Tag: VMware to Hyper-V Migration Guides

Welcome to the first part of my 12-part series, which will walk you through the steps to migrate VMware VMs to Hyper-V using SCVMM. I wrote this series to be suitable for a production or lab environment.

This series is also suitable for deploying a Hyper-V/VMM cluster.

In this first part, you will plan your environment.

The tasks in this first part of the hands-on deployment guide are for planning. Apart from downloading and preparing the required installation files, all subsequent tasks guide you through planning your deployment. Hyper-V Clustering/SCVMM deployment is complex, so planning is essential to ensure a successful deployment.

Task 1: Download Installation Files

Before downloading the required installation files, create the folders to save the files using this PowerShell script.

Run this script on a server where you intend to save the installation files. You need about 10 GB of free space on the drive where you create these folders for storing the installation files, which you will download shortly.

Get-Disk #lists all available disks in the server
Get-Partition -DiskNumber 1 #displays the partition
New-Item -Name Hyper-VFiles -ItemType Directory -Path E: #create a folder in drive E:
#Create subfolders in the Hyper-VFiles folder
#Change the Path parameter to the folder
“WinServer22”, “SQLServer22”, “SCVMMServer22”, “Drivers”, "SCVMM UR2", "WAC", "Veeam" | foreach-object {
New-Item -Name $_ -ItemType Directory -Path E:Hyper-VFiles }
#Create the share
$Parameters = @{
Name="Hyper-VFiles"
Path="E:Hyper-VFiles"
FullAccess="labAdministrator" }
New-SmbShare @Parameters

Download the following files and save them in the folders created with the above PowerShell script:

Download the following files and save them in the folders created with the above PowerShell script:

1. Windows Server 2022 ISO Image
   – this link downloads an evaluation copy of Windows
   – If you’re installing in a production, install a retail copy
   – I found out that converting a Windows Server 2022 Standard Server Core to full edition did not work as of August 2024 when I wrote this guide
   – The conversion works if you install an evaluation copy with the Desktop Experience (full GUI).
2. SQL Server 2022 Exe 
   – this link downloads an evaluation copy of SQL Server 2022
3. SCVMM prerequisite tools
   a) Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1809 10.1.17763.1
   b) Windows PE add-on for ADK, version 1809 10.1.17763.1
   c) Microsoft ODBC Driver 17  for SQL Server
   e) SQL Server Management Studio
   f) Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable (x86) – 12.0.30501
   g) Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable (x64)
4. SCVMM exe
   – this link downloads an evaluation copy of SCVMM 2022
5. Veeam Backup and Replication
   a) Requires a business email to download
   b) Download the Veeam installation files
   c) Request for a 30-day trial license
6. SCVMM UR2
   a) SCVMM Update Rollup 2
   b) SCVMM Admin Console R2 Update
   c) SCVMM Guest Agent R2 Update
   d) Registry key script
   When you download the files, rename them as shown in a), b), and c)
7. Windows Admin Center
   a) If you’re deploying Hyper-V on Windows Server Core, you require WAD to manage the servers
   b) Windows Admin Center is free

Task 2: Prepare Installation Files

The SCVMM and Microsoft SQL downloads from the Task 1 section are executables. I will show you how to create the installation files using the downloaded executables in the two subsections below.

Task 2.1: Download the SQL ISO Image

Ideally, you should be able to install SQL with the downloaded executable file. However, when I tried doing that, I got the error message, “SQL server 2020 oops, a required file could not be downloaded.”

The walkaround is to download the ISO image of the SQL Server installation. Here are the steps:

1. Double-click the executable file.

2. Then, on the first page of the wizard, select Download Media.

3. After that, the Specify SQL Server Installation Download screen loads. Select the language, the package as ISO, and then the path to save the ISO image.

When you finish entering the details and selections, click the Download button.

You should see an ISO file when the download is completed – see my screenshot below.

1. Double-click the SCVMM executable file you downloaded earlier.

2. After that, click Next on the first page, and then accept the license agreement. Then, enter the path to store the SCVMM installation files.

To make it easy for you to locate the installation files and separate them from other files, enter a folder name – I used SCVMM – after the main SCVMMServer22 folder.

3. Finally, to extract the installation files, click the Extract button.

Task 3: Plan Servers and Network Interface Cards

For this project, you require at least two physical servers. The two servers will be used to create a Hyper-V cluster, which will eventually be managed by the Service Center Virtual Manager (SCVMM). 

In production, each server should have two network adapters connected to different VLANs—more on VLANs shortly. Moreover, each network adapter on a VLAN should be connected to separate physical switches to provide redundancy. 

Where possible, also plan for network card redundancy. By this, I mean that you should not use two ports on the same physical adapters for teaming – if the adapter fails, the server loses connection to that VLAN, and the service it provides becomes unavailable. 

Having said all that, I’ll use an HP ENVY x360 Convertible laptop and an HP EliteDesk 800 G2 SFF in my home test lab as my Hyper-V hosts.  I also have a Dell Latitude E7470 running Windows Server 2022 Standard that provides iSCSI storage. 

If you need to buy these (or similar devices) for a home lab setup, the table below specifies the specs. The Specs and configuration table below:

Whether deploying in a production environment or building a lab, use these tables to plan your hardware and define the host’s network settings.

This table lists the hostname and network settings of the 3 hosts.

Task 4: Plan Servers pNICs for Redundancy

If you’re deploying in a production environment, you should have multiple physical switches with VLANs for each type of workload. For example, there should be a different VLAN for Hyper-V host management, cluster traffic, and live migration. 

Additionally, if you use iSCSI, there should be a different VLAN for this traffic. 

Earlier, I said your production environment should have multiple physical switches (at least 2). Having more than one switch allows for redundancy and avoids a single point of failure.

Speaking of redundancy design, the physical network interface cards (pNICs) on the servers (HyperV hosts) should also be designed for redundancy. Most servers should be equipped with multiple pNICs – each offering multiple ports.

To improve throughput and provide further redundancy, the NICs for each Hyper-V cluster workload should be teamed in pairs. However, the NIC teaming should be planned to avoid a single network card risking a single point of failure. 

To avoid this, the ports on the first pNIC should be teamed with ports on the second pNIC.

Task 5: Plan pNIC Teaming Configuration

Moving on to the configuration of the physical switch ports, Hyper-V teaming only supports port trunking. Below is a sample configuration from Switch Configuration Examples for Microsoft SDN – Physical port configuration.

Here is the text from the above link – “Each physical port must be configured to act as a switchport and have the mode set to trunk to allow multiple VLANs to be sent to the host. For RDMA Priority-flow-control must be on and the service-policy must point to the input queue that you will define below.”

interface Ethernet1/3/1
speed 10000
priority-flow-control mode on
switchport mode trunk
switchport trunk native vlan VLAN_ID
switchport trunk allowed vlan VLAN_ID_RANGE
spanning-tree port type edge trunk
service-policy type queuing input INPUT_QUEUING
no shutdown

Note that Hyper-V teaming does not support LACP. If your network guys configure the ports on the switch as LACP, the Hyper-V teamed switch will not work. 

Speaking of teamed switches, Hyper-V in Windows Server 2022 supports a virtual switch called Switched Embedded Team (SET). This type of nic teaming is configured and managed in Hyper-V.

Hyper-V SET operates in a switch-independent mode. This means that it handles the teaming, unlike in LACP, where the physical switch handles the teaming and load balancing. 

After everything I have said about planning server pNIC configuration, physical switch connections, and VLANs for redundancy, I will use a simple configuration in my lab. My home lab does not have redundancy devices, as described in this and the last subsections.

So, the PCs I’m using as my Hyper-V hosts each have one pNIC. This pNIC will serve all traffic on a single network, 192.168.0.0/24. 

If you’re building a 2-node Hyper-V cluster in production, your hosts should have the following pNIC setup:

*I’m using Network 1, Network 2, etc, as the default names of the physical network adapters. In reality, the names will be different.
**See the next section for the virtual switch planning details
***This is for the iSCSI traffic. I’m assuming that the nic will not be teamed

To plan your deployment, use the real names of the pNICs on your Hyper-V servers. You do not need to rename the NICs at this stage, as that will be done later in the guide.

For my Hyper-V lab, I have the simplified version of the configuration below:

Task 6: Plan Host Networking Configuration

Use the table below to plan the network configuration of the Hyper-V hosts

Use the table below to plan the networking configuration for the cluster resource name, VMM V, and Cluster File Server Networking.

Task 7: Plan Hyper-V Virtual Switches and Storage

Having completed the server pNIC, the physical switch configuration, and VLAN planning, it is time to plan for the Hyper-V virtual switches. 

As I already hinted, if you’re setting this in a production environment, it is recommended to have teamed pNICs designated for different workloads. These teamed networks will connect to Hyper-V Switch Embedded Teams virtual switches. 

