How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 7: Adding our hosts

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Hi all, thanks for being so supportive with this series, I’m really glad I can help and your support is keeping me going at a fast pace to deliver to you this series of posts.

Now let’s get to the fun technical part, we will be adding 3 hosts, two of them doesn’t even have Hyper-V installed, so we will do this from the SCVMM Console and add our storage to SCVMM

Prework:

  • Install Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter in my 2 nodes.
  • Add them to your domain.
  • Connect them to my private lab network, as shown in my 3rd post of the series.
  • Enable MPIO.
  • Start the iSCSI initiator, just by hitting the windows key and searching for iSCSI and open it.
  • You will need to install the storage provider in your storage server with this roles and features:

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  • And install MPIO.

Adding the servers:

  • Go to the console and the Fabric Tab.
  • Right Click in the All Hosts Folder under Servers.
  • Select Create a Host Group and name it Standalone.
  • Repeat the process to create a Clusters group.
  • Right click in your Standalone group and Add Hyper-V Hosts and Clusters.
  • Select Windows Server computers in a trusted Active Directory domain and click Next.
  • Create and select your VMMaction Run As Account from browse and click next.
  • Remember to add as local admin your VMMaction account, this will be the one we use to manage the servers.
  • Fill in your Storage computer name and click Next.
  • Check the box to select your server and click Next.
  • In the Host Setting select your Standalone host group and click Next.
  • Finish and check the Jobs for success.
  • Repeat this steps for node1 and node2 computers.

Creating the Storage Pools. I decided to go with 2 Storage Pools 1 for SSD and another for HDD, so let’s create them in the Storage server.

  • Go to your Storage server and open server manager.
  • Select File and Storage Services from the left pane.
  • Select Storage Pools.
  • In the right upper corner click tasks and New Storage Pool.
  • Click Next.
  • Name it, mine are Fast for SSD, and Slow for HDD, click Next.
  • Select the disks you want to add to the pool and click Next.
  • Create.
  • Repeat for all the pools you need.
  • Now go back to Storage Pool and from the tasks of virtual disks, select New Virtual Disk.
  • Click Next.
  • Select your storage pool and click Next.
  • Give it a descriptive name, click Next.
  • Select the type of layout by checking the description, I’m using simple for my lab, click Next.
  • Select Fixed and click Next.
  • Select the max size or the amount you want to assign, click Next.
  • Clock Create.
  • Go through the new volume wizard with all the defaults just changing the volume name.

We have all our storage configuration in place.

Now let’s add the storage to SCVMM:

  • Go to your SCVMM Server and open the Console.
  • Select the fabric tab, right click in File Servers under Storage and Add Storage Devices.
  • Select Windows-based file server, click Next.
  • Fill in your storage server name and select your VMMaction account from browse, and click Next.
  • Wait for the discovery and click Next.
  • select your Storage Device and click Next.
  • Finish.
  • Now right click providers and Add Storage Devices.
  • Select SAN and NAS devices discovered and managed by a SMI-S provider, click Next.
  • Select SMI-S WMI, fill in your storage server name and select your VMMaction account.
  • Wait for the discovery and select the device, click next.
  • Select the units for the virtual disks you created.
  • Create a classification like Gold and another like Silver, to differentiate our fast ssd pool from the HDD one.
  • Finish.

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In the next post we will build the cluster from the console too, that’s really cool right?