Deploying more than 1 machine at a time in a blueprint

[markdjones82]

All,

  We are trying out VCAC and had some help from a vmware resource setting up some of the basics.  We created a blueprint with some build profiles to prompt for a hostname etc, but I can only deploy 1 VM at a time from it instead of specifying multiple machines.  If one wanted to deploy say 5 VM's from this blueprint how is that done?

[admin]

I think there might be some special logic around hostname.  At one point I think there was some PSO around allowing multiple and taking a comma delimited list of host names.  I don't think this ships out of the box.  If you remove this property can you request multiple, maybe try another blueprint and see...

[markdjones82]

Ah, let me try to create a new blue print and see how it works.  I am brand new to the product so I am fumbling around.

Should you normally be able to deploy multiple servers from a blueprint?

I find it odd there isn't a way to pass like you said a csv with the list of host names etc.

[christianpg]

Yes - instead of prompting for hostname in your blueprint, just use the Machine Prefix and vCAC handles the rest for multiple servers.

[markdjones82]

Thanks christian.  So, by passing a hostname this restricts it?  So, if you have a prefix say LAB, but then after that it could be anything like WEB, SQL, etc after that.  How would one specify that?  Is there a way to pass that information somewhere?

[christianpg]

The machine prefix feature does not support complex naming conventions.

There are solutions out there that might help you if you are willing to spend the time: http://dailyhypervisor.com/vcloud-automation-center-vcac-5-2-custom-hostnaming-extension/