Use Terraform and vSphere to declare and manage VMs

Build Terraform and vSphere management on resource pools

Resource pools enable you to carve out the resources of a host or cluster and fence VMs for CPU and memory reservations, shares and limits.

First, add a new resource -- vsphere_resource_pool -- to create a resource pool as part of your Terraform and vSphere deployment.

The following example creates a resource pool with the settings below:

This example declares that the resource pool named terraform-example-resource-pool will set share levels for CPU and memory to high.

Organize resources with vSphere folders

To keep your vSphere environment clean, use vSphere folders to organize your resources. Use code to declare folders for VMs, hosts and networks as part of your Terraform and vSphere deployment.

• name: terraform-example-vms type: vm
• name: terraform-example-vsphere-hosts type: host
• name: terraform-example-vsphere-networks type: network

Declare vSphere VMs

There are a few different methods to declare VMs in your Terraform and vSphere deployment. These examples involve creating 10 VM instances with the parameters below:

• os: Ubuntu
• memory: 512mb
• vcpu: 1
• os_disk: 36gb
• resource_pool: terraform-example-resource-pool
• folder: terraform_example_vms

Creating VMs from scratch is useful when you're using an external provisioning mechanism, such as a Preboot Execution Environment or the Trivial File Transfer Protocol. For our purposes, assume that external provisioning is in place and that the goal is to spin up all 10 VM instances with the above requirements.

This example uses a simple method to declare the resource vsphere_virtual_machine rather than creating 10 distinct resources. The counting loop in the code appends to the VM and acts as the basis for the generated VM names.

Declare vSphere VMs

There are a few different methods to declare VMs in your Terraform and vSphere deployment. These examples involve creating 10 VM instances with the parameters below:

• os: Ubuntu
• memory: 512mb
• vcpu: 1
• os_disk: 36gb
• resource_pool: terraform-example-resource-pool
• folder: terraform_example_vms

Creating VMs from scratch is useful when you're using an external provisioning mechanism, such as a Preboot Execution Environment or the Trivial File Transfer Protocol. For our purposes, assume that external provisioning is in place and that the goal is to spin up all 10 VM instances with the above requirements.

This example uses a simple method to declare the resource vsphere_virtual_machine rather than creating 10 distinct resources. The counting loop in the code appends to the VM and acts as the basis for the generated VM names.

Create VMs from templates

Templates make provisioning much faster because you're cloning an existing template. The following example uses a template called example_ubuntu_template:

This example creates a data type that references a template in your vSphere environment. Defining this enables you to define your disk section so it uses the details from the template. This example also defines the clone section to include the template_uuid, which captures the universal unique identifier of the source template.

The Terraform and VMware vSphere combination adds effective and efficient management possibilities to vSphere deployments. By mastering Terraform, you can create a functional vSphere deployment that you can manage entirely with code.