Fastest Way to create VMs

[ThomasTB]

Hello,

I have to create 40 Windows 7 VMs on a ESXi 4 host, what is the fastest way to roll these out?

Any help will be appreciated

Thank you

[Nikhil_Patwa]

Hi,

First of all do you have vCenter Server installed, I would get vCenter Server installed and add all 4 ESXi hosts in cluster.

Once you have your ESXi hosts connected you can easily move VMs across, clone VMs and the cloning porcess is really fast. There is no limit on how many clones you can carry out at a time. You task of creating 40 VMs will be done in very little time and that to across all 4 ESXi hosts, all you need is a master Windows 7 VM.

If you do not have vCenter Server installed than you need to have atleast 1 Windows 7 VM created in each one of your ESXi hosts and thereafter you can copy the VM within the same ESXi host's datastore, but copying process is little time consuming than cloning.

My personal recommendation is to have a vCenter Server implemented since you have 4 ESXi server that way your administration and management tasks will be greatly reduced and all ESXi hosts will be managed centrally

Hope the information is helpful

Nikhil

[aravinds3107]

If you are using a single template to deploy all VM's you can use Power CLI.

Check out the post below for the script which i have used

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/315193

[ThomasTB]

Once I copy the VMDK file on the Datastore, what do i need to do to get it up and running?