The table below shows a sample configuration of a typical prod environment and the configuration for a home lab setup.

If you do not have separate VLANs for cluster and live migration traffic, you may plan for a single vSwitch for the two workloads. 
This table, used in my lab, is for guidance purposes. You should use bigger storage capacities for the VMM Shared Library and the Clustered Shared Volume in production.

However, for the Cluster Quorum witness disk, 1 GB is enough.

Deploying a Hyper-V/SCVMM cluster is a complex process involving multiple tasks. Moreover, some tasks must be completed before the next ones. I have arranged the tasks in this guide in the order that will ensure seamless deployment. If you skip a step—including the planning steps in this part—it is almost certain that you will run into problems later.

Congratulations! You have completed the planning part of this hands-on guide. Proceed to part 2 – Prep Hyper-V Hosts.

In this part (2) of the Hyper-V to VMware migration, you will prepare your Hyper-V hosts. The tasks covered include installing and patching Windows Server 2022.

You’ll also install Hyper-V, Windows Clustering, and MPIO (optional) roles on each host. You will also connect the hosts to the storage and configure the disks required to configure the cluster. 

Finally, you will assign the host’s IP addresses, create Hyper-V virtual switches, and assign them IP addresses. 

Task 1: Meet the Windows Domain Requirement

All the configurations in this guide require a Windows Domain. So, if you’re setting this up in a home lab, you must configure a Windows domain. Also, all hosts – Hyper-V and SCVMM – must be members of the Windows domain.

Task 2: Install Windows Server on the Hyper-V Hosts

In this section, complete the following:

1. Install Windows Server 2022 Standard or Datacenter. If you’re installing Server Core, follow the steps in my guide, How to Install and Configure Windows Server 2022 Core.
2. Rename the hosts on the OS.
3. Enable RDP on all Hosts

Task 3: Rename pNICs on the Hyper-V Hosts

As part of preparing the servers, I renamed the network adapters for ease of identification.

Complete the steps below on each Hyper-V host:

1. Run the Get-NetAdapter command to list all the network adapters on the server. Then, update the table below with the default names of the NICs in column 2.

Here is the result of the command in one of the Hyper-V hosts in my home lab.

If you have multiple network adapters, include another MAC address in column 3 to help identify the pNICs when you rename them with the command in step 3.

2. After that, rename the adapter with the command below:

Get-NetAdapter | Where-Object {$_.MacAddress -eq "A0-CE-C8-3A-DD-E3"} | Rename-NetAdapter -NewName Mgt-pNIC

After renaming the adapter, rerun the Get-NetAdapter command to confirm.

Run the last command for all pNICs on both Hyper-V hosts using the table below as a guide. The second table is the simplified version of my lab setup. 

Task 4: Install Required Windows Roles

Install the Hyper-V, Failover Clustering, and Multipath I/O roles on the Hyper-V hosts.

If you do not use Fliber Channel for storage, do not install the Multipath I/O role.

As usual, you can install the roles with Server Manager or run the PowerShell command below:

Install-WindowsFeature Hyper-V,Failover-Clustering -IncludeAllSubFeature -IncludeManagementTools

The above command installs Hyper-V and Failover-Clustering. If you require Multipath I/O, run this command:

Install-WindowsFeature Hyper-V,Failover-Clustering, Multipath-IO -IncludeAllSubFeature -IncludeManagementTools

After installing the roles, restart the servers.

Task 5: Configure Storage

In this section, the storage is set up to be used in configuring the Hyper-V cluster. If you have a storage admin team, request that they assign these LUMs to all Hyper-V hosts.

If your environment uses a Fiber Channel, you must configure MPIO to claim the LUMs.

Task 5.1: Assign Storage LUMs

If you need help configuring the iSCSI virtual disks, read my guide, Configuring Windows Server 2019 as an iSCSI Target Server.

This table, used in my lab, is for guidance purposes. You should use bigger storage capacities for the VMM Shared Library and the Clustered Shared Volume in production.

However, for the Cluster Quorum witness disk, 1 GB is enough.

Task 5.2: Connect Hyper-V Hosts to the iSCSI Target

If you use Fiber Channel, skip this sub-section. However, for iSCSI LUMs, connect the Hyper-V hosts to the iSCSI target with the steps below:

If you’re using Fibre Channel LUMs, the servers should be assigned LUMs by now. Ensure that this is done now before proceeding to the next task.

1. Log in to the Hyper-V host, search iSCSI, and open the iSCSI Initiator app. Windows will display a prompt to start the Windows iSCSI Initiator service, click Yes to start the service.

2. After that, enter the IP address or FQDN of the iSCSI target in the Target field, then, click the Quick connect button.

If the iSCSI initiator (your Hyper-V host) connects successfully to the target, a second pop-up will display the IQN of the target with the Status Connected. Click Done and close the iSCSI Initiator app.

Connect all Hyper-V hosts to the iSCSI Target, then proceed to the next task below.

Task 5.3: Configure Disks in Windows Disk Management

For Windows Server Core, use Server Manager to connect to the remote server and configure the disks with Server Manager.

1. Search Disk Management and open the app. The three LUMs assigned to the host will be displayed.

2. Right-click one of the disks and select Online. Repeat the step for the three disks.

3. After that, right-click one of the disks and select Initiatlize Disk.

4. A pop-up will display and select the three disks for initialization. Select GPT and click OK.

5. Finally, following your storage plan table (see minebelow), create a Simple Volume, then format the volume as NTFS.

While creating the CSVDisk volume, on the section o assign drive letter, choose Do not assign drive letter or drive path.

When you finish creating and formating the volume, they should look like the screenshot below.

Meanwhile, on the other Hyper-V host, they will appear offline. Do not bring the disks online or try to format them on the second host.

Task 6: Create Switches on the Hyper-V Hosts

In this task, you’ll create a Hyper-V Switch Embedded Team (SET) virtual switch. This switch teams two or more physical network cards to provide load balancing and redundancy.

After creating the SET, you’ll configure some settings like changing its Load Balancing Algorithm from HyperVPort (default) to Dynamic. Finally, you’ll enable RDMA (Remote Dynamic Memory Access) on the switch.

Before we begin, it is important to note that a Hyper-V SET can only be created with PowerShell or via Virtual Machine Manager. At this stage of the guide – since we have not deployed SCVMM – we will be creating and configuring the switch with PowerShell.

1. Create the SET with the command below. The command creates a new switch called Mgt-vSwitch (see Table 1.3 in part 1 of this guide).

While creating the switch we enable teaming and SR-IOV.

New-VMSwitch -Name "Mgt-vSwitch" -NetAdapterName "Mgt-pNIC" -EnableEmbeddedTeaming $true -EnableIov $true

When you execute the above command, after the switch is created, PowerShell returns the switch’s basic information. See my screenshot below for details.

2. Change the load balancing algorithm of the switch to Dynamic with the Set-VMSwitchTeam command. Before running the Set-VMSwitchTeam command, if you’re curious, you can confirm the current Load Balancing Algorithm with the Get-VMSwitchTeam.

Get-VMSwitchTeam -Name Mgt-vSwitch
Set-VMSwitchTeam -Name "Mgt-vSwitch" -LoadBalancingAlgorithm Dynamic 

After changing the Load Balancing Algorithm, I re-ran the Get-VMSwitchTeam command to confirm that it has changed. See the results of my commands in this screenshot.

3. Enable RDMA on the switch.

Enable-NetAdapterRDMA "vEthernet (Mgt-vSwitch)" -NoRestart

After enabling RDMA on the switch, you must map the virtual switch to a physical network adapter.

4. To map the Hyper-V virtual switch, Mgt-vSwitch to the network adapter, Mgt-pNIC, run this command.

You can only map the virtual switch to a physical network adapter.

Set-VMNetworkAdapterTeamMapping -ManagementOS -SwitchName "Mgt-vSwitch" -PhysicalNetAdapterName "Mgt-pNIC"

After the mapping, you can view the details with this command.

Get-VMNetworkAdapterTeamMapping -ManagementOS

The above commands created the management switch. If you need to create a switch for the cluster and live migration traffic (required in a production environment), use the commands below:

I added comments (begins with #) to explain what each command does. When we get to the VMM section of this guide, we will be converting these virtual switches to logical switches. For that to happen, the configuration of this virtual switch must be the same as the VMM logical switch. You do not need to create these switches in a home lab since you wouldn’t have the physical net adapters.

When you create a Hyper-V virtual switch that requires setting Minimum Bandwidth by Weight (required and recommended for the cluster and live migration switches), you must use the MinimumBandwidthMode parameter to set the mode to Weight. If this is not specified or SR-IOV is disabled, the default MinimumBandwidthMode is set to absolute.

