Live Migrate - SCVMM 2012R2 + Generation 2 VM - fails with SCSI boot drive

lopoetve

Extremely [H]
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Oct 11, 2001
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So, I'm a wee bit stumped on this.

I've been building out my "alternative" hypervisor environments, including Xen/Hyper-V/KVM/etc, and ran into a snag on the Hyper-V side.

Started out with a pair of plain-ol 2012 R2 hyper-V servers, set up a shared volume, enabled clustering through the failover cluster manager, and built some VMs. Everything has been working great - I could migrate VMs between nodes, failovers worked, everything was going just fine. I built two Generation 2 VMs (both booting from SCSI disks), and a single Generation 1 VM (Windows 7, booting from IDE) - all worked great.

Then I finally got around to installing SCVMM in evaluation mode to learn more on that side, and ran into the problem - I can live migrate the Generation 1 VM from failover cluster manager, or from SCVMM, but I can't live migrate the Generation 2 VMs from SCVMM (only from failover cluster manager).

I'm getting:
Virtualization platform on host BLAH doesn't allow boot and system volumes to be on a disk attached to SCSI adapter. Disk at location (SCSI,0,0) must be attached to the IDE bus for the machine to boot up and work properly.

The problem is, of course, that it's a generation 2 vm - it doesn't even HAVE an IDE controller! Google searching has led me to an issue with templates and a power shell command to fix those, but this is a VM that was created and installed the old fashioned way - no template at all. It's always been a generation 2 VM. I can still migrate via the failover manager - any ideas what's going on? I'm running a total blank.

In addition - creating VMs only seems to want to allow me to create Generation 1 VMs.

I'm on Windows 2012 R2 Datacenter, with System Center 2012 SP1 - 3.1.6011.0.
 
/me looks at the download

Said SCVMM 2012 R2...

/me swears a little

>_<
 
I've actually been having recurring nightmares about taking a job and having to support Hyper-V
 
I've actually been having recurring nightmares about taking a job and having to support Hyper-V

Hyper-V standalone: Ok.
Hyper-V with failover cluster manager: Ok... Windows networking sucks though
SCVMM: Dead God... what sin did I commit for THIS?
 
Hyper-V standalone: Ok.
Hyper-V with failover cluster manager: Ok... Windows networking sucks though
SCVMM: Dead God... what sin did I commit for THIS?

True. It is the SCVMM I am not fond of. Unfortunately it seems to be out there a lot. I may interview at a company next week that uses it in addition to VMware. :(
 
SCVMM is a decent product if used as a cloud manager and enabler. If you try to use it like vCenter, it's going to fall short. It wasn't designed for that. It's more analogous to vCloud Director than vCenter in many ways though it does have some "vCenter-eque" features.

Still, I'd rather they built a more vCenter like product and what vCenter is supposed to do is absorbed into the other SC products.
 
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They must be why I don't like it. I didn't like VCD at all either. :D

When you shift your perspective on what it's for, it becomes a more useful tool. Too many people with VMware experience try to use SCVMM just like vCenter and, not surprisingly, don't like it.
 
When you shift your perspective on what it's for, it becomes a more useful tool. Too many people with VMware experience try to use SCVMM just like vCenter and, not surprisingly, don't like it.

Well, VCD is a cloud solution for multi-tenancy. If that is what SCVMM is like, then it is kind of hard to shift my perspective and understand how to use it to manage a single enterprise. To me, vCenter is fairly straightforward. Even when I was learning it, most of it just makes sense.
 
When you shift your perspective on what it's for, it becomes a more useful tool. Too many people with VMware experience try to use SCVMM just like vCenter and, not surprisingly, don't like it.

That's fair, but then they REALLY have to have an enterprise, infrastructure management solution. Failover cluster manager doesn't cut it, and SCVMM is overkill.
 
Well, VCD is a cloud solution for multi-tenancy. If that is what SCVMM is like, then it is kind of hard to shift my perspective and understand how to use it to manage a single enterprise. To me, vCenter is fairly straightforward. Even when I was learning it, most of it just makes sense.

So is SCVMM. It's intended more for internal multi-tenancy than external, however, just imagine if you sat a VMware noobie in front of vCD and expected them to pick it right up. Same is true with Hyper-V and SCVMM. Don't knock it just because it isn't what you expect.
 
That's fair, but then they REALLY have to have an enterprise, infrastructure management solution. Failover cluster manager doesn't cut it, and SCVMM is overkill.

That's why the System Center suite is all or nothing. If you want VMM you're also getting SCORCH, SCOM, SCCM, DPM, etc. It's one SKU. So, yes, typically only big shops are using VMM. Those that don't use Hyper-V Manager, Failover Cluster Manager, Powershell, and/or 3rd party products.

Microsoft really does need a simple "vCenter" like software product, like VMM-lite or something.
 
Yeah, but how many places actually HAVE all that running? That's like requiring vRA, AppD, vCO, vCM, and vCOPS just to get vCenter. :( They really need that intermediate step.
 
