vCloud Air: IDENTIFYING AND DEPLOYING WORKLOADS IN VCLOUD AIR

This is the third blog in the series. The earlier two blogs in vCloud Air are:
VMware vCloud Air : Architecture and Principles
vCloud Air: ROLE BASED ACCESS CONTROLS



This Blog contains the following lessons:
• Deploy a machine from the Enterprise catalog
• Copy an Existing Virtual Machine to vCloud Air


DEPLOY A MACHINE FROM THE ENTERPRISE CATALOG

Select The Virtual machines Tab 

Deploy a VM 

This is the Virtual Machine tab.  From here you can create new VMs as well as modify existing VMs. Click the Deploy a Virtual Machine button

Now select the destination Virtual Data center (vDC)

Now you get the Select template window.  When you create a new VM, you have the option of creating a VM from a template from the VMware catalog, a template that you've imported, or create a VM from scratch.  

1. Select the VMware Catalog tab.
2. Click on the button labeled 64 bitnext to CentOS 6.3 64 bit.

CONFIGURE YOUR VM

Assign your VM a name and assign it resources.  Unlike other public clouds that force you to use a VM of a particular size, vCloud Air allows you to allocate resources to a VM as you see fit.  Moreover, if you decide later that you need to increase or decrease the amount of resources assigned to a VM, you can do so without having to destroy it.  You also have the option of attaching the VM to different network segments during this phase which is useful when specific network and application architectures are required
1. In the Name field type in the name for your virtual machine (this will be the name of your vApp): TestVM
2. In the Guest OS Name field, type the name of your guest OS: TestVM
3. Click the Change hyperlink next to allocated resources.  Leave the resource allocation unchanged.

4. Click the Green Deploy This Virtual Machine button

Wait for VM to be deployed. And that's it

COPY AN EXISTING VIRTUAL MACHINE TO VCLOUD AIR

Copying a machine to vCloud Air involves a virtual appliance known as vCloud Connector (vCC).  Once the appliance is imported into your vSphere environment and properly configured, it will manifest itself as a plug-in for the vSphere client

Launch the VMware vSphere Client

Once VSphere Client is launced, Click on vCloud connector button

1. At the top left of the screen click the Home button.
2. On the home page, click the vCloud Connector icon in the Solutions and Applications area.
3. If you receive a warning. Ignore it and accept the link.

4. The vCloud Connector Client will launch

Prepare to add local vSphere environment to vCloud Connector

1. In the Browser panel on the left, click on Clouds to select it.
2. In the Objects panel, click the Add(green plus) icon.


Note: only clouds that have been previously registered with the vCloud Connector Server will appear in the "name" drop down field.  As part of the vCloud Connector setup, you register a vCloud Connector node for each cloud on the vCloud Connector Server.  The node registration includes the name and URL for the node.

ADD the Local Datacenter to vCloud Connector

Add the Local Datacenter production organization to vCloud Connector

UPDATE AND BROWSE THE CLOUDS INVENTORY 

PREPARE TO COPY A VIRTUAL MACHINE FROM " LOCAL DATACENTER" TO VCLOUD AIR

1. Click on the  Local Datacenter Cloud in the left panel.
2. In the inventory panel click theVirtual Machines tab.
3. Select Tiny Linux. This is a powered down virtual machine in the local vSphere environment.

To copy a VM to the vCloud Air it first needs to be powered off.  If you know you're going to be moving a lot of data, e.g. > 300GB, you may want to consider doing an Offline Data Transfer (ODT) instead.  With an ODT, VMware will ship you a 12 TB appliance that you can copy your VMs and templates onto [using vCC].  Once you're finished copying your data to the encrypted drive, you return the drive to VMware, where upon arrival, the VMs and templates are imported directly into your environment. 


COPY A VIRTUAL MACHINE FROM "LOCAL VSPHERE" TO VCLOUD AIR

CONFIGURE THE VIRTUAL MACHINE PROPERTIES

1. Next to the Select VDC drop down box select the dc1-vpc1vDC.
2. Click the Next button.

Note: All VMs copied to vCloud Air are thick provisioned.

1. Place a check mark in the Deploy vApp after copy checkbox, then choose fenced from the Network Connection Mode drop down list.  
2. Select the "dc1-vpc1-default-isolated" as the Selected network configuration. This list is populated automatically with the networks within the vDC.
3. Select Power on vApp after deployment checkbox.
4. Select Remove temporary vApp template in destination vCloud catalog checkbox.

5. Click Next to continue