View source for VMworld 2015/Deploy VMs by Forking

== Deploy Hundreds of VMs Instatly via Forking ==

Alan Renouf (VMwarE) and Li Zheng (VMware)

http://blogs.vmware.com/PowerCLI/

http://virtu-al.net/

== Ready VMs ==

* Fast provisioning
* Instant Boot
* Low Memory
* Low CPU

All available with instant clone


== Instant Clone ==

VMware Instant Clone is now at your fingertips with the updated PowerCLI Extensions fling! - VMware PowerCLI Blog - VMware Blogs - https://blogs.vmware.com/PowerCLI/2015/08/vmware-instant-clone-now-fingertips-new-powercli-extensions-fling.html

How does it work?
* splits work into preparation (expensive) and fork (cheap) paths

Preparation:
* boot parent, launch applications, load libraries into memory
* freeze parent state
* break large pages
* pre-create and register any number of child VMs

Fork phase:
* child inherits parent VMs memory state (COW Copy on Write), device state (checkpoint), disk state (delta disk)

Once powered on, forked child becomes a full linked clone (instant clone can share memory state, where linked clone only shares disk state)

== Workflow ==

<pre>
New-VM -Name Photon01 -ResourcePool "clusterr1"

$parent = Get-VM -Name Photon01

New-Snapshot -VM $parent -Name BeforeChildren

Enable-InstantCloneVM -VM $parent -GuestUser "root" -GuestPassword 'vmware'
        -PreQuiesceScript "c:\instantclone\pre.sh" -PostCloneScript "c:\instantclone\customize.sh"

$parent = Get-InstantCloneVM Photon01

$configSettings = @{
   'ipaddress' = '...';
   'netmask' = '255....';
   'gateway' = '...';
}

$child = new-InstantCloneVM
` -ParentVM $parent
` -name "clone01"
` -ConfigParams $conifgSettings
` -pPersistent

$child | Start-VM
</pre>