The first update rollup for SCVMM 2019 has been release by Microsoft on February 4th.
This fixes several issues:
- Unable to add Windows Server 2019 hosts in untrusted domain to SCVMM.
- Changes to VM network adapter or VM network overwrites associated ACL.
- Unable to pull LLDP information on pNICs bount to a vSwitch.
- Long running service template deployments time out after 3 hours. Timeout parameter can now be configured to time above 3 hours using the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Server\Settings\GuestCommunicatorStatusTimeoutSecs registry key to any desired value.
- VMM service experiences high memory usage with large number of objects created in tbl_ADHC_HostVolume
- Unable to assign VM network to VMs on the hosts
- Automatic Dynamic Optimization fails on clusters in untrusted domain
- VMM jobs take long time to run whenever there is VMM server fail over to another node.
- Storage Provider Refresh fails when the NIC has no MAC present.
- Unable to create a file share with the same name on different file servers through SCVMM console.
- Cluster creation fails when VMM service is running under gMSA account with ‘Access denied’ exception.
- In addition to these, all the issues fixed in System Center 2016 VMM UR8 and prior URs for VMM 2016 are also fixed in System Center VMM 2019 UR1.
New Features have been added into SCVMM 2019:
- Ability to deploy Ubuntu 18.04 VMs
- Nested virtualization can be enabled via VM templates, service templates and also when creating a new VM from the console
- Cluster rolling upgrade is now supported for S2D clusters.
- Deduplication is supported on ReFS volumes for Hyperconverged and SOFS
- Storage DO (Dynamic Optimization) – helps in preventing cluster shared storage (CSV and file shares) from becoming full due to expansion/new VHDs placed on the cluster shared storage. You can now set a threshold value to trigger a warning when free storage space in the cluster shared storage falls below the threshold, during a new disk placement or auto migration of VHDs to other shared storage in the cluster
- Support for storage health monitoring
Storage health monitoring helps you to monitor the health and operational status of storage pool, LUNs, and physical disks in the VMM fabric. You can monitor the storage health in the Fabric page of VMM console. - VMM 2019 supports configuration of SLB VIPs while deploying multi-tier application by using the service templates
- VMM 2019 supports encryption of VM networks. Using the new encrypted networks feature, end-to-end encryption can be easily configured on VM networks by using the network controller (NC). This encryption prevents the traffic between two VMs on the same network and same subnet, from being read and manipulated. The control of encryption is at the subnet level and encryption can be enabled/disabled for each subnet of the VM network.
- In VMM 2019, you can configure Layer 3 forwarding gateway using the VMM console
- Support for Static MAC address on VMs deployed on a VMM cloud
This feature allows you to set static MAC address on VMs deployed on a cloud. You can also change the MAC address from static to dynamic and vice versa for the already deployed VMs. - Azure Integration – VM update management through VMM using Azure Automation Subscription. VMM 2019 is introducing the possibility of patching and updating on-prem VMs (managed by VMM) by integrating VMM with Azure automation subscription.
- New RBAC Role – Virtual Machine Administrator
In a scenario where enterprises want to create a user role for troubleshooting, it is necessary that the user has access to all the VMs so the user can make any required changes on the VMs to resolve the issue. There is also a need for the user to have access to the fabric to identify the root cause for the issue. However, for security reasons, this user should not be given the privileges to make any changes on the fabric (such as add storage, add hosts etc. The current role-based access control (RBAC) in VMM does not have a role defined for this persona and the existing roles of Delegated Admin and Fabric admin have too little or more than necessary permissions to perform just troubleshooting. To address this issue, VMM 2019 supports a new role called Virtual Machine Administrator. The user of this role has Read and Write access to all VMs but read-only access to the fabric. - Group Managed Service Account (gMSA) helps improve the security posture and provides convenience through automatic password management, simplified service principle name (SPN) management, and the ability to delegate the management to other administrators. VMM 2019 supports the use of gMSA for Management server service account.
New features added by Update Rollup 1:
- Support for management of replicated library shares
Large enterprises, usually have multi-site datacenter deployments to cater to various offices across globe. These enterprises typically have a locally available library server to access files for VM deployment than accessing the library shares from a remote location. This is to avoid any network related issues one might experience. However, library files need to be consistent across all the datacenters to ensure uniform VM deployments. To maintain uniformity of library contents, organizations use replication technologies. VMM now supports the management of library servers, which are replicated. You can use any replication technologies such as DFSR and manage the replicated shares through VMM. - Configuration of DCB settings on S2D clusters
Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) in conjunction with Data Center Bridging (DCB) helps to achieve similar level of performance and losslessness in an Ethernet network as in fiber channel networks. VMM 2019 UR1 supports configuration of data center bridging (DCB) on S2D clusters.
Note
You must configure the DCB settings consistently across all the hosts and the fabric network (switches). A mis-configured DCB setting in any one of the host/fabric device is detrimental to the S2D performance.
- User experience improvements in logical networks
In VMM 2019 UR1, user’s experience while creating logical networks has been enhanced. Logical networks are now grouped in product description, based on use-cases. Also, provided illustration for each logical network type and a dependency graph. - Additional options to enable nested virtualization
You can now enable nested virtualization while creating a new VM, deploying VMs through VM templates and service templates. In earlier releases, nested virtualization is supported only on deployed VMs. Learn more about enabling nested virtualization.
