How to Create a Virtual Machine from a Template

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Applies To: System Center 2016 - Service Provider Foundation, System Center Technical Preview

Virtual machine templates are powerful because they enable you to create a new virtual machine from a preconfigured virtual machine, known as a template. The template provides settings such as the hardware configuration and the virtual hard disk (VHD) to be used. To create a virtual machine in Service Provider Foundation, you must know to which stamp and private cloud the virtual machine is to be assigned, and you must know the identifier of the virtual machine template to use. For more information about how to create a virtual machine from a VHD, see How to Create a Virtual Machine from a VHD.

Warning

The VHD that is attached to the template must be bootable. If it is not bootable, Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) locks the newly created virtual machine. You then must reconfigure the virtual machine by using virtual machine host management software such as Microsoft Hyper-V.

The key properties that you must set on the virtual machine object that is used with the Service Provider Foundation service are as follows:

  • CloudId

  • StampId

  • VMTemplateId

  • Name

Depending on the operating system that you use, you most likely have to set the ProductKey, LocalAdminUserName, and LocalAdminPassword properties. The values that you use for these properties depend on the specific operating system image that is installed on the VHD.

To create a new virtual machine by using .NET

  1. Connect to the Service Provider FoundationVMM service.

  2. Create a new instance of the SpfVMM.VirtualMachine class.

  3. Set the CloudId property of the virtual machine.

  4. Set the StampId property of the virtual machine.

  5. Set the VMTemplateId property to the Guid of the hard disk.

  6. Set the Name property of the virtual machine.

  7. Provide the provisioning settings for the VHD to use. Generally, these settings are set by the Organization, ProductKey, LocalAdminUserName, and LocalAdminPassword properties.

  8. Call the AddToVirtualMachines method on the VMM service object reference and pass in the virtual machine reference.

  9. Call the SaveChanges method on the VMM service object reference.

To create a new virtual machine by using HTTP

  1. Create a new HTTP Post operation.

  2. Set the URL to the appropriate URI: https:// server:30006/subscription-id/services/systemcenter/vmm/VirtualMachines

  3. Add the HTTP headers.

    Specifically, add the x-ms-principal-id header, which can be set to any value.

  4. Create the HTTP payload that contains the virtual machine entity.

  5. Submit the HTTP request.

Example

The following code example shows how to create a virtual machine by using .NET. For more information, seeProgramming in Visual Studio with Service Provider Foundation Services.

  
SpfVMM.VMM vmmService = new SpfVMM.VMM(new Uri("https://wapserver:30006/97FD50F3-1DC0-41B6-A7C0-2B4FF4C3F7E3/services/systemcenter/vmm/"));  
  
var template = vmmService.VMTemplates.Where(te => te.ID == new Guid("ed94037b-baab-4ce3-b57c-f4e3a00e585b"));  
var cloud = vmmService.Clouds.Where(cl => cl.ID == new Guid("a5397df8-517c-4939-ba07-0a9a2c2c2d56"));  
var stamp = template.First().StampId;  
  
var vm = new SpfVMM.VirtualMachine();  
vm.VMTemplateId = new Guid("ed94037b-baab-4ce3-b57c-f4e3a00e585b");  
vm.CloudId  = new Guid("a5397df8-517c-4939-ba07-0a9a2c2c2d56");  
vm.StampId = stamp;  
  
vm.LocalAdminPassword = "abcdefg123!";  
vm.LocalAdminUserName = "Administrator";  
vm.Name = "Temp Machine Name";  
vm.ComputerName = "Contoso1";  
vm.StartVM = true;  
  
vmmService.AddToVirtualMachines(vm);  
vmmService.SaveChanges();

Example

The following code example shows an HTTP request that is sent to the server.

  
POST https://wapserver:30006/97FD50F3-1DC0-41B6-A7C0-2B4FF4C3F7E3/services/systemcenter/vmm/VirtualMachines HTTP/1.1  
DataServiceVersion: 3.0;NetFx  
MaxDataServiceVersion: 3.0;NetFx  
Accept: application/json;odata=minimalmetadata  
Accept-Charset: UTF-8  
DataServiceUrlConventions: KeyAsSegment  
User-Agent: Microsoft ADO.NET Data Services  
x-ms-principal-id: user@contoso.com  
Content-Type: application/json;odata=minimalmetadata  
Host: spfserver:8090  
Content-Length: 3785  
Expect: 100-continue  
  
