Private cloud infrastructure configure and deploy
In collaboration with IEEE Computer Society, the Cloud Security Alliance and Dell, Microsoft is hosting a 24 Hours in a Private Cloud virtual event
11. Infrastructure
Standardized
Services
Development Delegated
Production
Capacity
Cloud Abstraction
Logical &
Standardized
Production
Data Center One Data Center Two
Development Diverse
Infrastructure
12. FAILOVER CLUSTERING AND HYPER-V
Foundation of the private cloud
VM mobility
Increase VM availability Management
Deployment flexibility
Hyper-V
Resilient to downtimes
Platform
Infrastructure
13. Host Clustering And Guest Clustering
Host Clustering Guest Clustering
Cluster service runs inside (physical) host Cluster service runs inside a VM
and manages VMs Apps and services inside the VM are
VMs move between cluster nodes managed by the cluster
Apps move between clustered VMs
Cluster
Cluster
SAN iSCSI
14. Managing Hyper-V Clusters (SCVMM 2008 R2)
Quick Storage Migration
Network migration to
new storage
new cluster
Live Migration
Maintenance mode
15. High Availability in System Center VMM 2012
Highly Available VMM Server
Virtual Machines Creation
Host Clusters
• Creation
• Management
• Deletion
19. Zero to Hyper-V Cluster
Configure
Boot and install
Hyper-V cluster
VMM Server Bare-Metal
Server
Configure
Configure
network
storage
Storage Network
20. INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
Update Management of Fabric Servers
Update operation control (On-demand scan and on-demand remediation)
Updating a Hyper-V cluster is fully automated
Integrated with Windows Server Update Server
Dynamic Optimization (DO)
Cluster level workload balancing scheme to optimize for VM performance
Leverages live migration to move workloads
Power Optimization (PO)
Leverages live migration to pack more VMs per host
Powers down servers to optimize for power utilization
Enhanced Placement
Over 100 placement checks/validation
Support for custom placement rules
Multi-VM deployment for Services
21. Standardization
Standardized
Services
Development Delegated
Production
Capacity
Cloud Abstraction
Logical &
Standardized
Production
Data Center One Data Center Two
Development Diverse
Infrastructure
22. HETEROGENEOUS HYPERVISOR MANAGEMENT
SCVMM supports
Windows Server 2008+ Hyper-V
VMware vSphere 4.1+
Requires vCenter
Citrix XenServer 6.0+
No dependency on XenCenter
Multiple Hypervisors in the same “Cloud”
Services automatically deployed to proper Hypervisor
Supports customers’ existing environments while they
migrate to Windows Server Hyper-V
23. Support for Multiple Hypervisors
Virtual Machine Manager
Host Group
vCenter
Server
Microsoft Hyper-V VMware vSphere 4.1 Citrix XenServer 6.0
25. Abstract
Standardized
Services
Development Delegated
Production
Capacity
Cloud Abstraction
Logical &
Standardized
Production
Data Center One Data Center Two
Development Diverse
Infrastructure
26. SERVICE TEMPLATE IMPORT AND EXPORT
Share templates between different environments
VMM server synchronization in multi VMM installations
Template meta-data exported to XML file
Secured settings are encrypted and stored
Allows for resources to be mapped during the import process
27. LIBRARIES AND LIBRARY OBJECTS
VMM library: a catalog of resources
File-based resources (virtual hard disks, virtual floppy disks, ISO
images, Scripts, driver files, application packages that are stored
on library servers)
Non file-based resources (virtual machine and service templates
and profiles that reside in the VMM database)
A library can be manually associated to a single host group
28. USING LIBRARY RESOURCES
Deploy Deploy
Service Service Service
Template
SLOW! Resource
Dependency
29. NEW IN VMM 2012: LIBRARY OBJECT EQUIVALENCY
Resources (any physical library object) across multiple
libraries can be tagged as equivalent
Why use this?
