The first Service Pack for System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 is designed to introduce a number of enhancements for existing customers, and early adopters that welcome the possibility of testing pre-release solutions can already get a preview of SP1 by signing up at Microsoft Connect.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 Service Pack 1 (SCVMM 2.0 SP1) beta is based on Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor technology and Windows Server 2008 R2. It works with Microsoft's System Center Virtual Machine Manager product.
The following new features have been added in VMMSSP 2.0 SP1:
- Import virtual machines. The datacenter administrator can import existing virtual machines from Virtual Machine Manager.
- Add virtual machine templates to infrastructures. The datacenter administrator can add new virtual machine templates to existing infrastructures without using the full request/provision cycle.
- Configure automatic email notifications. The datacenter administrator can configure VMMSSP to work with SQL Server® Database Mail to send email messages to designated recipients. The messages notify the recipients of events such as request approvals or rejections, or impending virtual machine expirations.
- Move infrastructures between business units. The datacenter administrator can move an infrastructure from one business unit to another.
- Delete business units. The datacenter administrator can delete registered business units from the self-service portal, as long as they do not own any infrastructures.
- Set virtual machine expiration dates. Depending on their user role memberships, users can set expiration dates for virtual machines. After a virtual machine has expired, it is no longer available for use in VMMSSP.
- Search for jobs. In the Jobs tab, users can search for jobs based on the virtual machines affected or based on the business unit that owns the affected virtual machines.
In addition to the new features, VMMSSP 2.0 SP1 includes the following changes:
- Expanded SQL Server support. In addition to the Standard and Enterprise editions of SQL Server that VMMSSP 2.0 supported, VMMSSP 2.0 SP1 supports SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter edition, SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition, and SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard edition (VMMSSP supports the 64-bit versions of these editions).
- Configuration-sensitive forms. If the datacenter administrator does not configure VMMSSP to use load balancers or storage area networks (SANs), the related fields and options do not appear on the VMMSSP forms (such as request forms).
- Improved virtual machine template searching. When importing virtual machine templates from Virtual Machine Manager, the datacenter administrator can use text searches to find specific templates.
To join the Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1 Beta, go to https://connect.microsoft.com/site1044/InvitationUse.aspx?ProgramID=5055&InvitationID=DIT-DKPH-BWTH.