You can create host groups to group together virtual machine hosts to more easily monitor and manage the hosts and their virtual machines. For more information about creating host groups, see About Host Groups (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=144506).

Virtual machine self-service enables the VMM administrator to grant users permission to create and operate their own virtual machines within a controlled environment on a limited group of virtual machine hosts. For more information, see Setting Up Virtual Machine Self-Service (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=144507).

Important
If you set up self-service, it is important to make user connections to the VMM Self-Service Portal as secure as possible. For more information, see Hardening Self-Service Web Servers (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=144485).

Performance and Resource Optimization—known simply as PRO—supports workload- and application-aware resource optimization within a virtualized environment. Based on performance and health data provided by PRO-enabled management packs in System Center Operations Manager 2007, PRO can automatically or manually implement PRO tips, recommendations for minimizing downtime and accelerating time to resolution. For more information, see Configuring Operations Manager 2007 Integration with VMM 2008 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=120283).

The configuration of VMM system settings is optional depending on how you implement VMM in your environment. For more information, see Configuring VMM System Settings (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=144509).

The configuration of a storage area network (SAN) to use in VMM for virtual machine transfers is optional, depending on how you implement VMM in your environment. For more information about how to configure a supported SAN environment, see Configuring a SAN Environment for VMM 2008 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=125953).

Concepts