How to Create an Application Profile in a Service Deployment
Updated: May 13, 2016
Applies To: System Center 2012 SP1 - Virtual Machine Manager, System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager, System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager
You can use the following procedure to create an application profile in Virtual Machine Manager (VMM). An application profile provides instructions for installing Microsoft Server Application Virtualization (Server App-V) applications, Microsoft Web Deploy applications, and Microsoft SQL Server data-tier applications (DACs), and instructions for running scripts when a virtual machine is deployed as part of a service. Application profiles are not supported for Linux operating systems because application profiles are designed for technologies that are specific to Windows operating systems.
Important
You can only use an application profile when you deploy a virtual machine as part of a service.
To create an application profile
Confirm that your application components, such as packages, scripts, and so on, have been copied to the VMM library share. For example, if you plan to create a profile for a SQL Server application host, confirm that your SQL Server DAC packages and SQL Server scripts have been copied to the VMM library share.
Open the Library workspace.
On the Home tab, in the Create group, click Create, and then click Application Profile.
The New Application Profile dialog box opens.
On the General tab, in the Name box, enter a name for the application profile. For example, enter Corporate Finance Application.
On the General tab, in the Compatibility list, choose an appropriate option:
For deployment of any application type or combination of application types that are listed at the beginning of this topic, keep the default selection, General.
For deployment of SQL Server DAC packages or SQL Server scripts to an existing instance of SQL Server in your environment, click SQL Server Application Host. If you click SQL Server Application Host, you can add only SQL Server DAC packages and SQL Server scripts to the application profile.
As of System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1), for deployment of web applications to a server that runs Internet Information Services (IIS), click Web Application Host. If you click Web Application Host, you can add only Web Deploy packages and associated scripts to the application profile.
Click the Application Configuration tab, and then do the following:
Click OS Compatibility, and then select the guest operating systems on which the application is supported.
Click Add, and then click the type of application or script that you want to add to the application profile.
You can add more than one of each type of application. For example, you can add three virtual applications.
If you kept the Compatibility option (described in the previous step) set to the default option, General, you can add more than one type of application or script to the application profile. For example, you can add a virtual application and a web application.
As of System Center 2012 R2, if you kept the Compatibility option (described in the previous step) set to the default option, General, you can add an application that will be deployed by running a script, such as a script based on a Setup.exe installation program. To add such an application, select Script Application.
After you add an application, you can select Application script to add application scripts. You can add one application script that will run before the application is installed or uninstalled, and one application script that will run after the application is installed or uninstalled.
Regardless of whether you add an application, if you kept the Compatibility option set to General, you can select Scripts to add a script.
In VMM in System Center 2012, for this option, you can specify one script that will run before the process of installing or uninstalling an application begins, and one script that will run after that process is completed.
As of System Center 2012 SP1, the number of scripts is not limited, and you can specify the order in which the scripts will run.
As of System Center 2012 R2, you can specify scripts that create a guest cluster out of multiple virtual machines that are all deployed as part of a VMM service. For example, you can specify that one script will run at Creation: First VM (to form the cluster on the first virtual machine) and a different script will run at Creation: VMs After First (to add additional virtual machines to the cluster). For more information, see How to Create a Guest Cluster by Using a Service Template in VMM.
For each application or script that you add, configure the appropriate settings. Some of the settings that you can configure are as follows:
For application packages, you can specify settings such as certificate, port, or folder settings for the application. To specify a setting, under Applications, select the application, select the setting, and then click Properties. Type the value, and then click OK.
Note
An application package can contain settings to be entered when you configure the service for deployment. To format this type of setting, enter the parameter in the Value field, in this format: @<SettingLabel>@. For example, you might prompt for the instance name of a SQL Server for a SQL Server database tier application by using the parameter @SQLServerInstanceName@.
For scripts, as of System Center 2012 SP1, you can configure a variety of settings, such as parameters, the security account under which the script should run, time-out, failure, and restart policies that specify what to do if there is an error, and other settings. To configure these settings, under Scripts, select the script and review or change the parameters, deployment order, time-out, or other settings. As needed, click Advanced and view or configure advanced settings such as failure and restart policies.
After you have made your selections, click OK.
To verify that the profile was created, in the Library pane, expand Profiles, and then click Application Profiles.
The application profile appears in the Profiles pane.
See Also
Creating Profiles and Templates in VMM
Preparing to Create Services in VMM
Creating Service Templates in VMM
How to Create a Guest Cluster by Using a Service Template in VMM