Working with virtual machine

A virtual machine is a software computer that, like a physical computer, runs an operating system and applications. The virtual machine consists of a set of specification and configuration files and is backed by the physical resources of a host. Every virtual machine has virtual devices that provide the same functionality as physical hardware but are more portable, more secure, and easier to manage.

In addition to the operations that you can run on a physical machine, Cyfuture Cloud virtual machines support virtual infrastructure operations, such as taking a snapshot of the virtual machine state and moving a virtual machine from one host to another.

Starting with Cyfuture Cloud Console 9.5, virtual machines support IPv6 connectivity. You can assign IPv6 addresses to virtual machines connected to IPv6 networks.

Important All steps for working with virtual machines are documented from the card view, assuming that you have more than one virtual data center. Completing the same procedures from the grid view is also possible, but the steps might slightly vary.

This chapter includes the following topics:

Virtual Machine Architecture

Virtual Machine Encryption

View Virtual Machines

Create a New Standalone Virtual Machine

Fast Provisioning of Virtual Machines

Opening a Virtual Machine Console

Performing Power Operations on Virtual Machines

Install Cyfuture Cloud Tools in a Virtual Machine

Upgrade the Virtual Hardware Version for a Virtual Machine

Edit Virtual Machine Properties

Insert Media

Eject Media

Copy a Virtual Machine to a Different vApp

Move a Virtual Machine to a Different vApp

Virtual Machine Affinity and Anti-Affinity

Monitor Virtual Machines

Working with Snapshots

Renew a Virtual Machine Lease

Delete a Virtual Machine

Auto Scale Groups

Virtual Machine Architecture

A virtual machine can exist as a standalone machine or it can exist within a vApp.

A virtual machine is a software computer that, like a physical computer, runs an operating system and applications. The virtual machine consists of a set of specification and configuration files and is backed by the physical resources of a host. Every virtual machine has virtual devices that provide the same functionality as physical hardware but are more portable, more secure, and easier to manage. Virtual machines can be standalone, or they can exist within a vApp. A vApp is a compound object composed of one or more virtual machines, as well as one or more networks.

The following figure shows the different options when creating a virtual machine. You can create a standalone virtual machine or a virtual machine within a vApp. The standalone virtual machine is directly connected to the organization's virtual data center. You can also create a virtual machine within a vApp. By creating a virtual machine inside of a vApp, you can group together multiple virtual machines and their associated networks. vApps allow you to build complex applications and save them to a catalog for future use.

Figure 2-1. Virtual Machines are Standalone or within a vApp


Virtual Machine Encryption

Starting with Cyfuture Cloud Console 10.1, you can improve the security of your data by using VM encryption. You can encrypt VMs and disks by associating them with storage policies that have the VM Encryption capability. Encryption protects not only your virtual machine but also virtual machine disks and other files. You can view the capabilities of storage policies and the encryption status of VMs and disks in the API and UI. You can perform all operations on encrypted VMs and disks that are supported in the respective VMWare vCenter Server version.

If the organization VDC has a storage policy with enabled VM encryption, you can encrypt VMs and disks. See the Enabling VM Encryption on Storage Policies of an Organization Virtual Data Center topic in the Cyfuture Cloud Console Service Provider Admin Portal Guide. To encrypt a VM or disk, associate it with a VM Encryption enabled storage policy. For virtual machines, see Create a New Standalone Virtual Machine or Change the General Properties of a Virtual Machine. For named disks, see Create a Named Disk or Edit a Named Disk. To decrypt a VM or disk, associate that VM or disk with a storage policy that does not have encryption enabled.

VM Encryption Limitations

The following actions are not supported by Cyfuture Cloud:

Encrypt or decrypt a powered-on VM or its disks.

Export an OVF of an encrypted VM.

Encrypt and decrypt the disks of a VM with a snapshot if the disks are part of the snapshot.

Decrypt a VM when its disk is on an encrypted policy.

Add an encrypted disk to a non-encrypted VM.

Encrypt an existing disk on a non-encrypted VM.

Add an encrypted named disk to an unencrypted VM.

Create an encrypted linked clone.

Encrypt a linked clone VM or its disks.

Instantiate, move, or clone VMs across VMWare vCenter Server instances when the source VM is encrypted.

Note On a fast-provisioned organization VDC, if the source or target VM is encrypted and you want to create a clone, Cyfuture Cloud Console always creates a full clone.

Identifying a VM Encryption Storage Capability

By default, System administrators and Organization administrators have the necessary rights to view the organization's VDC storage capabilities and whether VMs and disks are encrypted. vApp Authors can view the encryption status of a virtual machine and its disks on the Details page of the virtual machine. For more information about roles and rights, see Predefined Roles and Their Rights.

View Virtual Machines

You can view virtual machines that are standalone or part of a vApp. You can view virtual machines in a grid view or in a card view.

Procedure

1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

2. Choose one of the following

  • To view the virtual machines in a grid view, click  
         
  • To view the virtual machines in a card view, click.


The list of virtual machines displays in a grid view or as a list of cards.

3. (Optional) Arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

4. (Optional) From the grid view, click on the left of a virtual machine, to display the actions you can take for the selected virtual machine.
For example, you can shut down a virtual machine.

5. To access the interface for the guest operating system of the virtual machine, click the desktop icon in the upper right corner of the card view.
To view and edit the details for a virtual machine, click Details.

Create a New Standalone Virtual Machine

You can create a new standalone virtual machine.

Procedure

1.On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

2. Click to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

3. Click New VM.

4. Enter the name and the computer name for the virtual machine.

Important- The computer name can contain only alphanumeric characters and hyphens. A computer name cannot consist of digits only and cannot contain spaces.

5.  (Optional) Enter a meaningful description.

6.  Select whether you want the virtual machine to power on right after it is created.

7. Select how you want to deploy the virtual machine.

Option

Action

New

You deploy a new virtual machine with customizable settings.

a . Select an Operating System family and Operating System.

b (Optional) Select a Boot image.

c. (Optional) Select a VM placement policy and a VM sizing policy.

VM placement and VM sizing policy drop-down menus are visible only if the service provider has published such policies to the organization VDC.

d. (Optional) Select the size of the virtual machine from the predefined sizing options or click Custom Sizing Options to enter the number of virtual CPUs, cores per socket, and memory settings manually.

If you select a VM sizing policy that defines the VM size, this option is not visible.

The predefined sizes of the virtual machine are: Small, Medium, and Large.

e. Specify the storage settings for the virtual machine, such as storage policy and size in GB.

f. Specify the network settings for the virtual machine, such as network, IP mode, IP address, and primary NIC.

From Template

 

You deploy a virtual machine from a template that you select from the templates catalog.

a .,Select a virtual machine template from the list of available templates.
b. (Optional) Select a VM placement policy and a VM sizing policy.

VM placement and VM sizing policy drop-down menus are visible only if the service provider has published such policies to the organization VDC. If the selected template has assigned policies, you might be limited to the predefined template policies.

c. (Optional) Select to use a custom storage policy and select the storage policy to use from the Custom storage policy to use drop-down menu.

d. Read and accept the end-user license agreement, if there is any.

 

8. Click OK to save the settings of the virtual machine and to start the creation process.

You can see the card of the virtual machine in the catalog. Until the virtual machine is created, its state is displayed as Busy.

Fast Provisioning of Virtual Machines

Fast provisioning saves time by using linked clones for virtual machine provisioning operations.

A linked clone is a duplicate of a virtual machine that uses the same virtual disk as the original, with a chain of delta disks to track the differences between the original and the clone. If you disable fast provisioning, all provisioning operations result in full clones.

A linked clone cannot exist on a different VMWare vCenter Server data center or datastore than the original virtual machine.

When you fast provision a VM, Cyfuture Cloud Console creates a shadow virtual machine to support linked clone creation across VMWare vCenter Server data centers and datastores for the virtual machines that are associated with a specific vApp template.

A shadow virtual machine is an exact copy of the original virtual machine. The shadow virtual machine is created on the data center and datastore where the linked clone is created.

Important- In-place consolidation of a fast-provisioned VM is not supported on storage containers that employ native snapshots. VVOLs and VAAI-enabled datastores use native snapshots, so

fast-provisioned VMs deployed to one of these storage containers cannot be consolidated. If you need to consolidate a fast-provisioned VM deployed to a VVOL or VAAI-enabled datastore, you must relocate it to a different storage container.

Opening a Virtual Machine Console

Accessing your virtual machine console allows you to view information about the virtual machine, work with the guest operating system, and perform operations that affect the guest operating system.

Prerequisites

The virtual machine is powered on.

 
Install Cyfuture Cloud Remote Console on a Client

Prerequisites

This operation requires the rights included in the predefined vApp User role or an equivalent set of rights.

Procedure

  1. Download the installer.

  • Navigate to the Cyfuture Cloud Remote Console download page, and select the link for your platform.www.CyfutureCloud.com/go/download-vmrc

  • On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen in the Cyfuture Cloud Console Tenant Portal, click the card of the virtual data center that you want to explore. Select a virtual machine, and from the Actions menu select Download VMRC.

