System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1 Overview and Quick Start

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

The Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 Self-Service Portal (VMMSSP) 2.0 SP1 (also referred to as the self-service portal) is a fully supported, partner-extensible solution built on Windows Server® 2008 R2, Hyper-V™ technology, and Virtual Machine Manager (VMM). You can use it to pool, allocate, and manage resources to offer infrastructure as a service and to deliver the foundation for a private cloud platform inside your datacenter.

The self-service portal is an extensible web-based application that provides virtual machine self-service provisioning functions to groups within an organization (referred to as business units) while the physical resources (servers, networks, storage devices, and related hardware) remain in a centralized pool, referred to as the datacenter.

Before you deploy the self-service portal, review the content of the VMMSSP documentation package (VMM08R2_VMMSSPDocumentation.zip, available at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=196742). This zip file contains the documents listed in the following table:

Table 1. Content of the Documentation Package

Filename

Document

VMM08R2_VMMSSPGettingStartedGuide.docx

Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Getting Started Guide

VMM08R2_VMMSSPFAQ.docx

Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Frequently Asked Questions

VMM08R2_VMMSSPDeploymentGuide.docx

Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Deployment Guide

VMM08R2_VMMSSPExtensibilityGuide.docx

Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Extensibility Guide

VMM08R2_VMMSSPDatacenterAdministrationGuide.docx

Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Datacenter Administration Guide

VMM08R2_VMMSSPBusinessUnitAdministrationGuide.docx

Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Business Unit Administration Guide

VMM08R2_VMMSSPOperationsGuide.docx

Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Operations Guide

In addition, you should download the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 Dashboard (VMMSSP_Dashboard.zip, available at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=196742), which provides statistical and reporting support for the self-service portal. The VMMSSP Dashboard works with VMMSSP 2.0 SP1 as well as VMMSSP 2.0.

To monitor the health of the VMMSSP 2.0 SP1 deployment, you should download the VMMSSP Management Pack (Microsoft.SystemCenter.VMMSSP.mp), available from the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Catalog or at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=223906.

The following sections provide an overview of the process of getting the self-service portal up and running.

1. Getting Started

Before you deploy the self-service portal, review the Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Getting Started Guide. This guide, which is intended for the datacenter administrators who are responsible for deploying resources in the datacenter and rolling them out to users, provides an overview of self-service portal features and functionality, as well as additional resources for locating relevant information about preparing your existing datacenter infrastructure to work with the self-service portal.

2. Deploying the Self-Service Portal

After you have evaluated and prepared your infrastructure, review the Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Deployment Guide. Use this guide to determine the best server topology to use to run the self-service portal in your datacenter, check for and configure the prerequisites for the self-service portal, and to install the self-service portal components.

3. Configuring and Extending the Self-Service Portal

After you install the self-service portal, use the Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Datacenter Administration Guide to configure the self-service portal to work with your datacenter infrastructure.

To customize the behavior of virtual machine actions (such as Start or Create), follow the guidelines in the Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Extensibility Guide. This guide includes procedures for creating or modifying scripts that the self-service portal uses to interact with specific datacenter components (such as storage area networks [SANs]) when managing virtual machines.

4. Rolling Out, Maintaining, and Administering the Self-Service Portal

To help introduce the self-service portal to the business units that will use it, distribute the Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Business Unit Administration Guide to the business unit administrators. This document provides instructions for managing a business unit’s resources in the self-service portal. In general, each business unit needs to do the following:

  1. Register for access to the self-service portal.

  2. Create at least one infrastructure, its initial service, and component service roles.

  3. Create virtual machines.

The Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Datacenter Administration Guide includes procedures for registering and provisioning business units (also known as on-boarding), provisioning infrastructures for business unit infrastructures, and other administrative tasks.

Use the Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1: Operations Guide to perform advanced administrative tasks that you cannot perform within the self-service portal interface, and to troubleshoot issues with the self-service portal.

Use the Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0: Dashboard User Guide to install, configure, and use the Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal Dashboard. The Dashboard is a Windows SharePoint® Services–based application that provides a view of multiple sets of self-service portal statistics on a single web page.