Manually Provision SCVMM Services

Use Commander to:

• deploy a requested service or VM component by clicking Deploy at the appropriate level of the tree in the Request Details dialog. Note that once a component in a service has been deployed, it's no longer possible to deploy at the service level; you must deploy at the component level.

When deploying an entire service, if the deployment of one or more components fails, Commander will still attempt to deploy other components in the service.

• clone a VM. Right-click a powered-off VM and select Provisioning > Clone VM.
• deploy a VM from a template. Right-click and choose Provisioning > Deploy to VM.

The following sections provide details and additional help links for the manual deployment wizard. The pages and options displayed depend on whether you're deploying an entire service or a VM component.

Name & Folder page

Naming options are not available if you're deploying an entire service as individual components - that is, if you clicked Deploy at the Service level in the Request Details dialog (rather than at the Component level).

• Let the system name this Service / VM automatically: See also Customize Naming Conventions.
• Manually name this Service / VM: Note that you can't use variables in this field, but you can use variables in the global VM naming convention. See also Customize Naming Conventions.

The name can't be longer than 100 characters and must be unique on the target host. If you're deploying to a highly available cluster, the name must be unique across all hosts in the cluster.

If Commander detects that the name isn't unique when you have specified the target (on the next page of the wizard), an error is displayed.

• Placement Options: Although the option you choose here allows Commander to preselect destination choices for you, you can change those selections throughout this wizard. The available options are:
• Available Capacity (Average): See Peak versus Average capacity values
• Available Capacity (Peak): See Peak versus Average capacity values
• Last Specified: Uses the placement location that was last used to deploy this service or component. If the service or component has not been previously deployed, the first viable placement location is used.
• User Specified: Uses the same placement location as the source; otherwise, uses the first available placement location.
• Automated Deployment: Uses the placement options configured for automated deployment. Selecting this option picks the datastore based on the tier of its existing disks as well as the maximum available space. If you see the error "Automated deployment has not been configured", see Configure Automated Deployment for Approved Service Requests to learn how to set up automated deployment.
• Make this VM highly available / Make all VMs in this service highly available: To deploy to non-clustered hosts and datastores, disable this option. If you specify that the VM or service is highly available, it can only be placed on clustered hosts and clustered storage. If you specify that a VM or service isn't highly available, it can only be placed on non-clustered hosts and non-clustered storage.

Target & Resource Pool page

Choose the target host or cluster for the VM. Commander provides capacity information to guide your decision.

For a non-highly available VM, if you select a clustered host, the secondary capacity (based on non-shared storage) is displayed. If you choose a cluster, Commander uses capacity information (from nightly performance updates) to choose a host on that cluster as the target.

Components page

This page appears only when deploying an entire requested service - that is, you clicked Deploy at the Service level in the Request Details dialog, rather than at the Component level.

All components in the service are listed. Custom components contained in the service are listed for information purposes only.

Deselect the components you don't want to deploy at this time.

Components are deployed serially, not in parallel.

Datastore pages

The two Datastore pages of the wizard allow you to choose a datastore and configure disks. On the first page, select a datastore in the list to show more information. The pie graph displays available space and used space, as well as reserved space for any in-progress tasks.

When you deploy an entire service, all VMs in the service are deployed with the same datastore options. Storage tiers specified in the service request are ignored, and you can't edit hard disk information.

• Show excluded datastores shows all datastores, even the ones that are excluded from the list of choices because they are over-provisioned. See also Exclude new datastores from capacity calculations.
• Edit Disks: To add, modify and delete disks, click Edit Disks. In the Edit Disks dialog, choose Select a datastore from the Location drop-down menu to specify the datastore. The datastore you choose determines the options available under Disk Provisioning; these options are also determined by the cloud account type.
• Disk Format: By default, disks are provisioned in the same format as the source disk.

Select Dynamically expanding format (to save storage space) or Fixed format (to allow the datastore to occupy the entire space provisioned for it).

Notes for cloning VMs:

• You can't remove or change a disk when cloning a VM. (This restriction doesn't apply when cloning a template.)
• All disks of a cloned VM must be placed on the same datastore.
• SCVMM requires that the boot disk of a VM be IDE. Commander can create only SCSI drives. If you delete an IDE disk, Commander can't create an equivalent disk.

