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Step by step guide on how to install Microsoft’s System Centre Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)

by Mark | Aug 30, 2019 | How To, Microsoft HyperV

How to install Microsoft’s System Centre Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)

System Centre Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)

If you run Microsoft’s Hyper-V as your virtualisation platform rather than the ever popular VMware ESX then you probably want a way to manage your Hyper-V hosts as well as the virtual machines that reside on this. Well you can do a lot of the functions that SCVMM does with the free tool for managing Hyper-V, the Hyper-V Manager (which comes as part of the Windows Operating System).

So if they are similar why would we use System Centre VMM over and above the Hyper-V Manager you ask and have to pay more money to Microsoft?

Well I list out the main differences here to hopefully guide you to a decision before going through the installation process of SCVMM later on down the page.

SCVMM vs Hyper-V Manager Key Differences

Hyper-v Manager

Can manage the Hyper-V hosts and the virtual machines that reside on it.
Can manage a single host or multiple Hyper-V hosts that are members of a failover cluster.
Requires Failover Cluster manager to manage multiple hosts.
Requires powershell to setup affinity rules.
No single pane of glass to manage your complete Hyper-V environment which requires you to utilise the Hyper-V Manager console, Failover Cluster console and then powershell to do only some of what SCVMM can do.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager

SCVMM can do all the Hyper-V Manager does from a single console.;

Configure and manage your datacentre components as a single fabric in SCVMM. (Datacentre components include virtualization servers, networking components, and storage resources.)
SCVMM can add, provision, and manage Hyper-V and VMware virtualization hosts and clusters. SCVMM can manage VMware ESX servers and its virtual machines in limited capacity. It does however require you to have a VMware vCentre to connect to, to be able to manage your VMware virtual machines.
Add networking resources to the SCVMM fabric, including network sites defined by IP subnets, virtual LANs (VLANs), logical switches, static IP address and MAC pools.
SCVMM provides network virtualization, including support for creating and manage virtual networks and network gateways. Network virtualization allows multiple tenants to have isolated networks and their own IP address ranges for increased privacy and security.
Using gateways, VMs on virtual networks can connect to physical networks in the same site or in different locations.
SCVMM can discover, classify, provision, allocate, and assign local and remote storage.
SCVMM supports block storage (fibre channel, iSCSI, and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) storage area networks (SANs)).
The SCVMM fabric retains a library of file-based and non file-based resources that are used to create and deploy VMs and services on virtualization hosts.
File-based resources include virtual hard disks, ISO images, and scripts.
Non file-based resources include templates and profiles that are used to standardize the creation of VMs. Library resources are accessed through library shares.
Integrates with Azure (Though you cannot change settings of the Azure VMs but you can see them and at least stop and start them from your SCVMM console)

The biggest issue with using Hyper-V Manager over System Centre VMM is that it cannot scale to manage large environments, and with having three different consoles (Hyper-V Manager, Failover Cluster Manager and then Powershell) can be quite daunting to use to it’s full ability.

SCVMM Capacity Limits

Planning for your SCVMM deployment is a good practice and you want to make sure to size it right for your environment. The suggested limits of the software Microsoft details for SCVMM deployment are in the table below;

Entity	Recommended maximum count
Physical hosts	1000
Virtual Machines	25000
Services	1000
User roles	1000
Clouds	20
Virtual networks	2000
logical networks	20
Library resources	1000
Library Objects (templates, profiles)	100

SCVMM Limits

Recommended hardware requirements are;

Hardware	VMM server	VMM database	VMM library	VMM console
Processor (minimum)	8 core Pentium 4, 2 GHz (x64)	8 core Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz	4 core Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz	2 core Pentium 4, 1 GHz CPU
Processor (recommended)	16-core, 2.66 GHz CPU	16 core 2.6 GHz CPU	4 core 2.8 GHz CPU	2 core 2 GHz CPU
RAM (minimum)	4 GB	8 GB	2 GB	4 GB
RAM (recommended)	16 GB	16 GB	4 GB	4 GB
Hard drive (minimum)	4 GB	50 GB	Based on size/amount of stored files	10 GB
Hard drive (recommended)	10 GB	200 GB	Based on size/amount of stored files	10 GB

SCVMM Operating System Requirements

The recommended Windows Operating System requirements for SCVMM 2019 are

Windows 2016 Server Core
Windows 2016 Full Desktop Experience
Windows 2019 Server Core
Windows 2019Full Desktop Experience.

SCVMM Database Requirements

The last piece to the SCVMM puzzle, is the database it requires. Obviously this database is another Microsoft product, SQL Server.

The supported Microsoft SQL database versions for SCVMM 2019 are;

SQL 2016
SQL 2017

How to install System Centre Virtual Machine Manager.

