Share via

Deploy VMM for high availability

  • Article

For resilience and scalability, you can deploy System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) in a high availability mode.

Before you start

Prepare for a high availability deployment by considering the following:

  • Only one instance of VMM can be deployed to a failover cluster of up to 16 nodes.
  • Requirements for computers running as VMM management nodes:
    • All cluster nodes that are VMM servers must be running Windows Server 2016.
    • Each cluster node must be joined to a domain and must have a computer name that doesn't exceed 15 characters.
    • The VMM service network name must not exceed 15 characters.
    • Windows ADK needs to be installed on each computer. Install from setup or the download center. Select Deployment Tools and Windows Preinstallation Environment when you install.
    • If you plan to deploy VMM services that use SQL Server data-tier applications, install the related command-line utilities on your VMM management server. The command line utility is available in the SQL Server 2012 feature pack or SQL Server 2014 feature pack or SQL Server 2016 feature pack.
  • Don't install on a Hyper-V host parent partition. You can install VMM on a VM.
  • Before you start, set up the VMM service account and distributed key management. Learn more

Prepare for a high availability deployment by considering the following:

  • Only one instance of VMM can be deployed to a failover cluster of up to 16 nodes.
  • Requirements for computers running as VMM management nodes:
    • All cluster nodes that are VMM servers must be running Windows Server 2025.
    • Each cluster node must be joined to a domain and must have a computer name that doesn't exceed 15 characters.
    • The VMM service network name must not exceed 15 characters.
    • Windows ADK needs to be installed on each computer. Install from setup or the download center. Select Deployment Tools and Windows Preinstallation Environment when you install.
    • If you plan to deploy VMM services that use SQL Server data-tier applications, install the related command-line utilities on your VMM management server. The command line utility is available in the SQL Server 2016 feature pack or later.
  • Don't install on a Hyper-V host parent partition. You can install VMM on a VM.
  • Before you start, set up the VMM service account and distributed key management. Learn more

Deploy high availability components

Next steps

Deploy a highly available VMM management server.