Now some days after the event we can conclude that everything was great. Amply 100 visitors has visit the event, the visitors were really satisfied about the location, the reception, the lunch, the coffee, the presenters, the presentations actually about the whole event! ….and that’s great to see and hear!

A special word of thanks to VX Company, they facilitate a great location and were very hospitable. Also many thanks to the sponsors: Amsio, Comparex, Duvak, Imara ICT, Inovativ, Savision and Wortell.

Then our ‘Beast from Belgium’ Didier van Hoye aka WorkingHardInIT. Still suffering from a jetlag he came over to the Netherlands and present a top session, with deep technical content and a good sense of humor! Thank you Didier!!

Last but not least we thank all visitors for this great event, you all made this a great success.

The presentations are online and you can find them on the following locations:

• NIC Teaming and Converged Fabric – Marc van Eijk
• Cluster Aware Updating – Maarten Wijsman
• Make your VM mobile – Hans Vredevoort
• The way you can deploy Hyper-V – Peter Noorderijk
• Advanced networking capabilities – Didier van Hoye

See you all on our next event!

To change this priority we first tried to use the Set-VMMigrationNetwork PowerShell command. Unfortunately this command can only be used when dealing with non-clustered Hyper-V hosts. So we dug deeper and deeper using different PowerShell commands and BING without any satisfying results.

Then we realized there is something called “the registry” which holds the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Cluster key. After some more digging we found two registry entries called MigrationExcludeNetworks and MigrationNetworkOrder. These entries hold the IDs and order from the Cluster Networks available in your cluster.

Aha … room for possibilities! So, changing these registry entries would order and select the Cluster Networks in the way you want? Yes it does!

For this we fabricated some PowerShell lines.

$ClusterNetworkLM = Get-Clusternetwork LM
$ClusterNetworkCLUSTER = Get-Clusternetwork CLUSTER
$ClusterNetworkMGMT = Get-Clusternetwork MGMT
$ClusterNetworkISCSI = Get-Clusternetwork ISCSI

$includeIDs = $ClusterNetworkLM.id + ";" + $ClusterNetworkCLUSTER.id
$excludeIDs = $ClusterNetworkMGMT.id + ";" + $ClusterNetworkISCSI.id

Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\Cluster\ResourceTypes\Virtual Machine\Parameters" -Name MigrationExcludeNetworks -Value $excludeIDs
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\Cluster\ResourceTypes\Virtual Machine\Parameters" -Name MigrationNetworkOrder -Value $includeIDs

The result is very very satisfying as you can see in the screen dump below. We are now able to control the order and the selection of the Live Migration settings in a cluster using the Cluster Network ID’s.

The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter provides a Microsoft-supported, freely available, stand-alone solution for converting “the other guys”-based virtual machines and virtual disks to Hyper-V-based virtual machines and virtual hard disks (VHDs)—including conversion from “the other guys” to Hyper-V on Windows Server 2012. Because MVMC has a fully scriptable command-line interface (CLI), it integrates especially well with data center automation workflows such as those authored and run within Microsoft System Center 2012 – Orchestrator. It can also be invoked through Windows PowerShell.

MVMC provides you with:

• A quick, low-risk option for “the other guys” to evaluate Hyper-V.
• Converts “the other guys” virtual machines to Hyper-V virtual machines: The VM Conversion will convert “the other guys”-hosted virtual machines and ensure that the entire configuration, such as memory, virtual processor, and other machine configurations, is also migrated from the initial source. The tool also adds virtual NICs to the deployed virtual machine on Hyper-V.
• Supports a clean migration to Hyper-V with uninstallation of VMware tools on the source virtual machine.
• Provides a wizard-driven GUI, making it simple to perform virtual machine conversion.
• Installs integration services for Windows 2003 guests that are converted to Hyper-V virtual machines.
• Supports conversion of virtual machines from “the other guys” vSphere 4.1 and 5.0 hosts, including those hosted on a vSphere cluster, to Hyper-V. The tool also supports migration of virtual machines to a Hyper-V host that is part of a failover cluster.Note   MVMC also supports conversion of virtual machines from “the other guys” vSphere 4.0 if the host is managed by vCenter 4.1 or vCenter 5.0. You have to connect to vCenter 4.1 or 5.0 through MVMC to convert virtual machines on vSphere 4.0.
• Supports offline conversions of “the other guys”-based virtual hard disks (VMDK) to a Hyper-V-based virtual hard disk file format (.vhd file).
• Includes a fully scriptable command-line interface (CLI) for performing machine conversion and offline disk conversion, integrating with data center automation workflows such as those authored and executed within System Center 2012 – Orchestrator. The command line can also be invoked through Windows PowerShell.