A step by step guide to install SCVMM.

Now that you can see the benefits to installing and using SCVMM to manage your Hyper-V hosts and it’s Virtual Machines. We will now get to the installation part to guide you through the process. I am going to assume here that you already have your Hyper-V hosts up and running and are ready to start your installation. To continue on with this installation guide I will run you through my current infrastructure setup. I have a newly deployed Hyper-V host and have prebuilt some generic virtual machines that are running on it. I am using a demo version of SCVMM which you can download for yourself from the Microsoft site (link here) and I have already predownloaded the files ready to start the installation.

So what are the prerequisites to install SCVVM? Obviously besides the requirements detailed up above, you will need a functioning Hyper-V environment to install the SCVMM on to, as well as administrator access to manage the Hyper-V hosts. As I have downloaded an image from Microsoft and if you are doing the same you will need Domain Administrator access to add the SCVMM Windows server to the domain.

Launch SCVMM Installer

Since the files are downloaded to my location machine, browse to the SCVMM install files through windows explorer. To start the install, just run the Executable file

Installing SCVMM

Now the installation starts, click on NEXT on the SCVMM install welcome screen.

SCVMM License Agreement

Accept the license agreement (make sure to read them if you wish) and click on NEXT.

SCVMM Installation Location

The SCVMM install needs to extract the downloaded files. Choose an appropriate folder location and make sure you have enough free disks space (approximately 28GB is needed) then click on NEXT.

SCVMM File Extraction

You are now ready to extract the SCVMM files needed for the installation. Confirm the settings and folder looks right then click on EXTRACT.

SCVMM Install Extracting

The installation files will now extract from your downloaded media. This will take a little bit of time to complete the extraction process.

SCVMM File Extraction Completed

Now the extraction of SCVMM is complete. Click on FINISH.

SCVMM Import

Next we need to connect to one of your Hyper-V hosts with the Hyper-V Manager console to start the import of the SCVMM Virtual Machine. Open up your Hyper-V console and connect to your host.

SCVMM New Virtual Machine

We now need to build a new VM for the SCVMM server. Click on ACTION, then NEW, then VIRTUAL MACHINE.

New Virtual Machine Wizard

The New Virtual Machine Wizard starts up, click on NEXT to proceed.

New Virtual Machine Location

On the Specify Name and Location tab give your VM a name and you can choose where to store the VM files. When you have done that click on NEXT.

VM Generation Selection

The Specify Generation window, make sure that Generation 1 is selected then click on NEXT

VM Memory Settings for SCVMM

Remember the minimum memory suggested by Microsoft above? Well if you dont, the minimum memory recommended was 4GB so as this is just a lab but I want some performance Im changing that to 8GB. When you have selected the memory size click on NEXT.

VM Virtual Switch Settings

Choose with virtual switch you want to deploy this VM to then click NEXT.

SCVMM Virtual Hard Disk Settings

This is one of the most important parts of the install process, make sure to change the virtual hard disk to Use an existing virtual hard disk and browse to the extracted location of the SCVMM download. When you have done that click NEXT.

SCVMM VM Deployment

Review everything on the Summary Tab and if you are happy to proceed with the SCVMM deployment click on Finish

Power ON SCVMM VM

Now go back to your Hyper-V console and browse through your virtual machines until you find your newly deployed SCVMM virtual machine

Start SCVMM Installation

To start the installation you will need to power it on and open a console session so you can see what is happening.

Install Windows 2019 Server

We have to now run through the Windows 2019 server installation. Choose your country / region then click NEXT

Windows 2019 Server License Agreement

More license terms for you to read through, when you are happy to accept them, click on ACCEPT.

Local Administrator Password Creation

Now provide a local administrator password and then click FINISH then the server will restart

Login to SCVMM Server

Once Windows 2019 server has installed, log on to the server with the local administrator credentials you put in previously

SCVMM join Active Directory Domain

We now need to join the SCVMM virtual machine to the domain, so open up CONTROL PANEL then go to SYSTEM. Change the virtual machine name so you can easily identify it in the future and add the VM to your Active Directory Domain and dont forget to Reboot the server.

Install SQL Server for SCVMM

So after your SCVMM server has rebooted and is joined to your domain, we next need to start the installation of the SQL Database if you have not got one already. On the desktop of my Windows 2019 VM, I can see Microsoft has placed two icons for me to use to start the SCVMM installation. Luckily in this case they tell me to start the SQL Server install first, so we need to DOUBLE CLICK on that.

SQL Product Key

On the Product Key page for the SQL install, put in your license details and click on NEXT.

SQL License Agreement

Accept the license terms and click NEXT.

