VM Pool in ESXi 5.1?

[nixhead]

Is it possible to make pools of machines from Template like RHEV in VMware ESXi 5.1
If possible can anybody guide me.
Do we need extra licensing?

[abhilashhb]

Hi Nixhead,

Welcome to the community.

What exactly do you mean by making pools of machines?

[kermic]

In case you mean deploying VMs from templates, you'll need a vCenter Server. Can't do that on a standalone ESXi host.

vCenter can be purchased separately or together with vSphere licenses in bundles. The lowest / cheapest option would be the Essentials Bundle.

[nixhead]

Thanks kermic for replying so quickly!

Yes i do know about Vcenter and I have been making machines from template only, but the problem is that if I have to make 20 machines of same config, then I do it one by one, so my question is that can't I do it in one go, like I can number the machines which I want to make from that very template.

This I used to do it in RHEV where we can make a pool of machines from one template.

[ScreamingSilenc]

You can use powercli to deploy multiple VM's using Template.

Check this link for the script.

[kermic]

In this case I'd use PowerCLI to script this.

Take a look at New-VM cmdlet here: http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/PowerCLI/PowerCLI51/html/New-VM.html

there's also an example script to deploy VM from template (Example 10)

here is a sample script that I use in my environment to deploy bunches of VMs from time to time:

#####################

$first=1
$last=20

$Template="templatevm"

$VC="myvc.mydomain.local"

$MyHost="myesxi.mydomain.local"

$Specification="myspecification"

$Datastore="mydatastore"

Connect-VIServer -Server $VC

#Deploy VMs from template on datastore

$first..$last | Foreach {

$vm="VM"+$_

New-VM -Name $vm -VMHost $MyHost -Location MyBlueFolder -Template (Get-template $Template) -Datastore (Get-datastore $Datastore) -OSCustomizationSpec $Specification

sleep 5

#Powerup VM
Start-VM -VM $vm
}

#####################

this creates 20 vms (VM1..VM20) from template, applies customization specification and powers them up.