VM Provisioning use cases

The goals of the VM Provisioning use cases are:

• Automatic provisioning of all virtual machines (VMs)
• Full stack provisioning and configuration
• Parameterized provisioning for complex targeted environments
• Automatic policy association

BMC Server Automation (BSA) can provision bare metal VMs, create virtual guests from templates, and clone VMs from other VMs. The overall interaction in each scenario is similar.

Bare Metal Virtual Guest Provisioning

This use case has the following steps:

1. The BMC Server Automation (BSA) operator creates a bare metal Virtual Guest package for the appropriate platform (for example, VMware) by providing the necessary configuration information, such as how many virtual CPUs, amount of RAM, storage location, and networking configuration.
2. The operator creates a Virtual Guest job as follows:
   1. Uses the Virtual Guest package created earlier
   2. Chooses an appropriate target for placing the virtual guest (such as, for VMware, an ESX Host, Cluster, or Resource Pool)
   3. Overrides any settings from the Virtual Guest package to customize it for this specific deployment (for example, change the memory)
3. The operator executes the Virtual Guest job. The virtual guest, with the specified configuration, is created. If errors occur, they are shown in the job logs. The Operator Initiated Change use case can be invoked if the job is subject to change review and approval.
4. The job enrolls the created virtual guest in BMC Server Automation as a server.

Virtual Guest Creation from a Template or Clone

This use case has the following steps:

1. The BMC Server Automation (BSA) operator creates a Virtual Guest package from the specified template (such as a VMware template). The template configuration is read and displayed to the end user in read-only mode (for example, the number of virtual CPUs and memory). Some changes to configuration are permitted (for example, adding another disk to the VM or changing its IP configuration).
2. The operator creates a Virtual Guest job as follows:
   1. Uses the Virtual Guest package created earlier
   2. Chooses an appropriate target for placing the virtual guest (such as, for VMware, an ESX Host, Cluster, or Resource Pool)
   3. Overrides any settings from the Virtual Guest package to customize it for this specific deployment (such as, change the memory)
3. The operator executes the Virtual Guest job. The virtual guest, with the specified configuration, is created. If errors occur, they are shown in the job logs. The Operator Initiated Change use case can be invoked if the job is subject to change review and approval.
4. The job enrolls the created virtual guest in BMC Server Automation as a server.

Servers that are enrolled in BMC Server Automation through these mechanisms are automatically associated with any software distribution and patching policies established in other use cases.9300426761674