SQL Global Rules

On the Global Rules tab, the SQL installation will check to see if the prerequisites are met for the installation. If all went well as in the picture click on NEXT.

SQL Features

The Select Prepared Features tab check the settings are correct and click NEXT

SQL Features Confirmation

The SQL installation for SCVMM now lets you review the Features are correct. Again, review the features you have chosen are right for your environment then click NEXT

SQL Instance Selection

On the SQL Instance Configuration you need to change this to the Default Instance (if you are installing a fresh copy of SQL, if you are using another server please point the instance to what you have setup. Click NEXT to proceed.

SQL Service Account

Confirm the Server Configuration tab is correct (if you want to change the accounts you can, but Im leaving this all default.) Click NEXT.

SQL Database Engine Configuration

The Database Engine Configuration tab make sure to add your account so that you can manage the SQL instance. In my screenshot below I added the Domain Admins for my lab environment. Click Next to continue.

Review SQL Installation Options

We are almost ready to start the SCVMM SQL server installation. Double-check all these settings look correct for your environment then click on COMPLETE to start the install.

SQL Installing

The installation will now run through the process to install the SQL server components on your Virtual Machine. Maybe go grab a coffee to give this sometime to complete and if all went well you should see something similar to the following screen.

Starting SCVMM Installation

Finally we are on to the fun bit, we can start the configuration of SCVMM. I rebooted the server after the SQL install just to be sure that the services all started correctly and there was no errors detected.
Locate the Configure VMM icon and then DOUBLE CLICK IT.

SCVMM Setup

Once the Microsoft System Centre 2019 Virtual Machine Manager setup wizard starts up, put in your details, your company details and your SCVMM licence key then click NEXT.

SCVMM Diagnostics and Usage Information

The SCVMM Diagnostics and Usage Data page describes that Microsoft does collect some data from you. Please read through this then click NEXT.

SCVMM Update

It is always a good idea to turn on Microsoft Update to patch the system should any vulnerabilities be found, but this is up to you and your environment. I chose to turn on Microsoft Update, then clicked on NEXT.

SCVMM Database Configuration

On the Database Configuration tab make sure the settings are correct for SQL server install you did previously and when confirmed click on NEXT.

SCVMM System Account

Now to the Configure service account and distributed key management tab, change it to Local System account, and then click NEXT

SCVMM Library Configuration

For Library Configuration you can choose to create a new library or an existing share. Im leaving it default here as its a new install of SCVMM. Click NEXT to proceed

SCVMM Installation Summary

Finally we are almost there, SCVMM is almost configured. Review the details on the Installation Summary page and when you are happy with the details click INSTALL.

This will start the install so be sure everything is correct.

SCVMM Installation Summary

Hopefully you got a successful screen saying that SCVMM is now installed and configured, but if you didnt the best place to look is at the SCVMM install logs located %SYSTEMDRIVE%ProgramDataVMMLogs ServerSetup.log.

Schedule a Hyper-V Checkpoint

Now that you have SCVMM installed in the next blog post I will cover off how to add your Hyper-V Hosts and perhaps while you are already here you can see how easy it is to schedule snapshot creations and deletions of your Hyper-V or VMware virtual machines with SnapShot Master.

Download and try it for yourself with a free and fully functioning 30 day trial.

Azure vs AWS – Comparing IaaS Resilience

by Mark | Aug 27, 2019 | AWS, Azure, Comparison, IAAS, Resilience

IaaS Resilience, which cloud platform is better? Azure or AWS?

Now this blog post is only going to cover the two largest cloud providers, Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS and only focusing on Infrastructure as a Service (Azure VMs for Azure, and EC2 for AWS) offerings they both provide, but with a bit of a deep dive in to the way they both provide resilience. Also with some architecture best practices to ensure your infrastructure and furthermore your applications remains available in the event of failure so that you can still provide applications to your user base and more importantly to your end customers. When designing your cloud IaaS deployments knowing how best to architect for high availability and resilient infrastructure is required, so knowing the in’s and outs of the major cloud providers is a must.

In this first part of a multiple blog overview we will cover off both AWS and Azure’s datacentre construction.

Azure and AWS Data Centre Comparison

Let’s start to look at how they each construct their data centres and provide you with their platforms for your Infrastructure as a Service deployments.

AWS Availability Zones and Regions

AWS Datacentres

First off the bat, let’s see how AWS setup their Datacentres. AWS has 69 Availability Zones dispersed over 22 geographic regions throughout the world (as of August 2019, but we can expect this number to grow as they continue to expand.)