     2. Run your platform installation.

  • If you are using Windows, double-click the .msi installer and follow the prompts.

  • If you are using Linux, log in with root privileges, run the .bundle installer, and follow the prompts.

  • If you are using Mac OS, double-click the .dmg to open it, then double-click the Cyfuture Cloud Remote Console icon inside to copy to the Applications folder.

 

Results


After installation, Cyfuture Cloud Remote Console opens when you click Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) that begin with the vmrc:// scheme. Cyfuture Cloud Workstation, Player, and Fusion also handle the vmrc:// URI scheme.

You can open a virtual machine console using Cyfuture Cloud Remote Console through the Cyfuture Cloud Console Tenant Portal.

Prerequisites

Verify that Cyfuture Cloud Remote Console is installed on your local system.

Make sure that the selected virtual machine is in a powered-on state.

This operation requires the rights included in the predefined vApp User role or an equivalent set of rights.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine, select Launch VM Remote Console.

Note If you do not have the Cyfuture Cloud Remote Console installed, a pop-up window prompts you to either install Cyfuture Cloud Remote Console or use the Web console.

Results

The virtual machine console opens as an external virtual remote console.


Note When you connect to a Cyfuture Cloud Console virtual machine by using Cyfuture Cloud Remote Console, you are limited to console interaction only (sending Ctrl+Alt+Del). You cannot perform device operations, power operations, or settings management.

Open a Web Console

You can connect to the console of a virtual machine even if you do not have Cyfuture Cloud Remote Console installed on your local system.

Prerequisites

  1. Verify that the virtual machine is powered on.

This operation requires the rights included in the predefined vApp User role or an equivalent set of rights.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

    3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine, select Launch Web Console.

Results

The virtual machine console opens in a new browser tab by using the Cyfuture Cloud HTML Console SDK.

What to do next

Click anywhere inside the console window to start using your mouse, keyboard, and other input devices in the console.

Note For information about supported international keyboards, see the Cyfuture Cloud HTML Console SDK Documentation at https://www.Cyfuture Cloud.com/support/developer/html-console/.

Performing Power Operations on Virtual Machines

You can perform power operations on virtual machines, such as power on or off a virtual machine, suspending or resetting a virtual machine or shutting down the guest Operating System of a virtual machine.

Power On a Virtual Machine

Powering on a virtual machine is the equivalent of powering on a physical machine.

You cannot power on a virtual machine that has guest customization enabled unless the virtual machine has a current version of Cyfuture Cloud Tools installed.

Prerequisites

The virtual machine is powered off.

Procedure

1.On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.
2. Click to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.Card Icon

3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine you want to start, select Power On.

Results

A powered-on virtual machine displays a Powered on status in green.

Power Off a Virtual Machine

Powering off a virtual machine is the equivalent of powering off a physical machine.

Prerequisites

The virtual machine is powered on.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

     3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine you want to power off, select Power Off.

Results

A powered-off virtual machine displays a Powered off status in red.

Shut Down a Guest Operating System

Shutting down the guest operating system of a virtual machine is the equivalent of powering off a physical machine.

Prerequisites

The virtual machine and guest operating system must be powered on.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

     3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine, select Shut Down Guest OS.

Results

The guest OS is shut down.

Reset a Virtual Machine

Resetting a virtual machine clears state (memory, cache, and so on), but the virtual machine continues to run. Resetting a virtual machine is the equivalent of pushing the reset button of a physical machine. It initiates a hard reset of the operating system without changing the power state of the virtual machine.

Prerequisites

Your virtual machine is powered on.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

     3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine you want to reset, select Reset.

 

Results

The state clears for the virtual machine.

Suspend a Virtual Machine

Suspending a virtual machine preserves its current state by writing the memory to disk.

The suspend and resume feature is useful when you want to save the current state of your virtual machine and continue work later from the same state.

Prerequisites

The virtual machine is powered on.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

      3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine you want to suspend, select Suspend.

Results

The virtual machine is suspended, but its state is preserved.

Discard the Suspended State of a Virtual Machine

If a virtual machine is in a suspended state and you no longer need to resume the use of the machine, you can discard the suspended state. Discarding the suspended state removes the saved memory and returns the machine to a powered-off state.

Prerequisites

A virtual machine that is suspended.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

     3.  From the Actions menu of the virtual machine, select Discard suspended state.

Results

The state is discarded, and the virtual machine is powered off.

Power On Multiple VMs

You can power on multiple VMs simultaneously.

You cannot power on a virtual machine that has guest customization enabled unless the virtual machine has a current version of Cyfuture Cloud Tools installed.

Procedure

You can power on multiple VMs simultaneously.

You cannot power on a virtual machine that has guest customization enabled unless the virtual machine has a current version of Cyfuture Cloud Tools installed.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  3. Select the VMs that you want to power on.

  4. From the Actions menu, select Power On.

      5. Click OK to confirm.


Power Off Multiple Virtual Machines

You can power off multiple VMs simultaneously.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  3. Select the VMs that you want to power off.

  4. From the Actions menu, select Power Off.

      5. Click OK to confirm.

Discard the Suspended State of Multiple Virtual Machines

If multiple VMs are in a suspended state and you no longer have to resume their use, you can discard the suspended state of the VMs simultaneously. Discarding the suspended state removes the saved memory and returns the VMs to a powered-off state.

Prerequisites

Verify that the VMs are in a suspended state.


Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  3. Select the VMs of which you want to discard the suspended state.

  4. From the Actions menu, select Discard Suspended State.

      5. Click OK to confirm.

Reset Multiple Virtual Machines

Resetting multiple VMs simultaneously clears their state (memory, cache, and so on) while the VMs continue to run.

Resetting a virtual machine is the equivalent of pushing the reset button of a physical machine. It initiates a hard reset of the operating system without changing the power state of the virtual machine.

Prerequisites

Verify that the VMs are powered on.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  3. Select the VMs that you want to reset.

  4. From the Actions menu, select Reset.

      5. Click OK to confirm.

Install Cyfuture Cloud Tools in a Virtual Machine

Cyfuture Cloud Console depends on Cyfuture Cloud Tools to customize the guest OS.

Cyfuture Cloud Tools improves management and performance of the virtual machine by replacing generic operating system drivers with Cyfuture Cloud drivers tuned for virtual hardware. You install Cyfuture Cloud Tools into the guest operating system. Although the guest operating system can run without Cyfuture Cloud Tools, you lose important features and convenience.

Prerequisites

The virtual machine must be powered on.

If your newly created virtual machine has no guest operating system, you must install it before you can install Cyfuture Cloud Tools.

Guest customization must be disabled prior to installing Cyfuture Cloud Tools.

If the version of Cyfuture Cloud Tools is earlier than 7299 in a virtual machine in your vApp, you must upgrade it.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine in which you want to install Cyfuture Cloud Tools, select Install Cyfuture Cloud Tools.

Cyfuture Cloud Tools is installed on the target guest operating system. If there is an error during installation, an error message displays. You can also view the progress of the installation operation in the Tasks window.

  1. To open the Web console of the virtual machine, from the Actions menu, select Launch Web Console.

  2. Follow the instructions on the Cyfuture Cloud Knowledge Base Article 1014294 to configure the Cyfuture Cloud Tools for your particular operating system.


    Cyfuture Cloud Tools is installed and configured on the guest operating system.

Upgrade the Virtual Hardware Version for a Virtual Machine


You can upgrade the virtual hardware version for a virtual machine. Later virtual hardware versions support more features.

You cannot downgrade the hardware version of the virtual machines in a vApp.

Cyfuture Cloud Console supports hardware versions depending on the backing vSphere resources. The supported hardware version depends on the latest supported virtual hardware version in the backing Provider VDC. An Organization Administrator or a System Administrator can set the hardware version to an earlier than the latest supported version by the underlying hardware. The Cyfuture Cloud Console tenant portal dynamically sets the list of selectable virtual hardware versions based on the backing hardware of the Organization or Provider VDC.

For information about the hardware features available with virtual machine compatibility settings, see vSphere Virtual Machine Administration.

For information about the Cyfuture Cloud products and their virtual hardware version, see https:// kb.Cyfuture Cloud.com/s/article/1003746.

        Prerequisites

  • Stop the virtual machine or the vApp that contains the virtual machine.

 

  • Verify that the latest version of Cyfuture Cloud Tools is installed on the virtual machine.

    Procedure

    1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

    2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

    3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine you want to upgrade, select Upgrade Virtual Hardware Version.

          4. Click OK.


    Results

    The virtual machine is upgraded to the latest version.

Edit Virtual Machine Properties

You can edit the properties of a virtual machine, including the virtual machine name and description, hardware and network settings, guest OS settings, and so on.

Change the General Properties of a Virtual Machine

Prerequisites

Changing properties such as operating system, requires that the machine is powered off.

 Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.
  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. In the card of the virtual machine you want to edit, click Details.

The list of properties that you can view or edit under General expands by default.

Option

Action

Virtual Machine Name

Edit the name of the virtual machine.

