How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 6: Bare Metal Deployment

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Now let’s check the prerequisites for the Bare Metal Deployment:

  • Your motherboard should support BMC (Baseboard Management Controller), I am actually using an old 2nd generation Xeon I had around to test this. you can get a SuperMicro MB and a Xeon CPU for less than $400, because my newer workstations doesn’t support it.
  • 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).

Now that we have the prerequisites we will need a profile for our hosts:

  • You will need to copy our template VHDX to the library share in the SCVMM server.
  • From the host where you have the VHDX go to run and \\scvmm.
  • Copy the VHDX to the Library share.
  • Go to the SCVMM Server and open the Console.
  • Go to the Library tab.
  • Right click in profiles –> Create Physical Computer Profile.
  • Select a descriptive name and select VM Host, click next.
  • Click browse to find the VHDX you just imported, if you can’t find it just refresh the library, click next.
  • Leave the defaults, but remember that sometimes specially for newer hardware you will need to provide the drivers, and tag them to be used for certain models or manufacturers, click next.
  • Fill in the information for general settings and click next.
  • You can leave the placement path configuration for later, click next.
  • Review the options and finish.

To deploy the new host:

  • In the Fabric Tab right click and select Add Hyper-V Hosts and Clusters.
  • Select Physical computers to be provisioned as virtual machine hosts, click Next.
  • Select a preconfigured run as account with the credentials for your BMC Interface and select the protocol for the Out of band Management, click Next.
  • Select the discovery scope, selecting your preferred one, I will use a specific IP address, click Next.
  • Select the host group to assign this host and the profile, click Next.
  • Select a computer Name, and Next.
  • Finish.

That’s It, in the Next post we will add all the hosts and create our cluster.