Amazon Web Services Regions

Each AWS region is separated by geographic location and are totally independent from one another and are also made up of multiple AWS availability zones. Wikileaks actually released the locations of each AWS datacentre (some are AWS owned others are co-located datacentres). This isolation between regions is provided by completely separate infrastructure, that includes cooling, power and water supply. Every AWS region will have a minimum of two availability zones and each Availability Zone will have a minimum of one datacentres within each AZ, with connectivity between each datacentre within the AWS region having redundant low latency network connections between them.

What is an AWS Region?

In the picture above I have focused on the Sydney Australia AWS Region, which is comprised of three availability zones, multiple data centres (thanks to our wikileaks friends we know there are 8 in the Sydney region) and each with high bandwidth, low latency private redundant fibre connections which allows synchronous replication of services between each AZ.

So what is an AWS Availability Zone?

So what is an Availability Zone? Well by AWS own definition an ‘Availability Zones are the core of our infrastructure architecture and they form the foundation of AWS’s and customers’ reliability and operations. Availability Zones are designed for physical redundancy and provide resilience, enabling uninterrupted performance, even in the event of power outages, Internet downtime, floods, and other natural disasters.’ As stated before each AZ is made up of one or more datacentres but are logically grouped as one datacentre (availability zone) for all intents and purposes.

Having numerous Regions with multiple availability zones all with isolation and fast reliable network connectivity between them provides you with great fault tolerance and stability for your EC2 instances.

Azure and AWS Resilience Comparison

Feature	AWS	Azure
Regions	25 regions as of 2021 with plans to expand	60 regions as of 2021 with plans to expand
Availability Zones	82 Availability Zones as of 2021	62 Azure regions have 160+ data centers in more than 60 regions
Service Level Agreement (SLA)	Offers SLAs for most services, with a 99.99% uptime guarantee for some services	Offers SLAs for most services, with a 99.99% uptime guarantee for some services
Disaster Recovery	Offers disaster recovery solutions for various scenarios such as site failure, regional disasters, and data loss	Offers disaster recovery solutions for various scenarios such as site failure, regional disasters, and data loss
Failover	Provides automatic failover for many services	Provides automatic failover for many services
Backup and Restore	Offers backup and restore solutions for various services	Offers backup and restore solutions for various services
Load Balancing	Offers load balancing services to distribute traffic across instances	Offers load balancing services to distribute traffic across instances
Auto Scaling	Provides auto scaling to automatically adjust resources based on demand	Provides auto scaling to automatically adjust resources based on demand

It’s worth noting that both AWS and Azure have robust resilience and uptime features, with both offering SLAs and disaster recovery solutions for various scenarios. AWS has more regions and availability zones, while Azure has a larger number of data centers overall. Both providers also offer automatic failover, backup and restore solutions, load balancing, and auto scaling features.

Azure Regions and Availability Zones

Cloud Regions

Up until recently Availability Zones were not available within Microsoft Azure, but they have recently just come to the party (Availability Zones are currently not available in Australia, but we have four Azure Regions. The first Australian Region to offer Azure Availability Zones will be Sydney with commissioning of this AZ slated for some time in 2020). Previously Microsoft thought multiple regions was better for their cloud environments over the AWS AZ model, but there are limitations with just using regions.

The biggest issue with a region only approach is that the network between each region and the large distance between them would only allow asynchronous replication. This translates to data discrepancies as it was impossible to achieve a recovery point objective of zero which means possible data loss should an Azure region have an outage and you need to fail over your application and services. Now dependent on what business you are in this loss of data maybe not such a big problem, but if for example you are a bank, where a loss of 1 millisecond of data could contain millions of dollars of lost transactions that would be a huge problem. Luckily for us, Microsoft is rapidly building more datacentres and availability zones

Microsoft Azure Regions

Microsoft has currently at the time of writing this article 54 Azure regions available worldwide and is available in 140 countries. An Azure region is very similar to an AWS region, being that they are sets of datacentres that are connected with a low latency network between them. Microsoft do have selected Region pairs, depending on the storage replication you choose, your data will be asynchronously replicated to the closest available region. (For example, if your main Azure Region is Melbourne, your data can be replicated to the Sydney Region).

Microsoft Azure Availability Zones

Microsoft’s Azure Availability Zones are being rolled out over the next few years, so we can expect them to have the same resiliency as AWS for your cloud Azure VM deployments. The Azure AZs are unique physical locations and have independent power, cooling and networking from each other, with the physical separation providing you with protection from datacentre failure. Azure Regions and Availability Zones will provide you with a reliable, resilient and expanding platform for you to utilise for your cloud virtual machines.

So what are the differences between Azure and AWS?

