Example of provisioning a VM

Select Provisioning > VMware.

The Create VMware Operation wizard opens.

1. For Name, enter a name for the Provisioning operation, such as vmware-prov1.

2. Select Advanced Settings to indicate that you want to configure some aspects of the new VM, such as its compute, storage, and network resources.

1. Click Next. The wizard displays the Content window.
   This window lets you select a Virtual Guest Package (VGP), which defines the VM being provisioned.
2. Click the Search tab. 
3. In the Search Content box, enter a text string that identifies the VGP. For this example, we enter rhel.
   A list shows all VGPs that include the text string.
4. Select the VGP you want to use for provisioning.
   When you select a VGP, the system prompts you to choose a job folder in BMC Server Automation where an automatically created job should be stored. If a default job folder is already defined for your site or security group, you are not prompted to select a folder. 
5. If you are prompted for a job folder, select one and click OK.

1. Click Next to display the System Info page.
2. The Virtual Machine Name has a default entry but you can change that. We enter RHEL6x64_007.

3. For Target for Virtual Machine, select the location on the vCenter Server where the VM should be provisioned.
   The target must be the same location as any virtual disks defined for the VM. If you select an incompatible target, the list of virtual disks below displays a message warning of the incompatibility. 

   Information

   If we had not selected Advanced Settings on the first page of the wizard, we would now be done with all configuration and we could provision the VM by clicking Execute Now. The video on this page demonstrates how to provision a VM using this simpler approach. Because we chose to customize the VM further, we must make additional settings.

4. For CPU and Memory, select the number of CPUs and the amount of memory to allocate to the VM.
5. For Cloned Disk Format, select Thin.
   This option dynamically allocates storage space. You can also choose Thick, which allocates space on a physical disk.  
6. For Data Storage for VM Config, select a location where data storage will be created for the VM. You can choose a datastore or datastore cluster.
7. Folder Path for VM Config is a VM folder that groups virtual machines. You can accept the default value.

On the same page, for Virtual Disks, we are going to define another disk for the VM. By default one disk has already been defined, but we want a VM with two disks.

1. Click . Options appear for defining a virtual disk.
2. Under Data Storage for Virtual Disk, select a datastore or datastore cluster where the virtual disk can be allocated.
3. For Disk Size, enter the size of the virtual disk you are adding.
4. We want to use dynamically allocated storage, so we leave Thin Disk as the default value.
5. Click Save.

1. Click Next to display the Network Info page.
2. For Computer Name, enter the name of the VM that is used for network access. You can have a name automatically generated by checking Auto-generate, but we enter RHEL6x64_007, which is the same name we assigned to the VM itself.
   The name can be a maximum of 15 characters.
3. For Default DNS Suffixes, enter a comma-separated list of Domain Name System (DNS) suffixes to use if the VM being provisioned is accessing a particular DNS.
   The DNS suffix is used in DNS name registration and DNS name resolution. If the VGP is configured so the VM should obtain a DNS automatically, this option is disabled.

On the same page, for Network Connections, we are going to define two network connections. By default one connection has already been defined, but we want to define a second.

1. Click . Options appear for defining connections.
2. Click the search icon next to Please select a network. A dialog opens and shows you a list of potential networks to which you can connect. Select one and click OK.
3. For Adapter Type, select the type of NIC. We accept the default value of Flexible.
4. For Connect at Power On, select Yes to indicate the network connection should be established when the VM is powered on. 
5. For DHCP, we accept the default value.
   If you do not want to accept the default, you can click to see options for define a static IP address, a static DNS, and a comma-separated list of suffixes to use when accessing the DNS for this network connection.
6. Click Save.

Click Execute Now.

The operation wizard closes. The operation appears on the home page and begins to execute.

Optionally, you can use the wizard to define a post-provisioning task, which can perform actions on a VM after it is provisioned. You can also set up notifications and a schedule for this operation. For this demonstration we skipped those steps.

To confirm that we have successfully added a VM, use the portal's Inventory feature

1. On the home page, click Inventory.
2. Search for the name of the vCenter where the Provisioning operation ran. In this case, we know the name of the vCenter is clm-hou-006997, so we enter that into the Search Targets text box. We also refine the search by clicking Servers at left. When we click the search icon , we see the the vCenter server.

To examine the contents of the vCenter server to ensure the VM was actually provisioned:

1. Double-click the vCenter server. The portal displays details about the server.
2. Click the Live Browse tab if it is not already selected.
3. Expand the VMware vCenter Server node.
4. Expand the Virtual Machines node to see a list of VMs that have been provisioned on this vCenter.
5. Scroll down and look for RHEL6x64_007.