MVMC simplifies low-cost, point-and-click migration of Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 R2 with SP2, and Windows Server 2003 with SP2 guest operating systems from VMware to Hyper-V.

The MVMC Automation Toolkit is a collection of PowerShell scripts that will automate conversions using the MVMC.exe. It is back-ended by a SQL instance (SQL Express will work). You can use it to convert several machines at once, on a single server or across many servers at once.

MVMC Automation Toolkit can be considered as a low budget very easy to use toolkit to automate migrates from “the other guys” to Hyper-V. If you want to know more about this tool you have to watch this session!

As you might have noticed from my previous blogs I have a great interest in Windows Azure for Windows Server. In session WS-B303 Windows Server Virtual Machine: Adding Windows Azure Services Program Managers Marc Umeno and Anjli Chaudhry explain the components, lessons learned (some of them looked very familiar ) and some demos.

One slide caught my attention.

In this slide Marc Umeno talks about an upcoming development in Windows Azure For Windows Server. In the current version user accounts are stored in an ASP.NET membership SQL database. This is a great solution for Service Providers, but (except for the Admin Site) there is no integration with Active Directory.

The product team is working on Active Directory integration for a future release.

What users will logon to the portal with Active Directory accounts? Users from the internal organization.

If you think about it, it is a logical step. Whether self-service users manage their services in Windows Azure, in a hosted cloud or in their own private cloud, they can access them through a uniform portal. It also fits in the roadmap to drive the adoption of Windows Azure in a great way.

Where does this leave System Center App Controller? Maybe the product team working on Windows Azure for Windows Server might be reinforcement with the System Center App Controller product team. At the end of the session Marc Umeno specifies that at TechEd (taking place June 3-6, this year) more information will be disclosed. So stay tuned.

After experimenting a lot with VMM 2012 SP1 networking, I am slowly getting more proficient in this area but I can assure you there is a lot of ground to cover.

Posters like this help you get all the pieces together.

I am currently rebuilding our lab using the Logical Switch using uplink port profiles, native port profiles, virtual network adapters and port classifications. It is cool stuff and in the end makes a lot of sense. It’s just the learning curve that is fairly steep.

The other hard thing is that if you have already deployed your Hyper-V clusters using PowerShell for building your NIC Teams and Hyper-V Extensible Switches, it is not possible to just apply a Logical Switch on top of your existing configuration. The only way is to wipe your network configuration or your entire server. A bare metal deployment via VMM 2012 SP1 is probably the best method, including the various VMM integrations you might be able to download from your server hardware vendor. HP has released a nice integration which adds all latest device drivers into the VMM Library.

In your VMM Host Profile you can use these drivers tagged for the correct operating system.

When you deploy a new physical Hyper-V server you get a chance to configure your NICs using the Logical Switch which is built from the Uplink Port Profile mentioned earlier.

Rolling out a new cluster including all networking complexity can be done with VMM 2012 SP1 Bare Metal Deployment.

So here is the link to the poster:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=37137

Series on VMM 2012 SP1 Virtual Networking:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/scvmm/archive/2013/01/08/virtual-networking-in-vmm-2012-sp1.aspx

Greg Cusanza’s TechDays 2013 presentation What’s New in VMM 2012 SP1:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/video/Dn189146(MSDN.10)?query=1

Greg Cusanza’s TechDays 2013 presentation on VMM 2012 SP1 networking:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/tdbe13-network-management-in-system-center-2012-sp1-vmm

HP Insight Control including SCVMM 2012 SP1 Integration:

http://www.hyper-v.nu/archives/hvredevoort/2013/03/making-virtual-machine-2012-sp1-networking-work/

• Installing and configuring System Center Service Provider Foundation
• Installing and configuring Windows Azure for Windows Server – Part 1
• Installing and configuring Windows Azure for Windows Server – Part 2
• Installing and configuring Windows Azure for Windows Server – Part 3
• Installing and connecting System Center App Controller to System Center Service Provider Foundation

In the previous part of this blog we prepared the Service Management Portal and API for tenant access. This part of the series covers the experience from a tenant point of view.

