Patent ID: 8924524

Claim:
A method for creating virtual machines (VM) and associated networks in a virtual infrastructure, the method comprising: storing a plurality of virtual network templates in a database, each virtual network template including network specifications which define a network comprising a plurality of VMs; creating a configuration of a virtual system which includes VMs, virtual lab networks associated with virtual network templates, and connections from the VMs to the virtual lab networks; and deploying the configuration in the virtual infrastructure to obtain a deployed configuration, the deploying including, instantiating in the virtual infrastructure the VMs of the configuration, instantiating in the virtual infrastructure the virtual lab networks of the configuration if the virtual networks do not yet exist in the virtual infrastructure, retrieving information from the database, the information including the network specifications from the virtual network templates associated with the virtual lab networks and network resources for the virtual lab networks from a pool of available network resources, creating programming instructions for each VM according to a guest operating system (GOS) of the each VM and the retrieved information from the database, and performing the programming instructions in the corresponding GOS to configure the VMs network interfaces with the corresponding network specifications.