Virtual Machine Manager Architecture

Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) helps an organization manage Virtual Server 2005 and the virtual machines (VMs) it creates. The VMM agent is installed on each host server running Virtual Server, enabling VMM to manage the host and its VMs.

Administrators work with VMM to create, deploy, and manage VMs via a management console, which resembles the Operations Manager 2007 console, or via the PowerShell scripting environment. A VMM self-service Web application called the Delegated Provisioning UI enables selected users to manage their own VMs within a controlled environment. The VMM administrator configures self-service policies to determine which users can use the self-service portal and which VMs they can create on specified physical host servers.

VMM relies on SQL Server (it includes SQL Server Express) to store configuration information about VMM, as well as the VM resources, such as Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) files used to store VMs when they are not running, hardware and OS profiles, and VM templates. Larger VHD and image files are then stored in the VMM Library, a file server that runs the VMM agent.