Signing up

When a tenant connects to the Tenant Site on the public secure URL (in our example https://portal.hyper-v.nu) the portal presents the login page.

A new tenant can sign up to a public plan by selecting signup in the top right.

When a new tenant selects a plan that was made public, the descriptions we specified earlier are shown. When a new tenant enters an email address, a password and clicks sign up the user account will be created in the SQL database and the tenant logs in to the Tenant Site.

It is possible to create an additional step for a new tenant by specifying an invitation code in the public plan.

When a new tenant selects to sign up to a public plan that has an invitation code specified the user is presented with an additional column Access Code in the portal.

If a new tenant is unable to specify the correct invitation code, the signup process will fail. This allows you to prevent anonymous users from signing up and still use a public plan, by providing new tenants with an invitation code upfront.

Create VM Network

When the initial configuration of Network Virtualization (as described in the previous part) is completed, a tenant is able to create a new network from the Tenant Site. Select New > Networks > Quick Create and specify the friendly name for the Network and select the Provider Address Space. The name of the Provider Address Space is defined in System Center VMM 2012 SP1. I this blog series I have named it “Provider Address Space” so that is clear to see what setting is displayed here. But you can define a more appropriate name for your environment.

After the tenant selects to Create a Network, a new VM Network is created in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1. The Address Space for the new VM Network is a fixed value in the current release of Windows Azure for Windows Server. The first VM Network a tenant creates is assigned a network address of 10.0.0.0/16 and the tenant is unable to change these settings.

In System Center VMM 2012 SP1 it is possible to change these settings. To change the subnet for a VM Network that was created by a tenant, select the VM Networks tab in the VMs and Services menu. Select the VM Network created by the tenant, add a VM Subnet and specify an IP Pool. Delete the default 10.x.x.x IP Pool.

After refreshing the Tenant Site, the VM Network will reflect the new settings. You might call it BYOIPWALHFTSP (Bring Your Own IP with a little help from the Service Provider).

Hopefully the product team will improve this feature in time for the first network virtualization gateways to be publicly available.

When the tenant creates a second VM Network in the Tenant Site a new VM Network is created in System Center VMM 2012 SP1. The second VM Network is assigned a network address of 10.1.0.0/16 and is a dedicated routing domain. No routing is possible between the different VM Networks.

The VM Networks tab in the VMs and Services menu in System Center VMM 2012 SP1 displays the VM Networks from all different tenants. When different tenants use the same name for a VM Network the VM Networks tab does not show a clear distinction. I have not found a way to easily filter this overview per tenant.

Create a virtual machine

After logging into the Tenant Site an overview is shown of all configured objects for this tenant. By clicking New > Virtual Machines in the bottom menu the tenant can choose to Quick Create or Custom Create a virtual machine.

The biggest difference between the two is that Custom Create allows a tenant to select a VM Network at virtual machine creation time rather than adding it to the configuration after the virtual machine is created. This requires the tenant to create a VM Network before creating a new virtual machine.

Each option (Quick or Custom create) will instruct System Center VMM 2012 SP1 to create a virtual machine based on the settings defined in the VM Template created earlier.

Change VM settings

When the Virtual Machine is deployed the tenant is able to make changes to the “hardware settings” of the virtual machine. The tenant can change these settings by applying a different Hardware Profile. The tenant can choose from the Hardware Profiles created in System Center VMM 2012 SP1, that are assigned to the hosting plan. A virtual machine needs to be stopped before another Hardware Profile can be applied.

Besides the predefined Hardware Profiles a tenant is also attach a VM Network, a virtual hard disks and a DVD. To attach any of these objects, select a virtual machine and select attach on the bottom menu.

A virtual machine needs to be stopped before any of these objects can be attached.

Attach VM Network

To attach a new or an additional VM Network to a virtual machine, select Attach > Network and select the VM Network that the tenant created earlier.

