Virtual
Machine Manager or VMM is an integral part of Microsoft Systems Center and
Control Manager 2012. If your goal is to build out a private or hybrid cloud,
utilizing SCCM 2012 and VMM to achieve this feat is one of the easiest and most
documented solutions available today. SCCM 2012 is a powerful tool that defines
and automates the behavior of the hardware and software in your environment. If
you are attempting to virtualize your datacenter, VMM can help out
tremendously. Instead of having to build out physical infrastructure, VMM provides
the fabric for your cloud without any additional setup.
VMM
contains powerful features that will give the administrator granular control of
virtual machines and the private cloud infrastructure. Systems Engineers will be
able to bridge together all of the different hypervisors that currently exist
in your environment regardless of vendor. Rather than having to convert your
existing virtual machines into a Hyper-V machine, you can keep them as they are
and build around them. Once you organize
the resources you have as being available for use, you can use SCCM in order to
setup the behavior for your private cloud.
In
the System Center Application Controller, you will be able manage your private,
public and hybrid clouds from one interface. This powerful interface gives
administrators advanced control over their cloud. They can take a cluster from
one VMM environment and seamlessly move it to another one without having to
incur any administrative overhead.
SCCM
gives you full control over your cloud environment. Let's say your company
orders a bare metal server. The device is plugged into the rack but it has not
been powered on. SCCM can send packets to the network card of that device which
will automatically power it on and depending on your specific settings, you
could have an image dropped on the server, use a WIM file to apply all the
correct configuration settings and have the server automatically provisioned as
a virtual machine host that can be used as additional resources in your cloud.
Using
Orchestrator 2012, we can setup specific task sequences that can be carried out
when that task is invoked. Orchestrator gives the administrators templates for
how to automate almost any task that an IT department would have had to do manually
in the past. For example, you could theoretically automate the entire process
of on boarding a new employee using SCCM. Using Orchestrator, you could setup
what is called a Runbook which enables SCCM to carry out a set of explicit
instructions. These instructions could automatically create an AD account,
create a virtual machine for the new employee and as long as a few other
configuration parameters are met, the employee can be up and running just as if
IT had taken the time to carefully and individually build out a new machine for
the specific user.
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About the Author
Eric
Silver is a senior contributor for Online
Backup Magazine. In his spare time, Eric enjoys reading PC Magazine and
exploring all things cloud.