I am trying to create a Power-CLI script to allocate a variable number of hosts to different subnets on an ESXi host (for example: 5 XP boxes on network A, 5 Ubuntu boxes on network B, a few Win2k12 Servers on network C). The problem is that template creation and other functions can't be carried out from an ESXi host but instead only from a vCenter Server.

Here are the approaches I've considered so far:

1. The following script which assumes access to a vCenter Server and was the basis of my efforts so far: PowerCLI Script - Deploy VMs and Configure the Guest OS
2. Copy VMs instead of cloning which involves more manual work (Deploy template w/o vCenter...) but I want to arrive at an automated solution.
3. Create new VMs based off current VMs (Clone VM Script), I think I'd need to script in a call to sysprep on the box before I make copies using the New-VM command

Does anyone have a solution to script out the provisioning process to include guest OS configuration? Let me know if I can provide more detail about my situation for you.