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Figure 2-3:
Mulitple VM groups 
With the two VM groups established, you can carry out actions directed at VM1, VM2, and VM3 by 
utilizing TestVMG1. You can perform actions directed only at VM1 by utilizing TestVMG2. 
Creating management collections 
VM collections are fairly simple. They maintain a membership of VMs. Management collections, on the 
other hand, maintain a membership of VM collections. Figure 2-4 shows a management group that 
contains both of the VM groups that were created earlier. Those VM groups contain actual VMs. Note 
that VMs cannot directly belong to the membership of a management collection. 

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CHAPTER 2 | Software-defined datacenter 
Figure 2-4:
Single management group containing multiple VM Groups 
Creating management groups is nearly identical to creating VM groups using the management tools 
previously outlined. The following Windows PowerShell script creates a new management group and 
adds both of the existing VM groups to it:
#Create new Management Group 
New-VMGroup -Name TestVMGM1 -GroupType ManagementCollectionType 
#Setup Management Group variable 
$TestVMGM1 = Get-VMGroup -Name TestVMGM1 
#Add VM Groups to the Management Group 
Add-VMGroupMember -VMGroup $TestVMGM1 -VMGroupMember $TestVMG1 
Add-VMGroupMember -VMGroup $TestVMGM1 -VMGroupMember $TestVMG2 
An interesting difference between VM groups and management groups is that management groups 
can contain both VM groups and other management groups. Put simply, this means that you can nest 
management groups. 
The following Windows PowerShell script creates a new management group named Outside and adds 
our first management group, TestVMGM1, to its membership: 
#Create new Management Group 
New-VMGroup -Name OutsideGroup -GroupType ManagementCollectionType 
#Setup Management Group variable 
$OutsideGroup = Get-VMGroup -Name OutsideGroup 
#Add VM groups to the Management Group 
Add-VMGroupMember -VMGroup $OutsideGroup -VMGroupMember $TestVMGM1 
The management group (OutsideGroup) contains another management group (TestVMGM1), which 
contains the two VM groups (TestVMG1 and TestVMG2), which contain different groupings of three 
VMs (VM1, VM2, and VM3), as demonstrated in Figure 2-5. 

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CHAPTER 2 | Software-defined datacenter 
Figure 2-5:
Multitier management groups 
Finally, you can use the previously described management tools to determine which VMs and which 
groups are members of other groups. 
Obviously, this nesting capability opens an entirely new dimension in how you can organize VMs. VMs 
become objects that you can group much like user and computer objects in Active Directory. This will 
be more visible when you use this capability in conjunction with the upcoming version of Virtual 
Machine Manager.