Virtual Machine Manager

Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 is part of Microsoft’s comprehensive System Center system management suite.VMMenables you to manage your virtual environment from one central console with the tools needed to get the most out of your data center. LeveragingVMMfacilitates maximization of physical server resources, improves agility and virtual machine deployment, and allows your company to continue to leverage the skill sets of your existing IT staff.

If you are responsible for a medium-sized to a large virtualized enterprise, then at some point you will likely realize that the management of multiple virtual host machines can be very cumbersome and time-consuming when using the standard console for each machine. VMM simplifies their management by consolidating everything you need into one console. In fact, you can manage your Hyper-V, Virtual Server, and even VMware ESX hosts all via VMM.

If you are already using System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), you can use the data it collects via its monitoring capabilities to further advantage. Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) leverages it and recommends actions to be taken to improve the performance of your virtual machines. You can even configure it to automatically make certain adjustments on your behalf in order to maintain the level of performance your customers require.

VMM not only consolidates the functionality built into Hyper-V but also adds to it. With VMM performing, physical-to-virtual (P2V) migrations are greatly simplified and can be done without service interruption. VMM will also convert your VMware machines to VHDs using a similar technique called virtual-to-virtual transfers.

For development and testing environments, VMM provides a self-service Web portal you can configure to delegate virtual machine provisioning while maintaining management control of the VMs.

By implementing a centralized library for the storage virtual machine components, you can leverage these building blocks to quickly stand up new virtual machines as demand dictates.

You can also create scripts to increase your level of automation, because VMM is built on Windows PowerShell. The various wizards included in VMM are typically just a pretty interface to generate a PowerShell script. VMMprovides the functionality to view the code behind these scripts to help expand your knowledge of the scripting language.


System Requirements
Before designing your VMM architecture, you should decide whether you want to implement VMMon a single server or share the load ofVMM’s multiple components across separate servers. As a rule of thumb, if you need to support 20 or fewer virtual machine hosts, you can use a smaller single processor server. If you suspect you will eventually have a greater number, up to 150 or more servers, then consider a multiple processor server. If you will be supporting groups of virtual machine hosts in diverse locations, you might want to use a multiple server approach. For a complete list of hardware requirements and software prerequisites for either deployment option, visit the TechNet Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/virtualmachinemanager/en/us/system-requirements.aspx#Server.

Source of Information : Elsevier-Microsoft Virtualization Master Microsoft Server Desktop Application and Presentation