3.2 Templates and Clones

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Hi.

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You are watching Model three

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managing virtual machines. Listen to templates and clothes.

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In the previous video, we've seen how to create a V M from scratch.

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But here's the thing.

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Creating a virtual machine is a lengthy operation.

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It involves mounting and I so image and installing an operating system from scratch. And then you can install applications as you need to in addition to performing many other configurations.

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That's great, actually. But what if you need 20 or 30 such PM's that will be running the same operating system and maybe even the same applications? Well,

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what if, instead, off iterating through this boring and time consuming process, you had these sort of V M bays line that you tweaked to your liking and that you can then copy and paste 20 or 30 times. How awesome would that be?

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Well, I've got good news for you because V Center lets you mass produce virtual machines through two interesting futures called templates and clones.

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Now a clone is a duplicate off a virtual machine.

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You can clone any virtual machine any number of times. Whether it is powered on or powered off.

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A clone is going to include all the files from the original V M.

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So a clone is a full blown Veum itself.

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You can interact with it in much the same way you do with any other regular VM.

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But there's a catch.

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The clone will be identical to the original Veum in every measure

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except for the Mac address. So watch out for I P address conflicts, the guest operating system license and the Security i. D. In case of a Windows machine.

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So they are going to be identical to those in the original via

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To avoid such a scenario, the center gives you the possibility to create a guest operating system customization.

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This will let you change the network configuration off the clone,

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the licensing off the operating system, the operating system machine name and the security i. D. In case of a Windows OS.

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Keep in mind that this customization is available only for V EMS, that front Windows or Lennox guest operating system.

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Now a template is much like a clone, except that it is a master copy but not of'em itself, so you can't interact with it.

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You can't actually power it on or edit its content. It is there to serve as a mould used to mass produce identical virtual machines.

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Let's see how to create a clone and a template

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again. You can clone a virtual machine even when it is powered on.

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You can also create a template off a virtual machine, even if it is powered on.

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We already have a V M named Web where we installed a bond to server. There is no Web service running on it yet, and that's excellent, actually, because if I already installed a Web service and then I cloned this PM, the resulting clone or clones will also contain a Web service.

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Since my Web Veum is a freshly installed limits server, it is a good candidate for creating a template. And then, from that template, I can create many linen server virtual machines and install whatever service I wish on any of'em I choose. Pretty awesome.

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So let's create a template from this BM. We go ahead and right click. The weap Veum

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can choose clone,

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and you can see that there are three options. You can clone this virtual machine toe another veteran machine,

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or you can clone this PM to eat template

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or you can clone this Veum to eat template and then place it in content library, which is a centralized depository inside the center where you can put templates and I s O images.

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So we'll choose the second option. So I want to create a template that I can use later to mass produce. Identical PM's

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now name your templates to something obvious, Then click next. Now choose the SX. I host where your template will live.

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Then choose the data store where the template files will be stored,

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and make sure to choose the thing mode for the disc.

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Now, review the summary and click finish. You can monitor the cloning operation and the recent tasks. It will take a while. So depending on the size of the V and data,

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I will speed up the video

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on, and it's done.

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Now. If we navigate through V EMS and templates stab, you can see your template listed there.

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Now the template has a particularity worth pointing out.

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Let's navigate to the data store where the template resigns on click on the Templates folder and you can see here that there is a file with the thought of E. M. T X extension. This means that this is a template and not a virtual machine.

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If I navigate to the Web VM, for example, there is no such file.

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Remember the Doctor VM t x file indicates that this machine is actually a template and cannot be interacted with like you do with the regular VM.

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Let me show you what I mean.

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If you go back to the V, EMS and templates stab

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and right, click on the template.

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There is no option to power on this template.

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And that's the point. The template preserves the integrity off data it contains. It's like a mold to create other V ums. If you want to edit anything inside the template, you'd need to convert it back two of'em

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and then re converted to a template once again.

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But we can do with the template is create a new V M from it. Let's do that. Click on New Veum from this template.

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Name your V M.

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I will name it database because it will serve as a database later on.

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Now choose to host where your viene will live.

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The data store rate will store its files

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and here you can see that it gives you the possibility to specify a customization off the operating system.

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Remember when you create a V M from a template that two of'em will have exactly the same configuration as the original V M that was used to create the template in the first place?

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If you want to customize the settings, you need to specify a customization profile. We will not do that here. So click next

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review these summering and click finish

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again. You can monitor the operation and the recent mosques. I'll speed up the video,

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and there's our newly created VM. This is much faster than creating a new Veum from scratch

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Pretty handy. I can go ahead and power it on.

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All right, now let's create another VM fromthe same template.

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It is exactly the same process we went through just now.

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I will name the new V M E Mail as it will run an email service later on

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and

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fares our second VM created in no time, you can see the benefit of having a template.

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It is a weapon off mass production.

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Now, One last thing before we finish,

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you can see here that my newly created V. EMS will have the same i p address.

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That's because I did not apply any guest operating system customization.

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I will fix that later.