System Center Virtual Machine manager ships with an addon called the Self-Service Portal. The goal of the Self-Service portal is to provide a hassle free method for end users to create and manage their own virtual machines in Hyper-V. Below are the instructions and screenshots an end user would use to create a virtual machine in v1 of the Self-Service portal that shipped with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.

These steps assume that you have Self-Service portal running in your environment and that you have already created SCVMM templates for users to deploy.

How to Create a virtual machine in the Self-Service Portal

1. Log in to the Self-Service Portal.
2. Under the Create menu, click New Computer.
3. Under the Creation Source, choose a Template from the available list.
4. Enter the display name and description of the virtual machine.
5. Enter the computer name (this will be the name referenced on the network). Be wary of adding a trialing space in the computer name or it will fail to create.
6. Click create, if successful a pop up should indicate the virtual machine was created successfully.
7. Wait for the virtual machine to be deployed to the host. You can view the estimated completion time from the properties -> latest job tab.
8. Connect to the virtual machine.

Screenshots

Additional Tips

• Configure your template or use group policy to make your virtual machines accessible over RDP. The connection method used in the Self-Service Portal is difficult to use. It requires a Active X control be installed on the client and is genrally inferior to RDP (fixed screen size, no copy paste, etc..).
• Use a naming convention to track virtual machines created (i.e. hv-xx) through the Self-Service Portal. Internally, we created a small ASP.NET web application that will automatically generate a virtual machine name for users when they click a button.