Consistency amongst multiple sites
Maximize performance by using the “closest” available resource
Provide high availability/redundancy of resources
30. Logically Group Your Resources into Clouds
Create clouds for specific needs
View deployed services and VMs
Overprovision across cloud resources
31. Connect to Physical Infrastructure Components
Aggregate capacity of underlying
resources
Choose your logical network
abstractions
Choose the types of storage available
32. Control Amount of Cloud Resources
Place limits around physical
resources consumed by cloud
Dynamically adjust resource
limits as needs change
33. Control the Types of VMs for Self-Service Users
Set constraints and limits
around VMs with capability
profiles
Attach to clouds to control
usage
35. Delegation
Standardized
Services
Development Delegated
Production
Capacity
Cloud Abstraction
Logical &
Standardized
Production
Data Center One Data Center Two
Development Diverse
Infrastructure
36. Role-Based Access
Self-Service User
Application Owner
Administrator Delegated
Infrastructure Administrator • Clouds only
Administrator Infrastructure • Revocable actions
• Entire system Administrator • Quota controlled
• Can take any • Host groups
action and clouds
• Can take any
action at that
level
Read-Only Administrator
Infrastructure Operations
• Host groups and clouds
• No actions
37. Security Role
Create custom roles
Choose actions and change actions
dynamically as needed
Uses Active Directory users and
groups
40. Services
Standardized
Services
Development Delegated
Production
Capacity
Cloud Abstraction
Logical &
Standardized
Production
Data Center One Data Center Two
Development Diverse
Infrastructure
42. How Does App-V Work ?
• Through the sequencing process, server applications
Packaging are converted to immutable images with
configuration
• Application packages can be copied, easily configured
Deployment and started without installation
• Once running, application configuration and locally
Runtime persisted state are separated from the underlying
operating system allowing for application portability
43. Server App-V Packaging
SFT Package file
Server Server App-V
Package Manifest
Application(s) Sequencer
Configuration
Services (IIS, Windows
Services)
Resources (COM, COM+, Server App-V
DCOM, Java, WMI, SSRS,
Local Users and Groups,
Environment Variables)
Package
Configuration (Registry, Files)
44. Standardize Application Deployment
Service template (Multi-tier .NET applications)
Web tier Application tier Data tier
Scale out & health policy Scale out & health policy Scale out & health policy
IIS Web (IIS) Application server
App (App-V) Data (SQL) SQL
HW profile OS profile App profile HW profile OS profile App profile HW profile OS profile App profile
Compute Storage Network
45. Anatomy of a Service Template
Service Template (Multi-Tier .NET App)
Web Tier App Tier Data Tier
Scale-out & health policy Scale-out & health policy Scale-out & health policy
IIS App Server SQL
HW profile OS profile App profile HW profile OS profile App profile HW profile OS profile SQL profile
W2K8R2.VHD OS
settings MSDeploy Configuration Configuration App-V SQL DAC Configuration
package Service Template
Library
46. Create Service Template with Service Designer
Use the ribbon for contextual actions
within the Service Template Designer.
Use the designer canvas to build your
service template from virtual machine
templates, Logical Networks, and Load
Balancers.
Set service-related properties such as
cost center, description, release version.
47. Deploy Service Through Deployment Preview
Preview pane shows view of
your service deployment.
Settings allow you to set
deployment specific variables.
Ribbon bar for deploy activity
or to check deployment
ratings.
48. View Deployed Service
Perform operations at the
service level, tier level, or
individual VM level.
View specific service, tier, or
application settings.
Two personas (Service Consumer and Service Provider) require a service level agreement. As a Datacenter administrator you need tools to configure, manage and monitor the IT as a service.System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012pool and abstract your compute, network, and storage resources into a private cloud fabric. Provision and manage standardized application services (service templates and image-based Management). Optimize virtualization management using Virtual Machine Manager 2012 to dynamically optimize your datacenter resources
Privatecloudimpliesrethinkingyourdatacenteraspooled resources (including compute, network and storage).Public cloud means, often, to take a platform as a service (Windows Azure is a good example)System Center 2012 products give you the instruments to manage the resources that are on both the clouds with a common interface and a standard set of tools.Also, you no longer need to worry about the type of OS installation you’re going to use, if it’s a virtual or a physical deployement.One of the steps you’ll take moving to the private cloud is to abstract your infrastructure so that you’re able to delegate and monitor you IT services.
