Q: What's fabric in System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012?

A: VMM 2012, currently in beta, is the next version of Microsoft’s multi-server Hyper-V management platform. This version of VMM focuses on providing administrative functionality that enables creating private clouds of Hyper-V hosts.

To create a private cloud, Hyper-V hosts share in a fabric of infrastructure elements that allow the creation and management of virtual machines (VMs) and associated services. Host groups, the VMM library, networking, and storage elements are all part of this fabric, as are less obvious items, such as PXE servers, WSUS servers, and even non-Hyper-V virtual hosts.

Microsoft’s goal with the new fabric workspace in VMM 2012 is the aggregation of private cloud resources in meaningful ways, including geographic location or allocated resources. More information about the fabric workspace will become available as VMM 2012 continues through its development cycle, but there's already a short document on configuring Fabric resources available.