Puppet and VMWare (API)

[Forrie]

I believe this question is different from others I've seen posted (correct me if I've missed something!).

We are looking to automate the creation of VM images, for our growing environment (development, test and production) -- while we're still debating internally about config management options, we have been using Puppet (open source) for our older environment (PE is also under consideration).   One of the catches is that VMware provides and API and CLI tools that allow you to query the ESX host (to the extent, I don't yet know) -- such as resources available etc.    We would want to do that prior to provisioning a VM, since we have vSphere and several ESX that are managed therein.   The internal desire is to have this process as fully-automated from the CLI as possible.   I personally would give up some automation for features, but I digress (I'm in the minority, it seems).

Can anyone comment on this.  There are several tools out there, most which integrate with Puppet or other config management tools, but I don't know which (if any) have the ability beyond basic provisioning to speak/query to the ESX host such as what is provided by VMware (CLI, API/SOAP).

It's really a factor of many ways to "skin the cat" -- finding which one works for us.


Thanks.

[José Luis Ledesma]

There is the Vmware orchestrator that may simplify a lot VM servers creation tasks.
Regards,

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[Dan White]

Where, please. is the VMWare Orchestrator to be found ?

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

Bill Waterson (Calvin & Hobbes)

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[José Luis Ledesma]

In the VMware page

http://www.vmware.com/es/products/vcenter-orchestrator

It is a Comercial product.

Regards,

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[Jakov Sosic]

Can an open source puppet do this, or only PE? I'm looking into this
too, the possibility to spawn vm, PXE it and later manage by puppet.

Currently I did cover the PXE part with puppet (puppet-cobbler module),
but I create VMs manually by clickety-click in vSphere...

[Gavin Williams]

Take a look at Foreman [1]

It's able to manage VSphere resources, create new vm's, manage tftpboot config, etc...

Cheers
Gav

[1] http://www.theforeman.org/