7.4

Thin Provisioning
Thin provisioning is supported for all virtual provisioning methods. Depending on your virtualization
platform, storage type, and default storage configuration, 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 specified 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 Endpoint Settings Reference.
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 specifies an
NFS storage path that uses FlexClone technology. See Create a Reservation for Hyper-V, KVM,
SCVMM, vSphere, or XenServer.
4 An infrastructure architect or other authorized user creates a blueprint for FlexClone provisioning.
Understanding and Using Blueprint Parameterization
You can use component profiles to parameterize blueprints. Rather than create a separate small,
medium, and large blueprint for a particular deployment type, you can create a single blueprint with a
choice of small, medium, or large size virtual machine. Users can select one of these sizes when they
deploy the catalog item.
Component profiles minimize blueprint sprawl and simplify your catalog offerings. You can use
component profiles to define vSphere machine components in a blueprint. The available component
profile types are Size and Image. When you add component profiles to a machine component, the
component profile settings override other settings on the machine component, such as number of CPUs
or amount of storage.
Component profiles are only available for vSphere machine components.
For information about defining value sets for the Size and Image component profiles, see in Custom
Properties Reference
Configuring vRealize Automation
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