IT Camp Question: Can I run VMM even though I’m not in control of the entire domain?

This question was asked recently at an IT Camp on Virtualization. The attendee was responsible for the server and infrastructure of an OU, not the entire domain.  He wanted to know if he could still take advantage of Virtual Machine Manager for just the servers in that one OU.

Short Answer: Yes!

Long Answer:
Its true that VMM requires access to Active Directory for authentication and some other features, but you can run multiple instances of VMM in one domain.

A couple key points:

• Any one host (and it’s virtual machines)can only be managed by a single instance of VMM.
• VMM would not recognize an OU as boundary of any kind - any host could be added if the appropriate credentials were presented.
• Each instance of VMM would have it’s own database. If reporting across multiple VMM instances becomes a requirement, it’s possible to connect each VMM instance to a single OpsMgr instance and do the monitoring and reporting from there.

So there you have it. Even if you don’t have your thumb on the pulse of your ENTIRE organization, you can still use VMM for the part you reign.