#create a vSwitch for the cluster traffic and set its MinimumBandwidthMode to Weight
New-VMSwitch -Name "Clu-vSwitch" -NetAdapterName "Clu-pNIC-1" -EnableEmbeddedTeaming $true -EnableIov $false -MinimumBandwidthMode Weight 
#change the load-balancing algorithm - default is Hyper-V
Set-VMSwitchTeam -Name "Clu-vSwitch" -LoadBalancingAlgorithm Dynamic 
#set vLAN ID #If VLAN ID is not required, ignore this command
Set-VMNetworkAdapterVlan -ManagementOS -VMNetworkAdapterName "Clu-vSwitch" -Access -VlanId 28
#Turn the Virtual Machine Queue weight to 100 - same as the value set in the default Cluster Port profile in VMM
#Set the MinimumBandwidth weight to 10 #use the same vLAN for LM and Cluster traffic.
Set-VMNetworkAdapter -ManagementOS -Name "Clu-vSwitch" -VmqWeight 100 -MinimumBandwidthWeight 10

#create a vSwitch for the Live Migration traffic and set its MinimumBandwidthMode to Weight
New-VMSwitch -Name "Lmg-vSwitch" -NetAdapterName "Lmg-pNIC-1" -EnableEmbeddedTeaming $true -EnableIov $false -MinimumBandwidthMode Weight  
#change the load-balancing algorithm - default is Hyper-V
Set-VMSwitchTeam -Name "Lmg-vSwitch" -LoadBalancingAlgorithm Dynamic 
#set vLAN ID #If VLAN ID is not required, ignore this command
Set-VMNetworkAdapterVlan -ManagementOS -VMNetworkAdapterName "Lmg-vSwitch" -Access -VlanId 24
#Turns the Virtual Machine Queue weight to 100 - same as the value set in the default Cluster Port profile in VMM
#Set the MinimumBandwidth weight to 40 - this is the setting for the Live Migration Port Profile in VMM
Set-VMNetworkAdapter -ManagementOS -Name "Lmg-vSwitch" -VmqWeight 100 -MinimumBandwidthWeight 40

Task 7: Assign IPs to the Virtual Switches on Hyper-V Hosts

In this task, you’ll assign static IP addresses to the Hyper-V virtual switches yiu created in task 6. For my lab configuration, I used the table below:

If you’re configuring on a Windows Server Core, from the SConfig console, select option 8.

From my experience, sometimes, assigning IP addresses using SConfig fails. If that happens, select option 15 on the SConfig menu to load the PowerShell coommand console.

Then, run the command like the one below to assign static IP addresses to the Hyper-V switches.

Get-NetAdapter | New-NetIPAddress -IPAddress 192.168.0.154 -PrefixLength 24 -DefaultGateway 192.168.0.1

If you configured VLAN IDs on the Hyper-V switches, run the command – Get-VMNetworkAdapterVlan -ManagementOS – to confirm that VLANs are configured correctly.

Task 8: Join all Hosts to the Domain

You can join a host to the domain via Computer Properties. Alternatively, run the Add-Computer PowerShell command to join the computer to your domain.

Here is a sample command:

Before you run the command, change the domain name and the credentials. When you execute the command, PowerShell will request for the password to the account. The computer will restart automatically.

Add-Computer -DomainName lab.infopressmedia.com -Credential (Get-Credential labadministrator) -Restart 

Task 9: Configure Firewall on the Hyper-V Switches

In this task, we will configure the Windows Firewalls required by the Hyper-V hosts.  Run these commands on each Hyper-V host (IPMpHPV4 and IPMpHPV5 in my lab).

#Set firewall rules.
[System.String[]]$Alias=@("vEthernet (Mgt-vSwitch)");
$Profile="Any"
$Name="File and Printer Sharing"
$rules = Get-NetFirewallRule -DisplayGroup $Name
ForEach ($rule in $rules) { $rule | Get-NetFirewallAddressFilter | Set-NetFirewallAddressFilter -LocalAddress Any -RemoteAddress Any }
Set-NetFirewallRule -DisplayGroup $Name -Enabled True -Profile $Profile -InterfaceAlias $Alias
$Profile="Any"
$Name="FPS-LLMNR-In-UDP"
Set-NetFirewallRule -Name $Name -Enabled True -Profile $Profile
$Profile="Any"
$Name="Windows Remote Management"
Set-NetFirewallRule -DisplayGroup $Name -Enabled True -Profile $Profile -InterfaceAlias $Alias
#Disable IPV6
Disable-NetAdapterBinding -Name "Adapter Name" -ComponentID ms_tcpip6

Task 10: Create a Windows Admin Center (WAC) VM

This section is required for a Windows Server Core deployment.

Complete – How to Set up Hyper-V to Install VMs from a Remote ISO Share – before proceeding. Otherwise, you will not be able to create the VM to install OS using the remote ISO file.

If you’re configuring Hyper-V in Windows Server Core, install Hyper-V management tools in your Domain Controller. To install the Hyper-V Management tool, run the command below:

Install-WindowsFeature -Name RSAT-Hyper-V-Tools #install the GUI mgt and PowerShell modules

Before creating the WAC VM on one of the Hyper-V Server Core hosts, run the command below (via the host’s console) to create the folder for storing the VM:

New-Item -Name IPMvWAC -path "c:Virtual Machines" -ItemType Directory

Finally, use the Hyper-V Manager console installed on your DC to connect to the Windows Server Core. Then, create a Gen 2 VM with the specs in the table below.

*If installing in a lab, you can assign 2048 MB of RAM, the set dynamic memory with a min of 512 GB and max of 4096 MB

After creating the VM, if you use VLAN ID, remember to assign the VM’s virtual NIC to the VLAN ID:

Before proceeding to Task 11, install Windows Server on the WAC VM, then complete the following tasks:

1. Rename the server in Windows
2. Assign a static IP address
3. Join VM to the domain
4. Enable RDP
5. Set Time zone
6. Patch the server

Task 11: Configure Windows Server Core

If you’re installing Server Core, use the steps in my guide, How to Install and Configure Windows Server 2022 Core.

Task 12: Install Windows Updates and Drivers

For a Windows Server Core configuration, follow the steps in my guide, Update Drivers in WAC Managed Hosts.

Congratulations! You have completed part 2 of this hands-on guide. Proceed to part 3 – Deploy Hyper-V Cluster.

In part 3 of my VMware to Hyper-V migration, I will guide you through creating a 2-node Hyper-V cluster. After deploying the cluster, we’ll configure it.

Once the cluster is ready, we will deploy our first Highly Available (HA) cluster resource – the SCVMM VM!

Let’s roll!

Task 1: Create the Hyper-V Cluster

Our first task is to create a 2-node Hyper-V cluster using the table below:

Task 1.1: Run Cluster Validation Test on all Hosts

Before deploying a cluster, it is recommended that a validation test be run. Here are the steps:

1. From the Server Manager Tools menu, open the Fail Over Cluster Manager. When the Cluster Manager opens, check the “Don’t show this message again” at the pop-up, then close the pop-up.

2. Then, on the top right of the Cluster Manager, click Validate Cluster.

2. On the first page of the Cluster Validation wizard, check the Do not show this again checkbox. Then, click Next to continue.

3. Then, on the Select Servers or cluster page, enter the name of a Hyper-V host, and click Add to add the server to the list. Repeat the process to all the nodes you want to validate.

After adding all servers, click Next.

You can also use the Browse button to search for servers using Active Directory search.

4. Accept the “Run all tests (recommended)” option on the Test Options page and proceed. Then, on the next page, review all the tests that will be run if you like and click Next to start running the tests.

Wait for the tests to complete. It will take a little while.

When the Cluster validation test completes, it will return pass in some categories and fail in others. Review the report and if you’re deploying in a production environment, I strongly recommend reviewing the report and fixing essential issues.

To close the Cluster validation wizard, click Finish.

Since I’m deploying in a lab, I can ignore the errors. Some of the errors are about my Hyper-V hosts having different network adapters.

When I deploy Hyper-V clusters in production, as much as possible, I strongly recommend using hosts with specs as close as possible.

Task 1.2: Deploy the 2-Node Hyper-V Cluster

I prefer creating clusters with PowerShell as it is faster and gives me more control. I’ll run this command to create a cluster “lab-cluster-2” with two Hyper-V hosts, IPMpHPV4 and IPMpHPV5, and a static IP address of 192.168.0.107.

If you have a separate network for Live Migration, specify the IP address of that network next to the first IP. The New-Cluster command will assign the IPs automatically.

New-Cluster -Name "lab-cluster-2" -Node IPMpHPV4, IPMpHPV5 -StaticAddress 192.168.0.107

The command creates the cluster quickly. When the cluster is deployed, PowerShell displays its name.

