What System Center Reporting Manager 2006 must have in order to distinguish a virtual machine from a physical computer in reports (924395)

MORE INFORMATION

For SCRM 2006 to distinguish between virtual machines and physical computers, the SMS_Def.mof file must be configured to flag virtual machines.

Troubleshooting information

If SC_ManagedNode_Dimension_View does not contain the correct information about a virtual machine, or if the SCRM 2006 reports identify the computer as Host Type: Physical, make sure that the following statements are true:

• The virtual machine has the Virtual Machine Additions program installed.
• On the virtual machine, the name of the host computer is listed in the PhysicalHostName entry in the following registry subkey:

  HKEY_LOCAL_M\Software\Microsoft\Virtual Machine\Guest\Parameters

  This entry has the following characteristics:

  Entry: PhysicalHostName
  Data type: REG_SZ
  Value: hostComputerName

• On the virtual machine, the name of the host computer is listed in the PhysicalHostName property of the Win32Reg_SMSGuestVirtualMachine class in the Root\cimv2 Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) namespace.
• The SMS_Def.mof file for the SMS site to which the virtual machine is assigned is configured to collect virtual machine data from the Win32Reg_SMSGuestVirtualMachine class.
  
  Note By default, this functionality is not enabled.
  
  For more information about how to extend the SMS_Def.mof file, visit the following Web site:http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sms/sms2/featusability/sms-regx.mspx
• The PhysicalHostName00 column for the virtual machine is populated in the Virtual_Machine_Data table of the SMS database that is used as an SCRM 2006 data source.
• The SMS synchronization job in SCRM 2006 ran successfully after the virtual machine data was added to the SMS database.

To distinguish between a physical computer and a virtual machine, SMS must be configured to collect inventory information about virtual machines. For SMS to collect virtual machine information, one of the following programs must be installed on the virtual machine:

• Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) Virtual Machine Additions
• Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Virtual Machine Additions

Additionally, the inventory class for the VIRTUAL_MACHINE object must be enabled in the SMS_Def.mof file. SCRM 2006 collects virtual machine data from the SMS Virtual_Machine_Data table. This table contains the PhysicalHostName00 column. For SCRM 2006 to identify a computer as a virtual machine, this column must be populated with a value that is not NULL.

The presence of data in the PhysicalHostName00 column indicates that the detected computer is a virtual machine. If the PhysicalHostName00 column is not populated, SCRM 2006 does not mark the computer as a virtual machine. Therefore, the SCRM 2006 reports do not show the computer as a virtual machine.