Service Templates are authored in the new VMM Service Template designer. Typically when you are creating a service template, deployment specific information like hosts and load balancers is not available – you just know you need a host for the VM or a load balancer for the service but don’t know or care if it is Microsoft Hyper-V host vs. VMware ESX host or F5 Big IP load balancer vs. Citrix Netscaler load balancer.If you have a VM template that has the OS/hardware information, you can create a Service Template with this VM template to deploy a Service with one or more instances of the machine.You canShare templates and, optionally, resources between different environmentsBackup Service templates/VM templatesOptionally include physical resources leveraged by the templateVMM server synchronization in multi VMM installationsTemplate meta-data exported to XML file Secured settings are encrypted and storedAllows for resources to be mapped during the import processVMM library: a catalog of resourcesFile-based resources (virtual hard disks, virtual floppy disks, ISO images, Scripts, driver files, application packages that are stored on library servers)Non file-based resources (virtual machine and service templates and profiles that reside in the VMM database)A library can be manually associated to a single host group
During MMS 2012 SymonPerriman held an interesting session “HYPER-V HIGH-AVAILABILITY AND MOBILITY: DESIGNING THE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR YOUR PRIVATE CLOUD”Some ideas are really interesting.There is no doubt that VM mobility – availability are the base for the private cloud.So, we need hyper v AND system center VMM to make everything work at an acceptable level.
You can host and fail over virtual machines (VMs) by making your physical machines highly available – this is known as ‘Host Clustering’ and is perhaps the most common and recommended deployment. This allows you to put each service or application in multiple individual VMs which are highly available. If a VM becomes unavailable, only that single service in that VM will fail over (assuming each VM has its own LUN). Failure of a single VM hosting multiple services would cause all those services to become unavailable. However you may not want to make this too granular and have too many VMs since each VM requires additional memory and resources to host the virtual OS, so consider the total processing capacity of your machines. For storage you can use iSCSI, Fibre Channel, or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). When the physical host and VM are in a running state, the admin can gracefully failover the VM to another physical machine and the end user should only need to wait a few seconds until the VM is reconnected. The admin can perform this “Quick Migration” by selecting the “Move Virtual Machine(s)” action. In the background, Failover Clustering will save the current running state of the VM on the shared storage, stop it on the first node and start it on the new node. Failover Clustering also monitors the health of the VMs, so if the virtual OS crashes, hangs, or blue screens, it can be automatically restarted, however the end user would need to wait a little longer while the VM state is loaded and started. While Host Clustering can monitor the state of the virtual OS, it does not monitor the health of applications inside the VMs, however that can be accomplished using “Guest Clustering”. Guest Clustering enables highly-available of services and applications in the virtual layer and is fully supported in Windows Server 2008. This is done through installing Failover Clustering on several VMs, then clustering them as if they were physical nodes. All of these VMs can use the same shared iSCSI storage which will store the state of the running applications within the VM. You can even run ‘Validate a Cluster Configuration’ on the VMs to ensure that the Failover Clustering component works! Making your services highly available in the virtual layer allows you monitor their health and fail them over if the VM is experiencing downtime.
Before you can use QSM to migrate a VM, you have to ensure that all the Hyper-V host targets are managed by System Center VMM 2008 R2. After the System Center VMM 2008 R2 agent is deployed to the Hyper-V host target and can be managed through it, you can initiate a QSM either from the System Center VMM 2008 R2 Administrator Console or through a Command Line Interface (CLI). When you start a QSM VM migration through the System Center VMM 2008 R2 Administrator Console, a wizard guides you through the selection of the QSM target Hyper-V R2 host and destination folder. After you make your selections, the QSM migration begins and System Center VMM 2008 R2 performs these steps:Creates a new virtual machine on the target Hyper-V R2 hostTakes snapshots of all VHDs connected to the running virtual machine on the source Hyper-V R2 host that creates new differencing disks for subsequent write operations and places original parent VHDs in read-only stateBITS-based transfer of original parent VHDs from the source Hyper-V R2 host to the target Hyper-V R2 storage locationSaves state for the running virtual machine on the source Hyper-V R2 hostExports the virtual machine on the source Hyper-V R2 hostBITS-based transfer of differencing disks and Saved State files to the target Hyper-V R2 hostBITS-based transfer of the exported VM configuration file to the target Hyper-V R2 hostImports the virtual machine on the target Hyper-V R2 hostMerges the differencing disks back into the original parent VHDs on the target Hyper-V R2 hostResumes the VM on the target Hyper-V R2 hostLive migrations can be manually initiated, or if you have System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 and System Center Operations Manager 2007, you can run automated live migrations in response to workload. You need to complete quite a few steps to set up two systems for live migration, and I’ll guide you through the process. First, I’ll explain how live migration works. Then I’ll cover some of the hardware and software prerequisites that must be in place. Finally, I’ll walk you through the important points of the Hyper-V and Failover Clustering configuration that must be performed to enable live migration.