Task 2: Configure the Cluster

After deploying a Hyper-V cluster, you must optimize some of its settings. Follow these steps to complete some essential post-deployment tasks:

1. From the Fail Over Cluster Manager, choose Connect to Cluster.

2. Then, enter the cluster name and choose OK.

3. Once the Cluster Manager has successfully connected, the cluster will be displayed on the left pane. To see its resources, expand it by clicking the arrow highlighted in my screenshot below.

4. Let’s start the configuration with its storage. Expand the cluster’s Storage node, then choose Disks.

All cluster-eligible disks will be displayed. The Disk node also shows the current Owner node. If you recall, I connected the Hyper-V hosts to three disks: QuorumvDisk, VMMLibvDisk, and CSVvDisk.

Disk 2 has already been automatically elected as the Quorum witness disk. Before we accept this, let’s confirm that we intend to use that disk as the quorum.

4. Left-click the disk, and its details will be displayed at the bottom. As shown in my screenshot below, this is our 1 GB disk, which we designated for the quorum witness.

Let’s rename it accordingly to make it easy to ID this disk.

5. Left-click the disk to select it. Then, at the bottom of the right pane, choose Properties.

6. Then, rename the disk and click OK.

The next step is to configure the cluster’s Cluster Shared Volume.

7. To assign a disk as a Cluster Shared Volume, left-click the disk, then confirm that it is the one you want to use as CSV.

Finally, click Add to Cluster Shared Volume.

I’m making Cluster Disk 1 the Cluster Shared Volume as it is the disk I plan to use for this purpose. If you look at the details of the disk, its volume label is CSVDisk. This highlights the reason I labeled the disk property for easy identification!

When you select a disk as a Cluter Share Volume, it goes offline briefly. In my case, when it came online, the disk Node owner changed from IPMpHPV5 to IPMpHPV4.

Also, the disk is now displayed as Assigned to Cluster Share Volume. For clarification, the Cluster Share Volume disk stores Hyper-V cluster resources like VM configuration files and virtual disks.

Before we rename the disk, I would like to highlight one important change that occurred when we configured it as a Cluster Share Volume.

If you look at the disk’s details pane, it has additional information – C:ClusterStorageVolume1.

The Cluster Shared Volume is mounted C:ClusterStorageVolume1, Volume2, Volume 3, etc. This is the physical storage where the Hyper-V resources like VMs will be stored.

I would like to share yet another important piece of information regarding Cluster Shared Volumes. When you designate a disk as a Cluster Shared Volume, Windows configures it with the CSVFS file system.

The CSVFS file system is a special file system that Windows assigns to volumes, which is assigned the Cluster Shared Volume role.

To confirm this, open Disk Management on the Cluster Node that currently owns the Cluster Shared Volume resource, which in my example is IPMpHPV4.

Disk Management confirms that this disk’s file system has changed from NTFS to CSVFS.

Now that I have given you a crash course about Cluster Shared Volumes let’s rename the Cluster Disk.

8. Select the disk and open its Properties sheet. Then, change the name to CSV Disk and click OK.

Later in this part, we will use the remaining cluster disk to configure our VMM Library share. For now, do not do anything with that disk! Instead, rename the Cluster Disk “VMMLibrary Disk.”

To manually set a cluster disk as a quorum witness, select the cluster, select More Actions, and then select Configure Cluster Quorum Setting. On the first page, click Next, then choose option 2; select the quorum witness > Configure a disk witness.

Task 3: Configure Cluster Network

If you create a Hyper-V cluster in production, you must have created 3 Hyper-V SET switches for management/VM, live migration, and cluster traffic connected to different VLANs.

If you click the Cluster Manager Network node, it will display the three networks. If you click on a network, the Cluster Manager displays its network so you can identify the workload to assign to the network.

Rename the networks to reflect the workload traffic that should pass through them. This will make it easy to identify the network and its assigned workload, making the configurations easy to manage.

In my screenshot below, I have three Hyper-V virtual switches – two are connected to the network I named “Cluster & VM Network,” while the second is connected to the “Live Migration” network.

Windows Cluster does not display networks by IP addresses but by network. This is why I have two networks in my screenshot below.

If you open the cluster network’s properties, you can set the traffic workload that the network allows.

The default is “Allow cluster network communication on this network” and “Allow clients to connect through this network.”

If you want to set a network to allow only cluster traffic, select “Allow cluster network communication on this network” but uncheck “Allow clients to connect through this network.”

Then, on the network you want to use for Live Migration, uncheck the “Allow clients to connect through this network” checkbox.

After configuring the Live Migration network, its Cluster Use column should display “Cluster only.”

Finally, to set up a network for Live Migration, click the Live Migration Settings.

Then, uncheck all other networks and check the network for Live Migration traffic.

Task 4: Update the Cluster Name Resource Permissions

When I tried creating the cluster file server role during one of my deployments, it kept failing. When I ran the cluster validation test, it returened an error that the cluster resource name does not have “Create Computer Objects” permissions on the OU it supposed to create the file server resource.

Based on this, I decided to include this task. For the environment I was deploying to, clutser resource is created in a specific OU.

By default, cluster resources should be created in the computer container, and modifying the permission should not be necessary. If, however, cluster resources are configured to be created in an OU, follow the steps below to grant the cluster resource name “Create Computer Objects” permissions on the OU:

1. Open Active Directlory Users and Computers and enable Advanced View options.

2. Then, open the Properties of the OU and then the Security tab > Advanced.

3. Click the Add button.

4. After that, click Select a principal. Then, click Object Types and check Computers > OK.

5. Enter the name of the cluster resource name, click Check names, then click OK.

6. Finally, check “Create Computer Objects,” then OK.

6. Finally, click OK to apply the changes and close the Advanced Security page.

Task 5: Reconfigure Hyper-V VM Storage

Earlier, I mentioned that we would store the Hyper-V VMs created in the cluster on the CSV disk. So, it is essential to reconfigure the default location Hyper-V hosts store VMs to the CSV – C:ClusterStorageVolume1.

Here are the steps. Before you proceed, connect all Hyper-V hosts to one host’s Hyper-V Manager.

1. On the Hyper-V Manager, select a Hyper-V host. Then, in the top right pane, choose Hyper-V Settings.

2. On the Hyper-V Setting configuration, Storage > Virtual Hard Disks node, replace the path with “C:ClusterStoragevolume1Virtual Hard Disks.”

Attempting to use the path – “Attempting to use the path” – for the VM hard disks on a server core installation fails. To avoid this error, use the above path instead.

3. Next, click the Virtual Machines node and replace the path with “C:ClusterStorageVolume1”

When you finish, click OK to save the changes.

Repeat the above steps in all Hyper-V hosts. When you finish, the “Virtual Hard Disks” and “Virtual Machines” folders will be created on the CSV volume.

Task 6: Create a VM for SCVMM on the Cluster

It is time to create our first HA VM on the cluster. The table below shows the VM specs. Before creating the VM, configure the Hyper-V hosts’ access to the network share hosting of the ISO image.

If you’re deploying SCVMM in production, the minimum RAM is 16 GB (16384 MB).

Follow these steps to create the VM to use as the Service Center Virtual Manager (SCVMM).

On a Windows Server Core installation, after installing the Hyper-V and Fail Over Clustering management tools on the WAC server, you must restart the server. If you try creating a VM from Fail Over Cluster Manager via the WAC server, it returns the error message, “failover cluster manager the hyper-v role management tools are not installed.”

1. Right-click the Roles node on the Fail Over Cluster Manager, point to Virtual Machines, and select New Virtual Machine.

2. Then, choose the Hyper-V host to create the VM and click OK.

3. On the first page of the new VM wizard, check Do not show this again and click Next.

4. Then, specify a name for the VM. The VM’s location should be the default location we set in Hyper-V Settings earlier. To create a folder for the VM, check the Store the virtual machine in a different location checkbox.

5. Select generation 2, then on the next page, enter the memory size for the VM.

6. Select the Management switch as the VM’s network.

7. Accept the default location to store the VM’s virtual hard disk and name, but change the size.

8. On the Installation Options page, choose the “Install an operating system from a bootable image file” option. Then, use the Browse button to navigate to the shared folder where you saved the Windows Server 2022 ISO image and select it.

9. Finally, review the VM’s settings and create it by clicking Finish.

After creating the VM, complete the following tasks:

1. Install Windows Server 2022 Standard

To start the VM and install the OS, select the VM on the Fail Over Cluster Manager and click Connect. Then, on the VM’s console, click Start.

The VM’s console opens in a separate window from the Cluster Manager. I left the VM’s console on the cluster console to screenshot both.

2. Rename VM in Windows
3. Configure VM’s network – I’m using the following network configuration for my SCVMM VM:

I have a second DNS server in my home lab. Its IP address is 192.168.0.81, and I use it as my Alternate DNS server.

