In "ADS Unplugged" (November 2006, InstantDoc ID 93625), I showed you how to build a basic mobile Automated Deployment Services (ADS)

solution that lets you perform Windows OS migrations with no impact on or reconfiguration of your production network. Now I want to show you how to kick it up a notch so that you can use this mobile solution to perform physical machine to virtual machine migrations. Although I'll be discussing how to expand a mobile ADS installation, you can use the same concepts to expand an ADS installation on a network.

So far, I showed you how to create the mobile ADS solution by assembling the necessary hardware on a mobile cart and installing the basic software, which consists of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, DCHP, and Automated Deployment Services (ADS) 1.1. To expand this solution so that you can perform physical machine to virtual machine migrations, you need to perform five steps:

1. Install Microsoft IIS.
2. Install Virtual Server 2005 Release 2 (R2).
3. Install Virtual Server Migration Toolkit (VSMT) 1.1.
4. Create the default virtual network.
5. Load Virtual Machine Additions.

Step 1: Install IIS
Because the mobile ADS solution is a single-server installation, you need to run and manage Virtual Server 2005 R2 on the same platform. To run Virtual Server 2005's Web-based administrative console— that is, the Virtual Server Administration Website—in this configuration, you must run IIS on the mobile server, which in this case, is the MobileP2V server. (If you're expanding an ADS installation on a network, it's possible to have a central installation of the administrative console that manages multiple virtual server hosts. In this situation, IIS isn't required on each virtual server.)

To install IIS, you can use either the Control Panel Add or Remove Programs applet or the Configure Your Server Wizard. The wizard simplifies the process, so let's use it. Using local administrative access, log on to the MobileP2V server. You need the Windows 2003 CD-ROM to install IIS, so place it in the machine's CD-ROM drive. Select Programs on the Start menu, then choose Administrative Tools. On the Administrative Tools menu, select the Configure Your Server Wizard option to launch the wizard.

On the main page of the wizard, click Next. On the Preliminary Steps page, click Next. In some instances, you might be prompted with a Configuration Options page. If this page appears, select Custom Configuration and click Next.

You should now be at the Server Roles page. Select the Application server (IIS, ASP.NET) option and click Next. You don't need FrontPage extensions or ASP.NET for the Virtual Server Administration Website, so click Next again.

On the Summary of Selections page, which lists all the roles that you selected for installation, click Next and the installation of IIS will begin. Click Finish to exit the wizard after the installation completes.

Step 2: Install Virtual Server 2005 R2
It's now time to install Virtual Server 2005 R2. It's important that you use Release 2 because it addresses a DCOM permissions issue that its predecessor doesn't address. (Windows 2003 Service Pack 1— SP1—increased the security of IIS by changing the default DCOM permissions. As a result, when you open the Virtual Server Administration Website in Virtual Server 2005, you receive an error message.) You can download Virtual Server 2005 R2 for free. For details and a link to the download, go to http://www.microsoft.com/virtualserver.

Double-click Setup.exe to start the installation of Virtual Server 2005 R2. In the Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Setup page, select the Install Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 option to start the installation process. Accept the license agreement and click Next. In the Customer Information page, enter your username, organization, and product key, then click Next. Because you're building a single-server solution and need all the components, select Complete Install and click Next.

The Configure Components page, which Figure 1, shows, lets you specify a different default port for the Virtual Server Administration Website. However, in this case, you should leave the default, which is port 1024. Also leave the default option of Configure the Administration Website to always run as the authenticated user selected. (You'd select the option to run the Administration Website as Local System account if the Administration Website needs to be hosted on a server separate from the Virtual Server service.) Click Next.

Click Install to start the Virtual Server 2005 R2 installation. During the installation, you'll briefly loose network connectivity while the network drivers are being installed. After the installation is complete, you should receive a Web page with installation notes and links to the local installation. Click Finish to close the setup program.

Virtual Server 2005 R2 is now installed, but there is one configuration change that needs to be made because of Microsoft Internet Explorer's (IE's) heightened security configuration. If you're running Windows 2003 SP1 and you attempt to load the Virtual Server Administration Website, you'll be prompted for credentials, even if you're logged on as the local administrator. Although you can still use the Administration Website, having to enter your credentials every time you connect to it and every time you use the Virtual Machine Remote Control client can quickly get annoying.

To eliminate the prompts for credentials, you need to add the mobile server's URL (in this case, http://mobilep2v) to the Local intranet security zone in IE. By default, this zone is configured to automatically provide credentials (if requested) when accessing a Web site. Open an IE window, and choose Internet Options on the Tools menu. On the Security tab, click the Local intranet icon to modify its settings. You should have the security level set to the default of medium-low. To add the mobile server's URL to the Local intranet zone, click the Sites button, then click the Advanced button. As Figure 2, shows, enter the URL and click Add.

