Creating Virtual Machines in vCenter 4.x

Note: We will be creating a Windows 7 virtual machine in this tutorial. You can follow the same steps whether you are creating a workstation of server i.e. Windows 2003, 2008, Linux, Unix, etc

1.Right click on the either the Datacenter object, Cluster object or ESX host and click New Virtual Machine.

2. Select custom as we will have many more options. Click Next.

3. Give the new Virtual Machine a name and select where you would like to place the Virtual Machine under Inventory Location. Click Next.

4. Select the datastore as to where you would like to place your virtual machine. Click Next.

5. As we are using the latest vSphere 4 we will select Virtual Machine Version 7. Click Next.

6. Select the guest operating system. In this tutorial we are creating a Virtual Machine for Windows 7 (32-bit). Click Next.

7. Select how many virtual cpu’s you would like to assign to your virtual machine. Click Next.

8. Select how many memory you would like to assign to your Virtual Machine. Click Next.

9. Select the Network you wish to attach the virtual NIC too. Also change the adapter to VMXNET3 as this is the latest and greatest network adapter from vmware. It basically includes many more features as opposed to the others. Click Next.

10. The wizard will select the best SCSI controller depending on what Guest Operating System you picked earlier. Click Next.

11. Select Create a new virtual disk and click Next. As you can see you can also use an existing virtual disk (*.vmdk).

12. Select the Capacity of the virtual disk. I’ll be assigning 15GB to my Windows 7 virtual machine. I will be using thick provisioning which means that I will allocate the entire 15GB straight away. I also have the option to use Thin Provisioning which allows you to use only what is required, however the disk will grow up to a maximum of 15GB. I’m not using Fault Tolerance features, and I want to store the virtual disk in the same datastore as my virtual machine files. Click Next.

13. This is the first disk in my virtual machine therefore it will be assigned SCSI (0:0) by default. Click Next.

14. Here is a summary of all your settings. Click the check box next to Edit virtual machine settings before completion. If you are happy with your settings click Finish, or click Back to make the necessary changes.

15. Here are the virtual machine settings. If you need to make changes to memory, cpu, hard drive, virtual devices etc this is the place to do it. Click the Options tab.

16. In the options tab – Advanced – Memory/CPU Hotplug, you can enable these features. I will then be able to add memory or cpu’s to the virtual machine while it’s powered on without having to shutdown or reboot. You are only allowed to add, you cannot remove cpu’s or memory. Now click on Boot Options.

17. One last thing I do is tick the check box under Force BIOS Setup. This will boot the virtual machine into the bios on the first power up. In the bios I change the boot order to 1st: CDROM, 2nd: Hard Drive. Click Ok and your virtual machine will be created.

Disclaimer:
All the tutorials included on this site are performed in a lab environment to simulate a real world production scenario. As everything is done to provide the most accurate steps to date, we take no responsibility if you implement any of these steps in a production environment.