be running a 64-bit version of Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1 or higher.

If you are not able to do an in place upgrade you will have to back up the encryption keys that are stored on your Root Management Server and restore them to your SCOM 2012 server.

Gotcha #5 – The Transition Process Make sure that your existing SCOM deployment is

healthy before upgrading. Be prepared to receive a number of false alarms as a

result of the initial transition process. Upgrade the agents before upgrading the Root

Management Server. In larger deployments verify that the agents are not

reporting directly to the Root Management Server.

Upgrade Resources Microsoft offers a number of upgrade resources

including:● Upgrade flow diagrams (http://

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh454967.aspx)● Upgrade path check lists (http://

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh241293)● Pre-Upgrade Check list (http://

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh205986)● Upgrade Helper Management Pack (http://

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh316109)● Deployment Guide (http://

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh278852)

Q&A and Thank You

Questions? Come see me at the Next Generation Backup School (

http://storagedecisions.techtarget.com/seminars/backup_school.html)