Mixed up VMs in Virtual Machine Management Pack 2.0.2

[Christopher Seary]

HP Virtual Machine Management Pack 2.0.2 running on Systems Insight Manager 5.0 with SP3 over Windows Server 2003 SP1. We have two MS Virtual Server 2005 R2 hosts with the VMM agent installed, one running Windows Server 2003 32-bit Standard Edition SP1 and the other running Windows Server 2003 x64 Standard Edition SP1.

The Virtual Machine Management Pack is unable to reliably detect and inventory virtual machines on either Virtual Server host. The VMs that are detected have details mixed up or missing with .VHDs and IPs sometimes attributed to the wrong server. I am also seeing mixed up network or host names or multiple IPs from different virtual servers all listed under one server. HP SIM is not seeing all of the VMs and I cannot rely on it to tell me when they are up or down.

The attached screenshot shows an example. Notice the mismatch between the server name (NPVMSWMSWEB1) and the names of the VHDs (NPVMBIS3***). NPVMSWMSWEB1 actually only has one .VHD. The three NPVMBIS3 .VHDs listed belong to a different server (called NPVMBIS3)!

The VMs are on the same subnet as other physical servers which are being monitored by the same SIM without issue.

All affected systems (SIM, VS hosts, and VMs) are in the same domain.

There are no Insight agents, SNMP, SSH, WMI mapper, etc. installed on the VMs.

VMM is licensed OK. This is a new install of Virtual Server and VMM but I have already uninstalled and re-installed VMM and the agents with no change.

This problem is so bad that I cannot use VMM to backup, copy or move a virtual machine because I can't be sure which machine will be affected.

Can anyone tell me what is going on? Is this a configuration mistake, database corruption or a known bug in VMM/SIM?

[Briwn W Jacobs]

I am having the same problem, except I don't run the VMM. Called in for support, they asked me to re-install. I hesitated, but did that. I still have the problem.

I deleted all my virtual machines, and tried adding them back one by one, and as soon as I try to add the third one, it only shows two and the information is not correct.

It probably doesn't relate to VMM since I am not running it, and uninstall and re-install doesn't fix it. I even deleted all the SQL databases, files, and registry entries.

[Christopher Seary]

This confirms some of what I have experienced: The first two VMs were OK, but as soon as I created the third one this problem appeared. It has never gone away - even after deleting all of the VMs in SIM - probably because I have not deleted the database or uninstalled SIM.

So the problem may have more to do with SIM's ability to query a VM for configuration data and keep it organized and associated with the correct node.

Can someone from HP shed some light on this issue?

[Briwn W Jacobs]

OK.... I got an answer from HP that makes sense and I am going to try it tonight.

In your virtual machine configuration files, there is a serial number. If you used an image to install the virtual servers, and coppied the same, but renamed config file (.vmc file in Microsoft Virtual Server 2005) then they all have the same serial number. You can do one of two things. Edit the files to have unique serial numbers, and restart the virtual server, or (this is what I am going to do) shut down the virtual server, delete the .vmc file, create a new machine (with a new vmc file), pointing to the existing VHD virtual hard drive file, and let the system assign a new, unique serial number. I hope this is helpful.