Before we can add a virtual hard disk or an ISO file, the tenant should have access to a library where these objects are located. First create a read-only library share where all the objects will be saved. You can define a single share for all clouds or create a dedicated share for each cloud. Future updates will probably provide access to more types of objects (for example service templates).

When the read-only library share is created, select the cloud that is associated with the public hosting plan, open the properties, select libraries and add the read-only library share that you created for this plan.

Attach Disks

After the read-only library has been attached to the cloud that maps to the hosting plan, a tenant can add a virtual hard disk to a virtual machine. Select the virtual machine in the Tenant Site. Verify that the virtual machine is in a stopped state. Select Attach > Disk in the bottom menu.

The public Cloud OS Windows Azure limits you to add a maximum of 16 disks to a virtual machine. Adding disks in Windows Azure for Windows Server is limited to 64 disks per virtual machine specified by the amount of disks that can be attached to a SCSI controller in Hyper-V.

All disks are attached by System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 to the virtual machine SCSI controller.

Attach ISO

It is also possible for the tenant to attach an ISO file to a virtual machine. The prerequisites for attaching an ISO are identical to attaching a virtual hard disk. A read-only library share must be specified in the System Center 2012 SP1 cloud that is mapped to the Hosting Plan.

Remote access

Remote access is probably the biggest challenge with the current release. A virtual machine is not much of use when you are unable to access it. Without a NVGRE gateway available Network Virtualization is completely isolated, the only thing we can do here is wait for a public release of a NVGRE gateway. With VM Networks based on VLANs we have some possibilities in place. Besides routing and VPN policies managed by the Service Provider there is also a connect button for every virtual machine in the Tenant Site. By default the IP address of the virtual machine is injected into an RDP file that is presented to the tenant when he clicks the connect button. No additional settings are specified in this RDP file. Without a VPN tunnel in place the connection to the virtual machine will fail.

The product team created an extension in the web.config file that allows you to specify a custom HTTP endpoint location where these RDP files can be placed. I have played with the idea of creating a RD Gateway accessible for all tenants that will only allow a single tenant to route to his VLAN without access to other VLANs. This would mean a lot of work, but it can be functional.

Besides the configuration of the RD Gateway, the custom HTTP endpoint needs to be created. To change these settings we must first decrypt the web.config file. The web.config file can be decrypted by running the following PowerShell command.

Unprotect-MgmtSvcConfiguration –Namespace <namespace>

Where <namespace> is one of the following:

• TenantPublicAPI
• TenantAPI
• AdminAPI
• AdminSite
• TenantSite

After decrypting the Tenant Site open the web.config file in c:\intetpub\MgmtSvc-TenantSite

Locate the following lines

<add key=”Microsoft.SystemCenter.RDPPlugin.Enabled” value=”False”/>

<add key=”Microsoft.SystemCenter.RDPPlugin.BaseUri” value=”http://localhost:5656/”/>

<add key=”Microsoft.SystemCenter.RDPPlugin.UriTemplate” value=”Rdp/{subscriptionId}/{stampId}/{vmId}.rdp”/>

Change the RDPPlugin.Enabled to True and specify the URL and relative path where the custom RDP file can be downloaded from when a tenant clicks the connect button on a virtual machine. You might then use something like System Center Orchestrator to get the IP addresses when a virtual machine is created or changed, inject this together with the RD Gateway into a text file and save it as a RDP file on the specified location.

When the changes has been made, save the web.config file and encrypt it again by running the PowerShell command

Unprotect-MgmtSvcConfiguration –Namespace TenantSite

Finally perform an IISReset.exe and your new settings are applied.

I’m still struggling to get this remote access part working properly. To be honest I do not consider this usable for a production environment of any considerable size.

Conclusion

Windows Azure for Windows Server (formerly known as Katal) is a huge step in the right direction by Microsoft to embrace Service Providers with an end to end solution. Surely some features still require some development and network virtualization is playing its part as well, but the product has gained interest from most serious Service Providers and this will only result in more effort into the product.

In the next part we will look at connecting App Controller to a Service Provider Foundation. But not before I displayed two tweets by two guys who are also working with this product extensively and experiencing all kind of challenges and questions from Service Providers who are interested in Windows Azure for Windows Server. I’d would like to add TCP Endpoints to their list.

