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Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool Executive Overview

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501231.aspx?SA_CE=VIR-OVMST-NEWSLTR-TNFLSHGLBL-20080917

The increasing use of virtual
machines—for purposes ranging from support of older operating system
environments to power savings—has created new challenges for IT.

In
particular, virtual machines may be left offline (stored in a
non-operating state) for extended periods of time, which conserves
resources when the server capacities of the virtual machines are not
needed or frees up physical computing resources for other purposes.

However,
offline machines do not automatically receive operating system,
antivirus, or application updates that would keep them compliant with
current IT policy. An out-of-date virtual machine may pose a risk to
the IT environment. If deployed and started, the out-of-date virtual
machine might be vulnerable to attack or could be capable of attacking
other network resources.

Therefore,
IT groups must take measures to ensure that offline virtual machines
remain up-to-date and compliant. At present, these measures involve
temporarily bringing the virtual machine online, applying the necessary
updates, and then storing it again.

In
the future, image updating solutions may be able to update virtual
machines while they remain offline. Until such solutions become
available, the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool, a Solution
Accelerator from Microsoft, provides a way to automate the process of
updating virtual machines. This tool is now available as a free download from the Microsoft® Download Center.

Business Scenarios

You can use this Solution Accelerator to help you with business scenarios such as these:

Your
IT organization is converting physical servers to virtual machines to
reduce costs, including administrative overhead. How can you regularly
update offline virtual machines while minimizing administrative costs?
Your
IT organization has thousands of virtual machines stored for months at
a time in a number of libraries. How do you keep the virtual machines
reliably up to date?

Using the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool

The
Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool manages the workflow of updating
large numbers of offline virtual machines according to their individual
needs. The tool works with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine
Manager 2007 (VMM) and with software update management systems (at
present, either Windows Server Update Services 3.0 (WSUS) or System
Center Configuration Manager 2007). The following figure illustrates
the workflow.

How information flows between the tool and other system components

The
tool uses “servicing jobs” to manage the update operations based on
lists of existing virtual machines stored in VMM. Using Windows
Workflow Foundation technology, a servicing job runs snippets of
Windows PowerShell™ scripts to work with virtual machines. For each
virtual machine, the servicing job:

“Wakes” the virtual machine (deploys it to a host and starts it).
Triggers the appropriate software update cycle (Configuration Manager or WSUS).
Shuts down the updated virtual machine and returns it to the library.

The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool is straightforward to use. To use the tool:

Install the tool in your environment.
A configuration wizard guides you through the process of connecting the
tool to VMM and your software update management system.
Configure virtual machine groups. You have the option to group your virtual machines to simplify the process of creating servicing jobs.
Create and schedule servicing jobs.
A servicing job specifies which virtual machines to update, what
resources to use for the update process, and when to start the
servicing job. You can schedule jobs to run immediately, or to run
during low-traffic maintenance windows. You can also schedule servicing
jobs to recur at regular intervals to keep your virtual machines
up-to-date in the long term.

Note The tool works with Windows Task Scheduler to determine when to run the servicing job.