System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Pre req

As announced System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is in BETA.

Something to share on the pre-req:

1) SCVMM 2008 to install in Windows Server 2008 only

2) To install self service portal; For IIS, you will need:
a) Web Server (IIS) Role with Common HTTP features, Static Content, Default Document, Directory Browsing, HTTP Errors, Application Development, ASP.NET, .NET Extensibility, ISAPI Extensions, ISAPI Filters, Security, Request Filtering.
b) You will also need to add role service: IIS 6 Management Compatibility

You can install VMM Server, VMM Console as well as Self Service Portal in the same machine. However, if managing a big virtual infrastructure, you might want to split them.

Malaysia Partner Technical Community - CDP for Exchange

Dear Microsoft Malaysia partners,

Thanks for joining the session. As promised, the slide and video be able to download from:

http://cid-147d10eebd539097.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/PTC

Hope you enjoy. Do send me a private e-mail if you to join our SystemCenter group.

Cheers

DPM and SCVMM how-to Video

Lots of our readers comments on how to get the video we posted in this blog.

http://cid-147d10eebd539097.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public

Thanks to SkyDrive, which we can now post it to the web.

Branch DP connections limitation

There are a lot of ppl questioning, what is the actual limit for SCCM branch distribution point? how should i design it to fit into my customer environment?

For your information, if you run Branch DP on Windows XP or Windows Vista client, you will only have concurrent limit of 10 users. But if you run Branch DP on Windows Server, you will not have the limitation for 10 users and the server's license model will apply on it, such as CALs, Per Server, Per Seat etc.

Hope the above information can give you some hints on SCCM design.

SMSMap & SCCM 2007 Capacity Planner

Recently I've found one interesting website called SMSMap. This website basically provide tools called SMSMap and SCCM 2007 Capacity Planner.

SMSMap is a tool similar like Active Directory Topology Diagrammer, it allows you to simplified the process of drawing the Visio diagram for your SCCM structure. Whereas SCCM 2007 Capacity Planner is a tool for you to plan out your SCCM structure for your organization (This tool is very useful, so far there is no official release from Microsoft regarding capacity planning for SCCM).

Below is the link for the website I mentioned above:
http://www.tondtware.com/downloads.html

Lastly, many thanks to Jeff Tondt for giving me permission to allow me to post his site link in my blog. Currently, Jeff Tondt is a Senior Consultant II for Microsoft Consulting Services. He focused on the System Management solution and he is SMS & SCCM expert.

Install DPM Agent manually

In the recent class and projects, lots of the students and customers would like to install DPM once they implement a server - this is a good news.

However, how can we do so? There are two things here: Install DPM Agent manually and associate it with DPM Server.

To install DPM Agent manually, there are few ways - install it with SCCM/SMS, distribute via Active Directory group policy or even install it manually.

1) In a DPM source CD, locate Microsoft DPM\DPM\Agents\RA\2.0.5820.0\i386 (use AM64 if install in a 64 bit machine)

2) run DpmAgentInstaller.exe /q .

Now, the agent is installed. To enable firewall exeption,

1) type :\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\bin\ SetDpmServer.exe – dpmServerName .

To associate the DPMA with DPM server,

2) On the DPM server, from the DPM Management Shell prompt, type Attach-ProductionServer.ps1 .

DPM Error 324

Recently, we are doing a DPM Proof of Concept with Microsoft.

Everything works fine with DPM Server installation, DPM Agent push. However, the second day, the agent is not be able to communicate with DPM Server with an error 324.

The detail of the error sounds like:

The agent operation failed because the DPM Agent Coordinator service did not respond.
To troubleshoot this, according to Microsoft website, you will need to:

1) Check the recent DPMAC source records in the application event log on .

2) Verify that the DPM server is remotely accessible from.

3) If a firewall is enabled on the DPM server, verify that it is not blocking requests from .

4) Verify that the time on the DPM server and the selected computer is synchronized with the domain controller. At a command prompt, type "net time /set" to synchronize the time with the domain controller.

However, it is not the case of ours, what we found out:
It is because of Windows 2003 SP2...

We will need to verify that the DPM server is a member of the Distributed COM Users group and that the group has DCOM Launch and Access permissions.

1) In Computer Management, expand System Tools, expand Local Users and Groups, and then click Groups.

2) In the Details pane, double-click the Distributed COM Users group.

3) Verify that the computer account for the DPM server is a member of the group.

For DCOM Launch and Access permission:

1) In Administrative Tools, open Component Services, Expand Component Services, expand Computers, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.

2) On the COM Security tab, under Access Permissions, click Edit Limits. Verify that the Distributed COM Users group is allowed both Local Access and Remote Access permissions.

3) On the COM Security tab, under Launch and Activation Permissions, click Edit Limits. Verify that the Distributed COM Users groups is allowed the following permissions:

• Local Launch
• Remote Launch
• Local Activation
• Remote Activation
  

Wait for sometime, the DPMA now be able to communicate with DPM Server.

It tooks us about 1-2 hours to solve it together with the customer.