Esta nueva solución nos ayuda a mantener nuestras Máquinas Virtuales actualizadas de forma offline, siempre y cuando estén alojadas en Microsoft System Virtual Machine Manager.

Les paso la nota original que esta en ingles pero vale la pena leerla.

fuente MS: Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool Executive Overview

Saludos, Roberto Di Lello.

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Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool Executive Overview

Published: April 17, 2008   |   Updated: July 1, 2008

The increasing use of virtual machines—for purposes ranging from support of older operating system environments to power savings—has created new challenges for IT.

In particular, virtual machines may be left offline (stored in a non-operating state) for extended periods of time, which conserves resources when the server capacities of the virtual machines are not needed or frees up physical computing resources for other purposes.

However, offline machines do not automatically receive operating system, antivirus, or application updates that would keep them compliant with current IT policy. An out-of-date virtual machine may pose a risk to the IT environment. If deployed and started, the out-of-date virtual machine might be vulnerable to attack or could be capable of attacking other network resources.

Therefore, IT groups must take measures to ensure that offline virtual machines remain up-to-date and compliant. At present, these measures involve temporarily bringing the virtual machine online, applying the necessary updates, and then storing it again.

In the future, image updating solutions may be able to update virtual machines while they remain offline. Until such solutions become available, the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool, a Solution Accelerator from Microsoft, provides a way to automate the process of updating virtual machines. This tool is now available as a free download from the Microsoft® Download Center.

Business Scenarios

You can use this Solution Accelerator to help you with business scenarios such as these:

• Your IT organization is converting physical servers to virtual machines to reduce costs, including administrative overhead. How can you regularly update offline virtual machines while minimizing administrative costs?
• Your IT organization has thousands of virtual machines stored for months at a time in a number of libraries. How do you keep the virtual machines reliably up to date?

Using the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool

The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool manages the workflow of updating large numbers of offline virtual machines according to their individual needs. The tool works with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 (VMM) and with software update management systems (at present, either Windows Server Update Services 3.0 (WSUS) or System Center Configuration Manager 2007). The following figure illustrates the workflow.

How information flows between the tool and other system components

The tool uses “servicing jobs” to manage the update operations based on lists of existing virtual machines stored in VMM. Using Windows Workflow Foundation technology, a servicing job runs snippets of Windows PowerShell™ scripts to work with virtual machines. For each virtual machine, the servicing job:

• “Wakes” the virtual machine (deploys it to a host and starts it).
• Triggers the appropriate software update cycle (Configuration Manager or WSUS).
• Shuts down the updated virtual machine and returns it to the library.

The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool is straightforward to use. To use the tool:

1. Install the tool in your environment. A configuration wizard guides you through the process of connecting the tool to VMM and your software update management system.
2. Configure virtual machine groups. You have the option to group your virtual machines to simplify the process of creating servicing jobs.
3. Create and schedule servicing jobs. A servicing job specifies which virtual machines to update, what resources to use for the update process, and when to start the servicing job. You can schedule jobs to run immediately, or to run during low-traffic maintenance windows. You can also schedule servicing jobs to recur at regular intervals to keep your virtual machines up-to-date in the long term.

   Note   The tool works with Windows Task Scheduler to determine when to run the servicing job.

Download Details

This Solution Accelerator includes the following tool and documentation:

• Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool
• Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool Getting Started Guide
• Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool Help file

The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center.

Additional Information

For more information about VMM, see the System Center Virtual Machine Manager site on Microsoft TechNet.

For more information about Configuration Manager, see the System Center Configuration Manager site on TechNet .

For more information about WSUS, see the Microsoft Windows Server Update Services site on TechNet.