Yeah, but how many places actually HAVE all that running? That's like requiring vRA, AppD, vCO, vCM, and vCOPS just to get vCenter. :( They really need that intermediate step.

Many have them licensed but don't run them all thanks to the all or nothing licensing scheme.

Hyper-V really is a solid product but can be temperamental just like old ESX was. The management side is not its strong suit.
 
Many have them licensed but don't run them all thanks to the all or nothing licensing scheme.

Hyper-V really is a solid product but can be temperamental just like old ESX was. The management side is not its strong suit.

Management is table stakes. Either you have it, or you're not playing the game :(

Got it updated, now dealing with the fact that it randomly thinks half the VMs are broken due to something with networking. Digging into that - found several technet articles, so this one I should be able to find.
 
So is SCVMM. It's intended more for internal multi-tenancy than external, however, just imagine if you sat a VMware noobie in front of vCD and expected them to pick it right up. Same is true with Hyper-V and SCVMM. Don't knock it just because it isn't what you expect.

I am not knocking it. I am saying the same thing as lopoetve, and the same thing as you.

Microsoft really does need a simple "vCenter" like software product, like VMM-lite or something.

I've been a Microsoft guy my whole life and picking up vCenter was far easier than SCVMM. Hyper-V as a standalone I don't really have any issues with other than I am not overly fond of the networking.
 
I've been a Microsoft guy my whole life and picking up vCenter was far easier than SCVMM. Hyper-V as a standalone I don't really have any issues with other than I am not overly fond of the networking.

Yeah, they did a really poor job with the management products for Hyper-V to the point that either you get really good with Powershell or just buy a 3rd party product. It's a huge reason adoption of Hyper-V isn't taking off like it could.
 
Yeah, they did a really poor job with the management products for Hyper-V to the point that either you get really good with Powershell or just buy a 3rd party product. It's a huge reason adoption of Hyper-V isn't taking off like it could.

If your answer to management is "scripting engine!" then, much like vCO has become with vRA, my answer is simple:

"You've failed."

Doubly so since Windows networking is a complete and utter pile of shit. :p

/me goes to find a crash cart for the server he just tried to fix that now can no longer talk on the network.

Is it just me, or does Hyper-V seem very confused when you have more than one network adapter on the same network?
 
If your answer to management is "scripting engine!" then, much like vCO has become with vRA, my answer is simple:

"You've failed."[\quote]

Agreed.

Doubly so since Windows networking is a complete and utter pile of shit. :p

/me goes to find a crash cart for the server he just tried to fix that now can no longer talk on the network.

Is it just me, or does Hyper-V seem very confused when you have more than one network adapter on the same network?

What issues are you having with the network? I'll admit it takes getting used to when you've been using VMware for years, but it's not a steaming pile.

Same network as in same broadcast domain?

I'd be happy to lend a hand if you want. Just call, text, or send me a Webex invite.
 
So, my hosts have two network adapters - a fast one, and a slow one (don't ask, they're weird hosts - one is wired, the other is wireless of all things).

I built a Virtual Switch on the fast one (Wired networking), and a virtual switch on the slow one (VM networking).
The fast one is primarily used for storage (iSCSI at the moment, SMB3 in the future) and for live migrations, while the slow one was supposed to be for the actual VM traffic - worked fine at first :)

Now that I've got SCVMM installed, it's attached the logical network (my domain network) to the wired connection, and doesn't have one for the wireless connection (for the VMs), so any VM on the "VM Network" are listed as non-highly available. I can't find any place to associate that logical network to the other Virtual Switch.

If I move the VMs over to the Wired Networking Virtual Switch, they go to 100% perfectly fine, of course (have to do it through Hyper-V manager, since SCVMM won't let you do it to a failed VM...), but I want them on their own network, not on the one used for storage/everything else :)
 
Yeah, they did a really poor job with the management products for Hyper-V to the point that either you get really good with Powershell or just buy a 3rd party product. It's a huge reason adoption of Hyper-V isn't taking off like it could.

Just curious, what is a decent 3rd party product?
 
Hyper-V virtual switches on wireless adapters are sketchy at best and require some workarounds to get them to work properly. Do you have both virtual switches defined on the host? Right click the host and select Properties to ensure the switch is checked under each physical network adapter.

How do you have your logical networks built?
 
Hyper-V virtual switches on wireless adapters are sketchy at best and require some workarounds to get them to work properly. Do you have both virtual switches defined on the host? Right click the host and select Properties to ensure the switch is checked under each physical network adapter.

How do you have your logical networks built?

It built the logical network for me. I tried creating a new one (domain-wireless), but i can't associate it with anything.

Both switches are on every host :) They were there when I just had it running under FCM.


edit: moved everything to wired for the moment to see how it does.
 
LOL. Just remember, you did this to yourself. :p

No choice - gotta support them all. :p Next up is building a low-heat/power Xen cluster again (the PE 840s were stupid expensive to run), and then OpenStack.
 
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