Running ESXi 6.7 on Ravello

As with my previous article I talked about deploying ESXi 6.0/6.5 onto the Ravello platform and it was pretty straight forward as you are provided with  a base template of an ESXi which you just add to your application canvas, attach the ISO and off you go.

With 6.7 on the Ravello platform you will most likely experience this Purple Screen Of Death if you try to just use the ESXi template. After many googling and looking around forums there was a solution !!

Now there are some caveats that I found if you wish to deploy ESXi 6.7 to one of your existing applications. If your application is not published to "US East 5" or US Southwest 1" then the method below will not work. You will need to create a new application to host your ESXi 6.7 host. It appears that only hardware that are hosted in "US East 5" and US Southwest 1" supports running ESXi 6.7.

So as with my previous article you would still use the ESXi template but we will make some modifications so that it will run on the platform.

• On the System tab of the VM change the Platform to default. Change the Display to Standard VGA and click on Save

• On the General tab scroll to towards the bottom and select Advanced Configuration

• On Advanced Configuration page under cpu-model enter in SandyBridge (Capital S and B) and for preferPhysicalHost enter value true and click "OK"

• Follow the rest of the steps from my other article to mount ESXi 6.7 ISO followed by publishing or updating the application and you should be good to go. You may get this screen below during installation warning that the CPU on the host may not be supported in future releases of ESXi. Just press Enter to continue with the installation.

Happy lab'ing for all