Hi There,
Whilst working on a bare-metal build for a Hyper-V host (based on HP blades with iLO 3) today using SCVMM 2012 and Host Profiles I came across the following error;
An out of band operation (IPMI) for the BMC <FQDN> failed
The obvious first line of troubleshooting is to check the IP address of the iLO connection was working (and that we had typed it right). This checked out, so the next check was to make sure the account we are using to access iLO has the necessary permissions to the host, and to check that IPMI commands are being accepted by iLO. This checked out as well and left us stumped!
After some further troubleshooting, we decided to re-create the account we had access to in iLO. We were not using the default ‘Administrator’ account, rather another delegated account that had been created for us.
We deleted this account, and re-created it using the same username/password to be greeted with an error along the lines of the username we are selecting has over 16 characters and therefore cannot be used to send IPMI commands….. however can still be created…..hmmm!
So let’s try shortening the account name, which we did, then changed the run-as account in SCVMM, re-ran the job and as if by magic our hosts started to boot 
Cheers
SteveH
Hi there,
The above message pops up from time to time when attempting to remotely administer a Hyper-V server from another machine, particularly if the machine you are attempting to access is in another domain or in a workgroup.
First things first, make sure all of the config is correct on the Hyper-V server itself to allow remote administration. Use the excellent HVRemote for that
What usually catches me out after that is the fact that Hyper-V manager is not expecting a FQDN, it is hostname/shortname ONLY! Use the hosts file if you are having DNS issues.
Cheers
SteveH
Hi There,
The February 2012 update to the VDI Smackdown Whitepaper has just been released, it’s a great read if you want to weigh up to the pros and cons of the various virtual desktop technologies…
The overall goal of the white paper is share information about:
- Application and Desktop Delivery Solutions
- Explain the different Desktop Virtualization concepts
- Explain the pros and cons of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
- Describe the different Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) vendors and solutions
- Compare the features of the various VDI solutions
Read more HERE!
Cheers,
SteveH
Whilst tidying up one of our VMM 2012 environments earlier I was having trouble removing a service template that had been created, the following error was appearing when I was hitting delete;
As far as I could see I had deleted any related service deployments and could see no services or VMs on any of the host clusters. I also tried removing the Service via the Powershell command; Remove-SCService
The fix was staring me in the face on the Service Template screen – if you highlight the template, and look in the ‘General Information’ section at the bottom you will see a ‘Services: <Service Name>‘ which is a hyperlink. Clicking this took me to one of my Host Groups and the Service was hidden away in here.
I deleted this, and was then able to remove the Service Template
The following TechNet Wiki links contains a number of very useful tools for Hyper-V, some of my favourites;
- Core Configurator 2.0 – makes configuring Server Core or Hyper-V Server much easier
- Disk2VHD – for creating VHDs from physical disks – very useful for the new Host Profile feature in VMM 2012
- Wim2VHD – in a similar vein to the above, if you have already captured your Server image to a .WIM, this tool will convert it to a VHD
- nvspcrub – useful tool to remove virtual network configuration from the management partition
Many more tools can be found at the following LINK
Cheers
SteveH
We came across an issue recently where we had an issue with our Hyper-V 2008 R2 server. The BOOTMGR file went missing on a reboot , all this was repaired by running Bootrec commands.
After the above the Hyper-V server would boot up however none of the VM’s would start and came up with the following error
“The virtual machine could not be started because the hypervisor is not running. The following actions may help you resolve the problem:
1) Verify that the processor of the physical computer has a supported version of hardware-assisted virtualization.
2) Verify that hardware-assisted virtualization and hardware-assisted data execution protection are enabled in the BIOS of the physical computer. (If you edit the BIOS to enable either setting, you must turn off the power to the physical computer and then turn it back on. Resetting the physical computer is not sufficient.)
3) If you have made changes to the Boot Configuration Data store, review these changes to ensure that the hypervisor is configured to launch automatically.”
The issue was that when we recreated the BCD store in did not set the Hypervisor to launch automatically.
We resolved this by running the following command “bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto” after a reboot all worked fine 
I am currently studying toward gaining the MCITP Virtualization Administrator certification of which the 70-699 is a required exam. Below are a couple of links that will give you some good preparation material for studying toward the certification:
Administration Video Series:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=1f0d3e54-25d1-4ec1-a844-3b508bd63ffa
Free eBook: Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions (Second Edition) in PDF format:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/B/4/5B46A838-67BB-4F7C-92CB-EABCA285DFDD/693821ebook.pdf
Hands on testing is always the best way of learning but this will at least give you a good start point if you are new to the technology. Also worth remembering that virtualisation is a big part of cloud solutions.
Paul
Just to let you know the update KB2230887 that is required to allow dynamic memory to work on Virtual machines on the below operating system has been removed from the MS download site.
- Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition Service Pack 2 (SP2)
- Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition Server Core SP2
- Windows Web Server 2008 SP2
- Windows Web Server 2008 Server Core SP2
If you attempt to download the Hotfix on the MS website you will get the below error “The KB article has no public hotfixes. Please contact support if you need immediate assistance.
http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support”
Microsoft will re-releasing the update however they have gave no indication on when this will be.
Just a few simple steps on how you can export a ‘Virtual Machine’ via Hyper-V Manager. Exporting A VM is pretty useful way of creating an exact copy of a VM, this can be handy if you want to make a copy of the VM and put it in a test lab and can even come in handy is DR Scenario.
- Open Hyper-V Manager
- Find VM and Right Click and Press Export
- Select Location and Hit Ok
- The Status of your VM should then turn to exporting
Once VM export has complete you can then re-import VM wherever you wish 
The above error message can be seen when trying to connect to a virtual machine from the Hyper-V console on the Hyper-V host.
The reason for this is that the self signed Hyper-V machine management service certificate has expired, this is the certificate issued to itself for authentication when Hyper-V role is installed on the server.
The workaround for this is to: Shut down all VM’s, restart the Hyper-V VMMS, start the virtual machines again. This renews the self signed certificate for another year. However a better resolution is to install the following handy-dandy, super duper Microsoft KB! By doing so this will in the future auto-magically update the Hyper-V VMMS certificate………
KB967902
Hope this helps!
