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Hyper-V

Clarity Transform discovers a Hyper-V estate by querying System Center Virtual Machine Manager over WinRM: host groups, clusters, hosts, virtual machines, storage, networks and performance data. Read-only throughout.

Where to find it

Go to Discover → Integrations, then select the Hyper-V card. The card's category label is Hypervisor. The integration's page has the Endpoints and History tabs; Integrations describes the page, its grid and its row actions.

Why we do this

Beyond inventory, a virtualisation platform records placement: which virtual machine runs on which host, in which cluster, in which management domain.

What we collect

  • Host groups, clusters and hosts, with the placement relationships between them
  • Virtual machines with their configuration and resource allocation
  • Storage and network configuration
  • Performance data where the VMM database retains it

Clarity connects to VMM, not to the Hyper-V hosts

That is the single most common wrong assumption about this integration, and it changes what needs provisioning: local administrator rights on the Hyper-V hosts themselves are not required. One VMM credential covers every host that VMM manages.

What it adds

VMM is the authoritative view of a Hyper-V estate, in a way no single host is. It knows the cluster membership, the host groups, and the logical networks that a host-by-host sweep would have to reconstruct by inference.

It is also a single point of access.

What is deliberately not inferred

  • No guest file systems, and no application data.
  • No guest credentials and no console access.
  • Nothing is written to VMM or to any host. No virtual machine is created, changed, powered on or off.
  • Placement is not a dependency. Two machines on the same host are not related by that fact alone.
  • Hosts VMM does not manage are not discovered. Coverage equals the VMM estate, so a standalone Hyper-V host outside VMM needs another route in.

What we require

The requirement below is read from rb-pautol-hyper-v-connect-scvmm.ps1 in the Runbooks repository, which is where it is maintained. If it is wrong, the runbook is what gets corrected and this page follows on the next build.

Clarity connects to a System Center Virtual Machine Manager server, not to Hyper-V hosts directly. That is the single most common wrong assumption about this integration, and it changes what needs provisioning: local administrator rights on the Hyper-V hosts themselves are not required.

Account required: PowerShell remoting rights on the VMM server, plus a VMM user role of at least Read-Only Administrator.

Connectivity: WinRM to the VMM server.

Library share capacity figures depend on credential delegation from the VMM session onward to the file server. Without it those figures come back empty and nothing else is affected, so it is optional rather than required.

Discovery reads configuration and inventory only and never writes.

Verification before handover

  1. Confirm PowerShell remoting to the VMM server works. From the Clarity virtual machine, open a remote session to the VMM server as the account.
  2. Confirm the VMM role is sufficient. In the VMM console as this account, confirm the host groups, clusters and virtual machines in scope are all listed. Read-Only Administrator sees the estate; a tenant or delegated role sees a slice of it.
  3. Decide whether library share capacity is wanted. Those figures depend on credential delegation from the VMM session onward to the file server. Without delegation they come back empty and nothing else is affected, so this is optional rather than required.

Configuring the endpoint

On the integration's Endpoints tab, select the add icon (Create New Integration Endpoints). The Create new entry form opens with these fields, in this order:

Field Value
Name A name for the endpoint
End Point The VMM server hostname, not a Hyper-V host
Credential The stored credential for the VMM Read-Only Administrator account
Job Schedule A five-field cron expression, for example 0 0 * * * (daily). Inventory changes continuously in most estates
Enabled Ticked. The box is unticked when the form opens

The help texts: End Point "FQDN or IP Address of management system for technology e.g. vCenter, Nutanix Prism"; Credential "Credentials can be configured under Settings/Identity and Access Management/Credentials."; Job Schedule "Cron schedule – Use five fields: 〈mm〉 〈hh〉 〈day-of-month〉 〈month〉 〈weekday〉".

The Credential list offers the credentials stored under Settings → Identity & Access Management → Credentials, so create the credential there first.

No field is marked as required. Technology is set by the card and is hidden in the form. Select Save to create the endpoint, or Cancel to close the form. The edit icon opens the same fields as Edit entry.

Removing the access

Remove the user role assignment in VMM and delete the account, or simply remove it from the VMM role if the account has other uses. Then, in Clarity, remove the endpoint (select its row on the Endpoints tab, then Remove selected) or clear its Enabled box, and remove the credential under Settings → Identity & Access Management → Credentials.

Troubleshooting

Symptom Cause
Connection fails although WinRM is reachable PowerShell remoting is not enabled on the VMM server. The WinRM service listening is not sufficient on its own.
Authenticates but sees only part of the estate The VMM role is a delegated or tenant role rather than Read-Only Administrator, so its scope is a subset of the host groups.
Library share capacity figures are empty Credential delegation from the VMM session to the file server is not configured. Optional: nothing else is affected.
A Hyper-V host is missing entirely VMM does not manage it. Coverage equals the VMM estate.
No performance data The VMM database retains none for the period requested.