One of the authors of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation and Configuration Guide, Patrick Lownds, is offering the readers of Hyper-V.nu an exclusive chance to win a signed copy of the book.

All you need to do is start the download of an evaluation copy of Windows Server 2012 by clicking on this link Windows Server 2012 ISO, make a screenshot showing at least 1% of the download of the ISO and send it to:

patrick_lownds@hotmail.com and please also mention Hyper-V.nu

When Patrick has enough responses, your name will be put into a draw and a winner will be selected at random.

• Installing and configuring System Center Service Provider Foundation
• Installing and configuring Windows Azure for Windows Server – Part 1
• Installing and configuring Windows Azure for Windows Server – Part 2
• Installing and configuring Windows Azure for Windows Server – Part 3
• Installing and connecting System Center App Controller to System Center Service Provider Foundation

In the previous part of this blog we installed the Service Management Portal and API. This part of the series covers the post-installation steps to prepare your environment for tenant access. Some of these steps are optional but recommended.

Configuring System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 components

The Service Management Portal and API maps its IAAS objects to components in System Center VMM 2012 SP1. Before we can create the required objects in the Service Management Portal we need to configure some components in System Center VMM 2012 SP1.

Cloud

An offering in the Service Management Portal is defined by a hosting plan. A plan has a one to one mapping to a cloud in System Center VMM 2012 SP1. The minimum requirements for a cloud in System Center VMM 2012 SP1 is a Host Group. To create a cloud open the System Center VMM 2012 SP1 management console. Select VMs and Services in the left bottom menu.

In the top menu select Create Cloud.

In the Create Cloud wizard give a description (for example Gold, Silver or Bronze), select a Host Group and finish the wizard. It is possible to configure additional settings in the Create Cloud wizard, but we will skip these for now.

Hardware Profile

The tenant can change the “hardware” properties of a virtual machine. You can define these settings in Hardware Profiles. To create a Hardware Profile in System Center VMM 2012 SP1 open the Library in the left bottom menu.

In the left menu select Profile > Hardware Profiles. On the top menu select Create and select Hardware Profile.

Give the Hardware Profile a description (for example 2 Procs | 2Gb Memory)

Configure the hardware settings to match the template you would like to provide to your tenants.

VM Template

A Virtual Machine Template is used to define the settings for a Virtual Machine that can be deployed. You can create a VM Template with a sysprepped virtual hard disk and define all other settings manually or you can create a VM Template from a running virtual machine. To create a VM Template open the Library node from the left bottom menu and select Templates > VM Templates from the left menu.

Create a new VM Template. In the wizard specify a description for the VM Template (for example Windows Server 2012 Standard Edition). Select the source for the VM Template. I will use a sysprepped VHDX that I have already placed in the library.

In the Wizard select a Hardware Profile that we have created earlier. This Hardware Profile will be the default profile used when a tenant creates a new virtual machine from this VM Template.

VM Network

System Center VMM 2012 SP1 enables new networking management features. In the pre SP1 environment you needed to attach a virtual machine to a Logical Network for network connectivity. In System Center VMM 2012 SP1 an extra layer has been added called VM Networks. If you want a virtual machine to have network connectivity it must be connected to a VM Network. System Center VMM 2012 SP1 provides four types of VM Networks.

• No Isolation
• Network Virtualization
• VLAN
• External

The Service Management Portal requires a minimum of one VM Network based on No Isolation or VLAN that you use for mapping to a plan. You can decide for yourself what type of VM Network you would like to use.

For most service provides the most scalable option is VM Networks based on Network Virtualization. The Service Management Portal does not allow you to create a hosting plan with a VM Network based on Network Virtualization. This is quite logical since each tenant should use their own VM Network based on network virtualization and not a shared one for all tenants. I will describe the combination of Network Virtualization and Windows Azure for Windows Server in the next part of this series. For more information on the inner workings of Network Virtualization read my previous blog here.

The only downside to this type of VM Network is that a Network Virtualization Gateway is required for connectivity outside the VM Network and the availability of gateways is scarce at this moment. Some vendors are scheduling a public release of a Network Virtualization Gateway in Q2 of 2013. I spoke with Greg Cusanza at TechDays 2013 who used a Microsoft sample Network Virtualization gateway in his demo. He assured me that this sample gateway will be up for grabs on codeplex before MMS 2013 (within a couple of weeks).

