About a year ago I wrote a blog post about an excellent management pack from Veeam to monitor a VMware ESX infrastructure. Veeam also released this year their new version of the management pack it is now officially called Veeam Management Pack v6 for VMware. In this post I would like to show a walkthrough in upgrading the old version 5.7 to the new version 6.0 and also introduce you to some of the new features in an upcoming post.
The basic architecture is the same as in version 5.7. You have one or more dedicated collector server which manage the connection between your SCOM infrastructure and your VMware infrastructure. The collector server needs to have a SCOM agent (proxy enabled) installed which sends the data collected from the collector server to the SCOM management server. To administer the connections to VMware you need to install Veeam Virtualization Extensions UI which connects to the Veeam Virtualization Extensions Service which handles the connections to the VMware infrastructure. New in the version 6.0 you have a PowerShell integration the Veeam Virtualization Extensions Shell. These extensions are a bundle of specific cmdlets which come in a PowerShell module to automate or querying deep information about the Veeam collected data/infrastructure.
First we have to check the system requirements:
VMware
ESX Host
- ESX 3.x, 3.5.x, 4.x
- ESXi 3.5, 4.x, 5.x
Software
- Virtual Center 2.5 or later
- vCenter 4.x, 5.x
System Center Operations Manager
- Microsoft System Center 2012 Operations Manager SP1
- Microsoft System Center 2012 Operations Manager
- Microsoft System Center 2007 Operations Manager R2
If you would like to use the reporting functionality you must meet the following requirements:
- OpsMgr Reporting server and Data Warehouse (optional; required for reporting).
- Important! Veeam MP reporting only supports Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP3, SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 and SQL Server 2012 SP1 Reporting Services.
Veeam VMware Collector
Operating System:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP2
Hardware:
- RAM min. 4GB, recommended 6 GB RAM on a x64 system
- x86 or x64 system
- CPU min. 2x 2GHz
Software:
- Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 or later
Veeam Virtualization Extensions Service
Operating System:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP2
Software:
- Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0 or later (IIS with required features is installed as part of Veeam Virtualization Extensions UI installation)
- Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 or later
- Internet Explorer 7 or later
Veeam Virtualization Extensions UI
Software:
- Windows PowerShell 2.0 or later
- Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or later
Next we have to clarify some changes in terms. This table shows the mapping of the terms in the old management pack and how they are named in the new version of the management pack. This helps if you are used to the old vocabulary:
| VEEAM nworks MP 5.7 |
VEEAM Management Pack v6 for VMware |
| nworks Collector | Veeam VMware Collector |
| nworks Enterprise Manager web UI | Veeam Virtualization Extensions UI |
| nworks Enterprise Manager | Veeam Virtualization Extensions Service |
| N/A | Veeam Virtualization Extensions Shell |
Sources
- Veeam Management Pack for VMware v6 (ISO file ~111 MB)
- If you login you will find under “My Account” a section called “Resources”, there you will find all the installation, planning and deployment guides in PDF format.
If you are more into online version of documentation you can start here .
- Also under “Resources” you can download the Veeam MP Resource Kit. This contains:
- Veeam MP reference, a *.chm file with all the detailed information about rules, monitors, discoveries etc.
- Veeam MP Database Sizing Calculator, this an Excel sheet to calculate your SCOM databases (OperationsManager / OperatinsManagerDW)
- Deployment Planning Calculator.mht file, a sizing tool to determine how many collector servers you will need for your need
Upgrade / Installation
My environment consists of 2 SCOM 2012 management server on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, a dedicated SQL server 2008 R2 SP2 on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and a dedicated collector server Windows Sever 2008 R2 SP1. The collector server is a single- server installation which means I have all features nworks Collector, nworks Enterprise Manager web UI and nworks Enterprise Manager installed on one box. I will also install the new version of the MP on the same system. and keep all roles on this single-server. The current version of the nworks management pack is version 5.7, you are allowed to upgrade from management pack version 5.6 and 5.7.
Before you start make sure you have…
- SCOM agent is deployed to the server and proxy enabled, since I already have an installation in place
- The installation account is local administrator on the collector server
- The service account under which the collector server will run is local administrator on the collector server
- Make sure all UI from the nworks MP are closed
- Check your permissions of the Veeam service account. If you encounter any issues check this guide here
- The detailed required ports and network requirements for the MP are listed here
After getting all requirements in place, I downloaded the ISO file and extracted it on my collector server. Run setup.exe with elevated permissions…
Choose Veeam VE Suite…
Click Next…
You see all the components which are being upgraded, click Next…
Accept the license agreement…
Here you need to provide the license file. The wizard does not accept the license file from your 5.7 version MP, you need to order a new file from your software distributor or you just can download it from your portal . In my case I installed the trial license from the Veeam portal (allows you to monitor 32 cores) until I receive the new license file.
Click Next…
Provide the password for your Virtualization Extension service account, which gets discovered automatically…
Provide the password for your VMware Collector service account, which gets discovered automatically also…
Click install to upgrade…
After some minutes the upgrade is successful and click finish…
If you have more collector servers in place, now is the time to upgrade those servers as well, Since I just have one I take the next step and import the management packs.
Next we are going to import the management packs…
I select all in the SCOM 2012 MP directory on the media and click Install. You need to confirm a dialog to agree to a security risk which comes from one of the management packs. As you can see there are many MP containing reports…
After about 5 minutes all management packs have been imported successfully…
In a next step we are deleting the old management packs from version 5.7 since those are not used anymore. However, in case you want to keep data from the Veeam MP reports, do not delete the corresponding Veeam MP management packs.
After we deleted the management packs, we now need to rebuild the topology. Therefore open the web UI and click Rebuild Topology…
As a last step there is a task called Configure Health Service. You can find it here…
Click Run…
…and after the task has successfully finished…
You will find an event 999 in the event log, which shows some details about the discovered inventory…
That’s it, the discovery should start now and it can take up to 4 hours to build / re-discover the topology and displayed in the SCOM console.
You should start seeing diagrams like this here…
Tip: You could modify your shortcut of the SCOM console and add the parameter /clearcache, this will prevent from displaying wrong information in the SCOM console. Click Apply and close the SCOM console and re-open it…
As a last step we are going to install the Veeam Virtual Extension Shell. This is a PowerShell module to administer your Veeam MP in many different ways.
Installation VE Shell
Start the setup.exe from your Veeam source…
Click Next…
Accept the license agreement…
Choose the destination folder, I leave the default, click Next…
Install…
Finish…
Now you can easily check if the extensions are properly installed. Open a PowerShell command and type…
Import-Module Psves
Get-VMwareServer | ft –auto
You should see something like this…
This shows some of the commands available…
Conclusion: The upgrade process of the management pack is straight forward and I haven’t met any problems. Veeam delivers many great new features like the new PowerShell module and several great reports, views and dashboards. In my upcoming post I will try to point out some of the new great things…
Great article which just helped me validate my installation. Thanks
Cool, glad I could help 🙂
Stefan
Hi great articele! Did you know if it is possible to install many Extension Services in Branch Offices and connect all to the same vCenter? So seperate Veeam Installations for the Branch Offices.
Hi
That’s how it works, you need to install multiple Collector server, which are in the same pool. Then connect to vCenter and/or ESX Hosts.
Cheers,
Stefan