What is Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0?
Microsoft is enabling customers to build the foundation for private cloud infrastructure using Windows Server/Hyper-V and the System Center family of products with the System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 (previously known as the Dynamic Datacenter Toolkit). Click here to download the release candidate.

The System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 is a free, partner-extensible toolkit that will enable datacenters to dynamically pool, allocate, and manage virtualized resources to enable Infrastructure-as-a-Service. This solution will deliver:
• Tested guidance and best practices to help configure and deploy private cloud infrastructures.
• Automated web portals and infrastructure provisioning engine that’s integrated with System Center.
• Guidance to help partners easily extend functionality.

Today, customers can also leverage Dynamic Datacenter Alliance (DDA) offerings from service providers (Microsoft hosting partners) to extend their on-premises private clouds in a secure manner. These service providers use the Dynamic Datacenter Toolkit for Hosters (DDTK-H), which is also built on top of Windows Server/Hyper-V and System Center, thus enabling a consistent off- premises cloud capability to tap into. There are more than 63 hosters that have live DDA offerings as of today, while over 100 others have offerings in the pipeline.

Interesting… So How can I do that ?

The self-service portal provides a way for groups within an organization (referred to as business units) to manage their own IT needs, while the organization manages a centralized pool of physical resources (servers, networks, and related hardware, referred to as the datacenter).
Instead of using physical servers and related hardware to build an IT infrastructure, a business unit IT (BUIT) administrator uses the self-service portal to build an IT infrastructure from virtual machines. The datacenter provides the physical resources to support the virtual machines, and the self-service provides the database that relates the business unit infrastructures to the physical resources and an extensible interface for the central IT administrator (referred to as the datacenter or DC administrator) to use to provision resources for the business units.

To use resources managed by the self-service portal, a business unit submits a Web-based registration form. By approving the request, the DC administrator adds the business unit to the VMMSSP database (this process is sometimes referred to as “onboarding.”) The DC administrator allocates capacity for the business unit infrastructure in the datacenter resources. The self-service portal tracks how each business unit uses its resources, and, if appropriate, provides the DC administrator with charge-back data—the information needed to quantify resource usage in terms of the organization’s internal budgeting system.

In addition to these functions, the self-service portal can also enforce change control processes. Although business unit users can perform a number of virtual machine operations (such as starting or stopping) as needed, most configuration changes require that the BUIT administrator submit a change request. The DC administrator reviews this request, and can approve or reject it. The DC administrator can then provision any approved changes, and the self-service portal tracks the changes made.

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