In this chapter, as mentioned earlier, you’ll use System Center Virtual Machine Manager to deploy the Windows Server Gateway Hyper-V host and take advantage of the bare-metal provisioning capabilities that you used to deploy the SOFS and Hyper-V clusters earlier. A key enabler of this bare-metal deployment capability is the use of the baseboard management controller (BMC). The BMC enables out-of-band management and allows System Center Virtual Machine Manager to power on the physical server, discover it, control the network boot, and ultimately power off the physical server—all before the installed operating system starts. For this to work, you need to have the BMC within each host configured in advance to ensure System Center Virtual Machine Manager can communicate with them.
Table 6-1 shows the BMC settings for the Windows Server Gateway Hyper-V host. Note that each hardware vendor’s BMC configuration utility may differ from that of other vendors, so please refer to your chosen hardware vendor’s guidance on how to configure your BMC. After the BMC is configured, note the username, password, and IP address.
TABLE 6-1 BMC settings for Windows Server Gateway Hyper-V host
PHYSICAL NIC PURPOSE ADDRESSES
GW01 – BMC Network Adapter BMC interface for PXE Boot IP: 10.10.0.7 SM: 255.255.255.0 DG: 10.10.0.254
For a successful bare-metal deployment, your Windows Server Gateway Hyper-V host must support one of the following out-of-band management protocols:
Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) versions 1.5 or 2.0
Data Center Management Interface (DCMI) version 1.0
System Management Architecture for Server Hardware (SMASH) version 1.0 over WS- Management (WS-Man)Whichever protocol you are using, ensure that you have the latest version of firmware for your BMC model.
Procedure 3: Configuring a BMC administrator in System
Center Virtual Machine Manager (Optional)
As mentioned earlier, for System Center Virtual Machine Manager to successfully control the Windows Server Gateway Hyper-V host through the BMC, you will need to give System Center Virtual Machine Manager the specific credentials for the BMC for the purpose of bare-metal deployment. You can easily achieve this in System Center Virtual Machine Manager by specifying a new run-as account that contains the credentials required for the BMC.
Note that if you are using the same credentials for the Windows Server Gateway Hyper-V host BMC as you used for the SOFS and Hyper-V cluster BMCs, skip this step, since you already have an appropriate run-as account configured. If you are using different credentials, proceed with this step.
1. Log on to your VMM01 VM using your contoso\administrator credentials.
2. From the desktop, launch the System Center Virtual Machine Manager console. For the name, enter VMM-HA, and click Connect. By entering VMM-HA, you’ll be connecting to the highly available System Center Virtual Machine Manager configuration you constructed in Chapter 2, “Deploying the management cluster.”
3. In the bottom-left corner of the System Center Virtual Machine Manager console, click Settings.
4. Expand Security, and select Run As Accounts. On the top ribbon navigation, select Create Run As Account.
5. In the Create Run As Account wizard, in the Name text box, enter GW BMC Administrator. Optionally, add a description.
6. In the User Name text box, enter the user name that is relevant for your BMC settings.
7. Below the user name, enter a password and password confirmation in the corresponding text boxes.
8. Unless your BMC account is within your domain, clear the Validate Domain Credentials check box and click OK.
You now have a run-as account that corresponds to the BMC on your gateway node.
Procedure 4: Create a physical computer profile
As you learned in Chapter 4, “Configuring storage infrastructure,” and in Chapter 5, physical computer profiles define the standardized characteristics of a physical server deployment that results in deployment of either a Hyper-V host or an SOFS. The concept of using a physical computer profile for physical server deployment is similar to the concept of using VM templates for VM deployment. The following procedure describes how to create a physical computer profile, this time in the System Center Virtual Machine Manager library and specifically for the Windows Server Gateway Hyper-V host rather than for the regular Hyper-V or SOFS cluster nodes, which you saw in previous chapters.
1. In the bottom-left corner of the System Center Virtual Machine Manager console, click Library.
2. Right-click Physical Computer Profile and select Create Physical Computer Profile, as shown in Figure 6-2.
FIGURE 6-2 Context menu for creating a physical computer profile
3. On the Profile Description page, name the profile Network Virtualization Gateway Hyper-V Host. Optionally, set a description. Ensure that the VM Host option is selected, as shown in Figure 6-3, and then click Next
FIGURE 6-3 Naming the profile
4. On the OS Image page, shown in Figure 6-4, click Browse and select the VHDX file that you published to the System Center Virtual Machine Manager library in Chapter 2. Optionally, you can select the Do Not Convert The Virtual Hard Disk Type To Fixed During Deployment check box. For this POC configuration, select the option, and then click Next. 176 CHAPTER 6 Configuring network virtualization
FIGURE 6-4 Specifying settings on the OS Image page
5. On the Hardware Configuration page, under Management NIC, click IP Configuration.
6. Select Allocate A Static IP From The Following Network, and select the DataCenter_LN logical network from the drop-down list, as shown in Figure 6-5.
FIGURE 6-5 Allocating a static IP address
7. At the top of the window, click Add, and then select Physical Network Adapter.
8. Repeat steps 5 through 6 of this procedure for Physical NIC #1.
9. At the top of the window, click Add, and then select Physical Network Adapter.
10. Under Physical NIC #2, click Connectivity Properties.
11. Select the Connect This Physical NIC To The Following Logical Switch check box. From the drop-down list, select the logical switch you created in Chapter 3. This will automatically select the uplink port profile that was created in Chapter 3.
12. Repeat steps 9 through 11 of this procedure, adding another three physical NICs. When this is complete, you will have a Management NIC and Physical NIC #1 through #5. Two of the NICs will represent the 10-Gbps DatacenterNetwork adapters, and the remaining four NICs will be transformed into a logical switch, allowing Windows Server Gateway VM traffic to flow onto the physical network.
13. Under Disk And Partitions, click OS, and review the settings. You will be using 100 percent of the available local disk for the deployment, but you can adjust if required.
14. Under Driver Options, click Driver Filter. System Center Virtual Machine Manager provides the ability to include hardware-specific drivers as part of the deployment process. This section of the wizard assumes you have already imported the drivers into the System Center Virtual Machine Manager library. This will not be covered as part of this configuration; you will use the built-in Windows Server drivers for the time being. Click Next.
15. On the OS Configuration page, perform the following steps:
• Type contoso.com as the domain to join, and select the SetupAdmin run-as account as the credentials for joining the domain.
• For the Admin Password, enter the standard password you're using for the POC. This will be used to set the local administrator account password on the server.
• For Identity Information, enter your company information (optional).
• For Product Key, enter your product key if you are using one for the POC (optional).
• Select your time zone.
• Select an answer file if you're using one for any of your Windows settings (optional).
16. Click Next. On the Host Settings page, leave the paths blank for now; you will attach the file shares when the hosts have been deployed. Click Finish.
17. Monitor the job for successful completion, and then close the Jobs window.