Microsoft has got cluster deployment down to a few clicks in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) — the key is to let VMM do most, if not all, of the work in configuring the servers. In the environment discussed in this article, we started with some Hyper-V hosts that had access to shared storage (over an iSCSI SAN) but were not using clustering. Here are the manual steps that would be performed to present VMM with a production-ready Hyper-V failover cluster, without using VMM to create the cluster:1Cluster-aware VMM serverCan be guarded against OS and VMM failuresAdmin console with reconnect logic2Create non-HAVMs on clustered hostsCreate/Delete HAVMs on Citrix XenServer clusters XenMotion3Add/Remove Citrix XenServer clustersAdd/Remove Hyper-V clusters in untrusted domainsHyper-V Cluster CreationHost ClustersCreationWizard based experienceCluster validation will be run for youAllocate cluster disks if VMM is managing storageCreate cluster-wide virtual networkFor WS08 R2 Hyper-V hosts in trusted domain onlyManagementAdd/Remove – Nodes, Cluster disks and Virtual networksDeletionUn-clustered hosts remain managed as standalone hostsCluster disk will be unmasked if VMM is managing storage
What’s new with System Center 2012 is that you’re able to create an Hyper V cluster (and to validate it) without the need to connect to the hyper v console (in SCVMM 2008 R2 you had to do a part of the work in the hyper v console).System Center is able also to allocate the storage, if you have the storage management under SCVMMIn the “create” menù you have an option to create Hyper V cluster.You can use a run as account so that your credentials are automatically submitted on demand.ClickYou can add descriptions and you can skip the cluster validation (that’s NON raccomanded in a production environment)ClickYou can select static addresses (also from a static Ips pool)
Here you can see the progress / status of the cluster creation operations
You can run the cluster validation process on demand in a second time
Goal: Help ensure customers know that in the System Center 2012 release, Virtual Machine Manager now provides automated bare metal to Hyper-v cluster provisioning.Talking pointsWith the System Center 2012 release, VMM now support provisioning of a bare metal server to Hyper-V cluster in an efficient and automated way.<click> First, storage is discovered and provisioned for use with virtual machine deployments. <click> Next, network resources are defined using logical networks. IP, VIP and MAC addresses can then be assigned to new virtual machines from designated pools. <click> At this point VMM communicates with the bare metal server via a baseboard management controller or similar device which can be used to force the machine to boot and begin installing an operating system from a Windows Deployment Server. <click> Once the operating system is installed, VMM then configures Hyper-v on the new server.<click> At this point the Create cluster capability in VMM can be used to join the newly provisioned virtual machine to a cluster and connect to the configured storage and network resources – you’re done!This is pretty powerful considering how long this task could take without standardized and automated processes.DetailsNetworkDefine network using Logical NetworksAssign IP, VIP, and MAC from poolsIntegrate with load balancersStorageDiscover storage device to VM relationship Classify storage according to capabilitiesAssign new storage to Hyper-V clusterProvision new storage with VM deployment
Key Takeaways: • Dynamic optimization looks at the underlying host to expose the resources, and can live-migrate workloads around to get better balance and optimize the system • VMM 2012 can also bring down unused servers to save power in the data center; as loads come back up, it can power servers back on • As we deploy services to different nodes in the cluster, VMM 2012 checks where the best placement is for these
Full Animation and items grouped
VMware ESX managed through VMware vCenter ServerCitrix XenServer managed host directly. No dependency on XenCenterBoth - Add host and clusters into any host group
Full Animation and items grouped
In System Center VMM 2008 R2 VM templates are database objects. The purpose is to export vm templates to a physical file, without restoring a previous versionSyncronization of two VMM installations
Role-based administration (RBA) is a new feature introduced in Configuration Manager 2012. RBA provides Configuration Manager administrators with an easy way to implement the security model that allows them to assign and manage administrative permissions by assigning which actions they are able to perform using security roles, which users and systems they can manage through collections, and which objects they can access using security scopes. Based on their administrative permissions, the Configuration Manager console has been significantly enhanced to provide administrators with a streamlined view that is customized to their specific role—showing only what they need to do their job.
