Before installing a VMM, we need to ensure that the server meets the minimum system requirements and that all of the prerequisite software is installed. For more information, check the software requirements specified in the Specifying the correct system requirements for a real-world scenario recipe in Chapter 1, VMM 2012 Architecture.

The previous versions of Windows Server introduced Windows PowerShell support, and Windows Server 2012 was improved with over 2,300 cmdlets to manage the platform.

You can use Windows PowerShell to automate all of the IT tasks around cloud datacenter deployment and management, starting with deploying your cloud infrastructure servers through to onboarding virtual machines to that infrastructure, and ending with monitoring your datacenter environment and collecting information about how it performs.