SSP 2.0

SSP 2.0 - What is it you might ask?

It is an abbreviation for Microsoft System Centre Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 Self Service Portal 2.0 of course!

I have a lot of experience with SCVMM and have been dealing with it since BETA a few years back so was fairly excited to hear about SSP 2.0 being released.

In the original SCVMM 2008 R2 installation, there is a Self Service Portal that you can install and configure that basically allows you to delgate control of individual Virtual Machines within your Hyper V environment to lower level Admin's or even end user IT admins if you are operating out of a Data Centre offering.

The Self Service Portal is a web page that the SCVMM administrator decides who gets access to what tasks within the Hyper V environment and what kind of quota's are put in place to stop VM sprawl from wiping out all of your hardware resources.

I have in the past configured the Self Service Portal both in live and lab environments and it works quite well to a degree. The downsides are that it doesn't provision for Networking Placement, IP Configurations, SANs or Load Balancers. With these failings in mind, step forward SSP 2.0!

I have only recently had the opportunity to install and configure SSP 2.0 (it's been available nearly 4 months now!) to see what it can and cannot do and I have to say, it is pretty impressive in comparison to the older SSP built into SCVMM 2008 R2. There is a whole new section built around infrastructure and task requesting and approval's that wasn't available in the previous version and this allows for a more granular control of the virtual environment.

Prior to deploying it however, I decided to take the careful steps of finding as much documentation and information on the product installation and configuration before hand (it is my New Years resolution to RTFM first!) and I came across this really informative download that encompasses a 30 minute video demonstration of exactly what it can do and what it looks like from start to finish from an administration point of view. I really recommend downloading and viewing this demo if you are interested in what SSP 2.0 is.

You can download the 'DemoMate' video of the SCVMM 2008 R2 SSP 2.0 from here:

http://www.demomate.com/content/demos/System%20Center%20VMM%20Self-Service%20Portal%202.0%20Demo.zip

Enjoy!!