Specifications

Best Practices for Virtualizing and Managing Exchange 2013
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Once the template is created, you can start to use some other profiles to enhance the template and
accelerate deployment of virtual machines that have specific applications within them. One such key
profile is the application profile. Application profiles provide instructions for installing Microsoft
Application Virtualization (Server App-V) applications, Microsoft Web Deploy applications, and Microsoft
SQL Server data-tier applications (DACs). For Exchange 2013, scripts could also be included as part of the
application profile; scripts can be used to automate an unattended installation of Exchange 2013 once the
virtual machine has been deployed. Additional information can be found on TechNet to help to guide
administrators through this process.
Service Templates
“Regular” templates, like the gold virtual machine template, can be deployed as they are, without further
modification. However, with the power of service templates, administrators (specifically Exchange
administrators) can deploy multiple virtual machines simultaneously to host Exchange.
In VMM, a service is a set of virtual machines that are configured and deployed together and are
managed as a single entity (for example, a deployment of a multi-tier line-of-business application). In the
VMM management console, you can use the Service Template Designer to create a service template,
which defines the configuration of the service. The service template includes information about what
virtual machines to deploy as part of the service, which applications to install on the virtual machines, and
what networking configuration to use for the service (including the use of a load balancer, if required).
The service template can make use of existing virtual machine templates, or you can define the service
from the ground up.
After the service template is created, you can deploy the service to a private cloud or to virtual machine
hosts. After the service is deployed, you can update the service template and then deploy those changes
to the existing service. Alternatively, you can deploy additional virtual machines to an existing service in
order to provide other resources for the service.
Virtual Machine Deployment
Thus far, this section has discussed how the template process can accelerate deployment of virtual
machines to host Exchange 2013, as well as how a template can contain scripts to install Exchange 2013 in
an unattended way. However, VMM also provides guidance on deployment: It can decide where to place
the virtual machine, and can move the virtual machine around the infrastructure if better performance for
that workload can be delivered elsewhere.
Intelligent Placement
VMM can help to identify the most appropriate physical host servers for virtualized Exchange Server
workloads. This Intelligent Placement technology not only can make administrative tasks easier, but also
can help to ensure that data center resources are deployed properly and align with business goals (Figure
41).