Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
virtualization vendors now support OVF as well. VMware vSphere 5 provides OVF support in
two different ways:
Deploying new VMs from an OVF template (essentially, importing a VM in OVF format)
◆
◆
Exporting a VM as an OVF template
Let's look i rst at deploying VMs from an OVF template.
Deploying a VM from an OVF Template
The i rst way to work with OVF templates is to deploy a VM from an OVF template by simply
right-clicking a host, cluster, datacenter, or vCenter Server and selecting Deploy OVF Template.
This initiates a wizard that walks you through deploying a new VM from the OVF template.
Figure 10.12 shows that vCenter Server can deploy OVF templates stored locally as well as OVF
templates that are stored remotely and are accessible with a URL.
Figure 10.12
vCenter Server
uses a wizard to
deploy templates
from OVF.
Aside from selecting the source location of the OVF template, the process of deploying a VM
from an OVF template is the same regardless of whether you are importing from a local set of
i les or downloading it across the Internet.
Perform the following steps to deploy a VM from an OVF template:
1.
If it is not already running, launch the vSphere Web Client and connect to a vCenter
Server instance or an ESXi host.
2.
From within the vSphere Web Client Hosts And Clusters view, right-click a host and
select Deploy OVF Template.
3.
Select the source location of the OVF template—which must be provided in OVF or OVA
format—and click Next.
OVF or OVA?
Later in this chapter, in the section “Examining OVF Templates,” we'll provide more information
on the diff erence between OVF and OVA.
