How to add a vNIC to a virtual machine deployed from a single vNIC vCAC blueprint.

[aenagy]

For a small percentage of our virtual machines we have a requirement for two vNICs. I am trying to avoid creating a second blue print with two vNICs or putting two vNICs in our base blueprint. Our environment is vCAC 6.0.1.1 + vCO 5.5.1.1617127. My preference is for a vCAC/vCO solution. Yes, I do realize this can be done in PowerCLI -- I was just trying to keep the number of moving parts to a minimum.

Thanks.

[Filin_K]

Hi!

You can add 2nd network adapter after vm provisioning (items - > select vm - > edit - > networks - > new network adapter).

You can't deploy vm with 2 (or more) network adapters from blueprint with single network adapter.

Kirill.

[tnavarro1 · Accepted solution]

You can dynamically add NICs to a VM at provisioning time by setting the vCAC VM's "VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name" custom property via vCAC-vCO extensibility during the BuildingMachine state, where N starts at 0.

So if your vCenter VM template already has one NIC, and you want to add a second, your vCO workflow would need to add/update the VM's "VirtualMachine.Network1.Name" custom property. The value of that custom property should be the name of the distributed virtual portgroup or standard switch for that second network adapter.

[VMANALYST]

One of the other solution which I did is to have "Resource Action" on the provisioned machine which executes a "vCO workflow" which uses Guest Script to add a vNIC to the desired VM. This gives flexibility to user to add or remove a vNIC on a existing Virtual Machine. As I am doing the IP management of VM in 3rd party solution it also gives the flexibility to assign IP from desired network to the specific vNIC.

Regards

Pankaj

[RonPSSC]

Hi Pankaj;

I realize this is an old post but am wondering if you could share your vRO Workflow which adds a vNIC to an existing VM?? I am in the process of trying to deploy a Windows 10 Desktop VM with 2 vNICs (using vRA 7) but cannot get past the initial vSphere Guest Customization. It basically terminates at this point. My guess is customizing a Windows 10 with 2 vNICs cannot be done in vCenter 5.5 but only speculating right now??

Anyway, if you elaborate a little further on how you achieve this this would be appreciated.

Thx. Ron

[aenagy]

The solution I actually used is in the link below. As with the suggested solution the key was knowing the correct reserved property to use.

Adding a Network Selection Drop-Down in vRA 7

http://www.virtualjad.com/2016/06/add-a-network-selection-drop-down-in-vra-7.html