Although to use the Virtual Machine Servicing Tool you are not required to create virtual machine groups, they can ease the process of defining servicing jobs for software updates. In this way, when you create a servicing job, you can select one virtual machine group instead of selecting a number of individual virtual machines.
For example, you can create groups based on the domain structure and the user credentials that the servicing job will need to access the virtual machines. You could also create groups based on the operating systems of the virtual machines, so that all of the virtual machines in a group should take approximately the same amount of time to service.
You can use the tool to create the following types of groups:
Before using this type of group, you must use the VMM Administrator Console to create a new virtual machine from a virtual machine template, and then configure it to be a gold virtual machine according to the requirements and software update setting options in the "Preparing the Virtual Machines" section of the Virtual Machine Servicing Tool: Getting Started Guide.
After configuring the gold virtual machine, you can associate it with the source template.
Note Only one virtual machine template can be associated with the gold virtual machine. We recommend only using the gold virtual machine to apply software updates.
Use the procedures in the following sections to create and edit each different type of group as needed for your environment.