This document describes the standards to be followed in order to create virtual machines on the VMware server in our office. The standards are as follows:

1. Anyone creating a VM on this server should give it a name prefixed with his own Intranet ID, e.g. "akshay-nortel-engine" or "vaibhav-merceslave".
2. If anyone logs into the VMWare console of this server, list the inventory, and sees any machine without an Intranet ID prefix in its name, he must delete it immediately. Not MAY but MUST.
3. Creation of every virtual machine should be accompanied with its description in the notes field. In order to do this:
   1. Open up a vmware console.
   2. Click on View -> Inventory.
   3. This will show you the list of virtual machines in a left column.
   4. Click on a machine and if the machine is not running you see various options for it, for e.g. Power on, edit, etc.
   5. Below these buttons there is a text area with the heading Notes.
   6. If you are using a virtual machine then you need to add notes for it of the following format
      

      Users: saurabh, hemant
      Usage: a sample Merce slave
      Retain until: 1 Nov 2007
        

4. The above example says that this virtual machine is a sample Merce slave will be used by Saurabh and Hemant till Nov 1 2007. After that date this machine will be deleted.
5. The notes area must contain a date till which this VM must be retained. For instance, I may create a VM today, and expect to use it for seven days. SO I may give myself a margin for error and say "Retain until
   1 Nov 2007" in the Notes area. A Retain-until line cannot specify a date more than three months into the future.
6. Anyone logging into the VMWare console should occasionally check the Notes of all the VMs, and delete any VM which:
   1. has no Retain-until tag
   2. has a Retain-until tag further than three months from today
   3. has a Retain-until tag which specifies a date which is already in the past.