4.  Join the VM to the domain
5. Change the VM’s time zone
6. Install Windows Update
7. Enable Remote Desktop

Congratulations! You have completed part 3 of this hands-on guide. Proceed to part 4 – How to Migrate VMware to Hyper-V (4): Install and Setup SCVMM.

Welcome to part 4 of my VMware to Hyper-V migration hands-on guide. In this part, you’ll create the AD objects required to install SCVMM.

Then, you will configure SPN delegation, install SCVMM prerequisites, and install an SQL Server. You will also deploy an HA cluster file server to host your VMM Library share.

Finally, you’ll deploy and configure SCVMM.

Task 1: Create AD Objects and Service Accounts

Installing SCVMM requires creating some Active Directory objects. To create these objects, complete the following tasks in AD:

1. Create an OU called “Service Accounts”
2. Create a Service account called scvmm-sa in the “Service Accounts” OU
   – Check Password never expires and User cannot change password
   – Uncheck User must change password at next logon
   – This service account will be used for installing SCVMM
3. Create another account called scvmm-ra in the “Service Accounts” OU
   – This account will be used as VMM “Run as” account
   Create a Service account called scvmm-sa in the “Service Accounts” OU
   – Check Password never expires and User cannot change password
   – Uncheck User must change password at next logon
   – Add the scvmm-ra account to the Global Administrator in vCenter Server
   – Add the scvmm-ra account to the Domain Admins group in AD – scvmm-sa account is okay as domain users
4. Create an OU called DKM
   – This is where SCVMM stores Distributed Key Management
   – During SCVMM installation, you will specify the DistinguishedName of this OU

Task 2: Configure SPN Delegation for the SCVMM Service Account

Sign in to a Domain Controller, run PowerShell as administrator, then run the following commands:

The commands configure SPN delegation to the cluster name

 setspn -u -s SCVMM/lab-cluster-2 scvmm-sa
setspn -u -s SCVMM/lab-cluster-2.lab.infopressmedia.com scvmm-sa

Task 3: Deploy a Highly Available VMM Library

In task 3, you will create a HA SCVMM Library Share using the following subtasks.

Task 3.1: Configure a HA Cluster File Server Role

1. Open the Fail Over Cluster Manager from any of the Hyper-V hosts. Then, right-click the Roles node and select Configure Role.

2. On the first page of the High Availability Wizard, check Do not show this page again. Then, click Next to proceed to the next page.

3. Then, choose the File Server role and click Next.

4. In the File Server Type page, choose File Server for general use (this is the default option).

5. Then, on the Client Access Point page, enter the file server’s name and IP address. I am using the details in the table below in my home lab.

For the IP address, enter the last portion, which is 108 in my table below,

6. The Select Storage page will load. Check the checkbox next to the VMMLibrary Disk, then click Next to proceed to the next page.

7. Finally, review the Cluster File Server configurations and click Next to create the role. When the wizard finishes creating the role, click Finish.

The Fail Over Cluster Manager Roles node will display the File Server information, including the Owner Node.

Task 3.2: Create a Folder Share for the VMM Library

To allow the SCVMM server and “Run As” account to access the VMM Library share, we must create a folder share using the VMMLibrary cluster disk. Furthermore, we must grant permission to the VMM AD computer account and the SCVMM “Run As” account.

To create a folder share for the VMM Library and configure permissions, follow these steps:

1. Click the Roles node of the Fail Over Server Manager console, then left-click the file server role you created in step 3.1. After that, click Add File Share.

2. Then, on the first page of the New Share wizard, select SMB Share – Quick.

3. Select the file server name and the volume to create the share.

4. In the Share Name page, specify the share name and an optional description.

5. In the Other Settings page, accept the default configurations and click Next to proceed to the next page.

6. Then, in the Specify permissions and access page, click Customize permissions.

7. Add the following Active Directory objects and grant them the specified permissions.

*I included this account because I use it to log in and perform tasks. It is not required for a production setup.

Follow this screenshot numbering to add the accounts.

When you finish adding the objects and assigning permissions, the Advanced Security Settings page of the share should look like the screenshot below. To save the changes, click OK.

9. Review the share permissions and click Next. Finally, click Create to create the share.

Task 3.3: Create Subfolders in the VMM Library Share

If you click File and Storage Services > Shares in Server Manager, the share will be available there.

Right-click the VMM Library share and select Open share. Then, create the following folders:

“ISO Images,” VHDs, and “VM Templates.”

Later in this guide – after installing SCVMM – we will add the share to SCVMM Library

Task 4: Install SCVMM Deployment Prerequisites

Navigate to the folder share you created in part 1 and download the required installation files. To get the network path of the folder share, open the Properties and click on the Sharing tab. Copy the network path.

All downloaded SCVMM prerequisite software should be located in “IPMPHPV4Hyper-VFilesSCVMMServer22.”

Install the following on your SCVMM server – I have added the installation executable file name next to each software:

Install the apps in the order listed and use the installation default settings.

1. Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1809 10.1.17763.1 – adksetup.exe
   – during this installation, you may receive an error that a file cannot be found
   – select the Download content from the internet option, then click Retry.
2. Windows PE add-on for ADK, version 1809 10.1.17763.1 – adkwinpesetup.exe
   – during this installation, you may receive an error that a file cannot be found
   – select the Download content from the internet option, then click Retry.
3. Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable (x64) – VC_redist.x64.exe
4. Microsoft ODBC Driver 17  for SQL Server – msodbcsql.exe
   – on the Feature selection section, select the option to install all features
5. Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable (x86) – 12.0.30501 – vcredist_x86.exe

Task 5: Install SQL and SQL  Management Studio

I have divided this task into two sub-tasks – installing SQL and then the Management Studio.

Task 5.1: Install SQL Server 2022

1. You can mount the SQL ISO image you downloaded in part 1 by right-clicking it and selecting “Mount.” The ISO image will be mounted and opened in File Explorer.

2. Double-click Setup.exe to commence SQL Server 2022 installation. After clicking setup.exe, it may take a short while to initiate the installation.

3. On the first page of the SQL Server installation center, click the Installation menu. Then, select the New SQL Standalone installation or add features to an existing installation.

The installer will take a while to load after clicking the option above.

4. When the installer loads the Edition page, select your edition. I’m using the evaluation edition. Then, on the next page, accept the license agreement.

My screenshot below is missing the lower part of the installation page.

5. On the Windows Update page, for a production deployment, follow your Windows update policy. But, for a lab deployment, check the Use Microsoft Update checkbox.

The installer will run some pre-installation checks and return results. If yours returns a warning or error, click it to see the details.

If necessary, resolve the issue before you continue installation. My deployment throws a Windows Firewall warning message.

The details of the warning is asking me to ensure that the necessary ports are open to allow remote access. I can safely ignore this warning as my SQL server and SCVMM server are running on the same server – so no remote access required.

6. On the Azure Extension for SQL Server, unless you require this extension, uncheck the checkbox.

7. Select Database Engine Services, unless you require other features. You may also change the Instance root directory to a different drive if you need to.

8. Use the default instance and click Next to continue.

9. Accept the default Service Startup settings.

10. On the Database Engine Configuration page, select Windows authentication mode, and click Add. Then, add the SCVMM “Run As” and Service accounts you created earlier.

My SCVMM “Run As” account is scvmm-ra while my service account is scvmm-sa. So, I am adding this account.

For my lab environment, I also click the “Add Current User” button to add my Windows AD account.

If your environment requires it, select the Mixed Mode, and set a password for the SQ sa account.

11. Finally, review your selections and if you’re happy with it, click Install. Then, sit back and wait for SQL Server 2022 to install on your SCVMM server.

When the installation is completed, confirm that the features shown in my screenshot are installed. Then, close the SQL Server installer.

Task 5.2: Install SQL Management Studio

Navigate to the share, open the SQLServer22 folder, double-click the SSMS-Setup-ENU.exe, and install SQL  Management Studio.

Before proceeding to the next task, open SQL Server Management Studio to confirm that you can log in to the database. Check Trust Server Certificate, then click Connect.

Task 6: Install System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2022

Before you install SCVMM Server 2022, restart the VM. Also, add the SCVMM domain service account to the local Administrators group on the SCVMM computer.

Now, follow these steps to install SCVMM 2022:

1. Open the folder you extracted SVMM earlier in this guide and double-click Setup.exe.

2. Then, on the first page of the SCVMM installer, choose Install.

3. On the next page, check the VMM Management Server checkbox – the installer checks the VMM Console automatically.

4. Then, on the Product registration page, accept the defaults and continue. On the next page, accept the license agreement.

5. Review the Diagnostics and data usage information and click Next. Then, accept the default installation location.

6. If you assigned 8 GB RAM to your SCVMM VM, the prerequisite check page will display an insufficient memory warning. For a lab deployment, ignore it and proceed.

