Scenario:
Creating multiple VMs and deploying them to VSphere. Current development uses Packer and Ansible to provision a Fusion VM, with the aim of using Terraform to deploy to VSphere.
Issue:
I've been having loads of issues with uploading Fusion VMs to VSphere and having to use work arounds such as this, and been wondering if there is a better of doing this.
Question:
I'm questioning the use of Packer in this scenario (which deploys to Fusion), and doesn't seem to currently support a Packer->ESXi (VSphere) builder unless it's an ISO.
Would it be possible to remove Packer entirely from this scenario, so instead of building a Fusion image, provisioning the image, and uploading it to VSphere, use Terraform to deploy an ESXi image (template), and provision that image in-place using Ansible as a provisioner? (such that everything is done in VSphere rather than Fusion then VSphere).
What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing this?