How to Update a VMM Agent on a Managed Computer

  • Article

Applies To: Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 SP1

When you upgrade the Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) server, it is recommended that you also update the agents on all managed computers (library servers and virtual machine hosts) as soon as possible. You do not have to update all of your agents at once, because the agents with the previous version of VMM still maintain basic functionality for the managed computers. However, to benefit from the new functionality, you must update the agents. To enable basic functionality in VMM 2008 R2, the VMM agent on managed computers with the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system must be updated to VMM 2008 R2.

Note

  • You cannot use the Update Agent action to update an agent of a host that is on a perimeter network. You must uninstall the existing agent, and then install the new version of the VMM agent. For information about uninstalling and installing agents, see New Installation of VMM (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=125914).

  • Because VMM 2008 does not support Windows Server 2008 R2, you must upgrade to VMM 2008 R2 before you update the operating system on your VMM server or on the virtual machine hosts and library servers that are currently managed by VMM 2008 to Windows Server 2008 R2.

How to update an agent

  1. If you recently upgraded VMM, update the status of all managed computers in preparation for updating the VMM agents:

    • To immediately update the status of managed virtual machine hosts, manually refresh the hosts. To do this, in the VMM Administrator Console, in Hosts view, select one or more hosts, and then, in the Actions pane, click Refresh. You can check the status of the host refresh in Jobs view.

    • For VMM library servers, wait until the next periodic library refresh completes. The default library refresh interval is 1 hour. You cannot manually refresh a library server.

    The hosts’ status changes to Needs Attention, indicating that a VMM agent update is available. In most cases, a host with Needs Attention status is fully functional, so you do not have to immediately update the agents on all VMM 2008 hosts.

    The status of library servers changes to Update Available.

  2. In the Managed Computers node of Administration view, select the managed computers on which you want to update the agent.

    Note

    So that performance is not adversely affected, we recommend that you update hosts in batches of 10 to 25.

  3. In the Actions pane, click Update Agent.

    The Update Agent action is enabled only when the version of the agent on a managed computer is older than the version of the VMM server.

  4. In the Update Agent dialog box, type the credentials of a domain account with administrator privileges on the selected managed computers, and then click OK.

    Note

    The credentials cannot be for the same domain account that is used as the VMM service account. For more information, see Hardening Virtual Machine Hosts Managed by VMM (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=145057).

    You can check the status of the agent update in Jobs view. When the refresh is complete, the host status changes to OK.

See Also

Concepts

Managing Agents on Managed Computers

Other Resources

Administration