Just focusing on what is discussed above, we can surmise the following;

Microsoft Azure currently has 54 regions versus AWS’s 22. Depending where your user or client base is, and to ensure quick response times of your infrastructure, Microsoft’s Azure maybe the only choice.
Microsoft have more regions closer to one another than AWS. (In Australia for example, we have four Azure Regions (but not Availability Zones as yet) compared to AWS only having the one). If for example AWS had a major outage that caused an issue to effect their whole Sydney Region, then you could possibly failover to Singapore, but expect lower performance due to the increased distance and latency (could be a problem if you have data sovereignty and need to keep your data within the Australian boundary) compared to Microsoft having four possible regions to utilise should a region have major failure. (should be noted here that two of the Australia Regions (Central 1 and 2) are only approved for use by Defense, Government and Banking, if your business does not fall under this category then you will only be able to use either Melbourne or Sydney)
AWS has more availability zones per region currently than Microsoft does, but Microsoft plan to roll out the Availability Zones as quickly as they can, so expect them to eventually have the same construct as AWS. Of course they have more regions so eventually they will over take AWS in this number.

All this alludes to two very competitive cloud vendors both trying to convince you to use their services, we really are spoilt for choice.

Azure and AWS Regions Comparison

Feature	AWS	Azure
Availability Zones	69 zones in 22 regions	Availability zones currently being rolled out
Regions	22 regions	54 regions
Virtual Machines (VMs)	Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)	Azure Virtual Machines
Load Balancing	Elastic Load Balancer (ELB)	Azure Load Balancer
Storage	Simple Storage Service (S3)	Azure Blob Storage
Database	Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)	Azure SQL Database
Hybrid Cloud	AWS Outposts	Azure Arc
Pricing model	Pay-as-you-go and reserved instances	Pay-as-you-go and reserved instances
Support options	Basic, Developer, Business, and Enterprise	Basic, Developer, Standard, and Premium

Azure and AWS FAQs

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services over the internet, including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence. It allows organizations to use shared computing resources rather than maintaining their own infrastructure.

What are the benefits of using cloud computing?

Some of the benefits of using cloud computing include:

Cost savings: Cloud computing eliminates the need for expensive hardware and maintenance.
Scalability: Organizations can easily scale their computing resources up or down based on their needs.
Accessibility: Cloud computing allows access to data and applications from anywhere with an internet connection.
Reliability: Cloud providers typically offer high levels of uptime and resilience.
Security: Cloud providers often have robust security measures in place to protect data.

What is AWS?

AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a cloud computing platform provided by Amazon. It offers a wide range of services, including computing, storage, databases, analytics, networking, mobile, developer tools, and security.

What is Azure?

Azure is a cloud computing platform provided by Microsoft. It offers similar services to AWS, including computing, storage, databases, networking, developer tools, and security.

How do AWS and Azure compare in terms of pricing?

Pricing for both AWS and Azure can vary based on usage, but generally, AWS is considered to be slightly more expensive for some services. However, the pricing models and discounts offered by each provider can be complex, so it’s important to compare specific services and usage patterns to determine which provider offers the best value.

How do AWS and Azure compare in terms of features and functionality?

AWS and Azure offer many similar services, but there are some differences in their offerings. For example, AWS has a wider range of services overall, while Azure has more specialized services for certain industries, such as healthcare and government.

How do AWS and Azure compare in terms of uptime and resilience?

Both AWS and Azure have high levels of uptime and resilience, but there are some differences in their approaches to these areas. AWS typically uses a global network of data centers and multiple availability zones to provide high availability and resilience, while Azure uses a similar approach with its own global network of data centers and availability zones.

In the next blog post in this series, I will delve deeper in to AWS and Azure around the best practices for each vendor and how to ensure the uptime of your Virtual Machines, and since you are here dont forget to check out just some of our software designed specifically for Azure.

Update SCCM to Version 1906 – Easy Update Instructions

by Mark | Aug 20, 2019 | Features, Fixes, How To, SCCM

Step by Step guide on how to update to SCCM 1906

Hi all, Microsoft has just recently released their latest iteration to SCCM, version 1906. With this update of SCCM comes quite a few welcome features and to find out more go to this link on the Microsoft site.

But you are here to see how easy it is to upgrade your SCCM to the current branche 1906.

So let’s get started on the upgrade process for SCCM 1906.

As always when performing any upgrades, make sure that you have a good known valid backup or snapshot of the servers you are targeting. Once you have confirmed you have both or either of these in place, open your SCCM console with your SCCM administration account.
Now click on Administration then highlight Updates and Servicing.
Now in the main Window you should hopefully see the SCCM 1906 update is Ready to Install. If not, click on Check for Updates and allow for sometime for SCCM to download the latest branch update from the Microsoft site. Remember to refresh your window as it wont show up automatically.
As you can see from the prior picture, our environment has the SCCM 1906 update all ready to install and that our previous SCCM 1902 updates had been installed. First thing we need to do is to Run prerequisite check. Highlight the Configuration Manager 1906 update, right click and choose Run prerequisite check.
This check will take a little time, you can see the status of the check by refreshing the window.