You can edit this property while the virtual machine is powered on.

Computer Name

Edit the computer and host name set in the guest operating system that identifies the virtual machine on a network. This field is restricted to 15 characters because of a Windows OS limitation on computer names.

You can edit this property while the virtual machine is powered on.

Description

Edit the optional description of the virtual machine.

You can edit this property while the virtual machine is powered on.

Operating System Family

Select an operating system family from the drop-down menu.

You can edit this property while the virtual machine is powered off. In addition, you cannot edit this property if an operating system is already present on the virtual machine.

Operating System

Select an operating system from the drop-down menu.

You can edit this property while the virtual machine is powered off. In addition, you cannot edit this property if an operating system is already present on the virtual machine.

Boot Delay

Specify the time in milliseconds to delay the boot operation.

The time between when you power on the virtual machine and when it exits the BIOS and launches the guest operating system software can be short. You can change the boot delay to provide more time.

Storage Policy

Select a storage policy for the virtual machine to use from the drop-down menu.

You can edit this property while the virtual machine is powered on.

Virtual Data Center

View the name of the virtual data center to which this virtual machine belongs.

Cyfuture Cloud Tools

View whether Cyfuture Cloud Tools is installed on the virtual machine.

Virtual Hardware Version

View the virtual hardware version of the virtual machine.

Upgrade to:

To upgrade, select a version from the drop-down menu.

Synchronize time

Select the check box to enable time synchronization between the virtual

machine guest operating system and the virtual data center in which it is running.

Enter BIOS Setup

Select whether to force entry into the BIOS setup screen the next time the virtual machine boots.

You can edit this property while the virtual machine is powered off.

 
5. Click Save once you complete making your changes.

Change the Hardware Properties of a Virtual Machine

You can review and change the hardware properties of a virtual machine.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. In the card of the virtual machine you want to edit, click Details.

     4. Click Hardware to expand the list of hardware properties that you can view and edit.

Option

Description

Number of virtual CPUs

Edit the number of CPUs.

The maximum number of virtual CPUs that you can assign to a virtual machine depends on the number of logical CPUs on the host and the type of guest operating system that is installed on the virtual machine.

Cores per socket

Edit the cores per socket.

You can configure how the virtual CPUs are assigned in terms of cores and cores per socket. Determine how many CPU cores you want in the virtual machine, then select the number of cores you want in each socket,

depending on whether you want a single core CPU, dual-core CPU, tri-core CPU, and so on.

Expose hardware-assisted CPU virtualization to guest OS

You can expose full CPU virtualization to the guest operating system so that applications that require hardware virtualization can run on virtual machines without binary translation or paravirtualization.

Total Memory

Edit the memory resource settings for a virtual machine. The virtual machine memory size must be a multiple of 4 MB.

This setting determines how much of the ESXi host memory is allocated to the virtual machine. The virtual hardware memory size determines how much memory is available to applications that run in the virtual machine. A virtual machine cannot benefit from more memory resources than its configured virtual hardware memory size.

Memory hot add

If you enable memory hot-add, you can add memory resources to a virtual

machine while the machine is powered on. This feature is only supported on certain guest operating systems and virtual machine hardware versions greater than 7.

Virtual CPU hot add

If you enable virtual CPU hot-add, you can add virtual CPUs to the virtual machine while it is powered on. You can add only multiples of the number of cores per socket. This feature is only supported on certain guest operating systems and virtual machine hardware versions.

Number of sockets

View the number of sockets.

The number of sockets is determined by the number of virtual CPUs available. The number changes when you update the number of virtual CPUs.

Removable Media

View the available removable media, such as attached CD/DVD and floppy drive.

 
 
 
5. Under Hard Disks, click Add to add a hard disk.
 

Option

Description

Size

Enter the hard disk size in MB. You can increase the size of the hard disk later.

 

Note You can increase the size of an existing hard disk if the virtual machine is not a linked clone and it has no snapshots.

Policy

The storage policy for the virtual machine is used by default.

By default, all the hard disks attached to a virtual machine use the storage policy specified for the virtual machine. You can override this default for any of these disks when you create a virtual machine or modify its properties. The Size column for each hard disk includes a drop-down menu that lists all the storage policies available for this virtual machine.

IOPS

Select a specific IOPS for the disk.

Use this option to limit the per-disk I/O operations per second.

Bus Type

Select the bus type.

The options are Paravirtual (SCSI), LSI Logic Parallel (SCSI), LSI Logic SAS (SCSI), IDE, and SATA. For more information on storage controller types and compatibility, see vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide.

Bus Number

Enter the bus number.

Unit Number

Enter the logical unit number for the hard disk drive.

 

6. Under NICs, click Add to add a new NIC.

 For information about the number of supported number of NICs depending on the virtual machine hardware version, see: http://kb.Cyfuture Cloud.com/s/ article/2051652. Cyfuture Cloud Console supports modifying virtual machine NICs while the virtual machine is running. For information about supported network adapter types, see http:// kb.Cyfuture Cloud.com/kb/1001805.

Option

Description

Primary NIC

A flag displays when the primary NIC is selected.

Select a primary NIC. The primary NIC setting determines the default and only gateway for the virtual machine. The virtual machine can use any NIC to connect to virtual and physical machines that are directly connected to the same network as the NIC, but it can only use the primary NIC to connect to machines on networks that require a gateway connection.

NIC

Number of the NIC.

Connected

Select the check box to connect a NIC.

Network

Select a network from the drop-down menu.

IP Mode

Select an IP mode.

Caution Do not set the IP mode to None if you selected a network to which to connect the NIC.

 
  • Static - IP Pool

Pulls a static IP address from the network IP pool.

  • Static - Manual

Allows you to specify a specific IP address manually. If you select this option, you must type an IP address in the IP Address column.

  • DHCP

Pulls an IP address from a DHCP server.

MAC Address

From the drop-down menu, select whether to keep or to reset the MAC address.

 
7. Click Save.

Change the Guest OS Customization Properties of a Virtual Machine

Guest OS customization on Cyfuture Cloud Console is optional for all platforms. It is required for virtual machines that must join a Windows domain.

Some of the information requested on this menu applies only to Windows platforms. The Guest OS Customization panel includes the information necessary for the virtual machine to join a Windows domain. An organization administrator can specify default values for a domain that Windows guests in that organization can join. Not all Windows virtual machines must join a domain, but in most enterprise installations, a virtual machine that is not a domain member cannot access many of the available network resources.

Prerequisites

This operation requires the rights included in the predefined vApp Author role or an equivalent set of rights.

Guest customization requires the virtual machine to be running Cyfuture Cloud Tools.

Before you can customize a Windows guest OS, your system administrator must install the appropriate Microsoft Sysprep files on the Cyfuture Cloud Console server group. See the Cyfuture Cloud Console Installation, Configuration, and Upgrade Guide.

Customization of Linux guest operating systems requires that Perl is installed in the guest.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. In the card of the virtual machine you want to edit, click Details.

     4. Click Guest OS Customization and Properties to expand the list of guest operating system settings.

Option

Description

Enable Guest Customization

Select this option to enable guest customization.

Change SID

Select this option to change the Windows Security ID (SID).

This option is specific for virtual machines running a Windows guest operating system. The SID is used in some Windows operating systems to uniquely identify systems and users. If you do not select this option, the new virtual machine has the same SID as the virtual machine or template on which it is based. Duplicate SIDs do not cause problems when the computers are part of a domain and only domain user accounts are used. However, if the machines are part of a Workgroup or local user accounts are used, duplicate SIDs can compromise file access controls. For more information, see the documentation for your Microsoft Windows operating system.

Allow local administrator password

Select this option to allow setting an administrator password on the guest operating system.

  1. Specify a password for the local administrator.


Leaving the Specify password text box blank generates a password automatically.

  1. Specify the number of times to allow automatic login.


Entering a value of zero disables automatic login as an administrator.

Require Administrators to change password on first login

Select this option to require administrators to change the password of the guest operating system on the first login. This is recommended for security purposes.

Auto generate password

Select this option to allow password auto generation.

Enable this VM to join a domain

You can select this option to join the virtual machine to a Windows domain.

You can use the organization's domain or override the organization's domain and enter the domain properties.

  • Enter the domain name.

  • Enter the user name and password.

  • Enter the account organizational unit.

Script

You can use a customization script to modify the guest operating system of the virtual machine. When you add a customization script to a virtual machine, the script is called only on initial customization and force recustomization. If you set the precustomization command line parameter, the script is called before guest customization begins. If you set the postcustomization command line parameter, the script is called after guest customization finishes.

  • Click the upload button below the script text box to navigate to acustomization script on your local machine.
  • Type the customization script directly into the Script file text box.A customization script that you enter directly into the Script file text box cannot contain more than 1500 characters. For more information, see Cyfuture Cloud Knowledge Base article https://kb.Cyfuture Cloud.com/kb/1026614.

 
5. Click Save once you complete making your changes.

Understanding Guest Customization

When you customize your guest operating system, there are some settings and options you should know about.