Step 3: Install VSMT 1.1
The next step in expanding the mobile ADS solution is to install VSMT 1.1. VSMT 1.1 is included in ADS 1.1, which you downloaded when you created the basic mobile ADS solution. So, VSMT 1.1 should already be in the C:\temp directory on MobileP2V. If you didn't previously install ADS 1.1, you can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/ads/default.mspx. Extract the contents to the C:\temp directory on MobileP2V. Note that you can't install ADS 1.1 on a 64-bit version of Windows 2003 or on Windows XP.

Follow these steps to install VSMT:

1. Double-click the C:\temp\vsmt\vsmt_setup.msi file to start the installation. On the Welcome page, click Next.
2. Review the EULA. If you accept the terms, select the Accept option and click Next.
3. Select the Full installation option and click Next.
4. Click Install. After the installation completes, click Next to close the setup program.

At this point, VSMT is installed. However, I recommend that you perform two more tasks: create the default virtual network to make sure that VSMT successfully performs migrations and load Virtual Server Additions to improve image deployment performance.

Step 4: Create the Default Virtual Network
When VSMT performs a physical machine to virtual machine migration, it will, by default, assign the virtual machine to use a virtual network named VM0. However, the VSMT installation program doesn't create this virtual network because it can't assume VSMT will be installed on the same computer as Virtual Server 2005 R2. So, the VSMT installation program leaves it up to you to create the virtual network.

In migration scripts, you can use the /vsHostNet command-line option to specify a different virtual network to use for a migration. However, if you fail to specify this option and the default VM0 virtual network doesn't exist, the deployment will fail. For this reason, I recommend that you create the default virtual network, even if you don't think you'll use it.

To create the VM0 virtual network, you can use the Virtual Server Administration Website or run the createvirtualnetwork.vbs script that VSMT provides. To run the script, open a command-shell window and type

cscript "C:\Program Files\ 
  Microsoft VSMT\Samples\ 
  createvirtualnetwork.vbs" 

(The column width forces us to wrap this command here, but you'd type it all on one line in the command-shell window.)

Createvirtualnetwork.vbs creates the VM0 virtual network and automatically attaches it to the first host adapter it finds. If you have more than one host adapter in MobileP2V, you need to verify that the VM0 virtual network is bound to the same adapter that's running the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) service (in this case, 10.10.10.1).

Step 5: Load Virtual Machine Additions
To improve image deployment performance in Virtual Server 2005 R2, I recommend that you load driver files from Virtual Machine Additions (VMAdditions.iso) into the ADS Deployment Agent Builder service repository. If you do so, the ADS Deployment Agent Builder service incorporates the driver files into any source-computer image, which will reduce the amount of time required to deploy the image during migration.

In Virtual Server 2005 R2, Virtual Machine Additions are distributed on an ISO image file and are packaged in an .msi file for ease of installation. Thus, you can use one of two methods to obtain the three driver files you need. The first method involves copying Virtual Machine Additions.msi from the ISO file, retrieving the driver files from Virtual Machine Additions.msi with a tool that can extract files from an .msi file, and copying the driver files to the C: driver on MobileP2V. The second method involves copying the three driver files from a virtual machine on which Virtual Machine Additions has already been installed.

I'll assume you already have an existing Windows 2003 virtual machine that has Virtual Machine Additions installed, so let's take a look at the latter method:

1. Copy the three necessary driver files— msvmscsi.sys, vmadd_msvmscsi_sys.cat, and vmsrvc.sys—from the virtual machine to the MobileP2V machine's C:\temp directory. On the virtual machine, you'll find these driver files at
   • C:\Program Files\Virtual Machine Additions\msvmscsi.sys
   • C:\Program Files\Virtual Machine Additions\vmadd_msvmscsi_sys.cat
   • C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\ vmsrvc.sys
2. Copy the three driver files in the Mobile-P2V machine's C:\temp directory to its C:\Program Files\Microsoft ADS\nbs\repository\User\PreSystem directory.
3. To configure the ADS Deployment Agent Builder service, copy four files from the ADS and VSMT install points to the C:\Program Files\Microsoft ADS\ nbs\repository\User\PreSystem directory. Those four files are:
   • C:\Program Files\Microsoft ADS\nbs\ repository\Windows\intelide.sys
   • C:\Program Files\Microsoft ADS\nbs\ repository\Windows\pciidex.sys
   • C:\Program Files\Microsoft VSMT\ Samples\vsmt_scsi.inf
   • C:\Program Files\Microsoft VSMT\ Samples\vsmt_ide.inf
4. Restart the ADS Deployment Agent Builder service using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) ADS snap-in.

The driver files from Virtual Machine Additions are now preloaded and will be used for any future image deployments. You don't need to perform these tasks again for subsequent migrations.

Ready to Migrate
You successfully installed IIS, Virtual Server 2005 R2, and VSMT 1.1 on your mobile ADS solution. In addition, you made some modifications to eliminate some annoying problems and provide better performance during image deployment. Your extended mobile ADS solution is now ready to be put to use. In case you're unfamiliar with VSMT, I'll explain how it works and demonstrate how to use the extended mobile ADS solution to perform a physical machine to virtual machine migration in a future article.