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VMware vSphere, the industry-leading virtualization platform for building cloud infrastructures, enables you to run business critical applications with confidence and respond to the business faster. (4:15 mins.)
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Host Profiles

Capture host level configuration settings and save them as a template to configure other vSphere hosts. Monitor hosts for configuration changes and automatically alert vSphere administrators if a host falls out of compliance.

  • Reduce the time spent manually configuring vSphere hosts
  • Ensure host configuration consistency and compliance
  • Standardize storage, network and security configurations across vSphere hosts
  • Enables stateless (diskless) host configurations with vSphere Auto Deploy

 

Reduce the Time Needed to Set Up New Hosts

Create a profile once and then use it for multiple vSphere hosts for the fastest setup of new hosts. Eliminate the need to set up specialized scripts or manually configured hosts.

Ensure Consistency for Compliance

Associate host profiles with other hosts and clusters and monitor them for consistency. Any drift in configurations can be corrected automatically.

Apply the Same Change to Multiple Hosts

When firmware upgrades or other events happen that require storage, network or security configuration changes on multiple hosts in a cluster, create a new profile and apply it across the cluster for easy and consistent configuration updates.

Enables Stateless Configurations with vSphere Auto Deploy

Eliminate the need for custom configuration scripts by using Host Profiles to configure vSphere hosts deployed by vSphere Auto Deploy.

Host Profile Components

Reference Host
Each host profile is assigned a reference host. The reference host, which is usually the host from which the host profile was created, acts as a template, or master configuration. A host profile’s reference host can be changed to accommodate adding and removing hosts to/from the vCenter Server inventory.

Host Profile
Configuration settings that are shared by a group of vSphere hosts are stored in a host profile. Host profiles are typically created using a reference host as a template. Once the host profile has been created it can then be attached to one or more vSphere hosts or vSphere clusters. Once attached, the host configuration is compared against the host profile and any deviations reported. New hosts being added to vCenter Server can be quickly configured by applying the host profile. Existing hosts that fall out of compliance, can be returned to compliance by simply re-applying the host profile.

Once created, the vSphere administrator has the ability to edit the host profile to allow for ongoing configuration changes. In addition, the administrator can remove any settings that need to be excluded from the host profile check.

Answer File
Configuration settings that are not shared between hosts, such as IP addresses, are captured in a host specific answer file. Each host will have a unique answer file. When the host profile is applied, or anytime a compliance check is initiated, the active host configuration is checked against both the answer file as well as the host profile.