Configuring Windows Azure for Windows Server objects

When the required components in System Center VMM 2012 SP1 are configured we can create the objects in the Service Management Portal and map to the objects in System Center VMM 2012 SP1.

A hosting plan is an offering in Windows Azure for Windows Server. You can create a private plan and assign it to a single customer or you can publish a plan and make it publicly available so a new tenant can sign up to the plan. It is recommended to use Network Virtualization for publicly available plans. When you use a different type of VM Network new tenants will get the same VM Network assigned.

Private Plan

You can create a plan and assign it to a single tenant. This allows you to create specific components in System Center VMM 2012 SP1 and make them only available to one tenant. If VM Networks based on VLANs are required a Private Plan is the most obvious choice. To create a Private Plan login to the Admin Site on https://localhost:30091, select new in the bottom menu and click create on the plans section.

Give the hosting plan a name (for example the name of the tenant). Select the services accessible for the tenant. Select Virtual Machine Clouds and complete the wizard.

Next we will need to map the plan to the components we created in System Center VMM 2012 SP1 earlier. Select plans in the left menu and open the plan you just created.

Select Virtual Machine Clouds in the plan services section. In the basic section of the virtual machine clouds page select the cloud provider we configured in our previous blog and select the cloud we configured in System Center VMM 2012 SP1. Each Private Plan is mapped to its own cloud in System Center VMM 2012 SP1.

In the usage limit section specify the available capacity for the tenant. Next specify the templates you would like to make available for the tenant.

Select the Hardware Profiles and VM Networks you would like to provide to the tenant. The advanced operations sections allows you to specify additional management operations for the tenant administrator. I have not found any of these advanced operations in the Tenant Site so this is probably a future investment.

Public Plan

In a larger scale environment is would be more feasible to define a couple of SLA’s and map each SLA to a published Plan. You can, for example, create three plans (Gold, Silver and Bronze) and map these plans to three clouds in System Center VMM 2012 SP1. As specified earlier it is recommended to use VM Networks based on Network Virtualization for multi-tenancy and scalability. A new tenant is able to sign up to a plan that is made public.

It is recommended to give a plan a good description. This allows a new tenant to select the correct plan based on the additional information in the tenant portal. To specify the description open a plan and select the advertise tab.

Specify the descriptions. We will see these later on when a new tenant signs up.

There are some specific configurations that must be taken care of for Network Virtualization in combination with a Public Plan. Jeff Graves describes an excellent walkthrough on his blog.

After implementing Jeff’s walkthrough I have made some minor adjustments in my environment to make the configuration completely multitenant. When I specified a default VM Network in the VM Template, new virtual machines created by different tenants were able to communicate with each other. I adjusted the connectivity settings of the network adapter in the VM Template to not connected.

When a new hosting plan is created, you are required to select one or more VM Networks. Since each tenant will create and use its own VM Network you are not able to select a VM Network based on Network Virtualization when you create a hosting plan. When a tenant creates a new virtual machine through the custom create feature in the Tenant Site or adds a VM Network to an existing virtual machine, the tenant can choose from the VM Networks based on Network Virtualization he created in the Tenant Site. But he also has the ability to select the VM Network that was specified when the hosting plan was created.

As noted earlier, a VM Network based on VLAN or No Isolation is required when configuring a hosting plan. These VM Networks are not multitenant. I found a workaround by creating a temporary VM Network based on VLAN or No Isolation in System Center VMM 2012 SP1 before configuring the hosting plan.

Create and configure a new hosting plan and select the Temporary VM Network based on VLAN as the required VM Network.

Save the hosting plan and make it public. To make a plan publicly available select plans in the left menu of the Admin Site and select the plan. In the bottom menu select make public. Then delete the temporary VM Network based on VLAN in System Center 2012 SP1. Probably not supported, but it allows the creation of a hosting plan with Network Virtualization and prevents a tenant from selecting a non-multitenant network.

New Tenant

User accounts will be created in the SQL database that was created by the Windows Azure for Windows Server installer. There are some ASP.NET tables in the Microsoft.MgmtSvc.PortalConfigStore database. The user account are created in the aspnet_Users table and the aspnet_Membership table.