7. On the Database configuration page, check Use the following credentials. Then, enter the SCVMM “Run As” account credentials – accept other defaults, and click Next.

8. Then, on the Configure service account and distributed key management page, the Domain account option is selected by default. Click Select to add the SCVMM Service account.

On the Select User pop-up, enter the SCVMM AD service account, click Check Name, and then OK.

9. Back on the Service account and DKM page, enter the password for the service account. Then, on the Distributed Key Management section, check Store my keys in Active Directory.

After that, enter the distinguishedName of the DKM OU you created earlier in this guide.

10. Accept the default ports for SCVMM.

11. On the Library Configuration page, accept the default settings.

In Task 7, we will add the Cluster File Server share we created earlier as a library server in SCVMM

12. Finally, review the installation selections and click Install. The installation takes about 10 to 12 minutes.

When the installation is completed, leave the “Check the latest virtual machine manager updates” checkbox checked. However, I recommend unchecking the “Open VMM console when this wizard closes” checkbox.

I am truly excited that you have configured your new Hyper-V/SCVMM environment up to this point! Well done!

To set up SCVMM, read the next guide (part 5) in the series – Configure SCVMM.

Now that you have deployed System Center Virtual Machine Manager, in this part of the guide, you’ll perform some post-installation configurations.

Some tasks include updating SCVMM to RU2, creating VMM groups, and adding the Hyper-V cluster you created in part 3 to SCVMM. After that, you’ll perform other tasks like adding the cluster File Server share as SCVMM Library.

Let’s begin!

Task 1: Create SCVMM Host Groups

1. Open the SCVMM console by clicking the shortcut on your desktop.
2. The “Use current Microsoft Windows identity” option is selected. Click Connect.

3. When the SCVMM console opens, click the Fabric menu. Then, on the Servers node, right-click All Hosts and choose Create Host Group.

Rename the host group to Hyper-V. Create another Host group called VMware.

You should now have the two Host Groups under All Hosts.

Task 2: Update Administrators Group in Hyper-V Hosts

To allow SCVMM to manage the Hyper-V hosts, we need to add the SCVMM service and “Run As” accounts to their local administrator’s group. To add the accounts to the administrators’ group, open PowerShell as administrator, then run this command on each Hyper-V host.

For Windows Server Core deployments, open PowerShell on each host from the Windows Admin Center and run the command. Alternatively, run the command below from the console of each Hyper-V host (not recommended).

Add-LocalGroupMember -Group "Administrators" -Member "labscvmm-sa", "labscvmm-ra"

Task 3: Create SCVMM “Run As” Accounts

In this task, you will create all the “Run As” accounts required in SCVMM. A Run As account is an account that you add to SCVMM to allow you to use it to perform tasks.

By adding Run As accounts, you can avoid entering the credentials whenever you need to use the account.

Task 3.1: Identify the “Run As” Accounts

Create the following Run As accounts in SCVMM:

1. The SCVMM “Run As” account that was created in AD – mine is scvmm-ra
   – This account will be used to add Hyper-V hosts to SCVMM
   – The account will also be used to add and Manage the vCenter server
   – If this account is not in your vCenter’s administrators group, add it now or add a separate account for adding and managing the vCenter server in VMM
   – We will also use this account to add and manage the cluster file server as a library server

See the account in my lab’s vCenter server.

2. The root account for ESXi hosts
   – The root account for ESXi hosts
   – If you use any other account to add your ESXi hosts to SCVMM, VMM V2V converter will fail

Task 3.2: Add the “Run As” Accounts

1. Click the VMM’s Settings menu (bottom left). Then, right-click Run As Account and select Create Run As Account.

2. On the details page, give the account a descriptive name and add a description. Finally, add the account username and password and click Finish.

If it is an AD account, enter the account in the format DomainNameAccountName. However, if it is a non-AD account, like ESXi root credentials, enter the username and the password – also uncheck “Validate domain credentials.”

Repeat the above steps for all “Run as” accounts. The screenshot below shows how to add the Run As account for ESXi hosts’ root credentials.

All accounts added should be in the VMM administrator group and also enabled. See my screenshot below.

Task 4: Add Hyper-V Cluster to SCVMM

Adding a Hyper-V cluster to SCVMM installs agents on its Hyper-V nodes. So, before you proceed, ensure that the “Run as” account you will use to add the cluster belongs to the local administrators’ group of the Hyper-V hosts.

You should be fine if you completed Task 2 earlier in this guide.

1. Click the Fabric node in SCVMM, then, on the Servers > All Hosts node, right-click the Hyper-V host group and point to “Add Hyper-V Hosts and Cluster.”

2. Then, on the Resource Location page, select the first option.

3. On the credentials page, click Browse and select the SCVMM Run As account you created earlier.

4. Enter the name of the Hyper-V cluster you created in part 3 of this guide. Mine is lab-cluster-2.

When you click Next, the wizard will search AD, find the cluster, then display it and the two Hyper-V hosts that are members of the cluster.

5. Check the checkbox next to the cluster name and click Next to progress to the next page.

6. Confirm the SCVMM host group to add the cluster and click Next.

6. Finally, review the settings and click Finish to add the Hyper-V cluster to VMM.

The wizard provides the PowerShell script whenever you perform a task in SCVMM. If you love PowerShell and want to automate the process later, copy the script by clicking the “View Script” button.

When you click Finish, VMM opens the Job view of the running job. Use the job window to monitor the tasks and review errors or warnings.

Regarding errors and/or warnings, the job window has an amber – warning on the Add virtual machine host sub-tasks. To review the warning, click on it.

You can read the warnings and recommended actions. I have two warning messages.

The first warning is that I did not install the MPIO role on the servers. I can safely ignore this warning since I am not using a storage device – like Fiber Channel – that requires MPIO.

Meanwhile, the second warning is that the hosts need a reboot. We will restart the hosts later.

Task 5: Install SCVMM Update Rollup 2

Before you install the SCVMM update, note the current version. See the screenshot below.

In part 1 of this guide, you created a folder called “SCVMM UR2” in the  “Hyper-VFiles” folder and downloaded SCVMM Update Rollup 2 into the folder. 

To extract the download update files, create two subfolders – R2Update, AdminCR2 – in “Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2”.

Modify the PowerShell script below and run it to create the subfolders.

$Path = “E:Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2”
"R2Update", "AdminCR2", "GuestAgentR2" | ForEach-Object {New-Item -Name $_ -Path $Path -ItemType Directory }

To extract the package, double-click it.

Then, right-click the file, select Extract, and save the extracted files to the folders created above.

Use the table below to extract the cab files to their respective subfolders:

Task 5.2: Install the Updates

Close the SCVM console before proceeding with this task

Install the updates – open cmd as administrator. Then, install the VMM server and console updates by running these two commands on the VMM server.

#Install the SCVMM Server Update Rollup 2
msiexec.exe /update "\IPMPHPV4Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2R2Updatekb5032369_vmmserver_amd64.msp"
#Install the SCVMM admin console Update Rollup 2
msiexec.exe /update "\IPMPHPV4Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2AdminCR2kb5032370_AdminConsole_amd64.msp"

If any of the commands fail, install the updates by double-clicking the MSI file.

After installing the updates, restart the VMM server.

Then, recheck the VMM server version, and it should show the version in my screenshot below. This version is SCVMM Roll Up 2.

Task 5.3: Add Registry with new Chunk Size on All Hosts

1. From your SCVMM server, navigate to the network share where you downloaded your installation files.
2. Then, right-click the registry key script in your downloaded file and select Edit. The script will open in PowerShell ISE.

2. Change the “” placeholder to the name of your VMM Server.

3. Open PowerShell as administrator, then set the execution policy and run the script with the commands below.

When you run the script with the third command, PowerShell will prompt you to confirm, enter R, and press enter.

#1. Set execution policy to allow downloaded scripts to run
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Force
#2. Change Directory to the "SCVMM UR2" folder on the network share
cd "\IPMPHPV4Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2" #change the path to your share
#Execute the script
& '.Script To Add Registry with new Chunk Size On All Hosts.ps1'

While restarting the Hyper-V hosts, move the WAC and VMM VMs to a host and restart the next host. Then, when the host comes back online, move the two VMs again and restart the second host. If you have more than one host, restart the remaining ones. Use the Fail Over Cluster Manager if you can’t move the VMs in SCVMM due to the “Unsupported VM Configuration” error. We’ll fix this error later in Task 6.

4. Restart the Hyper-V Hosts.

For a Windows Server Core deployment, you can restart the hosts via VMM, Server Manager, or WAC.

Task 5.4: Update the VMM Agents on the Hyper-V Hosts

After running the above tasks, the status of the Hyper-V hosts in SCVMM will be shown as “Needs attention.” This is because the VMM agents on the hosts need to be updated.

Follow the steps below to update the agents:

1. Right-click the host and select Update Agent.

If the Update Agent button is grayed out, proceed to task 6.

