How to Migrate VMware to Hyper-V (8): Setup VMM Networking

Welcome to this guide’s SCVMM networking configuration. You need the tables you created in part 7 to complete the tasks in part 8 (this guide).

Task 1: Review Host Virtual Switches

Before proceeding with the tasks in this guide, you must review the virtual switch settings on the Hyper-V hosts to confirm they were correctly configured earlier in part 2.

To complete this tasks:

1. On the SCVMM console, navigate to the Fabric node and click the cluster. Then, right-click a Hyper-V host on the details pane and choose Properties.
2. On the host’s Properties sheet, click the Virtual Switches tab, then select the virtual switches and confirm that their Minimum Bandwidth Mode is set as shown in the table below:

Virtual Switch	Minimum Bandwidth Mode
Clu-vSwitch	Weight
Lmg-vSwitch	Weight
Mgt-vSwitch	None

If the settings on the hosts differ from those above, you did not use the commands in part 2 as I specified them. In that case, you must delete the virtual switches from Hyper-V Manager and recreate them with the steps and commands in part 2, Task 6: Create Switches on the Hyper-V Hosts.

Repeat the above steps for all Hyper-V hosts in VMM.

Task 2: Create Network Sites

In part 6, Task 2 of this series, we created a Network Site for the Mgt-vSwitch logical network. In this task, you’ll create the network site for the other two logical networks – Lmg-vSwitch and Clu-vSwitch – using Table 7.1 in part 7.

Here are the steps to create the second Network Site, Lmg-vSwitch_0:

1. On the Networking category, double-click Lmg-vSwitch to open its Properties.

2. After that, click the Network Site tab, then, the Add button, and choose Network Site.

3. On the new Network Site, check the Hyper-V checkbox under the Hosts groups that can use this network site. Then, click the Insert button under Associated VLANs and IP subnets – enter the VLAN ID and network subnet – then click OK.

Repeat the above steps to create a network site for the Clu-vSwitch Logical network. However, if your VM network (the management network) and cluster network are on the same IP subnet, you do not need to and cannot create a different network site for the cluster network. In this scenario, when you create an uplink port profile for the cluster (Task 3 below), use the Mgt-vSwitch_0 as its network site.

Task 3: Create Uplink Port Profiles

In this task, you’ll use the details in part 7, Table 7.3, to create a VMM uplink port profile for the three virtual networks. I will start by creating the uplink port profile for the Mgt-vSwitch logical network.

Here are the full steps:

1. From the Fabric node, navigate to Networking settings, right-click Port Profiles, and select Create Hyper-V Port Profile.

2. Then, on the General page, enter a name and description for the port profile. Choose the Uplink port profile and accept the defaults on the Type of Hyper-V Port Profile.

3. The Network configuration page should display the Network Site, Mgt-vSwitch_0, you created in Part 6, Task 2, and the Lmg-vSwitch_0 you created in Task 2 above. To assign the Mgt-vSwitch_0 network site to the port profile, check the checkbox before it.

4. Finally, on the Confirm Settings page, review your selections and click Finish to create the Uplink port profile.

Repeat the above steps to create the uplink port profiles, Lmg-vSwitch-uplink and Clu-vSwitch-uplink. When you create Clu-vSwitch-uplink, choose the Mgt-vSwitch_0 as its network site. This assumes that the two workloads are on the same VLAN network subnet – see the screenshots for guidance.

Task 4: Create Logical Switches

Use the information in part 7, Table 7.5 to create three VMM logical switches using the uplink port profiles you created in Task 3.

Task 4.1: Create a Logical Switch for Mgt-vSwitch (for VM Workloads)

In this sub-task, you’ll create a logical switch Mgt-vSwitch virtual network.

1. Select the Fabric node in SCVMM, then, on the Networking section, right-click Logical Switches and choose Create Logical Switches. Then, on the first page of the wizard, read the notes and click Next to proceed to the next page.

2. On the General tab, give the uplink a name and description, then, on the Uplink Mode drop-down, accept the default: Embedded Team.

The Embedded Team creates a VMM Logical Switch similar to the Hyper-V Virtual switch (Switch Embedded Team, SET) that we created in part 2, Task Task 6. Correction: when I created the logical switch, my description referred to the switch as an “uplink port profile”. This is wrong and I have updated it in the second second screenshot below.