Enable Guest Customization Check Box

This check box is found on the Guest OS customization tab on the virtual machine Properties page. The goal of guest customization is to configure based on the options selected in the Properties page. If this check box is selected, guest customization and recustomization is performed when required.

This process is required for all guest customization features, such as the computer name, network settings, setting and expiring the administrator and root passwords, SID change for Windows Operating systems, and so on, to work. This option should be selected for Power on and Force re-customization to work.

If the check box is selected, and the virtual machine's configuration parameters in Cyfuture Cloud Console are out of sync with the settings in the guest OS, the Profile tab on the virtual machines Properties page displays that the settings out of sync with the guest OS and the virtual machine needs guest customization.

Guest Customization Behavior for vApps and Virtual Machines

The check boxes are deselected.

Enable guest customization In Windows guest OSs, Change SID

Password reset

If you want to perform a customization (or you made changes to network settings that need to be reflected in the guest OS), you can select the Enable guest customization check box and set the options on the Guest OS Customization tab of the virtual machine Properties page. When virtual machines from vApp templates are used to create a vApp and then add a virtual machine, the vApp templates act as building blocks. When you add virtual machines from the catalog to a new vApp, the virtual machines are enabled for guest customization by default. When you save a vApp template from a catalog as a vApp, virtual machines are enabled for guest customization only if the Enable guest customization check box is selected.

These are the default values of guest customization settings:

The Enable guest customization check box is the same as the source virtual machine in your catalog.

For Windows guest virtual machines, Change SID is the same as the source virtual machine in your catalog.

The password reset setting is same as the source virtual machine in your catalog.

You can deselect the Enable guest customization check box if required before you start the vApp. If blank virtual machines, which are pending guest OS installation, are added to a vApp, the

Enable guest customization check box is deselected by default because these virtual machines are not yet ready for customization.

After you install the guest OS and Cyfuture Cloud Tools, you can power off the virtual machines, stop vApp, and select the Enable guest customization check box and start the vApp and virtual machines to perform guest customization.

If the virtual machine name and network settings are updated on a virtual machine that has been customized, the next time you power on the virtual machine, it is recustomized, which resynchronizes the guest virtual machine with Cyfuture Cloud Console.

Power on and Force Recustomization of a Virtual Machine

You can power on a virtual machine and force the recustomization of a virtual machine.

If the settings in a virtual machine are not synchronized with Cyfuture Cloud Console or an attempt to perform a guest customization has failed, you can force the recustomization of the virtual machine.

Ensure that the application that is running in the virtual machine supports a recustomization. If you change a domain controller by using Microsoft Sysprep, and also change the SID, the virtual machine might be damaged. To mitigate the risk of damaging your virtual machine, create a snapshot before you recustomize it.

Prerequisites

You must be an organization administrator

The virtual machine must be powered off.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. From the Power menu of the virtual machine you want to power on and customize, select

Power On and Force Recustomization.

Results

The virtual machine is recustomized and powered on.

Change the Advanced Properties of a Virtual Machine

In the Advanced settings, you can configure the resource allocation settings (shares, reservation, and limit) to determine the amount of CPU, memory, and storage resources provided for a virtual machine.

Use the resource allocation settings (shares, reservation, and limit) to determine the amount of CPU, memory, and storage resources provided for a virtual machine.

Resource Allocation Shares

Shares specify the relative importance of a virtual machine within a virtual data center. If a virtual machine has twice as many shares of a resource as another virtual machine, it is entitled to consume twice as much of that resource when these two virtual machines are competing for resources. Shares are typically specified as High, Normal, or Low and these values specify share values with a 4:2:1 ratio, respectively. You can also select Custom to assign a specific number of shares (which expresses a proportional weight) to each virtual machine. When you assign shares to a virtual machine, you always specify the priority for that virtual machine relative to other powered-on virtual machines.

Resource Allocation Reservation

Specifies the guaranteed minimum allocation for a virtual machine. Cyfuture Cloud Console allows you to power on a virtual machine only if there are enough unreserved resources to satisfy the reservation of the virtual machine. The virtual data center guarantees that amount even when its resources are heavily loaded. The reservation is expressed in concrete units (megahertz or megabytes).

For example, assume that you have 2 GHz available and specify a resource allocation reservation of 1 GHz for virtual machine 1 and 1 GHz for virtual machine 2. Now each virtual machine is guaranteed to get 1 GHz if it needs it. However, if virtual machine 1 is using only 500 MHz, virtual machine 2 can use 1.5 GHz.

Reservation defaults to 0. You can specify a reservation if you need to guarantee that the minimum required amounts of CPU or memory are always available to the virtual machine.

Resource Allocation Limit

Specifies an upper bound for CPU and memory resources that can be allocated to a virtual machine. A virtual data center can allocate more than the reservation to a virtual machine, but never allocates more than the limit, even if there are unused resources on the system. The limit is expressed in concrete units (megahertz or megabytes).

CPU and memory resource limits default to unlimited. When the memory limit is unlimited, the amount of memory configured for the virtual machine when it was created becomes its effective limit in most cases.

In most cases, it is not necessary to specify a limit. You might waste idle resources if you specify a limit. The system does not allow a virtual machine to use more resources than the limit, even when the system is underutilized, and idle resources are available. Specify a limit only if you have good reasons for doing so.

Prerequisites

A reservation pool virtual data center.

Ensure that a certain amount of memory for a virtual machine is provided by the virtual data center.

Guarantee that a particular virtual machine is always allocated a higher percentage of the virtual data center resources than other virtual machines.

Set an upper bound on the resources that can be allocated to a virtual machine.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. In the card of the virtual machine you want to edit, click Details.

  4. Click Advanced and Edit.

  5. Set the resource allocations shares for the CPU settings by selecting an option from the Priority drop-down menu.

    Option

    Description

    Low

    Allocates 500 shares per virtual CPU.

    Normal

    Allocates 1000 shares per virtual CPU.

    High

    Allocates 2000 shares per virtual CPU

     

    Custom

    Allows you to assign a specific number of shares by entering the number of shares (which expresses a proportional weight) to each virtual machine.

    When you assign shares to a virtual machine, you always specify the priority for that virtual machine relative to other powered-on virtual machines.

  1. Specify the reservation for the CPU settings by entering the reservation in MHz, and optionally, the limit for the CPU settings in MHz.

 

Option

Description

Unlimited

The default CPU resource option.

Maximum

Specify an upper bound for CPU resources that can be allocated to a virtual machine in MHz.

 

  1. Set the resource allocations shares for the memory settings by selecting an option from the

Priority drop-down menu.

 

Option

Description

Low

Allocates 5 shares per megabyte of configured virtual machine memory.

Normal

Allocates 10 shares per megabyte of configured virtual machine memory.

High

Allocates 20 shares per megabyte of configured virtual machine memory.

Custom

Allows you to assign a specific number of shares by entering the number of shares.

 

  1. Specify the reservation for the memory settings in MB and, optionally, the limit for the memory settings in MB.

 

Option

Description

Unlimited

The default memory resource option.

Maximum

Specify an upper bound for memory reservation that can be allocated to a virtual machine.

 

  1. Click Save.

 

Insert Media

You can insert media such as CD/DVD images from catalogs to use in a virtual machine guest operating system. You can use these media files to install an operating system in the virtual machine, various applications, drivers, and so on.

Prerequisites

You have access to a catalog with media files.

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. Select the virtual machine where you want to add the media.

  1. From the Actions menu, select Insert Media.

  1. On the Insert CD window, select the media file to insert in the virtual machine.

  1. Click Insert.

 

Eject Media

After you have finished using a CD or a DVD in your virtual machine, you can eject the media file.

Prerequisites

A media file was previously inserted to the virtual machine.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. Select the virtual machine from which you want to eject the media.

  1. From the Actions menu, select Eject Media.

Results

The media file is ejected.

 

Copy a Virtual Machine to a Different vApp

You can copy a virtual machine to another vApp. When you copy a virtual machine, the original virtual machine remains in the source vApp.

When you copy a virtual machine, the snapshots are not included in the copy.

Prerequisites

  • This operation requires the rights included in the predefined vApp Author role or an equivalent set of rights.

  • Power off the VM.

Procedures

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine you want to copy, select Copy to.

  1. Select the destination vApp to which you want to copy the virtual machine, and click Next.

  1. Configure the resources, such as name of the virtual machine and computer name, and, optionally, the storage policy and NICs, and click Next.

Important-The computer name can contain only alphanumeric characters and hyphens. It cannot consist of digits only and cannot contain spaces.

  1. On the Ready to Complete page review your settings and click Done.

Move a Virtual Machine to a Different vApp

You can move a virtual machine to another vApp. When you move a VM, Cyfuture Cloud Console removes the original VM from the source vApp.

When you move a virtual machine to a different vApp, the snapshots that you have taken are lost.

® ®Moving VMs across different vApps relies on Cyfuture Cloud vMotion   and Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC). You can move a VM to a different vApp that belongs to the same or another organization VDC within the same organization. The organization VDC can be within the same or a different provider VDC.

While you are moving a virtual machine to a different vApp, you can perform reconfigurations such as changing the network and the storage profile.

