VMware Server and VMware Workstation clients are most easily configured as follows:

Virtual Machine Type = Typical

Operating System = other

Other Operating System Type = other

Networking = bridged

Disk Allocation = unclick “Pre-allocate disk” (if you pre-allocate the disk, you cannot provision the client.)

If your VMware system has a special selection for the exact OS you intend on deploying (for example Windows/Windows Server 2008 Web Edition or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5), then use it.

Hit F-12 as you would with a physical system for Client-side booting, or enter the VM’s MAC address in the MAC-Specific Provisioning Roles (learn how to create a static MAC address for VMware).

MAC-Independent and MAC-Specific Provisioning Roles can be used to provision both physical systems (servers, blades, workstations or appliances) and virtual systems (e.g., VMware virtual machines) with no modifications whatsoever.

 

Power up a VM and hit “F-12” to boot to the network:

 

The MAC-Independent selection menu in a VMware virtual machine is identical in look and feel to a physical system:

 

Provisioning in progress in a VMware virtual machine:

 

Provisioning complete in a VMware virtual machine:

 

 

LinMin Bare Metal Provisioning's ability to interchangeably deploy physical and virtual systems enables IT users to use out-of-the-box, LinMin-supplied roles and templates, and deploy operating systems to physical systems and virtual machines with no incremental effort. More importantly, LinMin Bare Metal Provisioning’s “physical and virtual” deployment ability lets IT domain experts refine and augment the LinMin-supplied roles and templates (e.g., change partitioning options, add/remove applications, execute scripts to configure applications, copy data from remote systems), while adhering to best IT practices (repeatability, compliance) in anticipation of re-purposing existing systems or deploying new physical systems or virtual machines.

Once the provisioning roles are tested and approved, not only can IT users quickly meet demands by bringing new systems on line in minutes, they can also easily experiment and compare the performance of live applications when running on different types of systems, or measure the impact of replacing older, less power-efficient systems with newer or consolidated systems.