Clone Template to new vCenter

On a recent TAM Lab session (TAM Lab 082) I covered several methods for managing vSphere templates. At the end of the presentation we had a brief bonus method that showed using PowerCLI to clone a template to a different vCenter. This could be used once you update your primary copy of a template in vCenter1 and you wanted to make that template available in a different environment. The script used in the demo is available below.

$creds = Get-Credential

$sourceVC = Connect-ViServer t036-vcsa-01.lab.enterpriseadmins.org -Credential $creds
$destVC   = Connect-ViServer core-vcenter01.lab.enterpriseadmins.org -Credential $creds

$destTemplateName = 'template-tinycore11.1_tamlabtest'
$splatNewVM = @{
  Name     = $destTemplateName
  Template = 'template-tinycore11.1'
  VMHost   = 't036-vesx-01.lab.enterpriseadmins.org'
}
$vm = New-VM @splatNewVM -Server $sourceVC

$splatMoveVM = @{
  VM                = $vm
  NetworkAdapter    = (Get-NetworkAdapter -VM $vm -Server $sourceVC)
  PortGroup         = (Get-VirtualPortGroup -Name 'VLAN10' -Server $destVC)
  Destination       = (Get-VMHost 'test-esx-33.lab.enterpriseadmins.org' -Server $destVC)
  Datastore         = (Get-Datastore 'test-esx-33_nvme' -Server $destVC)
  InventoryLocation = (Get-Folder 'vc1_TAMLab082' -Server $destVC)
}
Move-VM @splatMoveVM

Get-VM $destTemplateName -Server $destVC | 
Set-VM -Name 'template-tinycore11.1-bonus' -ToTemplate -Confirm:$false

This script uses splatting to improve readability. You can read more about_Splatting here. There are a couple basic components. First we connect to both vCenters, in this case using the same credentials. We then create a new VM from template on the source side, then move that VM to the destination side, and finally rename the destination VM and convert it to a template. We did this as multiple steps as Move-VM has additional parameters to assist with changing the destination network adapter to specify the correct portgroups and such.