{  
    "AddedTime": null,  
    "Agent": null,  
    "AllocatedGPU": null,  
    "BackupEnabled": null,  
    "BlockDynamicOptimization": null,  
    "BlockLiveMigrationIfHostBusy": null,  
    "CPUCount": null,  
    "CPULimitForMigration": null,  
    "CPULimitFunctionality": null,  
    "CPUMax": null,  
    "CPURelativeWeight": null,  
    "CPUReserve": null,  
    "CPUType": null,  
    "CPUUtilization": null,  
    "CanVMConnect": null,  
    "CapabilityProfile": null,  
    "CheckpointLocation": null,  
    "CloudId": "a5397df8-517c-4939-ba07-0a9a2c2c2d56",  
    "CloudVMRoleName": null,  
    "ComputerName": "ContosoVM",  
    "ComputerTierId": null,  
    "CostCenter": null,  
    "CreationSource": null,  
    "CreationTime": null,  
    "DataExchangeEnabled": null,  
    "DelayStart": null,  
    "DelayStartSeconds": null,  
    "DeployPath": null,  
    "DeploymentErrorInfo": {  
        "CloudProblem": null,  
        "Code": null,  
        "DetailedCode": null,  
        "DetailedErrorCode": null,  
        "DetailedSource": null,  
        "DisplayableErrorCode": null,  
        "ErrorCodeString": null,  
        "ErrorType": null,  
        "ExceptionDetails": null,  
        "IsConditionallyTerminating": null,  
        "IsDeploymentBlocker": null,  
        "IsMomAlert": null,  
        "IsSuccess": null,  
        "IsTerminating": null,  
        "MessageParameters": null,  
        "MomAlertSeverity": null,  
        "Problem": null,  
        "RecommendedAction": null,  
        "RecommendedActionCLI": null,  
        "ShowDetailedError": null,  
        "odata.type": "VMM.ErrorInfo"  
    },  
    "Description": null,  
    "DiskIO": null,  
    "Dismiss": null,  
    "Domain": null,  
    "DynamicMemoryBufferPercentage": null,  
    "DynamicMemoryDemandMB": null,  
    "DynamicMemoryEnabled": null,  
    "DynamicMemoryMaximumMB": null,  
    "Enabled": null,  
    "ExcludeFromPRO": null,  
    "ExpectedCPUUtilization": null,  
    "FailedJobID": null,  
    "FullName": null,  
    "GrantedToList": [],  
    "GrantedToList@odata.type": "Collection(VMM.UserAndRole)",  
    "HardwareProfileId": null,  
    "HasPassthroughDisk": null,  
    "HasSavedState": null,  
    "HasVMAdditions": null,  
    "HeartbeatEnabled": null,  
    "HighlyAvailable": null,  
    "ID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",  
    "IsFaultTolerant": null,  
    "IsHighlyAvailable": null,  
    "IsRecoveryVM": null,  
    "IsUndergoingLiveMigration": null,  
    "LastRestoredCheckpointId": null,  
    "LibraryGroup": null,  
    "LimitCPUForMigration": null,  
    "LimitCPUFunctionality": null,  
    "LinuxAdministratorSSHKey": null,  
    "LinuxAdministratorSSHKeyString": null,  
    "LinuxDomainName": null,  
    "LocalAdminPassword": "!!123abc",  
    "LocalAdminRunAsAccountName": null,  
    "LocalAdminUserName": "Administrator",  
    "Location": null,  
    "MarkedAsTemplate": null,  
    "Memory": null,  
    "MemoryAssignedMB": null,  
    "MemoryAvailablePercentage": null,  
    "MemoryWeight": null,  
    "ModifiedTime": null,  
    "MostRecentTaskId": null,  
    "Name": "Temp Machine Name",  
    "NetworkUtilization": null,  
    "NewVirtualNetworkAdapterInput": [],  
    "NewVirtualNetworkAdapterInput@odata.type": "Collection(VMM.NewVMVirtualNetworkAdapterInput)",  
    "NumLock": null,  
    "OSType": null,  
    "OperatingSystem": null,  
    "OperatingSystemId": null,  
    "OperatingSystemShutdownEnabled": null,  
    "Operation": null,  
    "OrganizationName": null,  
    "Owner": {  
        "RoleID": null,  
        "RoleName": null,  
        "UserName": null,  
        "odata.type": "VMM.UserAndRole"  
    },  
    "Password": null,  
    "Path": null,  
    "PerfCPUUtilization": null,  
    "PerfDiskBytesRead": null,  
    "PerfDiskBytesWrite": null,  
    "PerfNetworkBytesRead": null,  
    "PerfNetworkBytesWrite": null,  
    "ProductKey": null,  
    "Retry": null,  
    "RunAsAccountUserName": null,  
    "RunGuestAccount": null,  
    "ServiceDeploymentErrorMessage": null,  
    "ServiceId": null,  
    "SharePath": null,  
    "SourceObjectType": null,  
    "StampId": "ba4146fa-fb41-4f59-a193-ad00c52a138c",  
    "StartAction": null,  
    "StartVM": true,  
    "Status": null,  
    "StatusString": null,  
    "StopAction": null,  
    "Tag": null,  
    "TimeSynchronizationEnabled": null,  
    "TimeZone": null,  
    "TotalSize": null,  
    "Undo": null,  
    "UndoDisksEnabled": null,  
    "UpgradeDomain": null,  
    "UseCluster": null,  
    "UseLAN": null,  
    "UserName": null,  
    "VMBaseConfigurationId": null,  
    "VMCPath": null,  
    "VMConfigResource": null,  
    "VMHostName": null,  
    "VMId": null,  
    "VMNetworkAssignments": [],  
    "VMNetworkAssignments@odata.type": "Collection(VMM.VMNetworkAssignment)",  
    "VMResource": null,  
    "VMResourceGroup": null,  
    "VMTemplateId": "ed94037b-baab-4ce3-b57c-f4e3a00e585b",  
    "VirtualHardDiskId": null,  
    "VirtualMachineState": null,  
    "VirtualizationPlatform": null,  
    "WorkGroup": null,  
    "odata.type": "VMM.VirtualMachine"  
}

