In VMM 2016, a service is a set of VMs configured and deployed together and managed as a single entity. For example, the deployment of a three-tier business application, or a frontend web application with SQL Server running in the background.
A service template provides the ability to separate the OS configuration from the application installation, leaving you with fewer OS images.
By using service templates, you will be able to leverage variations in capacity, easily adding or removing VMs needed to support the application.
Note
It is the best practice to wrap even a single VM template in a service template as you, for example, scale it out.
Ensure the resources that you need in order to create the service are available. Review and document all the elements that the service needs to be up and running before starting. For example:
- What servers need to be deployed to support the service?
- Which existing VM template will be used?
- What roles/features...