Creating Virtual Machine Templates

Templates allow you to create multiple virtual machines with the same characteristics, such as resources allocated to CPU and memory, or type of virtual hardware. A virtual machine template is a virtual machine that cannot be powered on and that is not associated with a resource pool.

You can convert any powered off virtual machine to a template by calling VirtualMachine.MarkAsTemplate. After the conversion, the original virtual machine no longer exists. You can use the template to create multiple clones of the same configuration.