Difference between Template and a Virtual Machine

[newsharon86]

Hi All,

I had doubt regarding what is template and what is virtual machine, are both the terms same,

also what does golden image refer too, Is it possible to clone a template or a golden image

If it is possible than which methods should i use from VI SDK 4 to do the same.

It would be really helpful if some one can guide me in this case

[AWo]

A template can be considered as a golden image. It was a virtual machine (guest) once and then converted (flagged) as an template.

You can make a template a guest again and vice versa. When it is flagged as a template you can create customizabe clones of it. Customizable means that (in case of Windows) it is possible to run the sysprep utility automatically after the data has been copied to a new guest. Thereby it looses its identity and several settings. These settings can be added again manualy or by using a configuartion template.

When that is finished you have a new guest with its own new SID, name, etc. based on the data and status of the template.

AWo

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[AntonVZhbankov]

>When it is flagged as a template you can create customizabe clones of it.

Actually you can apply customization when cloning "normal" VM.

---

MCSA, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[newsharon86]

1)Can we perform operations like power on , power off , etc on template?

2)CloneVM_Task() method can be used to clone template?

3)if we get the inventory of virtual machine using vsphere webservice, which property should be used to distinguish between a template and a virtual machine.

i am currently using vmware vsphere webservice

[AntonVZhbankov]

>1)Can we perform operations like power on , power off , etc on template?

No. This is a purpose of having templates, so no one will accidentally turn it on and change something. But you can always convert template to VM in a second and turn it on if you need.

I suppose you should check API documentation for anwers 2 and 3.

---

MCSA, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[AntonVZhbankov]

Template is actually a normal virtual machine with one little flag set, so no one will run it accidentally.

Deploy from template is absolutely the same process as cloning with / without customization. There is difference between VMware templates and Hyper-V templates: VMware applies sysprep on cloned (deployed) VM, MS applies sysprep when converting VM to template.

---

MCSA, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru