SIM361: System Center VMM 2012: OSD, OOB and Agent Management

So this is the second part of SIM361, which actually covers the content in the official session title. The last half of the session focuses on the bare metal deployment and automatic cluster creation process for Hyper-V. So if you are a VMware or XenServer, you can skip the rest of the content. vSphere 5.0 will have a bare metal deployment appliance, so go read up on that. :) But for you Hyper-V users, keep reading.

Hyper-V host lifecycle management features include:

1. Full control of the bare metal using baseboard management controller (BMC) (e.g. DRAC, iLO, etc.). Supports discovery of basic hardware inventory such as SMBIOS GUID, model, asset tag, serial number, etc.). Also can control power states such as power on and power off.
2. Supports IPMI, DCMI, and WS-MAN interfaces to BMC devices. This interface is extensible.
3. Provision Hyper-V onto a bare metal machine.
4. Fully automated hyper-v cluster creation.
5. Leverages a VMM server, WDS server, and a library server. Co-exists very well with an existing WDS server (but requires Server 2008 R2 WDS). Dynamic driver injection support as well.
6. Deploys a VHD to the bare metal, meaning the server permanently boots off the VHD not a traditional disk partition.
7. Automates IPing, domain join, role/feature installation, computer naming, etc.

So there you have it.....deploy Hyper-V hosts directly from VMM 2012 with just a few clicks of a mouse.