Resources page

This page allows you to customize VM resources when deploying to a VM that's not a component of a service.

• Specify values for Memory Size and CPU Count as required.
• Networks: Configured network adapters are displayed in a list; you can set the VM Network and Adapter. If you have tagged networks with zones, the VM Network list groups networks by zone. To add a network adapter, click Add Network Adapter. The options you can configure for network adapters depend on the host version.

If you have a large number of networks, click  next to the Logical Network drop-down menu to open a pop-up dialog for easier searching.

Custom Attributes page

Custom attributes allow you to provide more management information about your virtualized infrastructure.

This page doesn't appear when deploying an entire service that's configured to be deployed as individual VM components.

For information on custom attributes, see Work with Custom Attributes.

Other Properties page

When deploying at the service level, values entered on this page are applied only to the components of the service. This means that if the service contains a virtual service component, values entered on this page are not applied to any VMs which are components of the virtual service.

If the Expiry Date form element or the Primary Owner form element has been added to the Component request form, users can specify expiry and/or ownership information for requested components. (For more information, see Service Request Form Elements.) Their selection isn't displayed in the manual Service deployment wizard. In this case, you should deploy each component separately by clicking Deploy at the Component level of the Request Details, rather than at the Service level. Doing so ensures that you won't override the requester's individual selections for all components in the service.

See also Order of Precedence for Metadata and Service Settings.

• VM / Virtual Service Name: Click Edit to override the service name. You can't use Commander variables in this field. See also Customize Naming Conventions.
• Expiry Date: Click Edit to set or override the expiry date, or to specify that the service will never expire. See also Manage Service Expirations.
• Expiry Group: Click Edit and choose an expiry group from the drop-down.
• Maintenance Group: Click Edit and choose a maintenance group from the drop-down.
• Power Schedule Group: Click Edit and choose a power schedule group from the drop-down. Displayed for VM components only.
• Rightsizing Group: Click Edit and choose a rightsizing group from the drop-down menu. Displayed for VM components only.

• Owners: To edit ownership assignment, click Edit. In the Edit Ownership dialog, if the user you assign is a member of an organization, make sure to select the owner's organization to ensure the service is visible to organization members. To assign users, enter a username or email address. See also Set Resource Ownership.

• Service Request: When deploying a service request, the Release checkbox is visible and is enabled by default, so that components advance to completion automatically. When the Release checkbox is enabled, if one or more completion workflows have been assigned, the service request is automatically transferred to the completion workflow process. If no completion workflows are assigned, once all components in a service are deployed, releasing the components makes the service visible to the requester (for example, the Service Portal user).
  If there are manual steps in your provisioning process, disable the Release checkbox so that you can carry out these steps before the completion workflow starts. For example, you may need to install software, check operating system patches, or migrate VMs. Click Comment to enter more information for the service request comment log.

Customization page

This page appears only when a VM is cloned or is deployed from a template with one of the operating systems supported for customization. Customization options are available only when supported by the guest operating system and VMware. Customization specifications must already exist for Windows templates in order to use this option.

• Do not customize: If you select this option, continue with the Custom Attributes page in the wizard.
• Customize using wizard: If you select this option, complete each of the pages as required. Only the Host Name can be configured. If you enter an asterisk (*) for Host Name, Commander will automatically generate a host name based on the VM name. The host name you enter must contain no more than 15 characters, can contain only the characters a-z, A-Z, 0-9, or hyphen (-), and must not start or end with a hyphen (-).

Summary page

The summary information displayed on the Summary page varies by cloud account type.

• Start Deployed VM / Start Deployed Components: If you don't want the deployed components to be started, disable this option.
• Policy Actions: If one or more policies will be triggered once deployment occurs, policy actions are listed here.

The VM customization process may proceed for some time after the VM is created. If anyone interrupts the customization process by signing in to the VM, the primary owner won't be added as administrator. To ensure that the service requester isn't prematurely notified that the VM is ready for use, add a Wait For Event step to your completion workflow. In the Wait For drop-down menu, select Guest OS customization to complete, and in the Wait Time field, enter 1800 seconds (30 minutes).