How to Add Virtual Machines to a Machine Group

Virtual machines can be added to a machine group. The recommended best practice is to create a machine group consisting of nothing but virtual machines. You can, however, add both physical machines and virtual machines to the same machine group if you wish.

There are four different ways to add virtual machines to a machine group:

• If virtual machines are hosted by a server you can add the server to the machine group. This effectively adds all virtual machines hosted by the server to the machine group. The virtual machines can be in either online or offline mode.

The server will also be added to the Virtual Inventory list, which is used to manage your ESXi Hypervisors.

• If virtual machines are hosted by a server you can add individual virtual machines to the machine group. The virtual machines can be in either online or offline mode.

You can also add virtual machine templates that may be hosted on a server.

• If virtual machines reside on individual workstations, you may consider adding the machines to the group twice to ensure that each virtual machine is successfully scanned regardless of its current power state (online or offline).
• You can add the full path names or directory names of the offline virtual machines to the machine group using the Workstation Virtual Machines tab. The virtual machines defined using this tab are scanned only if they are in offline mode.
• You can add the virtual machines to the machine group using the Machine Name tab, the Domain Name tab, or the IP Address/Range tab. Virtual machines defined using these tabs are scanned only if they are in online mode.

For overview information about scanning for and deploying patches to virtual machines, see Virtual Machine Overview.