Managing vSphere and Hyper-V
with SCOM 2012
June 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
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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:
●
●
●
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●
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/enus/library/hh454967.aspx)
● Upgrade path check lists (http://technet.microsoft.com/enus/library/hh241293)
● Pre-Upgrade Check list (http://technet.microsoft.com/enus/library/hh205986)
● Upgrade Helper Management Pack (http://technet.microsoft.com/enus/library/hh316109)
● Deployment Guide (http://technet.microsoft.com/enus/library/hh278852)
Q&A and Thank You
 Questions?
 Come see me at the Next Generation Backup School
(http://storagedecisions.techtarget.com/seminars/backu
p_school.html)