With the private cloud, you want to ensure that the correct people have access to the resources that that you control. To accomplish this, we have created access control capabilities to give you fine-grainedThe Administrator and Delegated Administrator has full control to the underlying Infrastructure and all of the fabric. While the Administrator has access to the entire VMM environment, the Delegated Administrator has the control over the delegated host groups assigned.The Self-Service User will have access to just clouds, and there you can set revocable actions in a quota controlled environment. This gives you the ability to specify what actions these users can do and how much of the cloud resources they can consume.
Security RoleEach security role combines objects with permitted operations that collectively allow a Configuration Manager administrative users to perform a job function such as “Application Administrator”. Objects are the items in Configuration Manager that you want to protect, such as applications. Operations are what you can do with the objects, like read, modify, and delete. Administrators who are familiar with Configuration Manager 2007, could view security roles as a set of “Class Permissions”. (reference http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb632332.aspx)Security roles are created for different job functions. Instead of granting granular permissions to a Configuration Manager administrative user, you assign a particular security role to them. Configuration Manager provides several built-in roles which can meet some popular functions, like Software Update Manager for managing software updates. You also can define customized security roles by copying an existing role and making some modifications, or importing security roles that you have obtained.
CapacityIn VMM Self-Service Portal 2.0, there were two elements of cloud capacity to define the resource limits of a block of resources delegated to a business – memory and storage. In VMM 2012, there are five elements of cloud capacity: vCPUS, memory, storage, number of VMs and custom quota points. Quota points you may recognize as the element we used to track quota in v1.0 of the VMM Self-Service Portal. Bottom line here is that we have a lot more granularity in defining quotas than was possible in the previous release.In VMM Self-Service Portal 2.0, there were two elements of cloud capacity to define the resource limits of a block of resources delegated to a business – memory and storage. In VMM 2012, there are five elements of cloud capacity: vCPUS, memory, storage, number of VMs and custom quota points. Quota points you may recognize as the element we used to track quota in v1.0 of the VMM Self-Service Portal. Bottom line here is that we have a lot more granularity in defining quotas than was possible in the previous release.
I’ll be talking about standardized application deployement and service templates.
You can use Microsoft Server Application Virtualization (Server App-V) to create virtual application packages. Virtual application packages are images of applications that can be copied to a computer running the Server App-V Agent and started without requiring a local installation. The application then runs as if it is a locally installed application. Running virtual applications can help reduce hardware and operational costs and help streamline enterprise application management. Server App-V builds on the technology used with Application Virtualization (App-V) by separating the application configuration and state from the underlying operating system running on computers in a data center environment. Server App-V allows for dynamic composition of application and hardware images which can help significantly reduce the number of images that need to be managed. Server App-V also enables automation of deployment and management scenarios which can improve reliability, availability and serviceability of datacenter applications.Not all applications are supported for use with Server App-V. Applications such as antivirus software that require device or kernel driver support are not supported. Server App-V is primarily designed for use with business applications or the business tiers of multi-tiered applications. Consequently some large server applications such as Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft SharePoint are not supported. While there is no list of supported applications for use with Server App-V, Server App-V has been optimized to create virtual application packages for applications with the following attributes:
App-V sequencer is the component which packages an application for virtualization and streaming. It analyzes the application for the resources that it requires and creates the SystemGuard runtime environment that it will require. It also packages specific DLL files that it might require at the client side. It then packs all the application code and data into App-V's proprietary format that makes it more suitable for streaming. Individual libraries are packed separately so that each library can be streamed as required, rather than having the client to download the entire application at the beginning. Most importantly, the sequencer translates file and reqistry references into user, machine, and operating system neutral references. This often allows limited portability of sequenced applications between OS versions.
