This module allows you to launch and manage virtual machines within your VMware cluster; the following example shows how you would launch a VM using a template:

- name: Create a VM from a template
  vmware_guest:
    hostname: "{{ vsphere_host }}"
    username: "{{ vsphere_username }}"
    password: "{{ vsphere_password }}"
    validate_certs: "no"
    datacenter: "my-datacenter"
    folder: "/vms"
    name: "yet_another_example_vm"
    state: "poweredon"
    template: "centos7-x86_64-1804"
    disk:
      - size_gb: "40"
        type: "thin"
        datastore: "my_datastore"
    hardware:
      memory_mb: "4048"
      num_cpus: "4"
      max_connections: "3"
      hotadd_cpu: "True"
      hotremove_cpu: "True"
      hotadd_memory: "True"
    networks:
      - name: "VM Network"
        ip: "192.168.1.100"
        netmask: "255.255.255.0"
        gateway: "192.168.1.254"
        dns_servers:
          - "192.168.1.1"
          - "192.168.1.2"
    wait_for_ip_address: "yes"
  delegate_to: "localhost"
  register: deploy

As you can see, we have quite a lot of control over the VM and how it is configured. There are separate sections for the hardware, network, and storage configuration; we will look at this module in a little more detail at the end of this chapter.