2. Then, select the SCVMM Run As account to use to update the agent and click OK.

3. Wait for the job status to reach 100%, then right-click the host and choose Refresh.

Task 6: Fix “Unsupported VM Configuration” SCVMM Error

Sometimes, SCVMM displays the “Unsupported VM Configuration” message on a VM’s status. Follow the steps below to fix this issue.

1. Log in to the VM, which is displaying this error message. Then, search services and open the app.
2. Locate Windows Management Instrumentation, right-click it, and then select Restart. Choose Yes to restart dependent services.

3. Open the VM’s Settings in the Fail Over Cluster Manager, then disconnect any ISO images.

3. Head back to the SCVMM console and open PowerShell.

4. When the PowerShell console opens, it connects to the VMM server. Run the command below to force a refresh of the VM reporting the error.

You can also right-click the VM in the SCVMM console and select Refresh

Get-SCVirtualMachine -Name "IPMvVMM" | Read-SCVirtualMachine -Force

After completing the above steps, the VM’s status will display “Running.”

Task 7: Fix “Virtual switch ‘virtual switch’ is not highly Available” Error

During one of my Hyper-V on Server core deployments, SCVMM was logging the error message “Virtual switch ‘’ is not highly available because the switch in host ‘’ is not compatible with other hosts.“

To figure out what was causing the problem:

1. I opened PowerShell in SCVMM.

2. Then, on the PowerShell console, I ran the command below:

Get-SCVirtualNetwork | Sort logicalnetworks | ft name , logicalnetworks , VMHOST

The command result shows that the SCVMM logical switch created for the Hyper-V switch on the host in question was different.

When you add hosts to SCVMM, SCVMM creates logical networks with the same name as the Hyper-V virtual switch.

3. To fix the error, I opened the host’s Properties and navigated to the Hardware. Then, I located a virtual switch with the wrong SCVMM virtual network, unchecked the wrong logical network, and then checked the correct one.

4. Finally, navigate the Fabric > Logical Networks, right-click the wrong logical network and remove it.

If you receive an error message about the logical network being in use, delete it from the VM Network (VMs and Services > VM Networks) first.

Task 8: Add the Cluster File Server Share as a VMM Library

1. Click the Library node in the SCVMM console menu. After that, right-click Library Servers and choose Add Library Server.

2. On the Credentials page, click the Browser button and select the SCVMM “Run as” account.

3. Then, on the Select Library Server page, click the Search button.

4. Next, enter the name of the Cluster File Server you created in part 4 of this guide. If you used the name on this guide, it should be lab-vmm-lib.

Click search to find the host in AD, then click the Add button. SCVMM will display a notification that it will install an agent; click OK.

5. Confirm that the correct file server is displayed, then click OK to return to the previous page.

6. The Select Library Server page will display the file server as a cluster resource and the cluster nodes that may own it. To proceed, click Next.

7. On the next page, SCVMM will detect and display the share on the file server. Check the checkbox before the share name and the checkbox before “Add Default Resources.”

8. Finally, confirm the settings and click the Add Library Server button to add the server. To copy the PowerShell script, click View Script.

SCVMM will open the job, and it runs pretty fast. Click on the last job to view the details.

9. Close the job window to view the newly added Library server. The Library server and shared folders will be displayed in the Library Servers node.

Task 9: Optimize the VMM Library

After creating the VMM Library with the cluster file server’s share, you must perform some tasks to optimize the library.

Task 9.1: How to Open a VMM Library Share in File Explorer

Before you begin the optimization tasks, I wanted to show you how to open the share from VMM. To open the share for the VMM Library, right-click it and select Explore. The share will open in Windows Explorer.

If you followed this guide and performed all the tasks, you should have three folders in the VMMLibrary folder share.

Task 9.2: Tasks to Optimize a VMM Library

Follow the steps below to complete the optimization tasks:

1. Right-click the VMM library server and select Properties.

2. On the General tab, click the Host group drop-down and select Hyper-V.

3. For the next task, click the VM Networks tab, then check the checkbox next to the VM network. After configuring this setting, click OK to save the changes.

I have just one network for my home lab deployment. In production, you should have three networks here: the management/VM network, the Cluster, and the Live Migration traffic. Check the network you use for the management/VM network.

Well done for completing part 5 of this guide. You will perform further SCVMM configurations in part 6, Configure SCVMM (2).

In part 6 of my hands-on guide for migrating VMware to Hyper-V/SCVMM, you will perform further VMM configurations.

Regarding migrating VMware VMs to Hyper-V, the tasks in this part of the guide are not compulsory. However, they’re necessary to prepare your VMM/Hyper-V environment for deploying and managing new VMs.

Task 1: Import ISO Images to SCVMM Library

In this task, I will show you how to import an ISO image to the VMM library share.

1. Select the library server share you want to upload the ISO image. Then, on the top menu, click Import Physical Resource.

2. When the Import Library Resource menu opens, click Add Resource, navigate to the location of the ISO file, select it, and click Open.

If the ISO file is located on a network share, navigate to the share via \ServerNameSharename

3. To specify where to save the ISO image resource on the Library server share, click Browse. Then, on the Select Destination Folder pop-up, expand the Library share and select ISO Images.

If the VMM library or its folders are not expanded, double-clicking expands a resource.

4. Finally, review the ISO image file you’re importing, check the folder you selected to store it and if all looks good, click Import. VMM will open the import job where you can monitor the progress and review any errors.

I have structured this hands-on guide to ensure that – if you followed all the steps – all required permissions would have been set before this task. If the necessary permissions are not set, importing a resource may throw access denied errors.

Once the ISO image file has been imported, you can attach it to VMs.

The VMM Library share subfolders will not show up in VMM until you import content into them.

Task 2: Create a Network Site for the VM Network

In part 8 of this guide, we will create and configure network sites. However, to assign a VLAN ID to the VM template (Task 5 later in this guide), we need to create a network site for the VM network (the management Hyper-V switch).

Follow the steps below to create the network site:

1. From the Fabric menu, select the Logical Networks node under Networking. After that, right-click the Logical Network and choose Properties.

2. On the virtual network’s Properties sheet, select the Network Site tab, then click Add and choose Network Site.

The network site name is auto-created. If you compare the auto-created network name with column 2 of Table 7.1, it is the same. VMM creates the Network name by appending “_0” to the end of the switch’s name.

3. Assign the Network Site to the Hyper-V Host Group by checking it. Then, click the Insert button to associate VLANs and IP subnets to the Network Site.

When you click the Insert button, two columns will be inserted – VLAN and IP Subnet.

4. To assign the Network site to a VLAN, click the VLAN column and enter the VLAN ID. Similarly, to define the site’s IP Subnet, click the IP Subnet column and enter the value.

If you use a VLAN ID, you MUST specify it for the network site. Otherwise, when you create a hardware profile and VM (later in this guide), you will not be able to specify a VLAN ID. I added the VLAN ID of 10 for demonstration purposes. Since I do not use VLANs in my lab, I will delete it later.

Task 3: Create a VMM Hardware Profile

VMM offers profiles that allow you to preconfigure settings to deploy different workloads. See my screenshots below for the various profiles you can create in VMM.

1. To create a Hardware profile, select the Library menu, expand Profiles, then right-click Hardware Profiles and click Create Hardware Profile.

2. Then, on the General tab, name the hardware profile, give it an optional description, and select the Hyper-V VM Generation the profile supports.

When you finish with the General tab, click the Hardware Profile tab.

In the Hardware profile settings tab, configure the baseline settings for the VMs to be created with this profile. My main focus in this section is the processor compatibility mode for VMs.

3. To configure processor compatibility for the hardware profile, click the Processor tab and check the Allow migration to a virtual machine host with a different processor version checkbox.

Enabling processor compatibility mode in your hardware profile ensures that all new VMs you create using this profile have this feature enabled. If Processor compatibility mode is not enabled in a VM, Live Migration from a host with a higher processor model to one with a lower version will not be possible.

4. Click the Availability submenu and check Make this virtual machine highly available.

If you do not enable this option, you cannot create VMs using the CSV volume. Also, when you try cloning a VM, it will throw the error message – “the host does not have access to sufficient storage of the requested storage classification.” – This is because the new VM creation wizard will not display the Cluster Shared Volume as it is a Highly Available resource.

5. Click the Network adapter and choose Connected to a VM network. Then, use the Browse button to select the VM network (Mgt-vSwitch).

6. You can also configure other settings of the hardware profile, such as the memory size and assigning an ISO image. When you finish, click OK to save your changes.

When you mount an ISO file from the library you created earlier, check the Share the files checkbox instead of copying it checkbox. If you do not check this option, every time you create a VM, the ISO file is copied to the VM’s folder.

Task 4: Copy VHD Files to the Cluster Library

When you installed SCVMM, a local library was created. In the process, VMM creates 2 blank VHD and 2 VHDX files. In this task, you will import those virtual disks to the Clustered VMM Library.

The local VHD files are located in “C:ProgramDataVirtual Machine Manager Library FilesVHDs.” Copy all files in this location to “lab-vmm-libVMMLibraryVHDs.”

After copying the files, refresh the clustered library share in the VMM console.

Task 5: Create a VMM VM Template

In this task, you will clone an existing Windows VM, and then perform some tasks to prepare it for use as a VM template.

Task  5.1: Prepare a Template VM

In this task, you will create a new VM for your template, install OS, Windows Update, and apps, and then shut it down. Follow the steps below to prepare a new template VM.

1. Click the VM and Services node, right-click the cluster, and choose Create Virtual Machine.

2. Then, on the first page of the wizard, choose the Create the new virtual machine with a blank virtual hard disk option.

3. Give the new VM a name, enter a descripotion and select the VM generation.

4. Select the hardware profile you created earlier. You can edit it if you wish to.

If you did not attach an ISO file to the hardware profile, remember to do it now.

5. Click on the virtual hard disk and confirm that the type is Dynamic. This is the recommended configuration as it does not take up all the assigned disk space.

Change the disk size from 40 to 60 GB.

6. On the next page, the Hyper-V host group should be selected. If not, choose it.

7. Then, on the Select Host page, VMM will perform a review of each host and score them. When you choose a host by left-clicking it, VMM displays information about the host, including the current VMs deployed on the host.

8. The CSV should be the default path since we already set in in the Hyper-V Settings earlier in this guide. If you have more than one Cluster Shared Volume, use the Browse button to change the VM path to another volume.

9. Use the menu my arrow is pointing at in this screenshot to select the VM Network. Additionally, if you use VLAN ID, use the VLAN column to select the VLAN for the VM Network.

10. Finally, configure the VM’s automatic actions. Then, on the final page, review the settings, and click Create to deploy the new VM.

The job creating the VM will be displayed.

After creating the VM, install the Operating system, install Windows Update, all apps you want to have in the template, and set time zone, then shut the VM down.

Task 5.2: Convert the VM to a Template

1. Right-click the new VM, point to Clone and choose Create VM Template. Then, on the warning pop-up, click Yes.

2. On the Identity page, give the template a name and description, then, click Next.

3. On the Configure Hardware page, click next to continue. Then, on the Configure Operating System page, choose None – customization not required.

4. On the Select Library Server page, choose the Cluster File Server Library Server.

VMM rated the Cluster file server library higher because it is a clustered resource.

5. Use the Browse button to choose the VM Templates folder in the Library. Finally, click Create to start converting the VM to a template.

Monitor the progress on the job window. When the template is created, it will be available in the VM Templates folder of the VMM library – see the second screenshot below.

You have completed the essential SCVMM post-installation configurations. In part 7 of this guide, you will plan the networking for your SCVMM.

SCVMM networking is relatively complex. Starting with Logical Networks, in this section, we’ll plan the deployment of the various elements of a VMM network.

Task 1: Plan SCVMM Logical Networks

In VMM, a logical network is auto-created for all Hyper-V Virtual Switches. However, Network sites and IP Pools are not added automatically.

It is important to mention that VM Networks are also added for every logical network. VM networks are used to connect VMs to the network.

In part 8, we will delete all auto-created VM Networks, except the Mgt-vSwitch (the only network we need to connect our VMs to the primary network with access to the internet).

*If you’re deploying this in production, add the VLAN IDs in the VLAN column
**Only the Mgt-vSwitch VMs use requires a network site to be added. By adding a network site, the switch will be listed when we create an uplink port profile
***If the cluster and management (VM Networks) are on the same subnet, use the Mgt-vSwitch_0 Network Site for the cluster, as you cannot create two network sites with the same IP subnet.

Task 2: Plan Virtual Network Adapter Port Profiles

Use the default Virtual Network Adapter Port Profiles created for Live Migration and Cluster Workloads.

Task 3: Plan Uplink Port Profiles

We need one uplink port profile that connects the Mgt-vSwitch (used by VMs) to the network. Live Migration and Cluster nets DO NOT require an uplink.

 *Using Host Default allows VMM to use the LBA configured in the Hyper-V Switch – Windows Server 2012 does not support Dynamic Teaming Mode, so using Host Default creates a PP that is compatible with Windows Server 2012 VMs (if we still have them).
**Used the same network switch as the Mgt-vSwitch-uplink for the Clu-vSwitch-uplink if the management (VM traffic) and Cluster traffic workload are on the same VLAN IP subnet

Task 4: Plan Port Classification

Use the default classifications created by VMM “Live Migration Workload,” and “Host Cluster Workload.” These will be used in combination with the Virtual Network Adapter Port Profiles.

Task 5: Plan Logical Switch

The Logical Switch MUST have the same name as the Hyper-V Virtual Switch to allow conversion of the Virtual Switch to a VMM Logical Switch on the Hyper-V hosts.

Beyond that, the Teaming mode and other settings like SR-IOV must also match the Hyper-V SET configuration.

*Extension not required for most configurations
**I am using the Virtual ports to configure the Cluster and Live Migration virtual switches

SR-IOV is not recommended in Cluster and LM switches, which is why it is not enabled in the Clu and LM Hyper-V vSwitches and the table above.

Congratulations! You have completed the VMM networking configuration planning. Before you proceed to part 8 – Setup VMM Networking – ensure you’ve completed the tasks above.

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:

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.

In this part of the guide, you’ll integrate your vCenter Server and ESXi hosts to VMM. This allows you to migrate VMware VMs to Hyper-V with VMM’s V2V converter.

Part 9a, 9b, 10a, and 10b Overview

This series has two methods to migrate VMware VMs to Hyper-V. Parts 9a and 9b explain how to complete this task with VMM’s V2V converter. Meanwhile, in parts 10a and 10b, I explain how to convert VMware VMs to Hyper-V with Veeam’s Instant Recovery.

In my experience, converting with Veeam is better for two reasons. First, it is faster than using the VMM’s V2V.

Secondly, using Veeam’s Instant Recovery works for both Windows and Linux VMs. From my experience when you convert some Linux VMs from VMware to Hyper-V, they fail to boot.

If you want to use VMM’s V2V, proceed with the steps in this section. However, to use Veeam’s Instant Recovery, jump to part 10a.

Task 1: Add vCenter Server to VMM

Before adding ESXi hosts or clusters to VMM, you must integrate the vCenter into VMM. Follow these steps to complete this task.

The steps below assume that you completed the tasks in part 5, “Task 3: Create SCVMM “Run As” Accounts.”

1. From the Fabric node, expand Infrastructure, right-click vCenter Servers, then, click Add VMware vCenter Server.

2. Enter the FQDN of the vCenter Server. Then, use the Browse button to select the vCenter “Run as” account and click Finish. SCVMM will prompt you to import the vCenter Server’s certificate – click Import.

The job opens – wait for it to complete.

If you followed this guide from the beginning, the vCenter “Run as” account is the AD account, scvmm-ra and this account would have been added to the administrator group in your vCenter server.

After adding the vCenter server, it will display on the vCenter Servers node.

Task 2: Add ESXi Hosts or Clusters to VMM

Once you have added the vCenter Server to VMM, follow these steps to add the ESXi hosts or clusters managed by the vCenter server.

1. Expand Servers > All Host Groups from the Fabric node, right-click the VMware host group and select Add Add ESX Hosts and Clusters.

2. On the wizard’s first page, use the Browse button to choose the ESXi host root “Run as” account.

If you use any account other than the root credentials for the ESXi hosts, the SCVMM V2V converter fails to convert VMware VMs to Hyper-V.

2. Then, on the wizard’s Target Resources page, select the vCenter server from the VMware vCenter Server drop-down. After that, check the checkbox next to the cluster and click Next.

3. On the next page, confirm that the VMware host group is selected, then click Finish to add the vCenter cluster and all ESXi hosts it manages.

Task 3: Import ESXi Hosts Certificate to VMM

VMM requires an ESXi certificate to authenticate with each host. Follow the steps below to import the certificate for each host.

1. Double-click the ESXi host to open its properties.
2. After that, click the Management tab, then the Import button.

3. On the Import Certificate pop-up window, click Import.

4. Finally, click OK to complete the process.

After importing an ESXi host’s certificate to VMM, its status will change from “OK (Limited)” to “OK”.

Repeat steps 1-4 above on all ESXi hosts.

This is the end of part 9a of the series.

If you completed the tasks in this part, I assume you want to migrate VMware VMs to Hyper-V using VMM’s V2V converter. If that is the case, proceed to part 9b.

However, to convert VMware VMs with Veeam’s Instant Recovery, proceed to part 10a.