Windows Azure Pack: How to add and troubleshoot VM Clouds

Hi, folks!

Finally, this is the third and last part of series of posts related with Windows Azure Pack (WAP) and VMM Clouds. Previously we’ve described installation of Windows Azure Pack and Service Provider Foundation. Now it’s time to implement the first cloud service. No doubt the most popular service is VM Cloud. Let’s describe what is it and how to deploy one with WAP.

Requirements

Register SPF in Windows Azure Pack

1. Log in to WAP admin portal (in my case, https://wapportal.domain.com:30091)

2.Click on VM Clouds and then “Register System Center Service Provider Foundation ”

1. Type URL for Service Provider and provide required credentials

1. Verify status of SPF registration. It should be the same as shown on the pic below

Add SPF Service Account as VMM administrator

1. Log in to SPF Server, open IIS and note user identity for SPF Pools

1. Open VMM Console and connect to VMM

2. Go to Security –> User Roles –> Administrator and add SPF Service account to this role

or use PowerShell:

$UserRole = Get-SCUserRole -Name "Administrator"
Set-SCUserRole -UserRole $UserRole -AddMember Domain\SPFServiceAccount

Create VMM cloud

In this section we create BASIC VMM cloud only for demo purposes.You have to carefully plan/design your cloud components.

1. Add hosts to host group (VMs and Services –> right click on host group name –> add hyper-v hosts and clusters“) or PS:

#In my case, host group called as All Hosts and 1 member hv01

$runAsAccount = Get-SCRunAsAccount -Name "Administrator"
$hostgroup =  Get-SCVMHostGroup -Name "All Hosts"
Add-SCVMHost -ComputerName "hv01.domain.com" -VMHostGroup $hostgroup -Credential $runAsAccount

1. Add Logical Network (Fabric –Logical Networks – Add Logical Network).

#Create new logical network
$LogicalNetwork=New-SCLogicalNetwork -Name VM -LogicalNetworkDefinitionIsolation $false -EnableNetworkVirtualization $true -UseGRE $true -IsPVLAN $false
$HostGroup =@()
#Get Host Group
$HostGroup += Get-SCVMHostGroup -Name "All Hosts"
#Add VLAN Subnet ID and IP with netmask
$SubnetVLAN = @()
$SubnetVLAN += New-SCSubnetVLAN -Subnet "10.10.25.0/24" -VLAN 0
#New Definition for logical network VM
New-SCLogicalNetworkDefinition -Name VM -LogicalNetwork $LogicalNetwork -VMHostGroup $HostGroup -SubnetVLAN $SubnetVLAN

1. Add Library server if it has not deployed yet (Library –> Library Servers –> Add Library Server)

#Get Library Servers
Get-SCLibraryServer

Copy sysprepped vhds to Library (highlight library and click “Import Physical Resource” button) or through PS:

Import-SCLibraryPhysicalResource -SourcePath "path to VHDs" -SharePath "\\libraryFQDN\foldername"

In my demo, I use clean 2012 R2 Std with the latest updates.

1. Create new cloud (VMs and Services –> Clouds –> New Cloud). Pictures are clickable (see cloud properties from left to right)

Do not forget:  You must not select any of the available capability profiles (ESX Server, Hyper-V, XenServer) while creating the cloud.

If you do so, tenants will not be able to deploy virtual machine roles using the VM Clouds service.

That’s it . Our demo cloud is ready. But it’s not enough.

Now we need to create VM templates.

Create VM Templates

1.  Add hardware profiles (Library –> Profiles –> right click –> Create Hardware Profiles). I have one pre-created profile with the following properties:

Create a few profiles for different VM configurations, if it is necessary.

1. Go to Virtual Templates – right click and “Create VM Template” , use your sysprepped vhd as a source for VM template

Specify Template Name, Generation ID and choose Hardware Profile (it is not required but let’s do it ).

OS configuration page (my future VMs will be based on 2012 R2 Standard, so you have to verify that the right Operating System is specified):

The next step is VMM registration on WAP portal.

Register VMM in WAP

1. Log in to admin management portal (https://wapportal.domain.com:30091)

2. Go to VM Clouds –> Clouds and click on “Use an existing virtual machine cloud…”

1. Type VMM server name and Register

1. OMG! Look at this…it is my cloud

Create WAP Hosting Plan

1. Go to Plans and click on “Create a new hosting plan”

1. Devise friendly name for you plan

1. We want to provide VM Clouds

1. Just click next

5.Our demo plan is created. Verify that status is green.

1. Open newly created plan and go to “virtual machine clouds” service

7.Review and change properties (add virtual network, hardware profiles, vm templates) for service

Thanks to gallery items we have options to create workloads  (Exchange, Lync,SQL and etc) from gallery (just like in Azure). I will describe it my next posts.

Create new user account for WAP

Finally, we have to create user and map him to our plan with VM clouds service

Go to User Accounts and click on “Create a new user”

Type mail for example, password and choose plan. Click on Create

Our demo user (tenant) is created. Now you can access client management portal using this email address and password.

Create demo VM under tenant account

Open in IE https://wapportalfqdn:30081 and sign-in as tenant, then click on Virtual Machines

Standalone –> Quick Create –> choose template, type Name of VM and admin’s password and click on “Create VM Instance”

Woohooo!  As you can see out tenant successfully created testVM and VM is running.

From VMM side (vm creation progress):

User tenants (VMM side):

How to troubleshoot WAP,SPF,VMM

WAP Troubleshooting:

A ton of information you can find here:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn554311.aspx

My favorite steps:

• SPF Web services are running under the right account (check IIS, link is below)

• SPF Service account is in Administrator role in VMM (mentioned in this article)

• VMM Console on SPF server is working without any issues. You can retrieve VMM clouds,profiles and etc.

• Query https://spffqdn:8090/SC2012R2/VMM/Microsoft.Management.Odata.svc

• Query https://spffqdn/SC2012R2/VMM/Microsoft.Management.Odata.svc/VirtualMachines
  (Turn on feed reading view” should be unchecked in IE)

Additional links:

• The portal cannot load management data for this resource type and account subscription is out of sync
• Step-by-step installation of Service Provider Foundation 2012 R2
• Step-by-step installation of Windows Azure Pack
• Update Rollup 6 for System Center 2012 R2
• Poster: Networking in Virtual Machine Manager