About Jobs
Applies To: Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 SP1
In Virtual Machine Manager, a job is created for any action that changes the status of a managed object. These units of work are tracked in Jobs view. To view only your own jobs while working in any view, use the Jobs window. For more information, see Monitoring Jobs in VMM.
Each job is represented by one or more cmdlets in the Windows PowerShell – Virtual Machine Manager command shell. You can perform any action in the VMM Administrator Console from the command line, and you can script most operations. For more information, see using the Using the Windows PowerShell - VMM Command Shell.
Jobs are composed of steps that are performed sequentially to complete an action. Simple jobs, such as stopping a virtual machine, contain only one step. For more complex jobs, such as running a physical-to-virtual machine conversion on a server, the resulting job is actually a job group comprising several other jobs, which themselves contain numerous steps. The Details tab in the job details in Jobs view shows the status of each step in a job.
A wizard might create multiple jobs. For example, the Add Hosts Wizard can be used to add multiple hosts to be managed by Virtual Machine Manager. For each host added in this way, a separate job is created and can be tracked individually.
Note
To help you transition to using the command line and scripting in Windows PowerShell, each wizard includes a View Script button on its Summary page that displays the cmdlets that will perform the job that you just requested. If you save your Windows PowerShell scripts to the VMM library, you can view and run them in Library view.
Each job is independent. A job cannot depend on the status of another job. Therefore, if you are using Add Hosts to add multiple hosts, the failure to add one host does not affect the remaining jobs.
Certain jobs require credentials to complete successfully. For example, the job created by the Add Hosts Wizard uses those credentials on the virtual machine host to install the Virtual Machine Manager agent.
When a job completes, an audit record is saved that lists the changes that the job made to the VMM object. You can view the audit record in Jobs view by displaying the Change Tracking tab in the details pane.
For each job that is initiated by a PRO tip in Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO), the job details display the PRO tip identifier, and a PRO tab in the job details displays the status of each job that is associated with the PRO tip. To view knowledge about the conditions that prompted the PRO tip and the recommended resolution, click PRO Tips on the toolbar to open the PRO Tips window.
See Also
Concepts
Monitoring Jobs in VMM
Monitoring and Reporting
Using the Windows PowerShell - VMM Command Shell