3. Then, on the Specify logical switch settings, check the Enable single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) checkbox. Once you check this, the Minimum bandwidth mode will be set to None.

When we created the Hyper-V virtual switch, Mgt-vSwitch in part 2, Task 6, we enabled SR-IOV. So, the VMM logical switch must have this feature enabled to allow us to convert the Hyper-V virtual switch to this VMM Logical Switch.

4. On the Extensions page, click Next to continue. Then, on the Virtual Port page, click Next to continue.
5. When the Uplinks page loads, click Add, then, choose Existing Uplink Port Profile. The Add Uplink port profile popup should display just Mgt-vSwitch-uplink – the Uplink port profile you created in the previous task – click OK to choose the port profile.

6. Back in the Uplinks page, review the uplink port profile you just added to the VMM Logical switch you’re creating, then, click Next.

The Uplink port profile has all the information about this logical switch. Specifically, it shows that the switch’s load balancing algorithm is Host Default, and the Teaming Mode is Switch Independent. Additionally, the page also shows the network site and the Logical Network.

If I haven’t mentioned it already, when you add a Hyper-V host to SCVMM, SCVMM creates a Logical Network for all Hyper-V virtual switches on the host. Also, equally important, setting the Teaming mode to Host Default allows the Logical Switch to accept the load balancing algorithm set on the host’s virtual switch. If you recollect, when we created Switch Embedded Teams (SET) virtual switches, we set the balancing algorithm to Dynamic – so, this logical switch’s balancing algorithm will be set to Dynamic.

7. The final page provides a summary of the logical switch’s configurations. Review them, then click Finish to create the Logical Switch.

Task 4.2: Create a Logical Switch for Clu-vSwitch (for Cluster Workloads)

Use the information in part 2, Table 7.5 to create a VMM logical switch for the cluster network to attach to hosts.

1. Follow the steps in Task 4.1 until you get to Step 3. Then, on the Specify logical switch settings, DO NOT check the Enable single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) checkbox. The Minimum bandwidth mode drop-down should show Weight, accept it, and continue.

2. On the Extensions page, click Next to continue. Meanwhile, on the Virtual Port page, click Add, then, use the Browse buttons to select the the Port classification and Port profiles shown in my screenshot.

After your selections, click OK (not shown in my screenshot) to return to the Virtual Port screen. Then, review the information and click Next.

3. On the Uplinks page, click Add > Existing Uplink Port Profile. Then, on the Add Uplink Port Profile pop-up, choose Clu-vSwitch-uplink from the Port profile drop-down and click OK.

3. Back on the Uplinks page, click Next, review the settings, and click Finish.

Task 4.3: Create a Logical Switch for Lmg-vSwitch (for Live Migration Workloads)

Repeat the steps in Task 4.2 above. The only differences in this configuration are the name, description, Port classification, and Port profiles (step 2) and the Uplink Port profile (step 3).

For the Live Migration logical switch, use the settings shown in my screenshots below:

Task 5: Convert Virtual Switches to Logical Switches

From Tasks 1 to 4 of this guide, we configured SCVMM networking settings, which culminated in the creation of 3 logical switches. The purpose of creating logical switches is to apply them to Hyper-V hosts managed by SCVMM.

Having logical switches makes it easier to maintain consistent switch settings acrosss Hyper-V hosts managed by VMM. Since the current virtual switches on the Hyper-V hosts are standard switches, you will convert them to the equivalent SCVMM logical switch in this task.

To convert a host’s standard virtual switch to a VMM logical switch, follow these steps:

1. Click Fabric, then, with the cluster name selected, right-click a Hyper-V host and select Properties.

You can also open a Hyper-V host’s properties sheet by double-clicking it.

2. On the host’s properties sheet, click the Virtual Switches menu. Then, select a virtual switch to convert, then towards the bottom, click Convert to Logical Switch.

The Convert a Standard Switch to Logical Switch pop-up automatically detects the VMM Logical switch and Uplink port profile with the same configurations and name as the Hyper-V Standard Switch you’re converting.

The Convert to Logical Switch button will be grayed out if there is no VMM Logical switch with the same name and configuration settings as the Hyper-V virtual switch.

