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Planning Considerations for Upgrading to VMM

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager

This topic presents some important issues for you to consider when you plan your upgrade to System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager (VMM). In addition to these planning considerations, you should also review Prerequisites for Upgrading to VMM.

Common planning considerations

Item Planning consideration
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 - Virtual machine hosts running Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 are no longer supported in VMM.
- If you upgrade a VMM environment that has Virtual Server hosts, the hosts are removed from the VMM database.
- If you do not want these hosts to be removed automatically, you must remove the hosts manually before you upgrade.
VMware ESX and certain versions of VMware vCenter Server - Virtual machine hosts running certain versions of VMware ESX and certain versions of VMware vCenter Server are no longer supported.
- For more information about which versions of VMware are supported, see System Requirements: VMware ESX Hosts in System Center 2012 and in System Center 2012 SP1.
- If you upgrade with these hosts and their managed objects, they are removed from the VMM database.
- If you do not want these hosts to be removed automatically, you must remove the hosts manually before you upgrade.
Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) - Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) configurations are not maintained during an upgrade to System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager.
- Any existing connection to Operations Manager is removed during the upgrade process.
- If you do not want the Operations Manager connection to be automatically removed, you can remove the connection manually before the upgrade.
- After the upgrade process completes, you can reconfigure your connection to Operations Manager.
- For information about using Operations Manager with System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager, see Configuring Operations Manager Integration with VMM.
Library server - System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager does not support a library server on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003.
- If your library server is running Windows Server 2003 and you continue with the upgrade, you will not be able to use the library server in System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager. You can only remove the library server from System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager.
- If you want to use the library server in System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager, click Cancel to exit the upgrade and then move the library server to a computer that is running a supported operating system.
- For information about VMM library server requirements, see System Requirements: VMM Library Server in System Center 2012 and in System Center 2012 SP1.
Service account For more information, see Choosing Service Account and Distributed Key Management Settings During an Upgrade.
Distributed key management For more information, see Choosing Service Account and Distributed Key Management Settings During an Upgrade.

Planning Considerations for highly available VMM

The following table includes several important items to consider when you plan an upgrade to a highly available VMM management server in System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager.

Item Planning consideration
Failover cluster - You must create and configure a failover cluster prior to upgrading.
- For information about installing and configuring a failover cluster, see Overview of Failover Clusters.
VMM database - The VMM database cannot be installed on the same computer as the highly available VMM management server.
- If your VMM database currently resides on the same server as the VMM server running VMM 2008 R2 SP1, you must move the VMM database to another computer.
- We recommend that the VMM database resides on a highly available installation of SQL Server. We also recommend that the highly available installation of SQL Server is installed on a separate failover cluster from the failover cluster on which you are installing the highly available VMM management server.
- For information about moving a VMM database to another computer, see How to Move a VMM Database to Another Computer as Part of a VMM Upgrade.
Library server - We recommend that the library server is installed on a highly available file server.
- We recommend that after you upgrade to a highly available VMM management server, you should relocate your VMM library to a highly available file server.
- For more information about relocating your VMM library after the upgrade, see Relocating the VMM Library.
VMM Self-Service Portal Note: As of System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1), the VMM Self-Service Portal has been removed. - The VMM Self-Service Portal should not be installed on the same computer as the highly available VMM management server.
- If your VMM Self-Service Portal currently resides on the same computer as the VMM server, we recommend that you uninstall the VMM Self-Service Portal for VMM 2008 R2 SP1 before you upgrade to System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager.
- We recommend that you install the VMM Self-Service Portal on a highly available web server.
Service account - You must configure the System Center Virtual Machine Manager service to use a domain account for a highly available VMM management server.
- For more information, see Choosing Service Account and Distributed Key Management Settings During an Upgrade.
Distributed key management - You must use distributed key management to store encryption keys in Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) for a highly available VMM management server.
- For more information, see Choosing Service Account and Distributed Key Management Settings During an Upgrade.

For additional guidance about configuring a highly available VMM management server, see Installing a Highly Available VMM Management Server.

Additional considerations

  • System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager provides an automatic rollback functionality for the event of a failure during the upgrade process. If a failure is detected during upgrade, the system automatically reverts to the pre-upgrade VMM 2008 R2 SP1 configuration.

  • The names of the VMM services have changed in System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager. If you have any scripts or tools that refer to these service names, you must update the service names as shown in the following table.

    Version Service display name Service name
    VMM 2008 R2 SP1 - Virtual Machine Manager
    - Virtual Machine Manager Agent
    - vmmservice
    - vmmagent
    System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager - System Center Virtual Machine Manager
    - System Center Virtual Machine Manager Agent
    - scvmmservice
    - scvmmagent