Creating VMware Virtual Machine Templates

Virtual Machine Templates come in very handy when you want to have a repository of Virtual Machine base or images or SOE’s that you can easily create a virtual machine from. This saves you the time of installing the operating system, installing regular common applications and patching the system.

In this tutorial we will run through creating a Virtual Machine Template from a Windows 2008 32-bit virtual machine I created earlier.

1. Creating Virtual Machine Templates is all done within vCenter. Open vCenter and select the virtual machine that you wish to create a template with and select Clone to Template. This will not make any changes to the source system. However if you wish to convert the Virtual Machine to a template you can select Convert to Template, though keep in mind that the source virtual machine will not be usable after that process. We will select Clone to Template.

2. The Clone Virtual Machine to Template wizard pops up. Give the Template a name and select the folder or Datacenter object that you wish to save the template to. I created a Templates folder earlier that i’ll be storing this template in. Click Next.

3. Select the Cluster or Host if you are not running a Cluster of where you want to store this Template. Click Next.

4. Select a datastore with sufficient room to store the Template and click Next.

5. I will be using Thin Provisioning to store me Template so it does not take up too much room. If you are not sure what Thin Provisioning is, head over to the Resources section and click on the Thin Provisioning link under VMware vSphere 4. Click Next.

6. Verify your settings and click Finish.

7. As you can see my new Template is now ready to use under the Template Folder.