You can also select Monitoring in the SCCM console Window, navigate to Updates and Servicing, highlight the Configuration Manager 1906 update, right click that and choose show status for a more detailed display of the status of the prerequisite check of SCCM 1906.
(now this may take sometime to allow the 1906 upgrade to confirm that your SCCM environment is ready for the install, so always be patient)
OK, hopefully your SCCM environment passed all the checks to confirm it is ready for the SCCM 1906 installation. Now go back to the Administration and you should see that the Prerequisite Check Passed for the Configuration Manager 1906 update as below.
Now to the gritty stuff, we are ready to start the upgrade process for SCCM 1906. Again, highlight the Configuration Manager 1906 update, right click and choose Install Update Pack.
You are now presented with the Configuration Manager Updates Wizard. Click on Next when you are ready to start the installation, this will take around 30 – 45 minutes to complete so make sure you have a big enough change window for the update process.
On the second windows of the SCCM updates wizard, carefully choose any options / features that you require and then click on Next.
Client Update Settings window allows you to choose if you would like to validate the client update on members of a Pre-Production collection so that you can test there are no issues with the update. As this is one of SmiKar’s software test environments, I am going to just Upgrade without Validating. When you are ready to proceed click on Next.
We are almost ready to start the installation and upgrade to SCCM 1906. On the License Terms window, you can read the License Terms if you wish to do so, click on Next when you are ready for the next step.
Now the last step before the upgrade process starts off. On the Configuration Manager Updates Wizard Summary Window, check the settings and details you want have been selected and then finally click on Next. This will start the upgrade to SCCM 1906 so make sure you want to do this.
The last window you can now close and the SCCM 1906 update will complete in the background.
Now what if you dont want to refresh the SCCM console window and wish to see more details about what is happening with the update to SCCM 1906. Well you can easily get a more detailed view of the upgrade process by going to the local C Drive of your SCCM server and opening the ConfigMgrSetup.log file. If you have Trace32 installed to read your log files, it will display this in a nice and easy to read fashion.
Alternatively to see the update, in your SCCM Console go to Monitoring then Updates and Servicing Status, highlight the Configuration Manage 1906 update, right click and choose Show Status. In the Update Pack Installation Status window, highlight Installation and you can also see the what the SCCM 1906 update is doing.
Hopefully after some time (it took around 30 minutes to complete the upgrade to SCCM 1906 in our test environment), everything should have installed and updated your SCCM to the latest branche. You may get a warning that your Configuration Manager console needs to be updated as well.
Close the console then reopen to update. (the SCCM 1906 update took a few minutes to complete in the lab)
Finally after quite a few easy steps, we can confirm that the SCCM environment successfully installed to the current branche, SCCM 1906.

Now that you have updated your SCCM to version 1906, perhaps you use SCCM to patch your virtual server environment. While you are here, check out SnaPatch and see how it allows you to have an easy roll back position should any issues with your patch deployment occurs.

How to clone a Azure VM

by Mark | Aug 2, 2019 | Azure, Azure VM Deployment, clone, How To

How to clone a Azure VM

If you ever need to duplicate or clone your Azure VMs or perhaps even migrate your Azure VMs from Azure Service Manager (ASM) to Azure Resource Manager (ARM) you can use one of our Azure Management Tools, Azure VM Cloner (AVMC) to quickly and easily do this for you. (You can download a fully functioning trial here)

In the last blog post I showed you how you could schedule the deployment of Azure VMs. Using those same VMs and Azure Subscription I will now show you how we can clone your Azure VMs.

Why clone your Azure VM?

Use Case	Description
Disaster Recovery	In case of a disaster or outage, having a cloned VM in a different Azure region or datacenter can provide a quick failover option and ensure business continuity.
Testing and Development	Cloning a VM can provide a safe and isolated environment for testing and development purposes without affecting the production environment.
Scaling Out	Cloning a VM can help quickly and easily scale out an application or service by creating multiple copies of the same VM to distribute the workload.
Migrating to a New Subscription	When migrating to a new Azure subscription, cloning a VM can help ensure that all the necessary configurations and settings are preserved.
Creating a Backup	Cloning a VM can also serve as a backup option in case the original VM experiences any issues or failures.

Cloning an Azure Virtual Machine

Start cloning your Azure VM

Start up the Azure VM Cloner tool then click on Clone Virtual Machine in the home window

Select the Azure VM to Clone

Next we are presented with a list of the Azure VMs you have in your subscription. Highlight one of the Virtual Machines and then click on Next.

Shutdown your Azure VM to be Cloned

Note if the VM is running you will get the following error. Best to shutdown any virtual machines within Azure that you need to clone.

Choose the Destination for your cloned Azure VM

We are next presented on some destination settings we need to migrate the cloned Azure VM to. Choose your Azure Target Subscription (you can clone your Azure VMs across subscriptions only if you have access)
Select a target Azure Resource Group and then finally the Azure Location for the VM to reside in.
Click on NEXT to continue with the cloning process.

Cloned Azure VM Destination Storage Account

Now we need to choose which Azure storage account to place the cloned Azure VM in.

Highlight the correct storage account then click on NEXT.

Cloned Azure VM Destination vNet

The next selection window we are presented with is the Azure Virtual Network that you would like the cloned virtual machine in.

Highlight the correct Azure vNet and again click on NEXT. The Azure VM Cloner will read the vnet configuration before continuing.

Choose the VM Size for your cloned VM

The last configuration window before the cloning of the Azure VM kicks off is the VM sizing window. Choose an Azure VM size and give the server a name.

You can also select whether to shutdown the cloned VM on completion, Send an email to let you know once done and even convert the disks to Azure Managed Disks if they were in an Azure Storage Account before.
Click on START CLONE to continue.

Ready to start the cloning of your Azure VM

You are now ready to proceed with the cloning process. The Cloning Warning screen informs you that may have two servers with the same SIDs and computers names after the server has been cloned, this is of course not something you want to have happen in a Production environment.

Read the warning and when you are ready to do so, check the Understood and Accepted then click on START.

Cloning process for your Azure VM

In the Console Output you can see the tasks and status of your Azure VM cloning and as seen in the Azure Portal you can see that the VM has now cloned successfully.

Now the last things you will need to do if it is a Microsoft Windows virtual machine that you cloned, is to login with its local Administrator account and password and possibly run a Sysprep to change the server name and SSID before you rejoin it to the domain.

Download a Trial of Azure VM Cloner today.

To trial our Azure VM Cloner, fill in the form below to get access to download the trial software.

The cost of our Azure VM Cloner is $500 USD.

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Cloning an Azure VM is an important process that can save you a lot of time and effort. With Azure VM Cloner (AVMC), you can easily and quickly clone your Azure VMs, ensuring that you have an exact replica of the original virtual machine. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can clone your Azure VMs with ease, without any errors or issues.

How to Schedule Azure VM Deployment – Step-by-Step Guide

by Mark | Jul 30, 2019 | Azure, Azure VM Deployment, Deployment, Features, How To, Schedule

How to schedule the deployment of Azure VMs

Automate Azure VM Deployment

If you need to schedule the regular deployment of your Azure VMs, you can do this easily with one of our Azure tools, AVMD (Azure VM Deployer). With the Azure VM deployer you can deploy single and multiple Virtual Machines quickly, easily and repeatably.

AVMD is completely FREE, you can download it from here and start using it right away.

Hopefully you have AVMD all setup and an azure admin account with the appropriate permissions to your Azure tenant to start the scheduled deployment of your Azure VMs.

Azure VM Deployment Use Cases

Use Case	Description
Dev/Test Environments	Scheduling Azure VM deployment for development and testing environments allows for efficient use of resources by creating and deleting VMs as needed. For example, a development team might schedule VM deployment during business hours and delete them at the end of the day to avoid wasting resources.
Batch Processing	Scheduling Azure VM deployment for batch processing can help optimize resource utilization by only creating VMs when needed. This can be particularly useful for applications that require large amounts of compute resources for short periods of time, such as data analysis or video encoding.
Disaster Recovery	Scheduling Azure VM deployment for disaster recovery can help ensure that backup VMs are always available and up-to-date. This can be critical in the event of a system failure or other outage.
Scheduled Maintenance	Scheduling Azure VM deployment for scheduled maintenance can help minimize the impact of maintenance on users by automatically redirecting traffic to other VMs while maintenance is performed.
High Availability	Scheduling Azure VM deployment for high availability can help ensure that VMs are always available to users. This can be achieved by automatically creating new VMs when existing ones fail or become unavailable.
Cost Optimization	Scheduling Azure VM deployment can help optimize costs by only creating VMs when they are needed, and deleting them when they are no longer needed. This can be particularly useful for organizations that have variable workloads or need to closely manage their cloud spend.

Launch the Azure VM Deployer

To start automating and scheduling deployment of your Azure VMS, simply open up Azure VM Deployer and let is synchronise with your Azure environment.

Scan your Azure Tenancy First

First, ensure that you have the AVMD tool downloaded and set up on your machine. You’ll also need an Azure admin account with the necessary permissions to your Azure tenant to deploy VMs. Once you’re ready to begin, launch the Azure VM Deployer and allow it to synchronize with your Azure environment.

Azure VM Deployment Settings

You can now start filling out all the settings to deploy your VMs to your Azure subscription.
Provide a Name for your Virtual Server
Choose the Servers Operating System
Azure Subscription
Azure Availability Zone Location
Azure Resource Group
Choose the Azure Virtual Machine size
Provide a local Administrator account and password
Join the VM automatically a domain (You will need an account with Domain Join Permissions)
Which Azure Storage account you wish to deploy the VM to
Any additional disks you want to add to the VM during deployment
The Azure vNet and Subnet
Further additional options if you want VM diagnostics, Azure Log Analytics, a Basic NSG, Public IP, Azure Resource Tags and finally if you want to shutdown the VM post deployment.Click Add to queue when you have filled out all the Azure VM details and it will populate these settings to the Deployment Queue.

Provide a name for your Azure VM

For any additional VMs, keep filling out the details and add them to the queue too. If the servers are all the same type and settings you just need to update the server name before adding them to the deployment queue.

Azure VM Details

Now when you have added all the Virtual Machines you wish to deploy to Azure you are now ready to start deployment, but you may want to just confirm that your VM settings are correct. Simply right click the blue icon next to each Virtual Machine in the Deployment Queue and choose Show Details

Azure VM Deployment Schedule Creation

Now lets start the deployment of your Azure Virtual Machines. Click the DEPLOY button in the bottom left hand corner and you are now presented with the options to deploy right now or schedule the VM deployment of your Azure VMs.

Azure VM New Deployment Schedule

In this example we will schedule the deployment of the Azure VMs, so click on schedule, then on OK to start the schedule creation.

Azure VM New Deployment Schedule

We are now prompted to create the schedule to deploy your Azure Virtual Machines, click on New.

Scheduled Deployment Execution

In this example we will schedule the deployment of the Azure VMs, so click on schedule, then on OK to start the schedule creation.

Schedule Creation

We are now prompted to create the schedule to deploy your Azure Virtual Machines, click on New.

Schedule Settings

Simply put in the date and time you wish for your Azure VMs to deploy at then click OK. (You can set to schedule this once off, or a reoccurring daily, weekly or monthly schedule.)

Schedule Date and Time Settings

Confirm that the date and time you want to schedule the VMs for deployment to your Azure subscription is correct.

Confirm the Schedule is Correct

Click on OK in the scheduler window and the deployment task is now confirmed.

Scheduled Deployment is underway

My scheduled deployment has now kicked off and we can see in my Azure Portal that the machines are now deploying.

Scheduled Deployment Alerting

If you had set up your email alerts, you will receive an email letting you know that your VMs have now deployed to Azure.

After some time your Azure Virtual Machines should have now deployed. As seen in the Azure Portal I can see that our Azure VMs are up and running, in the correct resource group, Azure Subscription and Azure Location.

Dont forget that the Azure VM Deployer is completely free and one of our Azure Management Tools.

Azure VMs are now deployed

After some time your Azure Virtual Machines should have now deployed. As seen in the Azure Portal I can see that our Azure VMs are up and running, in the correct resource group, Azure Subscription and Azure Location.

Dont forget that the Azure VM Deployer is completely free and one of our Azure Management Tools.

Azure FAQs

Question	Answer
What is Azure VM deployment?	Azure VM deployment is the process of creating and managing virtual machines in the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
What are the benefits of using Azure VMs?	Azure VMs offer a wide range of benefits, including scalability, flexibility, security, and cost-effectiveness.
How do I create a new Azure VM?	You can create a new Azure VM through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell.
What operating systems are supported on Azure VMs?	Azure VMs support a wide range of operating systems, including Windows Server, Linux, and various distributions of Unix.
What are the different VM sizes available in Azure?	Azure offers a variety of VM sizes, ranging from small, low-cost instances to large, high-performance instances.
How can I manage and monitor my Azure VMs?	You can manage and monitor your Azure VMs through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell, as well as third-party tools such as Azure Monitor and Azure Log Analytics.
What are availability sets in Azure VM deployment?	Availability sets are used to ensure high availability for VMs by distributing them across multiple physical servers in a data center.
How can I secure my Azure VMs?	You can secure your Azure VMs through a variety of measures, including network security groups, firewall rules, and encryption.
What is Azure Site Recovery and how does it work with VMs?	Azure Site Recovery is a disaster recovery solution that can be used to replicate and recover VMs in the event of a site outage or other disaster.
How can I optimize the performance of my Azure VMs?	You can optimize the performance of your Azure VMs through various means, such as selecting the appropriate VM size, optimizing disk performance, and using caching.

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