ABSTRACT
Where the consumer versions of Microsoft Virtual PC and VMware Workstation come with command line control, no such simplicity is available with the virtualization server products. Virtualization server control is achieved through the graphical user-interfaces or programming. Th ere is a lot of sample source code that either comes bundled with the products or is downloadable from the vendor support site; however this does not mean that all critical information is covered in detail. VMware provides their sample scripting examples installed with their products and Microsoft has a support site dedicated to scripting Virtual Server. Rather than reiterating what is bundled with the products, this chapter is taking a real-world need like performing backups of virtual machines and presents a walk-through on how to accomplish that task with each of the scripting application programming interfaces (APIs).