The Service Management Portal also references Users table from the Microsoft.MgmtSvc.Store database.

A new tenant can be created by the administrator in the Service Management Portal Admin Site. This allows the administrator to assign a private plan to the new tenant.

Login to the Admin Site, select New in the bottom menu and click Quick Create on the user account tab.

Please note that it is required to assign the new user account to a plan.

A new tenant will also be created when a user signs up to a public plan in the Service Management Portal Tenant Site.

Ports and Certificates

Before we allow access to tenants it is recommended to change the ports and certificates used by the Service Management Portal Tenant Site and Service Management Portal Tenant Public API.

After the installation of the Service Management Portal and API the tenant portal is accessible on https://localhost :30081. A self-signed certificate is assigned to the website. You can replace the self-signed certificate with a web server certificated issued by a public Certificate Authority. It is also recommended to change port 30081 to the default SSL port 443.

To change the ports and certificates open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager on the Windows Server 2012 machine where the Service Management Portal Tenant Site was installed. Right click the MgmtSvc-TenantSite website and select edit bindings.

Change port 30081 to 443 and select the public certificate you requested from a public Certificate Authority.

After publishing port 443 in your firewall tenants can now access the Tenant Site by entering the secure URL. In our example https://portal.hyper-v.nu

In the next part of this series we will look at the tenant experience and the possibilities with Network Virtualization in Windows Azure for Windows Server.

About a year later, Aidan approached me again asking if I would be willing to contribute to another book called Microsoft Private Cloud Computing and I did not think about refusing (or should I have). It was my first experience as an author and I wrote up the Fabric chapters of VMM 2012. Aidan laid a nice foundation with his lucid Cloud introduction chapters, Patrick focused on the service management functionality and the VMM Library while Cloud and Datacenter MVP, Damian Flynn wrote a couple of brilliant chapters on private cloud management and integration with App Controller, Service Manager and Orchestrator. It was a fine job we completed in early 2012, the book was published just before the beta of SP1 was announced. We simply didn’t have the opportunity to wait until SP1 was out and digest and explain all the new features that arrived with Windows Server 2012. Fortunately Damian has joined Nigel Cain (who is a Senior Program Manager for Windows Server and System Center) to write a blog series on Technet in eight installments between Jan 2013 until July 2013, just to explain the new Virtual networking technology in VMM 2012 SP1

Another year came and here was Aidan again, asking me to join him on his new venture: the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation and Configuration Guide. Although I really liked the subject and wanted to go into great depth to learn all this cool stuff, I was simply too busy doing all those great Hyper-V and System Center projects for Inovativ. Our family was also heavily burdened by the unfortunate adventures of one of my sons, which more or less influenced me most of 2012. Writing a book was out of the question.

Convincing as Aidan can be, he said he had his author team complete, again with Damian Flynn and Patrick Lownds plus Michel Luescher, “a virtualization junkie working as a consultant at Microsoft” as he calls himself. The only omission was a technical editor fit for the job. And that’s why he asked me.

I am more than honored to be mentioned quite extensively in the Acknowledgements of the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V book by each and every author. I really felt like being part of the author team but in the role of both learning, correcting but most of all improving. I remember advising Aidan to split one chapter into two because it was approaching 100 pages, more than twice as much as they had anticipated.

Having been the first reader (and I read the chapters multiple times), I can truly say this is a superb book that anyone interested in the technical secrets of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V should buy. I can guarantee you will not one day regret having bought this book. There were moments I wanted to cry out how good these chapters were, thrilled by the sheer excellence of the product and the very talented explanatory writing in the 600 pages of this Must-have-Hyper-V-version-3 book.

The book can be pre-ordered now and will be published on March 25th. The European release will be April 5th. See the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Book Release FAQ.

I will not wait till my free copy arrives (Sybex, hope you are reading this) as I have already pre-ordered it myself, but wouldn’t mind a few extra copies to give away.

As you can see from the screenshot, only a few tickets are left for the Hyper-V.nu event on April 16th, 2013. The event will be presented in Dutch which is unfortunate for several of our followers in the neighboring countries who wanted to attend. I hope to convince my fellow speakers to present in English again so the last 15 tickets could have been easily sold by now. The event is free by the way.

If you already know you cannot make it, please return your tickets!

Thanks!

Hans