Although creating new hosts is a common server virtualization task, it is also a tedious process. Solution providers can use VMware Auto Deploy for vSphere 5 to do it much more efficiently.
Installing single hosts isn’t hard for solution providers but configuring multiple hosts can be time consuming. A VAR that has to create a new vSphere host without VMware Auto Deploy typically has to do the following:
1. Locate the installation media for ESX or ESXi and boot the server from it.
2. Follow the setup prompt to set configuration information.
3. Complete the installation and then reboot the server.
4. Verify that management console networking works properly.
5. Add the host to vCenter Server.
6. Configure networking, storage, security and other settings.
In doing all this, you risk making mistakes during the build process and could configure hosts inconsistently. Consistency is very important in a virtual environment both from a security and operational perspective. Once you’ve built and configured a host, another challenge is to back up host configuration data so if a problem occurs and you need to rebuild the host, you don’t have to restart from scratch.
Read the full article at searchsystemschannel.com…
