1. feature section: virtualization in the mainstream
Virtualization
Management Using
Microsoft System Center
and Dell OpenManage
By Balasubramanian Chandrasekaran
Managing large virtualized environments can be challenging
Ranjith Purush
Brent Douglas
and time-consuming. This article outlines how enterprises can
David Schmidt use Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007,
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, and the Dell
OpenManage™ suite to help simplify administrative tasks and
enhance operational efficiency in virtualized data centers.
V
irtualization is a powerful technology that enables Key components
enterprises to consolidate servers and storage, isolate Figure 1 illustrates the key components of a VMM infrastruc-
systems from one another, and rapidly deploy new ture, which include the following:
systems. However, virtualization can also lead to increased
management requirements, from performing critical life cycle • VMM server: The VMM server runs the core application
and systems management tasks to deploying features designed that communicates with VM hosts through VMM agents
to take advantage of virtualization’s advanced capabilities. and maintains system information in the VMM database.
Microsoft offers several tools that administrators can inte- Administrators can access it through the VMM
Related Categories:
grate with the Dell OpenManage suite to help simplify the man- Administrator Console, VMM provisioning Web portal, and
Microsoft Virtual Server agement of virtualized environments on Dell PowerEdge
™ ™
scripting client.
Systems management servers. Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager • VMM Administrator Console: Administrators can use the
(VMM), which will be released later in 2007, delivers centralized VMM Administrator Console to add and manage hosts,
Virtualization
management of Microsoft Virtual Server–based systems, and create and manage VMs, monitor tasks, and administer
Visit www.dell.com/powersolutions
for the complete category index. includes features such as physical-to-virtual (P2V) conversion, the Web portal. This console is a stand-alone application
virtual machine (VM) provisioning tools, and intelligent VM built on Microsoft Windows PowerShell technology, and
deployment. Integrating VMM with Microsoft System Center can be installed on a variety of systems to help adminis-
Operations Manager 2007 and the Dell Management Pack (MP) trators remotely manage VMs.
allows VMM to monitor the environment and allocate VMs effec- • VMM delegated management and provisioning Web portal:
tively across the entire data center. The VMM Web portal is a Web page through which autho-
rized users can create and manage VMs that are delegated
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager to them. Administrators determine who can create VMs,
VMM, one of the key components of the Microsoft System which hosts their VMs can run on, which templates they can
Center suite, is a one-to-many manager for Microsoft use, and which actions they can take on their own VMs.
Windows OS–based VMs. VMM facilitates the deployment
®
Administrators can also monitor resource utilization and
of Microsoft Virtual Server software, rapid and intelligent use this information to bill VM users accordingly.
provisioning of VMs on physical servers, and management • VMM database: The VMM database stores configuration
of VMs across multiple servers. and performance information for hosts and VMs.
DELL POWER SOLUTIONS | August 2007 Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, August 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
40

2. Key features candidates for P2V conversions (see the software, helping administrators efficiently
Key features of VMM include centralized man- “Integrated virtual machine provisioning and monitor their entire data center from a single
agement, Virtual Server software deployment, management” section in this article). console. Operations Manager 2007 and VMM
optimized VM placement, P2V conversion, a Central library. VMM provides administrators both belong to the System Center product
central library, and scripting and automation. with a centralized library containing the building family, and their tight integration allows
Centralized management. VMM provides cen- blocks for a virtual infrastructure. Objects that enhanced management capabilities.
tralized management of VMs as well as the physi- the library can contain include VM templates, Key features of Operations Manager 2007
cal servers hosting them. Administrators can use virtual disk files, virtual CD ISO files, virtual floppy include the following:
VMM to perform basic VM operations such as image files, hardware profiles that can be
creating VMs, powering them up and down, clon- assigned to new VMs, and post-deployment cus- • Health monitoring: Administrators can mon-
ing, performing offline migrations, creating check- tomization scripts. The library is maintained by itor thousands of events and performance
points, and configuring virtual hardware. They can one or more library servers, each with its own counters across hundreds of servers, operat-
also easily add, group, and manage hosts running owners and access control. ing systems, and applications to provide a
Virtual Server, including setting host server prop- Scripting and automation. The VMM single view of data center health.
