VMware Cloud Community
Bpace
Contributor
Contributor

Building VM's, ideas?

OK, so I have just over 600 VM's already but will be doubling that within 12 months, if not sooner. (vSphere, about 45 hosts) One issue I am having is MAJOR inconsistency with how VM's are build.

We have about 12 people who could build VM's and although we use the configuration templates there is still a lot of variances between how people build VM's.

Some of the big issues I have are with naming, RAM, CPU, disk size, but also notes and other items we want to collect and/or standardize.

Short of setting down the law, punishable by a public flogging, does anyone know of any configuration/build tools?

I am thinking of something like a wizard that would ask specific questions and REQUIRE specific information. I am however VERY flexible. Before I create something new I wanted to check with everyone else.

Does this make sense? I am just looking for the VM's being built to be consistent from one to another.

What does everyone else do to keep VM's consistent?

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

we have gold templates that are created and sealed for each OS, these gold templates are used for deployments. Therefore, anything that is deployed will always be based on it's template. Customization can come after deployment, based on application needs.

You may also want to look at VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

Flogging isn't all bad. Smiley Wink

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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mcowger
Immortal
Immortal

We wrote a script against the API that deploys all VMs identically and uses customization specs. That way everything is the same.






--Matt

VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek

--Matt VCDX #52 blog.cowger.us
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