There are many ways you can control the VM after it has been deployed from the warehouse. All actions from provisioning to shutting down the VM can be managed directly from the ZENworks Orchestrator Console and through the jobs written and executed by the Orchestrator Server.
Review the following sections for ways to manage VMs in runtime:
You can perform provisioning actions by right-clicking a VM in the tree of the ZENworks Orchestrator Console. You start VMs by provisioning them under the list according to the appropriate provisioning adapter.
For information on provisioning adapters, see Section 4.0, Provisioning Virtual Machines.
For information on provisioning a VM and on the usable provisioning adapters, see Section 6.2.4, Managed Virtual Machine Actions.
The provisioning actions available from the right-click menu are as follows:
Table 6-1 Right-Click VM Commands
When the demand and load on your data center decreases, the Orchestrator Server analyzes the remaining resources and releases the most appropriate resource. If a VM meets the requirements of the remaining job demands better than a physical machine, then the physical machine is released before the VM is released. This dynamic analysis allows you to make sure that the needs of your data center are met.
A VM template is a special kind of VM that is not deployed separately. When the Orchestrator Server needs a VM of the template’s type to be used as a resource, it automatically clones a version of the VM and uses that clone as the VM. You can change cloned VMs into instances of VMs instead of clones.
Review the following tasks to manage VM templates:
In the ZENworks Orchestrator Console, right-click the VM.
Select
.In Linux:
In Windows:
Name the template.
Specify a repository.
Specify a visible VM host.
Select a recommended host for the VMs to be launched on, if any are present.
Click
.When the clone of the template VM is provisioned, it appears as a sub-branch of the template’s location in the resources tree, as in the following Linux and Windows examples:
Figure 6-1 VM Template with Daughter Clone
Figure 6-2 VM Template with Daughter Clone
This clone functions as an instance of a VM and runs as though it were its own version with its own MAC address and other unique identifiers. The UUID is the only new information that is automatically generated for the clone. All the rest of the new information comes from autoprep, including the MAC address if an asterisk (*) is placed in the Template dialog box.
field in the section of the tab for the template (the default is a blank field, meaning no MAC address is created), and if the check box is enabled on the Create VM fromWhen the Orchestrator Server no longer needs the clone, it deprovisions it and automatically deletes it from the data center.
If you decide to keep a clone VM, go to the ZENworks Orchestrator Console, right-click it, and select .
This brings up the Remove Template Dependency dialog box, shown in the following figure:
Figure 6-3 Remove Template Dependency Dialog Box
Click
.You can perform many actions on the VM through the ZENworks Orchestrator Console and ZENworks VM Management Console or you can write jobs to have actions performed on the VMs in your data center. The following table lists the managed VM actions that you can perform or use in a written job.
Table 6-2 Managed VM Actions
For a detailed breakdown of the actions you can perform to and with a VM, see the appropriate VM technology and configuration section in Section C.0, Virtual Machine Technologies and Actions.