7.1

Table Of Contents
Thin Provisioning
Thin provisioning is supported for all virtual provisioning methods. Depending on your virtualization
platform, storage type, and default storage conguration, thin provisioning might always be used during
machine provisioning. For example, for vSphere ESX Server integrations using NFS storage, thin
provisioning is always employed. However, for vSphere ESX Server integrations that use local or iSCSI
storage, thin provisioning is only used to provision machines if the custom property
VirtualMachine.Admin.ThinProvision is specied in the blueprint. For more information about thin
provisioning, please see the documentation provided by your virtualization platform.
Net App FlexClone Provisioning
You can create a blueprint for Net App FlexClone provisioning if you are working in a vSphere environment
that uses Network File System (NFS) storage and FlexClone technology.
You can only use NFS storage, or machine provisioning fails. You can specify a FlexClone storage path for
other types of machine provisioning, but the FlexClone storage path behaves like standard storage.
The following is a high-level overview of the sequence of steps required to provision machines that use
FlexClone technology:
1 An IaaS administrator creates a NetApp ONTAP endpoint. See “Create a NetApp ONTAP Endpoint,”
on page 168.
2 An IaaS administrator runs data collection on the endpoint to enable the endpoint to be visible on the
compute resource and reservation pages.
The FlexClone option is visible on a reservation page in the endpoint column if a NetApp ONTAP
endpoint exists and if the host is virtual. If there is a NetApp ONTAP endpoint, the reservation page
displays the endpoint assigned to the storage path.
3 A fabric administrator creates a vSphere reservation, enables FlexClone storage, and species an NFS
storage path that uses FlexClone technology.
4 An Infrastructure Architect or other authorized user creates a blueprint for FlexClone provisioning.
Configure a Machine Blueprint
Congure and publish a machine component as a standalone blueprint that other architects can reuse as a
component in application blueprints, and catalog administrators can include in catalog services.
Prerequisites
n
Log in to the vRealize Automation console as an infrastructure architect.
n
Complete external preparations for provisioning, such as creating templates, WinPE's, and ISO's, or
gather the information about external preparations from your administrators.
n
Congure your tenant. Chapter 2, “Conguring Tenant Seings,” on page 75.
n
Congure your IaaS resources. “Checklist for Conguring IaaS Resources,” on page 157.
n
See Conguring vRealize Automation.
Procedure
1 Select Design > Blueprints.
2
Click the New icon ( ).
3 Follow the prompts on the New Blueprint dialog box to congure general seings.
4 Click OK.
5 Click Machine Types in the Categories area to display a list of available machine types.
Chapter 4 Providing On-Demand Services to Users
VMware, Inc. 247