Table 2-1. Reconfigurations During Virtual Machine Movements and Virtual Machine States

 





Reconfiguration


VM state if the target vApp is in the same organization VDC

VM state if the target vApp in another organization VDC within the same provider VDC

change the network

powered off

N/A

remove the network

powered on or off

N/A

change the storage profile

powered on or off

powered off

 

Prerequisites

  • Verify that you have the vApp Author role or an equivalent set of rights.

  • Verify that the underlying vSphere resources support vMotion and EVC. For information about the requirements and limitations of vMotion and EVC, see VMWare vCenter Server and Host Management.

  • If you want to change the VM network or the storage profile, check whether you must power off the VM. See table Reconfigurations During VM Movements and VM States.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. From the Actions menu of the machine you want to move, select Move to.

  1. Select the destination vApp, and click Next.

  1. Configure the resources, such as the name of the VM and the computer name, and, optionally, the storage policy and NICs, and click Next.

Important- The computer name can contain only alphanumeric characters and hyphens. It cannot consist of digits only and cannot contain spaces.

  1. On the Ready to Complete page review your settings and click Done.

 

Virtual Machine Affinity and Anti-Affinity

Affinity and anti-affinity rules allow you to spread a group of virtual machines across different ESXi hosts or keep a group of virtual machines on a particular ESXi host.

An affinity rule places a group of virtual machines on a specific host so that you can easily audit the usage of those virtual machines. An anti-affinity rule places a group of virtual machines across different hosts, which prevents all virtual machines from failing at once in the event that a single host fails.

If the affinity or anti-affinity rules cannot be satisfied, this prevents the virtual machines added to the rule from powering on.

View Affinity and Anti-Affinity Rules

You can view existing affinity and anti-affinity rules and their properties, such as the virtual machines affected by the rules and whether the rules are enabled.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select Affinity Rules.

  2. (Optional) Click the Grid editor icon (Grid Editor) and select what details about the rules you want to be displayed.

Results

You see the list of the existing affinity and anti-affinity rules, virtual machines, and enabled status of each rule.

Create an Affinity Rule

Create an affinity rule to place a specific group of virtual machines on a single host so that you can audit the usage of those virtual machines.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select Affinity Rules.

  2. Under Affinity Rules, click New.

  1. Enter the name of the rule.

  1. Deselect Enabled to create the rule without enabling it.

By default, the check box is selected and rules are enabled after you create them.

  1. Leave the Required check box selected.

By default, each affinity rule is required. This means that if the rule cannot be satisfied, the virtual machines added to the rule do not power on.

  1. Select the virtual machines that you want to add to the affinity rule.

  1. Click Save.

Results

Cyfuture Cloud Console places the virtual machines associated with the affinity rule on a single host.

Create an Anti-Affinity Rule

Create an anti-affinity rule to place a specific group of virtual machines across multiple hosts to prevent simultaneous failure of those virtual machines in the event that a single host fails.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select Affinity Rules.

  2. Under Anti-Affinity Rules, click New.

  1. Enter a name of the rule.

  1. Deselect Enabled to create the rule without enabling it.

By default, the check box is selected and rules are enabled after you create them.

  1. Leave the Required check box selected.

 By default, each anti-affinity rule is required. This means that if the rule cannot be satisfied, the virtual machines added to the rule do not power on.

  1. Select the virtual machines to add to the anti-affinity rule.

  2. Click Save.

Results

Cyfuture Cloud Console places the virtual machines associated with the anti-affinity rule across multiple hosts.

Edit an Affinity or Anti-Affinity Rule

You can edit an affinity or anti-affinity rule to enable or disable the rule, add or remove virtual machines, change the rule name or the rule preference.

Prerequisites

This operation requires the Organization vDC: VM-VM Affinity Edit right. This right is included in the predefined Catalog Author, vApp Author, and Organization Administrator roles.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select Affinity Rules.

  2. Click the radio button next to the name of the rule that you want to edit and click Edit.

  1. Edit the rule properties.

  • Change the name of the rule as necessary.
  • Select whether to enable or disable the rule.
  • Leave the Required check box selected.
  • Add more virtual machines or remove virtual machines.
  1. Click Save.

Delete an Affinity or Anti-Affinity Rule

If you no longer want to use an affinity or anti affinity rule, you can delete it.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select Affinity Rules.

  2. Click the radio button next to the name of the rule that you want to delete and click Delete.

  3. To confirm that you want to delete the rule, click OK.

Results

Cyfuture Cloud Console deletes the affinity or anti-affinity rule.

 

Monitor Virtual Machines

If your Cyfuture Cloud Console administrator has enabled the feature for monitoring virtual machines, you can view the monitoring chart from the tenant portal.

Use this feature to understand the status of a given virtual machine over time (days, weeks, or months).

Prerequisites

This feature is only available if your Cyfuture Cloud Console administrator has enabled it.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. Select the virtual machine you want to monitor and click Details.

  1. Click Monitoring chart to expand the monitoring view. The monitoring chart displays.

     5.

  1. Select a metric option for monitoring virtual machines.

The list in the Metric drop-down menu varies depending on the choices of your system administrator. You see some or all of the options.

 

Metric

Description

Disk provisioned latest

Specified in KB.

Choose from day, week, or month view.

Disk read average

Specified as a percentage.

Choose from day, week, or month view.

Disk write average

Specified as a percentage.

Choose from day, week, or month view.

CPU usage average

Specified as a percentage.

Choose from day, week, or month view.

CPU usage MHz average

Specified in MHz.

Choose from day, week, or month view.

 

CPU usage maximum

Specified as a percentage.

Choose from day, week, or month view.

Mem usage average

Specified as a percentage.

Choose from day, week, or month view.

Disk used latest

Specified in KB.

Choose from day, week, or month view.

A new chart is displayed each time you select a different value from the list.

  1. (Optional) Change the time frame for metrics collection.

  1. Click Refresh.

  1. To save your changes, click Save.

Working with Snapshots

Snapshots preserve the state and data of a virtual machine at the time you take the snapshot. When you take a snapshot of a virtual machine, the virtual machine is not affected and only an image of the virtual machine in a given state is copied and stored. Snapshots are useful when you must revert repeatedly to the same virtual machine state, but you do not want to create multiple virtual machines.

Snapshots are useful as a short-term solution for testing software with unknown or potentially harmful effects. For example, you can use a snapshot as a restoration point during a linear or iterative process, such as installing update packages, or during a branching process, such as installing different versions of a program.

You might want to use a snapshot when upgrading the operating system of a virtual machine. For example, before you upgrade the virtual machine, you take a snapshot to preserve the point in time before the upgrade. If there are no issues during the upgrade, you can choose to remove the snapshot, which will commit the changes you made during the upgrade. However, if you encountered an issue, you can revert to the snapshot, which will move back to your saved virtual machine state prior to the upgrade.

With Cyfuture Cloud Console you can have only one snapshot of a virtual machine. Each attempt to take a new snapshot of a virtual machine deletes the previous one.

Take a Snapshot of a Virtual Machine

You can take a snapshot of a virtual machine. After you take the snapshot, you can revert the virtual machine to the snapshot, or remove the snapshot.

Prerequisites

Verify that the virtual machine is not connected to a named disk.

Note- Snapshots do not capture NIC configurations.

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine for which you want to take a snapshot, select

Create Snapshot.

Taking a snapshot of a virtual machine replaces the existing snapshot if there is any.

  1. (Optional) Select whether to snapshot the memory of the virtual machine.

When you capture the virtual machine's memory state, the snapshot retains the live state of the virtual machine. Memory snapshots create a snapshot at a precise time, for example, to upgrade software that is still working. If you take a memory snapshot and the upgrade does not complete as expected, or the software does not meet your expectations, you can revert the virtual machine to its previous state.

When you capture the memory state, the virtual machine's files do not require quiescing. If you do not capture the memory state, the snapshot does not save the live state of the virtual machine and the disks are crash consistent unless you quiesce them.

  1. (Optional) Select whether to quiesce the guest file system.

This operation requires that Cyfuture Cloud Tools is installed on the virtual machine. When you quiesce a virtual machine, Cyfuture Cloud Tools quiesces the file system of the virtual machine. A quiesce operation ensures that a snapshot disk represents a consistent state of the guest file systems. Quiesced snapshots are appropriate for automated or periodic backups. For example, if you are unaware of the virtual machine's activity, but want several recent backups to revert to, you can quiesce the files.

You cannot quiesce virtual machines that have large capacity disks.

  1. Click OK.

Results

The snapshot allows you to revert your virtual machine to the most recent snapshot.

 

Revert a Virtual Machine to a Snapshot

You can revert a virtual machine to the state it was in when the snapshot was created. 

Prerequisites

The virtual machine has a snapshot.

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual                  Machines.
  2. Click to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.Card Icon
  3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine you want to revert to a snapshot, select Revert to Snapshot.
  4. Click OK.

Results

The virtual machine is reverted to the saved snapshot.

 

Remove a Snapshot of a Virtual Machine

You can remove a snapshot of a virtual machine.

