Vsphere 6 Content Libraries

What are Content Libraries?

Content Libraries are a new feature of Vsphere 6 that allow you to centrally manage vm templates, vapps and .iso images. They can be local to your environment or synchronized across multiple environments (including vcenters and vcloud director) as well. By default, the libraries are synchronized every day. The maximum number of libraries is 10 with 256 library items (total).

*** Updated with GA captures on 3/25 ***

Steps to create a Content Library:

1. Log into the vcenter server as the administrator using the Web Client.

2. Click on the Content Libraries Icon and create a new library.

3. Decide what kind of library you want to create. In this case, this is a local library. This library could also be publish so other environments can subscribe to it and download contents if needed.

Authentication could be used; the default user is "vcsp". Notice the second capture.

4. Select the datastore to hold the library.

5. Notice the library has been created.

6. Select your library and read the Getting Started page for it to get a better understanding of the capabilities of the library.

7. In Vsphere 6, you can right click on a VM and clone to template in a Library. The system creates the .ovf file and the .vmdks. (OVA not supported on this version).

8. Name the template to create and select the library that was just created.

9. As shown below, the content library is a new directory in one of your datastores. After the creation of the template, the content library contains an entry for that template with the .ovf file.

10. Lastly, you can right click on the library and import items.