Notes on Master Image Preparation (PVS & MCS)

Reading some links on creating a Master Image; here’s notes to myself regarding that. These are the links I refer to:

Note these are very rough/ brief. These really are rough notes to myself as I am trying to make organize my mind. 

In case of PVS: Master Target Device – this is the VM whose image is used  to create a virtual hard disk (vDisk). This vDisk is what PVS uses to stream to its VMs.

Unlike MCS, the Master Target Device does not have to be a VM. PVS works against both VMs and physical machines. It does not care about the compute; all it does is look at the machine and create a vDisk by capturing its contents. You network boot into the machine you want to capture, and PVS creates an image by streaming its contents to the PVS server to create a vDisk. 

The Master Target Device or its disk can be removed after vDisk creation.

Here’s my understanding of the order in which to do stuff:

1. Install the OS

2. Install Updates and Device Drivers; including integration tools such as VMware Tools, XenServer Tools, etc. 

In case of MCS:

3. Install any applications (optional) & VDA & domain join (optional) & shutdown the machine. 

4. Add it to MCS to create a catalog. Recommended that we take a snapshot and point MCS to this snapshot. Else MCS will make its own snapshot (and we can’t change the snapshot name). 

In the case of PVS:

3. Install any applications & VDA. (No shutdown!) (No domain join!)

4. Install the Target Device software (this is the Provisioning Services target device software).

5. Launch the imaging wizard. (No need for snapshots either as we are capturing it to a new vDisk). 

5a. Note: The Target Device name can be different from the name of the machine/ VM. 

6. After the vDisk is created we use a VM (existing or new one) to network boot and use this vDisk. Then we can domain join etc. PVS has a lot more steps. Check out http://www.carlstalhood.com/pvs-master-device-convert-to-vdisk/

Update: I have a post that goes into more detail with PVS.

Components of the Provisioning Services target device software include an imaging wizard to capture the image, a NIC filter driver used for streaming images from the PVS server to the target devices (remember: the target device software is not used only for capturing the image – i.e. the master target device, but also by the target devices after an OS is loaded), a virtual disk to store the OS and applications (again, used by the target devices). There’s also a system tray utility.