erties such as host reserves and configuring Administrator Console and provisioning Web • Alert monitoring: Operations Manager 2007
virtual networks. portal are built on Microsoft Windows PowerShell, can combine alerts for critical events requir-
Microsoft Virtual Server software deploy- as shown in Figure 1. PowerShell provides a pow- ing action, helping administrators respond
ment. Administrators can easily add new physi- erful scripting and automation interface directly quickly to events that may affect normal
cal servers to VMM. When they do so, VMM can to the VMM core engine, enabling administrators operations.
use the existing Microsoft Active Directory® to perform VMM graphical user interface (GUI) • Tasks: Administrators can investigate and
directory service infrastructure to automatically functions using PowerShell. VMM also allows resolve problems from the Operations
install Virtual Server along with VMM agents on administrators to view the equivalent PowerShell Manager 2007 Operations Console by using
these new servers, allowing the servers to host scripts for tasks when using the GUI. built-in as well as custom tasks, and take
VMs and communicate with VMM for monitoring advantage of the detailed troubleshooting
and management. Microsoft System Center Operations and best-practices information provided by
Optimized VM placement. VMM can intel- Manager 2007 Operations Manager 2007 to guide them
ligently place VMs to optimize resource utiliza- Operations Manager 2007 is a comprehensive, through problem resolution.
tion, recommending a physical server based end-to-end service management tool designed • Diagram views: Administrators can access
on VM resource requirements supplied by to work seamlessly with other Microsoft graphical and hierarchical views of the
administrators. VMM bases its recommenda-
tions on the physical servers’ processor,
virtualization host server
memory, disk, and network characteristics,
VM VM VM VM
then ranks them using a weighted sum of microsoft virtual vmm
server Release 2 (R2) agent Windows
available resources. Once administrators have Powershell
microsoft Windows server 2003 R2
chosen from the ranked list, VMM creates and
vmm Administrator
deploys the new VM on the selected server. microsoft system Center Console
P2v source server vmm
P2V conversion. The P2V wizard in VMM
Applications vmm agent microsoft Windows server 2003 R2
helps simplify the migration of physical systems Windows
microsoft Windows server 2003 R2 Powershell
to VMs, including recommending a physical
host for the new VM. VMM uses Microsoft vmm provisioning
Web portal
Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) in the library server
Microsoft Windows Server® 2003 OS to create vmm agent vmm database
VMs quickly and without requiring downtime for microsoft Windows server 2003 R2 Windows
Powershell
microsoft sQl server™ 2005
the source physical server. VMM currently sup-
microsoft Windows server 2003 R2
scripting client
ports P2V conversion of servers running Disk drives
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server or Windows
Server 2003. VMM can also integrate with
Operations Manager 2007 to identify potential Figure 1. Key components of a Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager infrastructure
Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, August 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. www.dell.com/powersolutions 41

3. feature section: virtualization in the mainstream
different hardware and software compo- administrators to centrally monitor and manage alerts, and enable administrators to view
nents of their data center. both virtual and physical environments and information on specific hardware components
• Reporting: Operations Manager 2007 can their workloads. to help ensure the continuous availability of Dell
generate a variety of reports based on Key functionality added to Operations servers. In addition to installing the Dell MP,
events, alerts, and performance data stored Manager 2007 by this MP includes the administrators should install Dell OpenManage
in its data warehouse. following: Server Administrator (OMSA) on managed serv-
• Audit collection: Operations Manager 2007 ers to enable Operations Manager 2007 to cap-
can automate the collection and consolida- • Graphical mapping of VMs to physical hosts ture Dell-specific alerts.
