A VMM hardware profile allows you to create templates for virtual machine hardware. This includes configuring the number of processors, the amount of RAM available to the virtual machine, as well as the IDE and SCSI configuration that the VM will use. You can also use a VMM hardware profile configuration, whether a virtual machine will use Generation 1 or Generation 2 hardware. While you can configure virtual machine hardware settings each time you use VMM to create a virtual machine, a VMM hardware profile allows you to create VMs that have a standardized virtual hardware configuration.
To create a hardware profile, perform the following steps:
1. In the Library workspace of the VMM console, right-click the Profiles node, and click Create Hardware Profile.
2. On the General page of the New Hardware Profile dialog box, shown in Figure 1, provide a name for the profile and select which VM generation you want to use. This can be Generation 1 or Generation 2. Remember that Generation 2 VMs can only be used with virtualization hosts running Windows Server 2012 R2 or later.
FIGURE 1 New Hardware Profile
3. On the Hardware Profile page, you can configure the following settings:
- Cloud Capability Profiles Specify which capability profile to use with the hardware profile. You can choose between XenServer, ESX Server, and Hyper-V. Figure 2 shows the selection of the Hyper-V profile.
FIGURE 2 Cloud compatibility
- Processor Allows you to configure the number of processors to be used by the VM. This also allows you to configure whether migration can occur to a virtual machine host running a different processor version.
- Memory Allows you to configure the amount of memory that will be allocated to the VM. You can choose to statically assign memory, or to allow the use of dynamic memory. Figure 3 shows the memory settings.
FIGURE 3 Memory
- Floppy Drive Allows you to configure a virtual floppy drive for Generation 1 virtual machines.
- COM 1 Allows you to configure Com Port 1 settings for Generation 1 virtual machines.
- COM 2 Allows you to configure Com Port 2 settings for Generation 1 virtual machines.
- Video Adapter Allows you to configure whether a standard video adapter will be used, or a RemoteFX 3D video adapter will be available to virtual machines. You can also configure the maximum number of monitors and the maximum monitor resolution when choosing the RemoteFX 3D video adapter. Figure 4 shows this setting.
FIGURE 4 Video adapter
- IDE Devices Allows you to configure virtual IDE devices used by the VM for Generation 1 virtual machines.
- SCSI Adapter Allows you to configure virtual SCSI adapter settings.
- Network Adapter Allows you to configure which network the virtual network adapters will be connected to, how they will obtain IP addresses and MAC addresses, as well as any virtual network port profiles. Figure 5 shows these options.
FIGURE 5 Network adapter settings
- Availability This option is for virtual machines that should be placed on highly available host clusters.
- Firmware Allows you to configure VM startup order as shown in Figure 6.
FIGURE 6 Firmware
- CPU Priority Allows you to configure the priority for the VM when the host is allocating CPU resources.
- Virtual NUMA Allows you to configure the VM to span hardware NUMA nodes.
- Memory Weight Allows you to configure how the VM is allocated memory when memory utilization on the virtualization host is high.
