What's New in System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self Service Portal 2.0 SP1

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Applies To: Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 Self-Service Portal 2.0

System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal (VMMSSP) 2.0 SP1 includes all of the functionality of VMMSSP 2.0, plus the following new features and improvements.

New Features in VMMSSP 2.0 SP1

The following features have been added in VMMSSP 2.0 SP1:

  • Localization. The self-service portal is now available in English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

  • 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 the impending expiration of virtual machines.

  • 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.

  • Define and use custom virtual machine actions. The datacenter administrator can now create up to five custom virtual machine actions and make them available to users on the Virtual Machines tab. For example, a database administrator can create a Create Checkpoint action and add it to the list of actions on the Virtual Machines tab.

  • Use Opalis policies in virtual machine actions. In a datacenter that includes a deployment of Opalis Integration Server 6.3, the datacenter administrator can customize tasks in virtual machine actions to trigger Opalis policies instead of running scripts.

  • Define and use custom virtual machine properties. The datacenter administrator can define custom properties to collect information from users in the Create Virtual Machine wizard, and use these properties in the tasks of the CreateVM virtual machine action. For example, a datacenter administrator can create the properties RAM and CPU Count. Then the Create Virtual Machine wizard includes fields for RAM and CPU Count. When a user finishes the wizard, it passes the RAM and CPU Count values that the user entered to the tasks in the CreateVM virtual machine action.

  • Manage virtual machine DVD drives and media. When working with virtual machines that have DVD drives, users can attach media such as ISO images to the virtual machines.

  • Connect to VMware virtual machines. Users can now use VMMSSP to manage and connect to virtual machines hosted by VMware host servers.

  • Show or hide the maintenance fields in the Create Virtual Machine wizard. By default, the Create Virtual Machine wizard includes fields where users can specify backup and update requirements. In datacenters that use standard policies or schedules for backups and updates, a datacenter administrator can hide these fields.

Improved Features in VMMSSP 2.0 SP1

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 the 64-bit versions of SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter edition, SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition, and SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard edition.

  • 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.