You can use the self-service provisioning feature to create a service request to provision virtual machines (VMs), services, or applications. The service request process produces a provisioning workflow for VM creation that includes the following actions:

• Budget validation
• Dynamic resource allocation
• Approvals
• Provisioning
• Life cycles setup and notification

Note	If you change the number of CPU Cores or memory allocation while in the Deployment Configuration pane, the total cost is automatically updated and displayed.

To provision a VM or execute an orchestration workflow, you must first create a service request. Once an administrator or a relevant user approves the service request, the VM is provisioned. VMs can be immediately approved or scheduled to be approved within a maximum of 90 days from the original request.

Note	The service request approval process is optional.

An administrator can provide an orchestration workflow as a catalog to a service portal. The approval process for a service request requires approval by one or two users. In such a scenario, an administrator and IT manager would have to approve the request before the VM can be provisioned.

The service request workflow can be summarized into several stages:

• Initiation—Service request initiation.
• Resource Allocation—Resources required for VM provisioning.
• Approval—The group's virtual data center (vDC) defines the approval process for a service request. The service request approver is sent an email that describe the request. Once the approver approves the request, the VM is provisioned.
• Provision—The act of provisioning a VM.
• Setup Lifecycle Schedule— The scheduled and termination time.
• Notify—An email notice is sent to the user stating the VM is provisioned.

The administator publishes catalogs to a group and end users choose the required catalog to create a service request. A catalog published by the administrator can be a standard catalog (VM creation), advanced catalog (orchestration workflow), service container (application container), or a VDI (Xen Desktop).