Chapter 7 - Creating virtual machines and templates

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the implementation of a virtual machine highlighting the creation of a virtual machine template. The creation of first virtual machine starts by opening Server Manager. The next step is to highlight Hyper-V Manager under Hyper-V in the left-hand pane. Every virtual machine is assigned at least one virtual hard disk. A virtual hard disk is simply a file, with a VHD extension that stores the data associated with the VM like a physical hard disk. At this point, one can create a new virtual disk or assign an existing one. Once a virtual machine is created, one would need to connect to it in order to configure the guest operating system and install applications. A virtual machine template is an image of a virtual machine that can be leveraged to quickly create a new VM without stepping through the entire OS, and application installation process. The use of templates increases the agility when asked to “standup” a new environment. When a virtual machine is created from a template, it would use the template's source folder as its destination, and it cannot be reused to create more VMs.