When you remove a snapshot, you delete the state of the virtual machine that you preserved, and you can never return to that state again. Removing a snapshot does not affect the current state of the virtual machine.

Prerequisites

A virtual machine with a stored snapshot.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine for which you want to remove the snapshot, select Remove Snapshot.

  4. Click OK.

 

Renew a Virtual Machine Lease

You can renew a virtual machine lease if the lease is expiring soon.

Prerequisites

This operation requires the rights included in the predefined Organization Administrator role or an equivalent set of rights.

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.
  2. Click to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.Card Icon
  3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine with expiring lease, select Renew Lease.

Results

The lease renews. You can see the new lease time frame in the Lease field.

Delete a Virtual Machine

You can delete a virtual machine from your organization.

Prerequisites

Your virtual machine must be powered off.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine that you want to delete, select Delete.

  1. Confirm the deletion.

Results

The virtual machine is deleted.

Auto Scale Groups

Starting with Cyfuture Cloud Console 10.2.2, you can auto scale applications depending on the current CPU and memory use.

For information about the configuration of the auto scale solution, see Auto Scale Groups in the

Cyfuture Cloud Console Installation, Configuration, and Upgrade Guide.

Depending on predefined criteria for the CPU and memory use, Cyfuture Cloud Console can automatically scale up or down the number of VMs in a selected scale group. To balance the load of the servers that you configure to run the same application, you can use Cyfuture Cloud NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi Networks).

System administrator and organization administrator roles have full control over the VMs in the scale groups. The other global tenant roles can view the VMs and access the VM Web Console but cannot delete, edit, perform power operations, and so on.

If you delete a scale group, Cyfuture Cloud Console does not delete any of the existing VMs in the scale group.

Create a Scale Group

Starting with Cyfuture Cloud Console 10.2.2, your service provider can grant you rights to create scale groups. The amount of VMs in a scale group changes automatically depending on the conditions that you define.

You can also access scale groups from a selected organization virtual data center (VDC).

Procedure

  1. From the top navigation bar, select Applications and select the Scale Groups tab.

  1. Click New Scale Group.

  1. Select an organization VDC in which to create the scale group.

  2. Enter a name and, optionally, a description of the new scale group.

  1. Select the minimum and maximum number of VMs to which you want the group to scale to, and click Next.

  2. Select a VM template for the VMs in the scale group and a storage policy, and click Next.

  1. Select a network for the scale group.

  • If your VDC is backed by ADVANCED NETWORKINGData Center, select a load balancer.

  • If you want to manage the load balancer on your own or if there is no need for a load balancer, select I have a fully set-up network.

  1. Click Create Group and Add Rules.

Results

Cyfuture Cloud Console starts the initial expansion of the scale group to reach the minimum number of VMs.

What to do next

  • Add an Auto Scaling Rule

  • From the details view of a scale group, when you select Monitor, you can see all tasks related to this scale group. For example, you can see the time of creation of the scale group, all growing or shrinking tasks for the group, the rules that initiated the tasks, and so on.

  • Delete a scale group. When you delete a scale group, Cyfuture Cloud Console does not delete any of the existing VMs in the scale group. If you want to reduce the number of VMs, you must manually delete them.

Add an Auto Scaling Rule

Starting with Cyfuture Cloud Console 10.2.2, your service provider can grant you rights to create and manage scale groups. You can add rules that trigger the growing or shrinking of scale groups.

Prerequisites

Create a Scale Group

 Procedure

  1. From the top navigation bar, select Applications and select the Scale Groups tab.

  1. Select a scale group and select Rules.

  1. Click Add Rule.

  1. Enter a name for the rule.

  1. Select whether the scale group must expand or shrink when the rule takes effect.

  1. Select the number of VMs by which you want the group to expand or shrink when the rule takes effect.

  2. Enter a cooldown period in minutes after each auto scale in the group.

The conditions cannot trigger another scaling until the cooldown period expires. The cooldown period resets when any of the rules of the scale group takes effect.

  1. Add a condition that triggers the rule.

The duration period is the time for which the condition must be valid to trigger the rule. To trigger the rule, all conditions must be met.

  1. (Optional) To add another condition, click Add Condition.

  1. Click Add.

 

  1. On the Ready to Complete page, review your settings and click Finish.

Results

The new vApp appears in the card view.

Import a Virtual Machine from VMWare vCenter Server as a vApp

If you have system administrator rights, you can import VMWare vCenter Server VMs as vApps to Cyfuture Cloud Console.

Importing a virtual machine does not keep the virtual machine reservation, limit, and shares settings that are configured in VMWare vCenter Server. Imported virtual machines get their resource allocation settings from the organization virtual data center on which they reside.

Prerequisites

To see and import virtual machines from VMWare vCenter Server, verify that you have system administrator rights.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click New and select Import from VMWare vCenter.

  1. From the drop-down menu, select a VMWare vCenter Server instance from which to import a virtual machine.

  2. Select a virtual machine to import.

  1. Enter a name and, optionally, a description for the vApp.

  1. From the drop-down menu, select a virtual data center in which to store and run the vApp.

  1. (Optional) From the drop-down menu, select a storage policy for the vApp.

  1. (Optional) To delete the source virtual machine, toggle on the Move Virtual Machine option.

  1. Click Import.

Performing Power Operations on vApps

You can perform power operations on vApps, such as power on or off a vApp, suspending or resetting a vApp.

Power on a vApp

Powering on a vApp powers on all the virtual machines in the vApp that are not already powered on.

Prerequisites

You are at least a vApp author.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp you want to power on, select Power On.

Results

The vApp is powered on.

Power off a vApp

Powering off a vApp powers off all the virtual machines in the vApp. To perform certain actions, such as adding a vApp to a catalog, copying it, or moving it to another VDC, first you must power off the vApp.

Prerequisites

The vApp must be started.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp you want to stop, select Power Off.

  1. Click OK.

Results

All virtual machines in the vApp and the vApp itself are powered off.

Reset a vApp

Resetting a vApp clears state (memory, cache, and so on), but the vApp continues to run.

Prerequisites

Your vApp is started and virtual machines in it are powered on.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of vApp you want to reset, select Reset.

Results

The state is cleared, and the vApp continues to run.

Suspend a vApp

Suspending a vApp preserves its current state by writing the memory to disk.

Prerequisites

The vApp is running.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp you want to suspend, select Suspend.

Results

The vApp is suspended and its state is preserved.

Discard the Suspended State of a vApp

If a vApp is in a suspended state and you no longer have to resume the use of the vApp, you

can discard the suspended state. Discarding the suspended state removes the saved memory and returns the vApp to a powered-off state.

Prerequisites

The vApp must be in a suspended state.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the suspended vApp, select Discard Suspended State.

Results

The state is discarded and the vApp is powered off.

Power on Multiple vApps

You can power on multiple vApps simultaneously. This action powers on all the VMs in the vApp that are not already powered on.

Prerequisites

Verify that you are at least vApp author.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  1. Select the vApps that you want to power on.

  1. From the Actions menu, select Power On.

  1. Click OK to confirm.

Power off Multiple vApps

You can power off multiple vApps simultaneously. This action powers off all the virtual machines in the vApps. To perform certain actions, such as adding a vApp to a catalog, copying it, or moving it to another virtual data center, first you must power off the vApp. 

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the vApps are started.

  • Verify that you are at least vApp author.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  1. Select the vApps that you want to power off.

  1. From the Actions menu, select Power Off.

  1. Click OK to confirm.

Discard the Suspended State of Multiple vApps

If multiple vApps are in a suspended state and you no longer have to resume their use, you can discard the suspended state of the vApps simultaneously. Discarding the suspended state removes the saved memory and returns the vApps to a powered-off state.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the vApps are in a suspended state.

  • Verify that you are at least vApp author.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  1. Select the suspended vApps that you want to power off.

  1. From the Actions menu, select Discard Suspended State.

Results

The vApps are powered off.

Reset Multiple vApps

Resetting multiple vApps simultaneously clears their state, which includes memory, cache, and so on, but the vApps continue to run.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the vApps are started and the virtual machines in them are powered on.

  • Verify that you are at least vApp author.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  1. Select the vApps that you want to reset.

  1. From the Actions menu, select Reset and click OK to confirm.

Results

The state of each vApp is cleared, and the vApps continue to run.

Suspend Multiple vApps

Suspending multiple vApps simultaneously preserves their current state by writing the memory to disk.

Prerequisites

Verify that the vApps are running.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  1. Select the vApps that you want to suspend.

  1. From the Actions menu of the vApp you want to suspend, select Suspend, and click OK to confirm.

Results

The vApps are suspended and their state is preserved.

Open a vApp

You can open a vApp to view the virtual machines and networks it contains. You can also view a diagram showing how the virtual machines and networks are connected.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

From the card view, you can see general information for each vApp, such as its name, power state, lease information, date of creation, owner, the number of virtual machines associated with the vApp, total number of CPUs, total storage and memory, and associated networks.

