Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 Step-by-Step Guide: SCVMM Server - Part 1

This series of articles will center on installing and configuring System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) for use with a two node Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Cluster. The steps outlined can be immediately implemented into a deployable solution. This part of the series demonstrates how to install VMM Server.

Introduction

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2007 provides centralized administration of your virtual infrastructure and enables increased physical server utilization and rapid provisioning of new virtual machines.

VMM is a server application in the Microsoft System Center family of products. VMM manages a virtualized data center that runs Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, Hyper-V, VMware and provides:

Multi-vendor Virtualization Platform Support
Easy Identification of Consolidation Candidates
Fast and Reliable Physical-to-Virtual-Machine Conversion (P2V)
Fast and Reliable Virtual-to-Virtual-Machine Conversion (V2V)
Intelligent Placement
Centralized Resource Optimization
Rapid provisioning of new virtual machines

This article will demonstrate how to install Virtual Machine Manager Server within your organization.

Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SVMM) 2008 Server

SCVMM Server is the hub of a VMM deployment through which all other SCVMM components interact and communicate.

Insert the SCVMM DVD into the drive and execute Setup.exe
On the System Center Virtual Machine Manager dialog, click on VMM Setup
On the License Terms dialog, select I accept the terms of this agreement and click Next
On the Microsoft Update dialog, select Use Microsoft Update when I check for updates and then click Next
On the Customer Experience Improvement Program dialog, select No, I’m an not willing to participate and click Next
On the Product Registration dialog, enter VMM User into the User name field and City of Windhoek into the Company field and click Next
On the Prerequisites Check dialog, click Next
On the Installation Location dialog, accept the default location and click Next
On the SQL Server Settings dialog, select Install SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP2 and click Next
On the Library Share Settings dialog, ensure to select Create a new library share and click Next
On the Installation Settings dialog, accept the defaults and click Next
On the Summary of Settings dialog, click Install
After the installation completes, click Close on the Installation dialog

Conclusion

That’s it - you’re done with the basic installation of System Center Virtual Machine Manger (SCVMM) 2008. Of course, in order fully utilize the server you will need to install the VMM Administrator Console, either on the server or on a workstation.

The next article in the series: Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 Step-by-Step Guide: SCVMM Administrator Console - Part 2 demonstrates the process.