The following procedure will help you create a new deploy rule.

To create a new deploy rule issue the following command:

New-DeployRule -Name "RuleIP-21-25" -Item $imageprofile[1], "Cluster-21-25" -pattern "ipv4=192.168.193.21-192.168.193.25"

Here, RuleIP-21-25 is the name of the deploy rule; $imageprofie[1] is ESXi-5.0.0-20111104001-standard; Cluster-21-25 is the name of the cluster at the vCenter Server; pattern ipv4=192.168.193.21-192.168.193.25 is the IP scope we created at the DHCP server, for the subnet to which the ESXi servers will be connected.

We could also attach a Host Profile to the ESXi server being deployed, when we create a rule.

Here is the command:

New-DeployRule -Name New-01 -Item $img[1],"Cluster-21-25",
"For-21-25" –Pattern "ipv4=192.168.193.21-192.168.193.24"

Here, For-21-25 is the name of the Host Profile. Host Profiles are used to apply configuration templates to an ESXi server.

When the command to create a new deploy rule is executed, it starts uploading the VIBs (vSphere Installation Bundles) in the image onto the Auto Deploy's cache folder.

The cache folder location is as follows:

C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vSphere Auto Deploy\Data\cache

The following screenshot shows the Auto Deploy's cache folder:

Once it is done with the uploading of VIBs, it will finish and summarize the operations.