tion of auditable events from Windows secu- at any given point in time Key functionality added to Operations
rity logs, enabling enterprises to meet • Real-time monitoring of VMs and alert gen- Manager 2007 by the Dell MP includes the
regulatory compliance requirements. eration for VM resource utilization, heart- following:
beats, and other resources
Figure 2 illustrates the key components of a • Reporting capabilities to help identify can- • Generation of Dell-specific alerts for server
basic Operations Manager 2007 infrastructure. didates for P2V conversion based on histori- hardware events, such as chassis intrusion
cal processor, memory, disk, and network and abnormal temperature or voltage
Management packs utilization; show historic resource utilization • In-band management allowing administra-
A key feature of Operations Manager 2007 is the and trends for both hosts and VMs; and tors to launch the OMSA console from
ability to expand its capabilities through MPs, allow tracking of resource allocations across Operations Manager 2007 alerts and clear
which allow it to discover, monitor, troubleshoot, cost centers, which enterprises can then use Embedded Server Management (ESM) logs
report on, and resolve problems for specific com- to bill based on usage • Out-of-band management allowing admin-
ponents. MPs are available for products from • Operations Manager 2007 VM utilization istrators to launch the Dell Remote Access
Microsoft as well as numerous third-party ven- reports accessible in the VMM console Controller (DRAC) console from Operations
dors, including Dell. Two MPs in particular add • Ability to launch the Virtual Server Web Manager 2007 alerts (only available on serv-
important functionality that allows administra- browser–based administration GUI from ers supporting the DRAC III or later)
tors to integrate VMM and Operations Manager Operations Manager 2007 • Extensive knowledge base providing typical
2007 to effectively manage a virtualized environ- resolutions for Dell-specific alerts
ment on Dell PowerEdge servers: the Microsoft Dell MP. The Dell MP reports Dell-specific • Server-specific information such as service
Server Virtualization MP and the Dell MP. server and application alerts through the tag, asset tag, IP address, and model
Microsoft Server Virtualization MP. The Operations Manager 2007 Operations Console,
Microsoft Server Virtualization MP is actually a helping simplify management of these systems. The latest Dell MP for Operations Manager
collection of MPs, and is central to integrating Features introduced in this MP for Operations 2007 is available for download from
VMM with Operations Manager 2007. It enables Manager 2007 provide reports and pre-failure support.dell.com. Dell MP versions earlier
than 3.0 are not compatible with Operations
Manager 2007.
Web Console server
Dell OpenManage systems
Web Console management suite
mPs
The Dell OpenManage suite, which includes
OMSA and Dell OpenManage IT Assistant, is
virtualized server farm Root management server
operations Console
designed to simplify the monitoring and man-
agement of Dell systems. OMSA is a comprehen-
sive one-to-one systems management
mPs application that allows administrators to manage
both local and remote systems. It provides an
management server(s) Database server Reporting server integrated Web browser–based GUI and an OS-
with data warehouse
based command-line interface (CLI).
Dell OpenManage IT Assistant provides a
Figure 2. Key components of a Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 infrastructure central console to monitor and manage systems
DELL POWER SOLUTIONS | August 2007 Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, August 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
42

4. on a local or wide area network. Similar to the
way Operations Manager 2007 aggregates
system data, IT Assistant presents administra-
vm virtualized server farm
tors with a comprehensive view of their network, vm
helping automate repetitive tasks, increase operations manager Applications
2007 agent
system uptime, and prevent interruption of criti- microsoft Windows guest os
cal operations. Administrators can use IT virtualization layer operations manager vmm
2007 agent omsA agent
microsoft virtual server 2005 R2
Assistant to create tasks that apply to a single
host os
system or each system in a group, create microsoft Windows server 2003
dynamic groups of systems to facilitate manage-
ment, and inventory systems. In addition, IT
Assistant provides a consolidated launch point microsoft Active Directory server
network
for OMSA, Dell OpenManage Array Manager, and
Dell OpenManage Switch Administrator; DRAC microsoft system Center microsoft system Center vmm
operations manager 2007
consoles; and printer, tape, storage, IPMI, and
digital keyboard, video, mouse (KVM) devices.
Figure 3. Example environment using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager and
Integrated virtual machine provisioning Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007
and management
Integrating VMM and Operations Manager 2007 applications from physical servers into an intel- functionality available across VMM, Operations
can help administrators increase VM availabil- ligently configured virtualized environment. Manager 2007, and Dell OpenManage to show
ity and perform seamless P2V migrations on In addition, to help increase VM availability, how administrators can use these tools together
Dell PowerEdge servers. For example, the VMs can be moved across physical servers to help provide end-to-end management of vir-
Operations Manager 2007 reporting compo- based on host health. Operations Manager 2007 tual and physical server environments. The “Best
nent tracks the resource utilization of physical can trigger custom tasks, based on alerts and practices for managing virtualized Microsoft
servers, and VMM can use this information to administrator-configured policies, that launch Windows environments on Dell servers” sidebar
make recommendations about VM placement scripts in VMM to migrate VMs across hosts. in this article summarizes some of the ways
and identify potential P2V conversion candi- Figure 3 illustrates an example environ- administrators can use Operations Manager
dates. Administrators can then use the P2V ment using both VMM and Operations Manager 2007 to efficiently manage virtualized Windows
capability in VMM to migrate the OS and hosted 2007. Figure 4 summarizes the management environments on Dell PowerEdge servers.
