Windows Server 2012 Consistent Device Naming (CDN)

The new SCVMM 2012 SP1 supports bare-metal host deployment. I was wondering if the host has multiple network connections, how would the right address be assigned from the right IP pools? Even if you've pre-patched the cables, the NIC order would change randomly once you've sysprepped or installed a new OS on the server. It had been a pain for server administrators to identify which NICs are connected to which network segments or VLANs.

While I was creating my host profile on SCVMM 2012 console, I came across this page:

Look like if you know the CDN of each NIC, you can now pre-allocate the static IP address from the IP pool! CDN ensures that the NIC name and the printed name on the server chassis remain consistent. It's good news for every system administrator. Bad news is that CDN is only supported on WS2012 and you'll need the newest server hardware e.g. Dell's 12th generation hardware.

Without CDN, you would have to supply the individual MAC addresses of each interface and match them to the defined IP subnets as shown below.

The MAC address can be easily identified using "show mac address-table interface" command on the data center switches. Once the job started running, you should see the following screen on the bare-metal host:

Additional Resources:

1. SCVMM 2012 - Bare-metal deployment
2. BMC - Out-of-Band Host Management on SCVMM 2012