about_ProvMachineCreationSnapin

The Machine Creation Service PowerShell snap-in provides administrative 
functions for the Machine Creation Service.

All commands in this snap-in have the noun prefixed with 'Prov'.

The Machine Creation Service PowerShell snap-in enables both local and 
remote administration of the Machine Creation Service.  It provides 
facilities to create virtual machines and manage the associated disk 
images.

The snap-in provides two main entities:

Provisioning Scheme 
    Specifies details of new virtual machines created by the Machine 
    Creation Service.  Provisioning schemes define the following 
    information.

    Hosting Unit 
        Provides details of the hypervisor and storage on which new virtual 
        machines will be created.  Stored and maintained by the Host 
        Service and PowerShell snap-in.

    Identity Pool 
        Lists the Active Directory computer accounts available for use by 
        new virtual machines.  Stored and maintained by the Active Directory 
        Identity Service and PowerShell snap-in.

    Master Image 
        Specifies the disk image that will be used for new virtual 
        machines.  Accessed through the hosting provider in the Host Service 
        snap-in.

Provisioned VM 
    Defines the virtual machines created by the Machine Creation Services. 
    These virtual machines are associated with the provisioning scheme from 
    which they were created.

The processes of creating provisioning schemes and new virtual machines can 
take a significant amount of time to complete.  For this reason, these 
long-running tasks can be run asynchronously so that other commands are 
accessible while the processes are running.  Note, however, that only one 
long-running task can operate on a provisioning scheme at any one time. 
The processes are monitored using the Get-ProvTask command.  For more 
information, see the help for Get-ProvTask.