September 15, 2020

MEMCM 2009 TP CMG – Virtual Machine sets

By Jörgen Nilsson Configuration Manager 4 Comments

Configuration Manager 2009 Technical Preview is out with some great new features for us to test. One of them is Cloud Management Gateway(CMG) support for Virtual Machine Sets. This a great feature as it solves the CSP issue we had with CMG as it is using a classic service that is not available in a CSP subscription.

I needed to test it out of course, it was one of the scenarios as well which I always try to complete for all Technical Preview builds.

So what has changed?
I deleted my “old” CMG and started over. We now have the choice when we setup a new CMG if we want to use “Virtual machine scale set” or “Cloud Service ( Classic)”. As shown below

What I of course failed at in my first attempt was to read the documentation…… hmm.
Using Virtual machine scale sets requires new/different resource providers in Azure to be enabled in the Subscription.
I logged in to my Azure Subscription and added the following Resource Providers that are required when using Virtual machine scale sets.

Next change is the new service name which includes the region as well, in my case North Europe. Which required a new certificate if cloudapp.net names are used as it is in my case. If you are using a different DNS name and certificate than cloudapp.net you can just update the CNAME in DNS to point to the new service name.

I requested a new certificate from my CA using the same template as I used to set it up my old CMG but with the new DNS name “CCMEXECTP4.northeurope.cloudapp.azure.com” as shown below.

Next step is adding my trusted Root certificate.

Then we configure our alerts for our CMG

Next I reconfigured my Cloud Management Connection point to use the new CMG I have setup.

Then we are done, a Configuration Manager cup of coffee or actually dinner in my case and the deployment of my new CMG using Virtual Machine Scale sets was ready to use!

CMG Deployed using Virtual machine scale set

If we look in azure there are a couple of new services created for us compared to when we use the classic CMG or should we start calling it “Legacy” now? 😉

A great addition to Configuration Manager cannot wait until it ships. Support for CSP has been a long awaited feature and discussed numerous times. For more information about what is new in MEMCM 2009 TP check out the docs: Technical Preview 2009
Now that I have a new CMG up and running testing out remote control over CMG will be my next task.

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Jörgen Nilsson

4 Comments

Mike G

Hi Jörgen. I am hoping that you can answer a question I have about virtual machine scale sets. I understand this option should be used if I have a CSP subscription for Azure. Do you know if this option should only be used for that case? Does it matter if I use it and don’t have a CSP or will I run into a roadblock? Is it preferable to this as opposed to Cloud Service (Classic?) I am looking into standing up my first CMG and I’ve done a lot of research on this but haven’t been able to find a solid answer. Thanks in advance.
February 28, 2021 Reply

Jörgen Nilsson

Hi,
The idea behind using Virtual Machine Scale sets is just that to solve the CSP licensing issue, so you should use VM Scale Sets.
Regards,
Jörgen
March 9, 2021 Reply