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VirtualizationManagementUsing Microsoft System Center and Dell OpenManage
Managing large virtualized environments can be challenging and time-consuming. This article outlines how enterprises can 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.
Integrated virtual machine provisioning and management Integrating VMM and Operations Manager 2007
can help administrators increase VM availabil-
ity and perform seamless P2V migrations on
Dell PowerEdge servers. For example, the
Operations Manager 2007 reporting compo-
nent tracks the resource utilization of physical
servers, and VMM can use this information to
make recommendations about VM placement
and identify potential P2V conversion candi-
dates. Administrators can then use the P2V
capability in VMM to migrate the OS and hosted
applications from physical servers into an intel-
ligently configured virtualized environment.
In addition, to help increase VM availability,
VMs can be moved across physical servers
based on host health. Operations Manager 2007
can trigger custom tasks, based on alerts and
administrator-configured policies, that launch
scripts in VMM to migrate VMs across hosts.
Figure 3 illustrates an example environ-
ment using both VMM and Operations Manager
2007. Figure 4 summarizes the management
functionality available across VMM, Operations
Manager 2007, and Dell OpenManage to show
how administrators can use these tools together
to help provide end-to-end management of vir-
tual and physical server environments. The “Best
practices for managing virtualized Microsoft
Windows environments on Dell servers” sidebar
in this article summarizes some of the ways
administrators can use Operations Manager
2007 to efficiently manage virtualized Windows
environments on Dell PowerEdge servers.
virtualization layermicrosoft virtual server 2005 R2
vm
operations manager2007 agent
microsoft Windows guest os
Applicationsoperations manager2007 agent
vm
host osmicrosoft Windows server 2003
omsA vmmagent
virtualized server farm
networkmicrosoft Active Directory server
microsoft system Centeroperations manager 2007
microsoft system Center vmm
Figure 3. Example environment using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007
the following best practices can help administrators use microsoft system Center virtual machine manager and operations manager 2007 to efficiently manage virtualized Windows environments on Dell Poweredge servers:
• to have both in-band and out-of-band management capabilities on Dell servers, administrators should install the Dell mP for operations manager 2007. they should also install omsA on all Dell servers.
• Although operations manager 2007 supports agentless server manage-ment, in which no operations manager 2007 agents are installed on the managed servers, the additional functionality provided by the vari-ous mPs is not available in agentless managed servers. to allow com-prehensive management functionality, administrators should use agent-managed servers.
• the operations manager 2007 agent can be pushed to vms through the operations manager console, or it can be manually installed on the vms. 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 agent queries microsoft Active Directory and automatically communicates with the appropriate management server.
• to help optimize vm monitoring and provide virtualization-specific report-ing features, administrators should add Windows guest operating systems running in a Windows virtualized environment as agent-managed servers in operations manager 2007.
• to allow operations manager 2007 to monitor vm heartbeats and report vm states, Windows guest operating systems should also be running microsoft virtual server virtual machine Additions.
bEst PRacticEs fOR managing viRtualizEd micROsOft WindOWs EnviROnmEnts On dEll sERvERs
installation Installing microsoft virtual server 4
Installing operations manager 2007 mPs 4
Installing vms 4
Installing omsA 4
P2v conversion Identifying candidates for P2v conversion
4* 4
Performing P2v conversion with intelligent vm placement
4
vm management Creating vms 4
Intelligently placing vms 4
Cold migrating vms 4
managing vm states (start/stop) 4 4
starting and stopping virtual server service
4
Delegating rights to provision and manage vms
4
vm monitoring monitoring virtual server status 4 4
monitoring vm status and performance 4 4
monitoring guest os–specific alerts from vms
4
mapping vms to hosts 4 4
generating reports on host and vm resource utilization and historic trends
4 4
Physical server monitoring
monitoring server-specific alerts 4 4
monitoring os-specific alerts 4 4
Retrieving server configuration information
4 4 4
Physical server remote management
updating BIos and firmware 4
Configuring virtualization software set-tings (such as host reserves and virtual networking)
4
Performing out-of-band server management
4 4
* enabled with operations manager 2007.
Figure 4. Key management functionality of Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, and Dell OpenManage software