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mreferre
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Mass Virtual Machines deployment from templates?

I was wondering if anyone has ever come across a tool (web interface / win32 gui / whatever) that would allow me to mass deploy a number of vm's from an existing template. Ideally the tool would talk to VC and instructs it to deploy 10 instances of that given template. All vm's would need to be sysprepped with DHCP and with a standard windows machine name (i.e. APPLXYZVMxxx) so that at the end of the process I have APPLXYZVM000, APPLXYZVM001, ............APPLXYZVM009.

This would allow me to avoid going through n times a standard vm deployment on the standard VC interface.

Anyone using something like that ?

Massimo.

Massimo Re Ferre' VMware vCloud Architect twitter.com/mreferre www.it20.info
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meistermn
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I only know about the following tools

1.) Uli Tool

http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/ullbergm/2007/10

2.) Fastscale

3. ardence (now citrix )

4. Vmware will bring a tool with linked clones. It was in a vmware world 2007 presentation

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uslacker99
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Check out lab manager.

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TomHowarth
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Massimo

Lab Manager will do what you want to do, not too sure on how well it will scale, I have often thought that coupling of this product with a Broker would be a fantastic solution, for VDI

Kind Regards

Tom,

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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meistermn
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I only know about the following tools

1.) Uli Tool

http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/ullbergm/2007/10

2.) Fastscale

3. ardence (now citrix )

4. Vmware will bring a tool with linked clones. It was in a vmware world 2007 presentation

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mreferre
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Uli's tool seems to be exactly (well almost) what I was looking for .......

Thanks for the other hints but Lab Manager / Ardence is really going to be a bazooka to shoot a fly for this circumstance.

Massimo.

Massimo Re Ferre' VMware vCloud Architect twitter.com/mreferre www.it20.info
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rt7500
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I to am looking for a way to do mass deployments of VM's. Somewhere between 300-400 per month.

Can someone point me in the right direction for downloading Magnus Ulberg's Deployment Tool??

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ullbergm
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Right now it is just an internal tool that i developed to make life easier for myself when tasked to deploy a bunch of machines.

It still has some issues to resolve and i would also have to check with the boss to see if i would be allowed to post the app out there since it was developed on company time.

If you are looking at that many deployments it may be worth looking for a commercial tool with enterprise support. Since this tool would come with no support at all :face_with_tongue:

Thanks,

Magnus Ullberg

Check out my orchestration blog here: http://ullberg.us/orchestrate/
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rt7500
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Magnus,

Thank you for your quick response. I was hoping this was available as a

download. Guess I am not that lucky.

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ullbergm
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I'll let you know when i'm ready for someone to test it, there are a couple of things i have to get done berfore i can sit down and work on the tool again but once that is done i'll be back coding Smiley Happy

Check out my orchestration blog here: http://ullberg.us/orchestrate/
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aleph0
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Hello King,

what about a bash script.... ?

There is a book named: ScriptingVMware - Power Tools for Automating Virtual Infrastructure Administration

One of the author is sbeaver

here's the ch.4 subjects.....

Chapter 4 Building a VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140

Creation of Virtual Machines

Utilizing Command-Line Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140

Creation of a Virtual Machine Configuration File . . . . .141

Creating Your Virtual Machine Configuration File . .143

Creation of a Virtual Machine Disk File . . . . . . . . . . . .147

Registering Virtual Machines with ESX Server . . . . . .149

Scripting Creation of Virtual Machines in ESX Shell . . . . .150

Scripting Creation of Virtual Machines in Perl Scripts . . . .157

Modifying Scripted VM Creation with Perl . . . . . . . . . . . .166

Perl Script Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .168

VmPerl Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171

Cloning Virtual Machines Utilizing ESX Shell Scripts . . . .171

Cloning Virtual Machines Utilizing VmPerl Scripts . . . . . .176

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .187

HTH

regards

aleph

http://virtualaleph.blogspot.com

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