3. Click the Convert button to convert the standard virtual switch to a Logical Switch.

Repeat the above steps to convert the remaining standard switches in the current host. Also, complete the conversion for all Hyper-V hosts in VMM.

When a standard switch is converted to a Logical Switch, it displays information about its configuration. For example, when I select the Mgt-vSwitch logical switch, the details pane shows the network adapters used to create the Hyper-V standard switch in part 2, Task 6.

From this window, you can add more Physical network adapters on a host’s as a member of the Switch Embedded Team – isn’t this awesome?

Task 6: Notes on the Benefits of a VMM Logical Switch

To bring the benefit of what we have just achieved home, if I need to add another Hyper-V host to the cluster – or even a stand-alone VMM host – all I need to do on a host are the following:

1. Install Windows Server, rename the host in Windows, and rename the physical network adapters for ease of identification.
2. Assign one of the physical network cards an IP address in the management VLAN. This will allow the host to be joined to the domain and for VMM to communicate with it.
3. Patch the OS to the latest level.
4. Join the host the domain.
5. Install MPIO and claim the remote Fiber Channel LUMs. Alternatively, if you’re using iSCSI or any other type of disk, you must ensure that the new host has access to the same disks in the other cluster nodes (in case of adding a host to a cluster)

You can automate the above steps by adding a Windows Deployment Server as a PXE Server in the VMM’s Fabric > Infrastructure node.

After the above steps have been completed on the new Hyper-V host, when you add it to a VMM cluster or as a stand-alone host in VMM, the following happens:

1. VMM installs the VMM agent on the host
2. It also installs the Hyper-V role on the host
3. If you’re adding the host to a cluster, VMM also installs the Fail Over Cluster role on the host

Before adding a Hyper-V host to a cluster, you must add it to VMM as a stand-alone host in VMM first. See my sample script for adding a host to a cluster later in this section.

Finally, to assign the VMM Logical Switch to the new host and apply the switch’s configurations, open the host’s properties, click the Virtual Switches menu, and complete the process.

Also, configure the physical network adapters that make up each Hyper-V Standard Switch Embedded Team (SET), which is now appearing as a VMM Logical Switch.

A note on adding a Hyper-V host to a VMM cluster:
since VMM has some strict prerequisites for creating or adding new hosts to a cluster – for example, the network cards on the hosts MUST be of the same make, model, and driver version – to bypass this requirement, I use the PowerShell command, Install-SCVMHostCluster. The script below shows how to add a new Hyper-V host to a VMM cluster and skip validation.

#1. Get the Run As accout to use in adding the new host to a cluster
$RunAsAcct =
Get-SCRunAsAccount -Name <VMM Run As account>
#2. Get the VMM host group where the host and cluster lives
$HostGroup =
Get-SCVMHostGroup -Name "Hyper-V"
#3. Get the details of the new Hyper-V host
$NewNode =
Get-SCVMHost | where {$_.Name -eq <FQDN of the new VMM standa-alone host> -and
$_.VMHostGroup -eq $HostGroup}
#4. Get the cluster you're adding the new host
$VMHostCluster = Get-SCVMHostCluster -Name <Cluster FQDN>
#5. Update the cluster with the new host. 
Install-SCVMHostCluster -VMHostCluster $VMHostCluster -VMHost $NewNode -Credential $RunAsAcct -RunAsynchronously -SkipValidation

After converting virtual switches to VMM Logical switches, some of the switches on the hosts may be non-compliant with the settings of the Logical Switches. To check for and fix non-compliant virtual switches, follow these steps:

1. Click Fabric > Logical Switches > Hosts.

2. Then, look at the Network Compliance column for any non-compliant virtual switch or virtual network, right-click it, and choose Remediate.

To learn the reason for an item’s non-compliance, left-click it. VMM will display the issue in the details pane (bottom of the screen).

When the remediation is completed, the item will display “Compliant.”

You can also check for compliance and perform remediation from the Logical Networks > Hosts node. See the screenshot below.

Task 8: Create a Test VM

After converting the standard virtual switches in the hosts to Logical Switches, it is a good idea to create a new VM to test its ability to connect to the network.

You have completed part 8 of this series. In part 9a, you will integrate vCenter and ESXi hosts to VMM in preparation for migrating VMs.