<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0 0 10pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">What is a helper VM?<span>  </span>It is a VM that helps you the VMware admin perform certain tasks to you production VM’s.<span>  </span>The helper VM is a Windows 2003 R2 Server VM that for the most part is turned off until you need it.<span>  </span>It is not on the network so it doesn’t need to be updated or virus scanned.<span>  </span>What this VM allows you to do is simple tasks such as growing a system disk of another VM.<span>  </span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span> </span>I have another BLOG that goes into further detail of how to extend a system disk using a Helper VM. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0 0 10pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">The spec’s for a help VM is of course a VM with a 10-20 GB hard drive and 256 MB RAM.<span>  </span>Once the server is built, you can apply the latest updates and then remove the NIC. It does not need to be on the domain or even have a password.<span>  </span><span> </span>I always leave it powered off until I need it.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0 0 10pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;"><span> </span>Another good use of this machine is to aid in recovering a failed VM; you can connect the failed machines vmdk file and manipulate the file system like you would back in the NT4 days.<span>  </span>I have used this machine several times to recover machines that have failed during the convert process, due to driver issues or incorrect entries in the boot.ini files.<span>  </span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0 0 10pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">All in all this a great tool to have in your admin tool belt.<span>  </span>It has been very useful to me in the past and I will continue to use it in the future.<span>  </span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0 0 10pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;"><span>Will Turbeville, eGroup</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0 0 10pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;"></span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;"><span><span style="color:#1f497d;"><a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/"><span style="font-size:small;color:#0000ff;">http://www.eGroup-us.com</span></a></span></span></span></span></p>