Version 1 of the VM Role Authoring Tool Released

If you find that, despite the improvements addressed in System Center 2012 R2, deploying virtual machine workloads is a slow process and takes a lot of unnecessary effort, you'll want to download the latest CodePlex release of the VM Role Authoring Tool.

The VM Role Authoring Tool is used to author VM Role artifacts - Resource Definition and Resource Extension Packages.

The download is here: VM Role Authoring Tool on CodePlex

Microsoft's Charles Joy has put together some intro videos to help understand the usefulness of the new tool. Here they are:

Creating a Windows Server VM Role Resource Definition

Creating a Windows Server VM Role Resource Extension

Creating a Linux VM Role Resource Definition

Updating a Virtual Machine Role Gallery Item