best practices for managing virtualized
Microsoft windows environments ON DELL SERVERS
The following best practices can help administrators use Microsoft System • The Operations Manager 2007 agent can be pushed to VMs through the
Center Virtual Machine Manager and Operations Manager 2007 to efficiently Operations Manager console, or it can be manually installed on the VMs.
manage virtualized Windows environments on Dell PowerEdge servers: However, a better implementation would be to add the agent to the base
VM image. When such an image is deployed, the Operations Manager 2007
• To have both in-band and out-of-band management capabilities on Dell agent queries Microsoft Active Directory and automatically communicates
servers, administrators should install the Dell MP for Operations Manager with the appropriate management server.
2007. They should also install OMSA on all Dell servers. • To help optimize VM monitoring and provide virtualization-specific report-
• Although Operations Manager 2007 supports agentless server manage- ing features, administrators should add Windows guest operating systems
ment, in which no Operations Manager 2007 agents are installed on running in a Windows virtualized environment as agent-managed servers
the managed servers, the additional functionality provided by the vari- in Operations Manager 2007.
ous MPs is not available in agentless managed servers. To allow com- • To allow Operations Manager 2007 to monitor VM heartbeats and report
prehensive management functionality, administrators should use VM states, Windows guest operating systems should also be running
agent-managed servers. Microsoft Virtual Server Virtual Machine Additions.
Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, August 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. www.dell.com/powersolutions 43

5. feature section: virtualization in the mainstream
Efficient management of virtualized
Category Management task VMM Operations Dell environments
Manager 2007 OpenManage
Effective management tools can be essential to
with the
Microsoft Server managing virtualized environments in enterprise
Virtualization MP
data centers. Combining management tools like
and Dell MP
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine
Installation Installing Microsoft Virtual Server 4 Manager, Microsoft System Center Operations
Installing Operations Manager 2007 MPs 4 Manager 2007, and Dell OpenManage software
with the Microsoft Virtual Server and Dell man-
Installing VMs 4
agement packs can provide a flexible, efficient
Installing OMSA 4 way of monitoring virtualized environments and
carrying out key administrative tasks.
P2V conversion Identifying candidates for P2V 4* 4
conversion
Balasubramanian Chandrasekaran is a sys-
Performing P2V conversion with 4
intelligent VM placement tems engineer in the Dell Virtualization Solutions
Engineering Group.
VM management Creating VMs 4
Intelligently placing VMs 4 Ranjith Purush is a systems engineer in the Dell
Virtualization Solutions Engineering Group.
Cold migrating VMs 4
Managing VM states (start/stop) 4 4 Brent Douglas is a systems engineer in the Dell
Starting and stopping Virtual Server
Virtualization Solutions Engineering Group.
4
service
Delegating rights to provision and
David Schmidt manages the Dell Virtualization
4
manage VMs Solutions Engineering Group.
VM monitoring Monitoring Virtual Server status 4 4
Monitoring VM status and performance 4 4
Monitoring guest OS–specific alerts 4
from VMs
Mapping VMs to hosts 4 4
Generating reports on host and VM 4 4 QUICK LINKs
resource utilization and historic trends
Physical server Monitoring server-specific alerts 4 4 Microsoft System Center:
monitoring
www.microsoft.com/systemcenter
Monitoring OS-specific alerts 4 4
Microsoft System Center Virtual
Retrieving server configuration 4 4 4 Machine Manager:
information
www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/
Physical server Updating BIOS and firmware 4 scvmm
remote
management Microsoft System Center Operations
Configuring virtualization software set- 4
tings (such as host reserves and virtual Manager 2007 documentation:
networking) www.microsoft.com/technet/opsmgr/
2007/library/proddocs.mspx
Performing out-of-band server 4 4
management Management packs for Microsoft
* Enabled with Operations Manager 2007. Operations Manager:
www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/
mom/catalog/catalog.aspx
Figure 4. Key management functionality of Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager,
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, and Dell OpenManage software
DELL POWER SOLUTIONS | August 2007 Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, August 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
44