System Requirements: Hyper-V Host Deployment to a Bare-Metal Computer in System Center 2012 and in System Center 2012 SP1

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 SP1 - Virtual Machine Manager, System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager

Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) provides the capability to discover physical computers on the network and then automatically install the Windows operating system on these computers and convert them into managed Hyper-V hosts. The targeted physical computer can be a computer that does not have an operating system installed, often referred to as a “bare-metal" computer, or it can be a computer on which you want to overwrite an existing operating system.

For more information, see Adding Physical Computers as Hyper-V Hosts or as Scale-Out File Servers in VMM Overview.

Software requirements

System role	System requirement
Physical computer to be discovered	Must have a baseboard management controller (BMC) with a supported out-of-band management protocol. VMM supports the following out-of-band management protocols: - Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) versions 1.5 or 2.0 - Data Center Management Interface (DCMI) version 1.0 - System Management Architecture for Server Hardware (SMASH) version 1.0 over WS-Management (WS-Man) - Custom protocols such as Integrated Lights-Out (iLO). Note: Make sure that you use the latest version of firmware for the baseboard management controller (BMC) model.
PXE Server that is used to initiate the operating system installation on the physical computer.	Requirements for System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager: - A computer that runs Windows Server 2008 R2 with the Windows Deployment Services role installed. Requirements for VMM in System Center 2012 SP1: - A computer that runs Windows Server 2008 R2 with the Windows Deployment Services role installed. - A computer that runs Windows Server 2012 with the Windows Deployment Services role installed. Also, the PXE server needs to be in the same subnet as the out-of-band computer.
Image operating system	For System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager: - A Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system image. For VMM in System Center 2012 SP1: - A Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system image. - A Windows Server 2012 operating system image. The operating system image must support the option to boot from virtual hard disk. You can create the virtual hard disk by running the System Preparation Tool (Sysprep.exe) with both the /generalize and the /oobe options on a virtual machine that runs the operating system that will be on the image.