Example

The following code example shows an HTTP response from the server.

  
HTTP/1.1 201 Created  
Cache-Control: no-cache  
Content-Length: 4066  
Content-Type: application/json;odata=minimalmetadata;streaming=true;charset=utf-8  
Location: https://wapserver:30006/97FD50F3-1DC0-41B6-A7C0-2B4FF4C3F7E3/services/systemcenter/vmm/VirtualMachines(ID=guid'2fa28d03-8d6d-486b-ae61-9694a2db5d6f',StampId=guid'ba4146fa-fb41-4f59-a193-ad00c52a138c')  
Server: Microsoft-IIS/8.5  
x-ms-request-id: 1f8a3a06-03d7-4b5d-ac04-a9a167068f0a  
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff  
request-id: eda9bde6-834a-0000-e979-abed4a83ce01  
DataServiceVersion: 3.0;  
X-AspNet-Version: 4.0.30319  
Persistent-Auth: true  
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET  
Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 22:12:56 GMT  
  
{  
    "AddedTime": "2013-08-02T15:12:54.2694809-07:00",  
    "Agent": null,  
    "AllocatedGPU": null,  
    "BackupEnabled": false,  
    "BlockDynamicOptimization": null,  
    "BlockLiveMigrationIfHostBusy": null,  
    "CPUCount": 1,  
    "CPULimitForMigration": null,  
    "CPULimitFunctionality": null,  
    "CPUMax": 100,  
    "CPURelativeWeight": null,  
    "CPUReserve": 0,  
    "CPUType": "3.60 GHz Xeon (2 MB L2 cache)",  
    "CPUUtilization": 0,  
    "CanVMConnect": null,  
    "CapabilityProfile": "Hyper-V",  
    "CheckpointLocation": null,  
    "CloudId": "a5397df8-517c-4939-ba07-0a9a2c2c2d56",  
    "CloudVMRoleName": null,  
    "ComputerName": "ContosoVM",  
    "ComputerTierId": null,  
    "CostCenter": null,  
    "CreationSource": "Temporary Template18a82ca1-df80-4c41-8b2c-e8400308c493",  
    "CreationTime": "2013-08-02T15:12:54.2694809-07:00",  
    "DataExchangeEnabled": false,  
    "DelayStart": 0,  
    "DelayStartSeconds": null,  
    "DeployPath": null,  
    "DeploymentErrorInfo": {  
        "CloudProblem": null,  
        "Code": null,  
        "DetailedCode": null,  
        "DetailedErrorCode": null,  
        "DetailedSource": null,  
        "DisplayableErrorCode": null,  
        "ErrorCodeString": null,  
        "ErrorType": null,  
        "ExceptionDetails": null,  
        "IsConditionallyTerminating": null,  
        "IsDeploymentBlocker": null,  
        "IsMomAlert": null,  
        "IsSuccess": null,  
        "IsTerminating": null,  
        "MessageParameters": null,  
        "MomAlertSeverity": null,  
        "Problem": null,  
        "RecommendedAction": null,  
        "RecommendedActionCLI": null,  
        "ShowDetailedError": null  
    },  
    "Description": "",  
    "DiskIO": 0,  
    "Dismiss": null,  
    "Domain": null,  
    "DynamicMemoryBufferPercentage": null,  
    "DynamicMemoryDemandMB": 0,  
    "DynamicMemoryEnabled": false,  
    "DynamicMemoryMaximumMB": null,  
    "Enabled": true,  
    "ExcludeFromPRO": false,  
    "ExpectedCPUUtilization": 20,  
    "FailedJobID": "1f8a3a06-03d7-4b5d-ac04-a9a167068f0a",  
    "FullName": null,  
    "GrantedToList": [],  
    "HardwareProfileId": null,  
    "HasPassthroughDisk": false,  
    "HasSavedState": false,  
    "HasVMAdditions": false,  
    "HeartbeatEnabled": false,  
    "HighlyAvailable": null,  
    "ID": "2fa28d03-8d6d-486b-ae61-9694a2db5d6f",  
