2011-12-01 Update: I have a new post on using the latest version of the NetApp ONTAP Simulator (8.1) here, follow those instructions to deploy the newest  simulator in your environment.

If you want to use the ONTAP 8.0 7-mode simulator in ESX the process is actually pretty simple, personally I wish NetApp would just offer an OVF format for the simulator but anyways…

Create a new VM in the vSphere Client and select Custom, assign a name to the VM, a resource group and select the datastore to place the VM files on.  Then you will be at the Virtual Machine Version screen.

Select Virtual Machine Version 7 and click Next

Select Other and choose FreeBSD 64bit from the drop down and click Next

Select 2 Virtual CPUs and click Next

Assign 2 GB RAM and click Next

Chose 4 NICs, in my case I placed the 1st and 3rd NIC on my VM network and the 2nd and 4th NIC on the Storage Network.  Click Next

Leave the default on SCSI controller and click Next

Select Do Not Create Disk and click Next

Click Finish

Now you need to copy the .vmdk files(including the cf card folder) from the ZIP into the directory you created the FreeBSD VM.  After you do that go into the VM properties and add hard disk choosing Use an Existing Virtual Disk. Browse to the VM location.

The first disk you want to add is the larger of the two with ‘cf’ in the name, after you add this disk add the other disk as well (I used default options for IDE controller etc).

That’s all there is to it, from this point you can follow the manual to setup the simulator.

After you power it on press ctrl-c and then select option 4.

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