Mass Deployments of ESX 3i Installable

[bretti]

I was wondering what is the preferred or best practice procedure to do mass deployments of ESX 3i installable host servers. I'm looking for some level of automation to configure NTP, Networks, VLANs, etc.

Is a post install script the only way?

Can I use the vicfg-cfgbackup --force --load command to restore a generic configuration to multiple servers?

[R0v3r]

I know there are some powerful things you can do with the VI-Toolkit, Windows Powershell and PowerGUI (these 3 tools are used together). Just a few things are create networks, VM's, add/remove devices. Check out the blog here http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell/.

Not sure if all you need done can be accomplished through Powershell, but worth a look.

[bretti]

That is a terrific tool. Thank you for pointing it out.

I guess I'm wondering if forcing a restore of a saved configuration onto different hardware is a good way of deploying multiple hosts? Specifically using the vicfg-cfgbackup command with the --force option.

[ocremel · Accepted solution]

It is not recommended. It may work if your servers are really alike hardware-wise but at this time the best way is to use explicit scripting as mentionned above.

[bretti]

Thank you. I will be scripting it to be on the safe side then.