preinstalling OS and roles to a passthrough disk in SCVMM 2012 R2?

Technet firends,

I have scoured the internet for an answer to a fairly simple question:

"can I create a template and use that to automatically install an OS and roles etc. to a passthrough disk?"

The idea is to use LUNs for direct passthrough disks in a HA cluster to improve the performance capabilities of the VM's.

I have noticed that this limits the abilities regarding templates and how they can be made (for example, one cannot create a template from a VM using a passthrough disk.). If it is not possible to have SCVMM perform this kind of operation using VM templates, then what methods could I use to automate the process of installing the OS, server roles, and license keys?

The end goal is to use passthrough disks as the drives for the VM's, but to still be able to provision the server with most (if not all) its configuration and software installed automatically.

Any guidance in this area would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

-Jared

August 21st, 2014 9:24pm

You do realize that passthrough disks no longer have the performance gains they had many years ago(?)

That said - the OS disk must be on a virtual disk in the SCVMM world.  There is no other way.

And adding roles and applications, and processing configuration scripts is where the SCVMM Service Template comes into play.

An SCVMM 'VM Template' is an OS VHD, hardware settings, and OS specialization settings.

An SCVMM 'Service Template' adds script, installer, package execution, SQL, machine deployment orders, etc. to build a one or multi-machine enterprise application.

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August 21st, 2014 11:51pm

BrianEH,

Sorry for the late reply, but We ultimately went with your suggestion of not using passthrough disks. 

We were unable to find any evidence that what I was asking was supported anyway.

Thanks for the response!

February 6th, 2015 11:24pm

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