Cloned from launchpad blueprint https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/deploy-vcenter-templates-from-vmware-nova-driver.

Description:

Title: vCenter Nova Driver to deploy vCenter templates available as glance images
In the current OpenStack architecture, to deploy an instance from an image, the images have to be available in glance. Images are added using the glance image-create command. Images are uploaded into the image server when image-create is used. VMware vCenter already has the deployable images in the form of “Templates”. 

To be able to create instances from glance images that are actually templates, this blueprint proposes to enhance the VMware vCenter Nova driver to
1.	Read the meta-data of the glance image
2.	Use the VI SDK API to directly deploy the template
3.	The deployed instance is created configured with the flavor information
By doing this we are leveraging the vCenter optimizations for the template deployments.

There are no changes required in glance to achieve this. The image's meta data indicating the name of the template and the vCenter where the template is hosted should be updated for the image. This can be done using the existing Glance APIs.

Specification URL (additional information):

None