Storage Migration of a Windows 2012 R2 VDI Deployment (Managed Virtual Desktops Collection)

Storage migration of VMs can be performed as one step easily using either the Failover Cluster Manager in Windows 2012 R2 or  VMM . However, migrating a VDI deployment that consist of a collection of virtual desktops is far more complex and there is no direct way to do the migration yet !

when you try to edit the deployment properties to change the storage location, you will be able to change certain configuration but not all of them, for example you can change the location of the users profiles but not the location of the parent disk of the image/template used to create the collection,
so to do the migration, you will need to create a new collection.

so here what I needed to do to migrate my VDI deployment :

1- Copy the master VM/Image used to create the collection to the new storage
2- Copy the users profiles vhd files (if your deployment use them) in a temp folder
3- Drop the existing collection
4- Create the new collection based on the Image you copied
5- Move the users profiles vhd files to the new storage location

Note: it is important to use the same template, otherwise users might have problems loading their profiles .

No SQL Server selection during Installing Operation Manager 2012 R2

during the installation of System Center Operation Manager 2012 R2, you might stuck at the step of selecting a SQL server instance for Reporting Services. the drop box is empty and there is nothing to select .

searching for a solution on the internet was not easy , this could happen for different reasons , one main reason is connectivity to the SQL server and the reporting services as described here :


but for me the reason was different and not obvious !
This problem could happen when you are trying to install the first Management Server and at the same time you selected to install both Management Server and Operation Console.

The solution will be simply to first install the Management Server and then run the setup again to Install the remaining features like Operation Console and Web Console.

Dell OpenManage SAS Controller Warning

Sometimes you will see "non-critical" warning on your storage node .
the problem is not easy to understand why this happen , looking at the details of the hard drives won't give you a direct answer.

after doing some research , I found out that the reason is because I am using drives that are not certified by Dell and there are no way to get rid of this warnings !

MS System Center App Controller 2012 R2

Starting 2012 SP1, you need to install App Controller beside VMM to get the Self Service Portal.

Install App Controller : Remote Database Server Configuration

When you try to install System Center App Controller 2012 R2,

you might get the below error:

"A netvvork-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or 

was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections."

This error could happen because the current user does not have permission to 

create the database on the server, so assign the right permissions or use a different user.

Hyper-v Failover Cluster Disk Repair

How to fix Cluster disk / volume ?

When Failover cluster manager show the below error for any cluster disk :
"chkdsk scan needed on volume", you need to repair that disk ,

running chkdsk.exe should fix the error and take care of the problem,
but in some cases you need to also run the below deprecated cmdlet for the error message to disappear :

Repair-ClusterSharedVolume -ChkDsk

for more information about cluster disks , have a look at this blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2014/01/01/10486462.aspx 

Reset XenServer CPU Masking/Features

if you plan to upgrade or migrate your servers that run XenServer ,
it is recommended to join the new servers to the existing pool, when you do so,
you will get this message:

You are attempting to add the server 'xenserver-2' to a pool that is using older CPUs.

XenServer can continue by rebooting the server and reducing its CPU to the level of the existing servers in the pool. This will shut down any VMs running on the server. This feature is supported for CPU combinations listed in the XenServer Hardware Compatibility List.

Do you want to do this?

The only way to be able to join the new server is to accept and lower the CPU feature to match the existing old servers in the pool.

the problem happens after you remove all old servers, so now you have one new server that is the pool master, but when you try to add a second new server that is identical to the master  , you will still get the same error above, so before you do that, you need to reset the CPU mask for the new server and then add the remaining new servers.

execute the command below and reboot the server :
xe host-reset-cpu-features 

now you will be able to add identical servers to the pool without any issues.