Microsoft Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool
The Offline Virtual Machine Serving Tool appears to be Microsoft’s equivalent to VMware’s Update Manger for ESX - in some capacity. The Solution Accelerator tool schedules and automates updates of virtual machines that are not normally powered on in your virtual infrastructure. The tool powers up the VMs allowing them to receive updates such as antivirus definitions, security updates and patches. Unlike ESX 3.5’s Update Manager, the tool only manages the offline VM updates. Server 2008, Hyper-V, and running VM updates will be handled via WSUS and normal Windows Update processes.
The Executive Overview page provides some more information:
“The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool manages the workflow of updating large numbers of offline virtual machines according to their individual needs. To do this, the tool works with Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 (VMM) and with software update management systems (at present, either Microsoft Windows Server® Update Services 3.0 (WSUS) or Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007).”
The following image was also copied from Microsoft’s overview page, and it shows a workflow representation of how the tool works.
“The tool uses “servicing jobs” to manage the update operations based on lists of existing virtual machines stored in VMM. Using Windows Workflow Foundation technology, a servicing job runs snippets of PowerShell scripts to work with virtual machines. For each virtual machine, the servicing job:
- “Wakes” the virtual machine (deploys it to a host and starts it).
- Triggers the appropriate software update cycle (Configuration Manager or WSUS).
- Shuts down the updated virtual machine and returns it to the library.
The tool works with Windows Task Scheduler to determine when to run the servicing job.”
The overview page has links to download the beta version of the tool as well as a getting started guide and the help manual.
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Tags: hyper-v, microsoft, patch, scvmm, server2008
