You can deploy an OVF or OVA template from a local file system or from a URL.

Some of the pages in the Deploy OVF Template wizard only appear if the OVF template that you deploy requires additional customization, contains deployment options or has one or multiple vService dependencies

Procedure

  1. Right-click any inventory object that is a valid parent object of a virtual machine, such as a data center, folder, cluster, resource pool, or host, and select Deploy OVF Template.
    The Deploy OVF Template wizard opens.
  2. On the Select an OVF template page, specify the location of the source OVF or OVA template and click Next.
    Option Action
    URL Type a URL to an OVF or OVA template located on the Internet. Supported URL sources are HTTP and HTTPS.

    Example: http://vmware.com/VMTN/appliance.ovf.

    Local file Click Browse and select all the files associated with an OVF template or OVA file. This includes files such as .ovf, .vmdk, etc. If you do not select all the required files, a warning message displays.
  3. On the Select a name and folder page, enter a unique name for the virtual machine or vApp, select a deployment location, and click Next.
    The default name for the virtual machine is the same as the name of the selected OVF or OVA template. If you change the default name, choose a name that is unique within each vCenter Server virtual machine folder.

    The default deployment location for the virtual machine is the inventory object where you started the wizard.

  4. On the Select a compute resource page, select a resource where to run the deployed VM template, and click Next.
  5. On the Review details page, verify the OVF or OVA template details and click Next.
    Option Description
    Publisher Publisher of the OVF or OVA template, if a certificate included in the OVF or OVA template file specifies a publisher.
    Download size Size of the OVF or OVA file.
    Size on disk Size on disk after you deploy the OVF or OVA template.
  6. (Optional) On the Configuration page, select a deployment configuration and click Next.
  7. On the Select storage page, define where and how to store the files for the deployed OVF or OVA template.
    1. Select the disk format for the virtual machine virtual disks.
      Format Description
      Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed Creates a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated when the virtual disk is created. Data remaining on the physical device is not erased during creation, but is zeroed out later, on demand, on first write from the virtual machine.
      Thick Provision Eager Zeroed A type of thick virtual disk that supports clustering features such as Fault tolerance. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated at creation time. In contrast to the flat format, the data remaining on the physical device is zeroed out when the virtual disk is created. It might take much longer to create disks in this format than to create other types of disks.
      Thin Provision Use this format to save storage space. For the thin disk, you provision as much datastore space as the disk requires based on the value that you enter for the disk size. However, the thin disk starts small and at first, uses only as much datastore space as the disk needs for its initial operations.
    2. Select a VM Storage Policy.
      This option is available only if storage policies are enabled on the destination resource.
    3. (Optional) Enable the Show datastores from Storage DRS clusters check box to choose individual datastores from Storage DRS clusters for the initial placement of the virtual machine.
    4. Select a datastore to store the deployed OVF or OVA template.
      The configuration file and virtual disk files are stored on the datastore. Select a datastore large enough to accommodate the virtual machine or vApp and all associated virtual disk files.
    Note: If you want to use the API calls to deploy an OVF template that contains vPMem hard disks and that has been exported from a content library, consult https://kb.vmware.com/kb/52370.
  8. On the Select networks page, select a source network and map it to a destination network. Click Next.
    The Source Network column lists all networks that are defined in the OVF or OVA template.
  9. (Optional) On the Customize template page, customize the deployment properties of the OVF template and click Next.
  10. (Optional) On the vService bindings page, select a binding service provider and click Next.
  11. On the Ready to complete page, review the page and click Finish.

Results

A new task for creating the virtual machine appears in the Recent Tasks pane. After the task is complete, the new virtual machine is created on the selected resource.