  1. To view the detailed settings of a selected vApp, click Details on the vApp card.

Edit vApp Properties

You can edit the properties of an existing vApp, including the vApp name and description, lease settings, order in which to start the virtual machines in the vApp, sharing settings, and network settings.

Edit the General Properties of the vApp

You can review and change the name, description, and other general properties of a vApp.

Prerequisites 

Verify that the vApp is powered off.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details to view and edit the vApp properties.

  4. Review and change the properties as needed, and click Save.

 

Option

Action

Name

Enter a new name for the vApp.

Description

Type an optional description of the vApp.

Virtual data center

The name of the data center to which the vApp belongs.

Snapshot

If there is a snapshot, details for it display.

Leases

Select Renew to renew the lease.

a    Schedule the runtime lease in number of hours or days.

Defines how long the vApp can run before it is automatically stopped. b Schedule the storage lease in number of hours or days.

Defines the how long the vApp remains available before being automatically deleted.

Results

The general settings are saved.

Edit the Start and Stop Order of Virtual Machines in a vApp

You can configure the start and stop order of virtual machines within your vApp. Configure the start and stop order in case you have applications installed in the virtual machines that must start and stop in a particular order.

These settings are useful if you need to start and stop your virtual machines in a particular order. For example, one virtual machine houses a database server, another houses an application server, and the last houses a web server. In order for the related functions to work properly, the database server must start first, the application server must start second, and the web server must start last.

Prerequisites

Verify that the vApp is powered off.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. Click the Start and Stop Order tab and click Edit.

  1. Edit the start and stop order properties for each virtual machine, and click OK.

 

Option

Action

Start Order

Enter the order in which you want the virtual machine to start. You must enter a value for each machine in the sequence.

Start Action

Select a start action.

The start action determines what happens to a virtual machine when you start the vApp that contains it. By default, this option is set to Power On.

Start Wait

Enter the start wait time.

The start wait time is the amount of time (in seconds) that you want to wait before Cyfuture Cloud Console starts the next machine in the sequence.

Stop Action

Select the stop action.

The stop action is the action the virtual machine takes when you stop the vApp that contains it. If you select Power Off, the VM powers off without performing shutdown actions that ensure stability (which is the equivalent of pulling a plug out of a socket). Select this action if you have not installed Cyfuture Cloud Tools. Otherwise, select Shut Down, which ensures stability upon shutting down.

Stop Wait

Enter the stop wait time.

The stop wait time is the amount of time (in seconds) that you want to wait before Cyfuture Cloud Console shuts down the next virtual machine in the sequence.

 

Edit the Guest Properties of a vApp

If a vApp includes user-configurable OVF properties, you can review and modify those properties.

If a virtual machine in the vApp includes a value for a user-configurable property of the same name, the virtual machine value takes precedence.

Prerequisites

Verify that the vApp is stopped and that its guest properties are user-configurable.

Procedure 

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.

  3. In the card of the virtual machine you want to edit, click Details.

  1. Click Guest Properties and click Edit.

  1. Modify the guest properties for the vApp and click OK.

 

Share a vApp

You can share your vApps with other groups or users within your organization. The access controls that you set, determine the operations that can be completed on the shared vApps.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details, and scroll down to the sharing properties of the vApp.

  4. Select the users with whom you want to share the vApp and click Save.

 

Option

Action

Share with everyone in the organization

Select this option to share with all users in the organization and select the access level.

  • To grant full control, select Full Control.


All users in the organization can open, start, save a vApp as a vApp template, add the template to a catalog, change the owner of the vApp, copy to a catalog, and modify properties.

  • To grant read-only access, select Read Only.

Share with specific users and groups

Select this option to share only with users that you specify.

a    Select the names from the Users and groups with no access panel to

move them to the Users and groups with access panel. b Select an access level for the specified users and groups.

  • To grant full control, select Full Control.

Users with full control can open, start, save a vApp as a vApp template, add the template to a catalog, change the owner of the vApp, copy to a catalog, and modify properties.

  • To grant read-only access, select Read Only.

Results 

Your vApp is shared with the specified users or groups.

Display a vApp Network Diagram

A vApp network diagram provides a graphical view of the virtual machines and networks in a vApp.

Prerequisites

To view the vApp network diagram, your vApp must contain less than 40 virtual machines. If the vApp contains more than 40 virtual machines, the diagram is not available.

Procedure 

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. Click the Networks Diagram tab.

The diagram showing how the virtual machines and the networks in the vApp are connected is displayed. A star sign represents a primary NIC. If a NIC is connected, its color is green, if a NIC is not connected, its color is white.

  1. (Optional) To highlight the connected virtual machines and networks, click a network or a virtual machine.

The connected objects and the connections between them are highlighted.

What to do next

You can add virtual machines or networks from this page.

Working with Networks in a vApp

The virtual machines in a vApp can connect to vApp networks (isolated or routed) and organization virtual data center networks (direct or fenced). You can add networks of different types to a vApp to address multiple networking scenarios.

Virtual machines in the vApp can connect to the networks that are available in a vApp. If you want to connect a virtual machine to a different network, you must first add it to the vApp.

A vApp can include vApp networks and organization virtual data center networks. A vApp network can be isolated or routed. An isolated vApp network is contained within the vApp. You can also route a vApp network to an organization virtual data center network to provide connectivity to virtual machines outside of the vApp. For routed vApp networks, you can configure network services, such as a firewall and static routing.

Note- Organization VDCs that are backed by NSX Data Center for vSphere support routed, isolated and direct vApp networks.

Organization VDCs that are backed by ADVANCED NETWORKINGData Center support isolated and direct vApp networks.

You can connect a vApp directly to an organization virtual data center network. If you have multiple vApps that contain identical virtual machines connected to the same organization virtual data center network and you want to start the vApps at the same time, you can fence the vApp. Fencing the vApp allows you to power on the virtual machines without conflict, by isolating their MAC and IP addresses.

The networks that you add to the vApp use the network pool that is associated with the organization virtual data center in which you created the vApp.

View vApp Networks

You can access and view the networks in a vApp.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. Click the Networks tab.

The list of networks, if there are any, is displayed. You can view information about each network, such as name, gateway, netmask, connection and retain IP and NAT resources.

  1. (Optional) To edit the columns to see, click the Grid editor icon (Grid Editor) and select or deselect the check boxes of the columns you want to be displayed or hidden, respectively.

Fence a vApp Network

Powering on identical virtual machines which are included in different vApps might result in a conflict. To allow powering on of identical virtual machines in different vApps without conflicts, you must fence the vApp.

Fencing a vApp isolates the MAC and IP addresses of the virtual machines and changes the connection type of the organization VDC networks from direct to fenced. On the fenced networks firewall is automatically enabled and configured so that only outgoing traffic is allowed. When you fence a vApp, you can also configure NAT and firewall rules on the fenced networks.

Prerequisites

  • You can fence only direct vApp networks. If the vApp uses more than one network and the other networks are, for example, routed, only the direct network is fenced.

  • The virtual machines in the vApp that use the direct network must be stopped, so that the direct vApp network is not currently in use.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. Click the Networks tab.

  1. If the vApp is not fenced, click the Edit button.

  1. Toggle on the Fence vApp option and click OK.

Results

The IP and MAC addresses of the virtual machines become isolated. You can power on identical virtual machines in different vApps without a conflict.

Add a Network to a vApp

You can add a network to a vApp to make the network available to the virtual machines in the vApp. You can add a vApp network or an organization virtual data center network to a vApp.

Connections can be direct or fenced. Fencing allows identical virtual machines in different vApps to be powered on without conflict by isolating the MAC and IP addresses of the virtual machines.

When fencing is enabled and the vApp is powered on, an isolated network is created from the organization virtual data center network pool. An edge gateway is created and attached to the isolated network and the organization virtual data center network. Traffic going to and from the virtual machines pass through the edge gateway, which translates the IP address using NAT and proxy-AR. This allows a router to pass traffic between two networks by using the same IP space.

Prerequisites

To add an organization virtual data center network, your administrator must have created such a network.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Actions and select Add network.

  4. Select the type of network to add.

Option

Action

Organization VDC Network

Select an organization virtual data center network from the list of available networks.

vApp Network

a    Enter a name and, optionally, a description for the network. b Enter the network gateway CIDR.

c (Optional) Enter the primary and secondary DNS, and the DNS suffix. d (Optional) Select whether to allow guest VLAN.

  1. (Optional) Enter static IP pool settings, such as IP ranges.

  2. (Optional) To be able to connect to an organization virtual data center network, toggle on the Connect to an organization VDC network option and select a network from the list.

  1. Click Add.

Results

The network is added to the vApp.

What to do next

Connect a virtual machine in the vApp to the network.

Configuring Network Services for a vApp Network

You can configure network services, such as DHCP, firewalls, network address translation (NAT), and static routing for certain vApp networks.

The network services available depend on the type of vApp network.

Table 3-1. Network Services Available by Network Type


vApp Network Type


DHCP


Firewall


NAT


Static Routing

Direct

       

Routed

X

X

X

X

Isolated

X

     

 

Note- Organization VDCs that are backed by NSX Data Center for vSphere support routed, isolated and direct vApp networks.