Goal of the slideRepresent how System Center 2012 simplifies application provisioning for private clouds by enabling a standardized approach.Talking points <Click> Through service templates, System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager offers you the ability to define standardized application blueprints, which can be used to automatically deploy application services to shared resource pools, thus simplifying application provisioning. Defining your application requirements with a repeatable construct like service templates makes provisioning faster and less error-prone than when you manually have to deploy the application.Service templates provide the blueprint for the application service, including specifications for the hardware, operating system, and application packages. System Center 2012 supports multiple package types for .NET applications, including MS Deploy for the web tier (IIS), SAV for the application tier, and SQL DAC for the data tier.Operationalizing service templates across your service-consumer and service-provider organizations will likely require active collaboration between the App Devs, App Ops, and DC Admin roles to discuss and standardize the initial set of hardware, OS, and app profiles that new applications could adhere to. It might be beneficial to take an incremental approach to testing this capability before rolling out across a broader set of applications. This process will likely require broad sponsorship across the LOB application IT and infrastructure IT organizations.<Click>Once organizationally approved application blueprints are established and stored in the Virtual Machine Manager service template library, your application owners are ready to deploy applications on their own. They can go to the application owner self-service experience in System Center 2012 - App Controller, where they can access and select service templates that they’ve been authorized for. They can easily specify configuration requirements like application topology, scale-out rules, health thresholds, andupgrade rules into the service template and then kick-start a “one-click deployment.” Before the application owner hits deploy, App Controller provides a compelling visualization of the of the holistic application service, including all the requested service tiers, the underlying virtual instance templates, and storage, compute, and network resources. This enables application owners to “think services, not servers” by offering a “service-centric” approach to provisioning.Virtual Machine Manager uses the service template specifications to build out the application tiers, including the various logical instances associated with each tier. In the real world, you are likely to encounter scaled-out (or multi-instance) web front ends and application tiers, but scaled-up (or singleinstance–based) database tiers. Virtual Machine Manager uses the service template specifications to help ensure that the application is deployed to the appropriate virtualized resource pools.
Become source of truth and starting point for servicesSpecify machine and connectivity requirementsLink to deployed servicesEnable servicing of deployed instancesDeploy a set of virtual machinesCompose virtual machines through machine definitionsSupport for native application types: Web applications, Server App-V packages, and SQL applications (SQL DAC)Breakdown of how the Service template comes together to deliver the application.Infra and Fabric will cover the HW profile and OS profile content.TemplateStarting point for services and source of truthSpecifies machine and connectivity requirementsDeployed services are always linked to their templatesEnables servicing of the instancesInstanceGroups of machines that work togetherIncludes machine definitions as well as applicationsNative application types:Web Applications (WebDeploy)Virtual Applications (Server App-V Package)Database Applications (SQL DAC)
Use the Ribbon for contextual actions within the Service DesignerUse the Designer Canvas to build your service template from Virtual Machine templates, Logical Networks, and Load BalancersSet service related properties such as Cost Center, Description, Release NumberTemplate is a starting pointAuthor the template in the new Service DesignerDefines machines and their connectivityTiers, Hardware, Logical Networks, OS, Apps, Load Balancer templates etc.Deployed services are always linked to their templatesTypically information like hosts or load balancers is not available while creating templateWhat customization you can do within a VM TemplateWindows Server 2008 R2 Roles and FeaturesArbitrary script execution and payload deliveryMultiple entry points (e.g. prior to any application install operation, after a specific application install operation)“First-Class” application deploymentWeb DeployServer App-VSQL Data-Tier ApplicationsConfigurable service settingsDefer setting a value until deployment timeUse @Variable Name@ nomenclature (e.g. @SQL User@)
Preview Pane shows view of service deploymentSettings all you to set deployment specific variablesRibbon for deploy activity or to check deployment ratingsPrepares the template for deploymentSpecify OS settings Computer name, Admin password etc.Specify Configurable Service Setting Values e.g. SQL connection string, script parametersAllows usage of same template in different environments Development, Staging, Production etc.
Perform operations at the service level, tier level, or on an individual VMView specific service, tier, or application settings
Service Templates are authored in the new VMM Service Template designer. Typically when you are creating a service template, deployment specific information like hosts and load balancers is not available – you just know you need a host for the VM or a load balancer for the service but don’t know or care if it is Microsoft Hyper-V host vs. VMware ESX host or F5 Big IP load balancer vs. Citrix Netscaler load balancer.If you have a VM template that has the OS/hardware information, you can create a Service Template with this VM template to deploy a Service with one or more instances of the machine.You canShare templates and, optionally, resources between different environmentsBackup Service templates/VM templatesOptionally include physical resources leveraged by the templateVMM server synchronization in multi VMM installationsTemplate meta-data exported to XML file Secured settings are encrypted and storedAllows for resources to be mapped during the import processVMM library: a catalog of resourcesFile-based resources (virtual hard disks, virtual floppy disks, ISO images, Scripts, driver files, application packages that are stored on library servers)Non file-based resources (virtual machine and service templates and profiles that reside in the VMM database)A library can be manually associated to a single host group