VMM 2008 System Requirements
Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 is an enterprise level administrative suite. As such, there as a number of strict system and configuration requirements which must be met, or exceeded, in order to install and run this technology. The goal of this chapter of VMM 2008 Essentials is to provide an overview of these requirements.
VMM 2008 and Active Directory
The first, and perhaps most crucial requirement is that the system on which VMM 2008 components are installed, together with any servers on which virtualization is to be managed, must all belong to an Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) domain. It is not, however, necessary for the servers to belong to the same domain.
Operating System Requirements
As has been mentioned a number of times in preceding chapters, VMM 2008 comprises a numbe rof different components which may be installed on a single server, or distributed over multiple servers. When considering operating system requirements, therefore, it is important to understand that the system requirements differ from one components to another. For example, whilst the VMM Administrator Console is supported on Windows Vista, it is not supported on Windows Server 2008 Core. The following table provides a complete overview of supported operating systems and VMM components.
|
Operating System |
VMM Server |
VMM Admin Console |
VMM Library Server |
VMM Self-Service Portal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windows Server 2008 32-bit Standard, Enterprise Datacenter | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2008 64-bit Standard, Enterprise Datacenter | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2008 Server Core Standard, Enterprise Datacenter | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2003 32-bit (SP2) Standard, Enterprise Datacenter | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2003 64-bit (SP2) Standard, Enterprise Datacenter | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2003 R2 32-bit (SP2) Standard, Enterprise Datacenter | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2003 R2 64-bit (SP2) Standard, Enterprise Datacenter | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Vista (SP1) | No | Yes | No | No |
| Windows XP Professional 32-bit (SP2 or SP3) | No | Yes | No | No |
| Windows XP Professional 64-bit (SP2 or SP3) | No | Yes | No | No |
VMM Server Software Requirements
In addition to the above operating system requirements (i.e Windows Server 2008 64-bit Standard, Enterprise or Datacenter), the VMM Server component requires that the following items be installed prior to installation:
- Windows PowerShell
- Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0 or later
- Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK)
- Windows Remote Management (WinRM)
Both Windows PowerShell and the Microsoft .NET Framework are available as options with Windows Server 2008 and may be installed using the Add Features option of the Server Manager console. WinRM is installed by default with Windows Server 2008, and the Windows AIK will be installed automatically by the VMM 2008 setup wizard if it has not already been installed on the target system.
Self-Service Portal Software Requirements
In addition to the requirements for VMM Server, Internet Information Services (IIS) is required on the system on which the Self-Service Portal is installed. the IIS installation must also include the IIS Metabase Compatibility and IIS 6 WMI Compatibility options.
IIS may be installed on Windows Server 2008 systems using the Add Roles option of the Server Manager console.
Database Requirements
VMM 2008 also requires that a database be available. This can be either Microsoft SQL Server or SQL Server Express. The database may be installed either on the same system as VMM Server, or on a separate server. For the management of larger virtualized infrastructures (in excess of 150 host systems), the deployment of the full Microsoft SQL Server product on a separate server is strongly recommended. For smaller environments, SQL Server Express may be installed on the same system as the VMM Server component.