Introduction

The heart of the Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) lies in the virtual machine. The virtual machine provides the skeletal structure within which a guest operating system is installed. In the previous chapters, we have gone over building the vSphere environment that serves as the platform, now we shall delve into effectively creating and managing these VMs.

Virtual machine components

Let us briefly touch upon what a virtual machine truly comprises. A virtual machine exists in an abstract form as a set of files. The files themselves are directly, or indirectly, representative of the virtual hardware components and configuration settings that the guest operating system will need at runtime. We shall discuss the files that make up the virtual machine and their respective uses later in the chapter. In simpler words, a virtual machine can be created, copied, or destroyed with basic file manipulation operations. This very attribute of the virtual machine enables a plethora of features...