Datasheet

THE TECHNICAL CASE

Standardization

Hardware and operating system standardization has been considered a best practice for many

years. IT administrators running datacenters with standardized server hardware and operating

system images typically have fewer headaches than those working in mixed environments. This

best practice evolved in the physical world and is more signiﬁ cant now when it comes to virtual-

ization and Cloud-based computing.

Standardizing with two or three types of server hardware and one or two operating sys-

tem images has the advantages of reusable common components and a ﬂ exible and adaptable

environment, providing a higher level of technical awareness, simplifying upgrade, and easing

ongoing management.

Standardization within a virtualized environment is achieved slightly differently. Although

the same standards as mentioned earlier apply to the Hyper-V host, now we are dealing with

virtual hardware, and this is where virtual machine templates come in.

With templates, you can avoid many repetitive installation and conﬁ guration tasks. The result

is a fully installed, ready-to-operate virtual machine in less time than a manual installation could

ever achieve. Templates are also used to help enforce consistency and standards. Deploying from

templates helps enforce corporate standards for such things as hotﬁ xes/patches, hardening, anti-

virus, and management software in any machine connected to the corporate network.

A virtual machine template is a library resource consisting of the following parts:

u Virtual hard disk

u Hardware proﬁ le

u Guest operating system proﬁ le

Rapid Deployment

Rapid deployment allows administrators to take advantage of SAN provider technologies to

clone a LUN containing a virtual hard disk and present it to the host while still utilizing the

SCVMM template so the operating system customization and Integration Services installation

can still be applied. This occurs in near real time and removes the need for the virtual hard disk

component of a new virtual machine to be copied slowly over the network. This allows and sup-

ports a number of differing scenarios:

u Automated and rapid deployment of large virtualized environments

u Automated and rapid deployment of grouped virtual machines concurrently

u Reduced workload for the deployment of similar virtual machines, such as in a VDI

scenario

u Provisioning of an environment for disaster recovery and business continuity planning

purposes

Greater Flexibility

Virtualization increases an organization’s level of ﬂ exibility. It removes the dependency between

the operating system and the hardware and allows you to grow, shrink, or move your virtual

machines, without having to modify the underlying hardware used.

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