Tagged: Automation

Automate VMware VM Deployment – Template creation with Packer

Automation is something that I have tried to incorporate as much as possible within my solutions.  The benefits are obvious and often the work behind it is the most interesting, even if it ends up being just a few lines of PowerShell.  Infrastructure as Code is one of the areas I have had on my to-do list for a while and I have finally started dipping my toe into it this year. I’ve discussed previously how I like to handle deploying appliances and VMs using PowerCLI and an existing VM template but I want to take that a stage further...

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vRO and using Input Forms

If you have a vCenter license then you are entitled to use vRealize Orchestrator in Standalone mode. vRO is a great entry point into automation and creating workflows. I’ve used vRO workflows previously, but not for a while, and wanted to check out the new HTML5 interface that is available with the latest releases. I’m using v7.6 in my lab at the moment but will be transferring to v8 shortly as I try and get more familiar with the vRealize suite and automation in general. Anyway, I wanted to touch on the use of input forms. vRO has a bunch...

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Deploy VMs using Templates, customisation specs and POWERCLI

Who doesn’t love a bit of automation these days, I certainly like to use code snippets and shortcuts whenever I can.  Recently I’ve been deploying some VMs in my homelab and thought I would share some of the POWERCLI I use. I have a Windows 2016 template stored in vCenter that I have recently patched and tweaked to my satisfaction and deploy that with a temporary customization spec to deploy and do the initial config (IP settings and domain join). The key commands to use here to get the IP settings are Get-OScustomizationNicMapping Set-OSCustomizationNicMapping Only started playing with these recently...

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