Understanding the SCVMM and the Private Cloud concept

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) is the platform provided by Microsoft to manage our virtual environment—virtualization hosts (such as VMware ESX, Hyper-V, and XenServer), virtual machines, and the resources associated with them (Windows Clusters, network connectivity, storage, and so on).

SCVMM 2012 represents the fourth stable version for this platform (2007, 2008, and 2008 R2 were the previous), and it not only provides a centralized management for all of these assets, but also includes several important features, such as the following:

• Manage third-party virtualization platforms : Add and manage Citrix XenServer and VMware ESX Hosts and Clusters.

• Physical to virtual conversions: Using simple procedures, we can convert physical machines into virtual machines.

• Virtual to virtual conversions: VM located in hosts can be converted to Hyper-V-compatible virtual machines.

• Self-service portal: Users can provision VMs (within self...