    "IsFaultTolerant": false,  
    "IsHighlyAvailable": false,  
    "IsRecoveryVM": false,  
    "IsUndergoingLiveMigration": false,  
    "LastRestoredCheckpointId": null,  
    "LibraryGroup": "",  
    "LimitCPUForMigration": false,  
    "LimitCPUFunctionality": false,  
    "LinuxAdministratorSSHKey": null,  
    "LinuxAdministratorSSHKeyString": null,  
    "LinuxDomainName": null,  
    "LocalAdminPassword": null,  
    "LocalAdminRunAsAccountName": null,  
    "LocalAdminUserName": null,  
    "Location": "",  
    "MarkedAsTemplate": false,  
    "Memory": 512,  
    "MemoryAssignedMB": 0,  
    "MemoryAvailablePercentage": null,  
    "MemoryWeight": 5000,  
    "ModifiedTime": "2013-08-02T15:12:55.4590593-07:00",  
    "MostRecentTaskId": "1f8a3a06-03d7-4b5d-ac04-a9a167068f0a",  
    "Name": "Temp Machine Name",  
    "NetworkUtilization": 0,  
    "NewVirtualNetworkAdapterInput": [],  
    "NumLock": null,  
    "OSType": null,  
    "OperatingSystem": "64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise",  
    "OperatingSystemId": null,  
    "OperatingSystemShutdownEnabled": false,  
    "Operation": null,  
    "OrganizationName": null,  
    "Owner": {  
        "RoleID": "97fd50f3-1dc0-41b6-a7c0-2b4ff4c3f7e3",  
        "RoleName": "fred@fred.com_97fd50f3-1dc0-41b6-a7c0-2b4ff4c3f7e3",  
        "UserName": "user@contoso.com"  
    },  
    "Password": null,  
    "Path": null,  
    "PerfCPUUtilization": -1,  
    "PerfDiskBytesRead": "-1",  
    "PerfDiskBytesWrite": "-1",  
    "PerfNetworkBytesRead": "-1",  
    "PerfNetworkBytesWrite": "-1",  
    "ProductKey": null,  
    "Retry": null,  
    "RunAsAccountUserName": null,  
    "RunGuestAccount": null,  
    "ServiceDeploymentErrorMessage": null,  
    "ServiceId": null,  
    "SharePath": null,  
    "SourceObjectType": "VM Template",  
    "StampId": "ba4146fa-fb41-4f59-a193-ad00c52a138c",  
    "StartAction": "NeverAutoTurnOnVM",  
    "StartVM": null,  
    "Status": "UnderCreation",  
    "StatusString": "Creating...",  
    "StopAction": "SaveVM",  
    "Tag": "(none)",  
    "TimeSynchronizationEnabled": false,  
    "TimeZone": null,  
    "TotalSize": "0",  
    "Undo": null,  
    "UndoDisksEnabled": false,  
    "UpgradeDomain": null,  
    "UseCluster": null,  
    "UseLAN": null,  
    "UserName": null,  
    "VMBaseConfigurationId": null,  
    "VMCPath": null,  
    "VMConfigResource": null,  
    "VMConnection@odata.mediaContentType": "application/x-rdp",  
    "VMHostName": null,  
    "VMId": null,  
    "VMNetworkAssignments": [],  
    "VMResource": null,  
    "VMResourceGroup": null,  
    "VMTemplateId": null,  
    "VirtualHardDiskId": null,  
    "VirtualMachineState": "PowerOff",  
    "VirtualizationPlatform": "HyperV",  
    "WorkGroup": null,  
    "odata.metadata": "https://wapserver:30006/97FD50F3-1DC0-41B6-A7C0-2B4FF4C3F7E3/services/systemcenter/vmm/$metadata#VirtualMachines/@Element"

Compiling the Code

See Also

Virtual Machine Management
Programming in Visual Studio with Service Provider Foundation Services
How to Get a List of Virtual Machines
How to Delete a Virtual Machine
How to Create a Virtual Machine from a VHD
How to Start and Stop Virtual Machines