Planning Considerations for Upgrading VMM
Updated: May 13, 2016
Applies To: System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager
The following tables contain important considerations when you are planning to upgrade Virtual Machine Manager from System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) to System Center 2012 R2. For system requirements for VMM in System Center 2012 R2, see the following:
Common planning considerations
| Item | Planning considerations |
|---|---|
| Operating system on the VMM management server | We strongly recommend that you use Windows Server 2012 R2 as the operating system on the management server running System Center 2012 R2 VMM. The VMM management server must run Windows Server 2012 R2 if you want to use VMM to create clusters running Windows Server 2012 R2. This is true for creating either Hyper-V host clusters or Scale-Out File Server clusters. If you decide to continue using Windows Server 2012 as the operating system for the VMM management server, you can create clusters running Windows Server 2012 R2 outside of VMM and then add them to VMM. You just can’t create the clusters in VMM. |
| VMware ESX hosts and certain versions of VMware vCenter Server | - If you include these hosts and their managed objects in the upgrade, they are removed from the VMM database. - If you do not want these hosts to be removed automatically, remove the hosts manually before upgrading. |
| Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) | - PRO configurations are not maintained during this upgrade. - If you have an existing connection to Operations Manager, the connection is removed during the upgrade process. - If you do not want the connection to be removed automatically, manually remove the connection before upgrading. - After the upgrade process completes, you can reconfigure your connection to Operations Manager. - For information about using Operations Manager with VMM, see Configuring Operations Manager Integration with VMM. |
| WinRM optimization | The values of the MaxConcurrentOperationsPerUser and the MaxConnections properties of WSMAN (which are used by WinRM), are not reset during the upgrade. The values that existed prior to the upgrade persist after the upgrade, and if they are too low then the throughput of VMM might be limited. |
| Library server | - If you want to use the library server in VMM for System Center 2012 R2, click Cancel to exit the upgrade and then, if needed, move the library server to a computer that is running a supported operating system. - For information about VMM library server requirements, see Preparing your environment for System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager. |
| Service account | For more information, see Choosing Service Account and Distributed Key Management Settings During an Upgrade. |
| Distributed key management | For more information, see Choosing Service Account and Distributed Key Management Settings During an Upgrade. |
High availability planning considerations
| Item | Planning considerations |
|---|---|
| Failover cluster | - You must create and configure a failover cluster prior to the upgrade. |
| Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager Provider | If Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager is implemented in the VMM environment, then after the upgrade you will need to assign the active node role to the same node that had that role before the upgrade. This ensures that the Hyper-V Recovery Manager registration information is properly restored. |
| VMM database | - We recommend that the VMM database reside on a high availability installation of SQL Server. We also recommend that the high availability installation of SQL Server is installed on a separate failover cluster from the failover cluster on which you are installing the high availability VMM management server. - For information about moving a VMM database to another computer, see How to Move a VMM Database to Another Computer. |
| Library server | - We recommend that the library server is installed on a high availability file server. - After you upgrade to a high availability VMM management server, we recommended that you relocate your VMM library to a high availability file server. - For more information about relocating your VMM library after the upgrade, see Relocate the VMM library. |
| Service account | - You must configure the System Center Virtual Machine Manager service to use a domain account for a high availability VMM management server. - For more information, see Choosing Service Account and Distributed Key Management Settings During an Upgrade. |
| Distributed key management | - You must use distributed key management to store encryption keys in Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) for a high availability VMM management server. - For more information, see Choosing Service Account and Distributed Key Management Settings During an Upgrade. |
For additional guidance about configuring a high availability VMM management server, see Installing a Highly Available VMM Management Server.
Tip
VMM provides automatic rollback functionality in the event of a failure during the upgrade process. When a failure is detected during the upgrade, the upgrade automatically reverts the environment to the original configuration.
See Also
Planning an Upgrade of Virtual Machine Manager
Performing a VMM Upgrade
System Requirements for System Center 2012 R2
Preparing your environment for System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager