A virtual machine emulates a complete hardware system from processor to network card, in a self-contained, isolated software environment, enabling the simultaneous operation of otherwise incompatible operating systems. Using System Center Essentials 2010 to virtualize your environment can help maximize limited IT resources by consolidating underutilized physical servers and more rapidly provisioning new virtual machines, which can be used as application servers or other similar tasks. The following section discusses the various ways in which you can create a virtual machine in Essentials 2010.
Creating Virtual Machines
 Important |
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| Before you can create a virtual machine, you will need to designate at least one server as a host for virtual machines. See Designating a Host for Virtual Machines for more information. |
Using virtualization management in Essentials 2010, you can create virtual machines from the following:
- Physical computers (P2V conversion)
A physical computer must already be managed by Essentials 2010 in order to select it for conversion to a virtual machine. In addition, the physical computer must have one of the following operating systems installed:
- Windows Server 2008 without Hyper-V (x86
and x64)
- Windows Server 2003 with Service
Pack 1 (SP1) and above (x86 only)
- Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
and above (x86 and x64)
- Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4
(SP4) and above (Offline P2V only)
- Windows 2000 Advanced Server with
Service Pack 4 (SP4) and above (Offline P2V only)
- Windows XP Professional with Service
Pack 2 (SP2) and above (x86 and x64)
- Windows Server 2008 without Hyper-V (x86
and x64)
- Virtual hard disks
You can import Microsoft virtual hard disks (.vhd files) and VMware virtual hard disks (.vmx files). These files must be located in the Essentials 2010 library folder in order to be imported.
- Virtual machine templates
The following virtual machine templates are included with Essentials 2010:
Recommended (default) server
Basic server
High-end server
Processors
1
1
2
Memory
1 GB
512 MB
2 GB
Hard Disk
16 GB
16 GB
60 GB
Network
Show locations
Show locations
Show locations
CD/DVD Drive
None
None
Use host CD/DVD
BIOS Boot Order
CD/DVD, Virtual Hard Drive, Network
CD/DVD, Virtual Hard Drive, Network
CD/DVD, Virtual Hard Drive, Network
For more information and step-by-step instructions on creating virtual machines, see the Virtualizing Your Server Environment section of the System Center Essentials 2010 Operations Guide.