Automating OS Provisioning

You can perform bare metal OS provisioning using Sun xVM Ops Center. You can provision operating systems on hundreds of machines simultaneously. Using xVM Ops Center, you can avoid the manual error-prone processes that are associated with OS provisioning. xVM Ops Center supports provisioning of Solaris and Linux operating systems.

The xVM Ops Center GUI allows you to provision your registered systems in three steps:

  • Creating OS images: An OS image is a copy of the OS installation media used to install the OS. You can create an OS image by loading an OS image from CD or DVD or by importing an OS image from ISO or FLAR files.

    To import an OS image from ISO files, first select Operating System from the Provisioning Menu, then select Import OS Image from the OS Images menu. Select one or more ISO files needed to make up the entire OS image.

  • Creating OS profiles: An OS profile specifies how to configure the OS when provisioning the OS on a set of target systems. The OS profile includes information like what software packages or distributions to install, what disk partitions to use, and various network settings. When you create an OS image, an OS profile of the same name is automatically created and is intended as a template.

    To create the OS profile, first select Operating System from the Provisioning menu, then select Create OS Profiles from the OS Profiles menu. Follow the steps in the wizard to create the OS profile.

  • Provisioning the OS: In this step, you provision the OS on one or more servers.

    To provision the OS, first select Operating System from the Provisioning menu, then select Provision OS from the Provision menu. Follow the steps in the wizard to provision the OS.

    The above OS provisioning process is similar, regardless of the hardware, operating system, or underlying technology that you are deploying. Hence, this process can be extended to automate the provisioning of data centers.

    For more information on OS provisioning, visit http://wikis.sun.com/display/xvmOC1dot1/OS+Provisioning

    For information on the systems supported for OS provisioning, visit http://wikis.sun.com/display/xvmOC1dot1/Supported+Systems+for+OS+Provisioning

    • Posted on: Jul 03, 2008

    Posted by: raghuraman

    Category: Sun

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    Comments:

    Does Sun xVM Ops Center support Ubuntu Linux ?

    Posted by Thorleif Wiik on July 16, 2008 at 08:52 AM MDT #

    Sun xVM Ops Center does not support Ubuntu. It supports RHEL, SUSE, and Solaris.

    Posted by Raghuraman on July 16, 2008 at 10:58 PM MDT #

    I think it's not a good idea, NOT to support Ubuntu. It's like Debian very famous and a lot of companies are using it in large scale Web2.0 environments. These Companies are looking for solutions like Sun xVM Ops Center, but they don't want to change their OS to RHEL or SUSE.

    Posted by Thorleif Wiik on July 17, 2008 at 01:33 AM MDT #

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