You can use the Add Hosts Wizard in the Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM) Administrator Console to add the following types of virtual machine hosts to VMM:

For information about improving the security of hosts, see Hardening Virtual Machine Hosts (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=145057).

Windows Server–based hosts in an AD DS domain

You can use the Add Hosts Wizard to add one or more Windows Server–based hosts to VMM if all the hosts are in an AD DS domain. The hosts can be in a domain that has a two-way trust with the domain of the VMM server, or they can be in a domain that is not trusted by the domain VMM server is in. For more information, see How to Add Hosts in an Active Directory Domain.You can also use the Add Hosts Wizard to search for existing hosts that are in an AD DS domain and then decide which hosts you want to add to VMM. For more information, see How to Search for Hosts.
Important
When you add a Windows-based host, VMM automatically installs or enables the appropriate version virtualization software on the host and attempts to create a Windows Firewall exception, if needed.When you add a host to VMM and the host’s operating system supports Hyper-V, if Hyper-V is not enabled on the host, VMM will attempt to enable it automatically. Enabling the Hyper-V role will cause the host to immediately restart. If the host you are adding is the VMM server, restarting it will stop any jobs that are running and you must add the host again after the Hyper-V has been enabled.When you add a host to VMM and that host's operating system supports Virtual Server 2005 R2, VMM automatically installs the correct version of Virtual Server 2005 R2 if it is not installed already.
Windows Server–based hosts on a perimeter network

Because the VMM server does not have a secure means to deliver required agent installation content to a host on a perimeter network (also known as a screened subnet), you must install a VMM agent locally on the host before you can use the Add Hosts Wizard to add the host to VMM. For more information, see How to Add Hosts on a Perimeter Network.
Windows Server–based hosts in a disjointed namespace

VMM 2008 supports adding and managing hosts that are in a disjointed namespace, which occurs when the computer's primary Domain Name System (DNS) suffix does not match the domain of which it is a member. For more information about disjointed namespaces, see Naming conventions in Active Directory for computers, domains, sites, and OUs (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=123886).If the host is in a disjointed namespace, you must select the Skip the Active Directory name verification check box. To skip Active Directory name verification, the computer name must be a registered host Service Principal Name (SPN) in Active Directory Domain Services. When you use the Add Host Wizard to add a computer that is in a disjointed namespace, VMM checks Active Directory Domain Services to see whether an SPN exists, and if it doesn’t, VMM attempts to create one. If this does not work, you have to add the SPN manually.
VMware ESX Server hosts

Before you can add a VMware ESX Server host to VMM, you must add a VMware VirtualCenter Server. For more information, see Configuring VMM to Manage a VMware Infrastructure 3 Environment.When you add a VMware VirtualCenter server to VMM, all existing hosts that are running a supported version of ESX Server are also added to VMM.You can use the Add Hosts Wizard to add one or more ESX Server hosts to VMM. For more information, see Adding ESX Server Hosts.

Adding Pending Hosts to VMM

You can also add pending hosts to VMM, but you do not use the Add Host Wizard to add these hosts. The availability of pending hosts occurs when VMM discovers cluster nodes that are not currently being managed by VMM. Pending hosts appear in the Hosts view with a status of Pending. For more information, see How to Add a Pending Host to VMM.

See Also

For the most up-to-date Help information, go to the Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Help Online. To find additional Virtual Machine Manager 2008 documentation, go to the Virtual Machine Manager 2008 TechCenter Library.