Organization VDCs that are backed by ADVANCED NETWORKINGData Center support isolated and direct vApp networks.

View and Edit General Network Details

You can view and edit the general vApp network details, for example the network name and description.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. On the Networks tab, click a network to view the network details.

  1. On the General tab, review the network information.

  1. Click Edit.

  1. Edit the vApp network name and description.

  1. Click Save.

Edit the Static IP Pool Settings of a vApp Network

You can configure a vApp network to provide static IP addresses to the virtual machines in the vApp by pulling them from a static pool of IP addresses.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. On the Networks tab, click a network to view the network details.

  1. On the IP Management tab, click Static Pools.

  1. Click Edit.

  1. Enter an IP range and click Add.

  1. Click Save.

Edit the DNS Settings of a vApp Network

After you create e vApp network, you can view and edit the DNS settings at any time.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  4. On the Networks tab, click a network to view the network details.

  1. On the IP Management tab, click DNS. The DNS settings are displayed.

  2. Click Edit.

  1. Edit the primary and secondary DNS, and the DNS suffix.

  1. Click Save.

Configure DHCP for a vApp Network

You can configure certain vApp networks to provide DHCP services to virtual machines in the vApp.

When you enable DHCP for a vApp network, connect a NIC on virtual machine in the vApp to that network, and select DHCP as the IP mode for that NIC. Cyfuture Cloud Console assigns a DHCP IP address to the virtual machine when you power it on.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the vApp network is either routed or isolated.

  • Verify that the vApp is in an organization virtual data center that is backed by NSX Data Center for vSphere.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. On the Networks tab, click a network to view the network details.

  1. On the IP Management tab, click DHCP. The DHCP status is displayed.

  2. Click Edit.

  1. Click Enabled.

  1. In the IP Pool text box, enter a range of IP addresses.

Cyfuture Cloud Console uses these addresses to satisfy DHCP requests. The range of DHCP IP addresses cannot overlap with the static IP pool for the vApp network.

  1. Set the default and maximum lease time in seconds.

  1. Click Save.

 

Display the IP Allocations for Your vApp Network

You can review the IP allocations for the networks in your vApp.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. On the Networks tab, click a network to view the network details.

  1. On the IP Management tab, click IP Allocations. The allocated IP addresses are displayed.

Configure Static Routing for a vApp Network

You can configure certain vApp networks to provide static routing services to allow virtual machines on different vApp networks to communicate.

Any static route that you create is automatically enabled.

Prerequisites

A routed vApp network.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. On the Networks tab, click a network to view the network details.

  1. On the Routing tab, click Edit.

You can enable or disable static routing for the network.

Add Static Routing for a vApp Network

You can add static routes between two vApp networks that are routed to the same organization virtual data center network. Static routes allow traffic between the networks.

You cannot add static routes to a fenced vApp or between overlapping networks. After you add a static route to a vApp network, configure the network firewall rules to allow traffic on the static route. For vApps with static routes, select to use assigned IP addresses until the vApp or associated networks are deleted.

Static routes function only when the vApps containing the routes are running. If you change the parent network of a vApp, delete a vApp, or delete a vApp network, and the vApp includes static routes, those routes cannot function and you must remove them manually. 

Prerequisites

  • Two vApp networks are routed to the same organization virtual data center network.

  • The vApp networks are in vApps that were started at least once.

  • Static routing is enabled on both vApp networks.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. On the Networks tab, click a network to view the network details.

  1. On the Routing tab, under Static Routing click Add. The allocated IP addresses are displayed.

  2. Enter a name of the static route.

  1. Enter the network address in CIDR format.

The network address is for the vApp network to which to add a static route.

  1. Enter the next hop IP address.

The next hop IP address is the external IP address of that vApp network's router.

  1. Click Save.

  1. Repeat the same procedure for the second vApp network. 

Example: Static Routing Example

vApp Network 1 and vApp Network 2 are both routed to Org Network Shared. You can create a static route on each vApp network to allow traffic between the networks. You can use information about the vApp networks to create the static routes.

 

Table 3-2. Network Information


Network Name


Network Specification


Router External IP Address

vApp Network 1

192.168.1.0/24

192.168.0.100

vApp Network 2

192.168.2.0/24

192.168.0.101

Org Network Shared

192.168.0.0/24

NA

On vApp Network 1, create a static route to vApp Network 2. On vApp Network 2, create a static route to vApp Network 1.

Table 3-3. Static Routing Settings


vApp Network


Route Name


Network


Next Hop IP Address

vApp Network 1

tovapp2

192.168.2.0/24

192.168.0.101

vApp Network 2

tovapp1

192.168.1.0/24

192.168.0.100

Add a Port Forwarding Rule to a vApp Network

You can configure certain vApp networks to provide port forwarding by adding a NAT mapping rule.

Port forwarding provides external access to services running on virtual machines on the vApp network.

When you configure port forwarding, Cyfuture Cloud Console maps an external port to a service that runs on a virtual machine dedicated to inbound traffic.

When you add a port forwarding rule to a vApp network, it appears at the bottom of the NAT mapping rule list. For information about how to set the order in which port forwarding rules are enforced, see

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the vApp network is routed.

  • Verify that the firewall on the vApp network is enabled. If you disable the firewall, the NAT mapping rules are no longer applied to the vApp network.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. On the Networks tab, click a network to view the network details.

  1. Click Services and click Edit.

  1. To enable NAT, toggle on the NAT option.

  1. From the NAT Type drop-down menu, select Port Forwarding, and click Add.

  2. (Optional) To enable IP masquerading, select the check box.

  3. Configure the port-forwarding rule.

  • Select an external port.
  • Select a port to which to forward.
  • Select a virtual machine interface.
  • Select a protocol for the type of traffic to forward.

 

    11. Click Save.

What to do next

If necessary, rearrange the port-forwarding rules by using the Move Up or Move Down buttons.

Add an IP Translation Rule to a vApp Network

You can configure certain vApp networks to provide an IP translation by adding a NAT mapping rule.

When you create an IP translation rule for a network, vCloud Console adds a DNAT and SNAT rule to the edge gateway associated with the network's port group. The DNAT rule translates an external IP address to an internal IP address for inbound traffic. The SNAT rule translates an internal IP address to an external IP address for outbound traffic.

Prerequisites 

  • Verify that the vApp network is routed.

  • Verify that the firewall on the vApp network is enabled. If you disable the firewall, the NAT mapping rules are no longer applied to the vApp network.

Procedure 

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. On the Networks tab, click a network to view the network details.

  1. Click Services and click Edit.

  1. To enable NAT, toggle on the NAT option.

  1. From the NAT Type drop-down menu, select IP Translation and click Add.

  1. Select a virtual machine interface and click Keep.

  1. Select a mapping mode.

  1. If you selected Manual mapping mode, enter an external IP address.

  1. Click Save.

 

What to do next

If necessary, rearrange the IP translation rules by using the Move Up or Move Down buttons.

Delete a vApp Network

If you no longer need a network in your vApp, you can delete the network.

Prerequisites

The vApp is stopped and no virtual machines in the vApp are connected to the network.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. In the card of the selected vApp, click Details.

  1. On the Networks tab, select the network that you want to delete, click Delete, and confirm the deletion.

Working with Snapshots

Creating a snapshot preserves the state and data of the virtual machines within a vApp at a specific point in time. A snapshot is not intended to be used for long periods of time or instead of backing up the vApp.

You might want to use a snapshot when upgrading the virtual machines in a vApp. For example, before you upgrade the virtual machines, you create a snapshot to preserve the point in time before the upgrade. To do this, you save a snapshot prior to upgrading, and then perform the upgrade. If there are no issues during the upgrade, you can choose to remove the snapshot, which will commit the changes you made during the upgrade. However, if you encounter an issue, you can revert the snapshot, which will move back to your saved vApp state prior to the upgrade.

Take a Snapshot of a vApp

By taking a snapshot of a vApp, you take snapshots of all virtual machines in the vApp. After you take the snapshot, you can revert all virtual machines in the vApp to the snapshot, or remove the snapshot if you do not need it.

vApp snapshots have some limitations.

  • vApp snapshots do not capture NIC configurations. 

  • If any virtual machine in the vApp is connected to a named disk, you cannot take a vApp snapshot.

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp for which you want to take a snapshot, select Create Snapshot.

Taking a snapshot of a vApp replaces the existing snapshot, if there is any.

  1. (Optional) Select whether to snapshot the memory of the vApp.

When you capture the vApp memory state, the snapshot retains the live state of the vApp and the virtual machines in the vApp. Memory snapshots create a snapshot at a precise time, for example, to upgrade software that is still working. If you take a memory snapshot and the upgrade does not complete as expected, or the software does not meet your expectations, you can revert the virtual machine to its previous state.

When you capture the memory state, the vApp's files do not require quiescing. If you do not capture the memory state, the snapshot does not save the live state of the vApp and the disks are crash consistent unless you quiesce them.

  1. (Optional) Select whether to quiesce the guest file system.

This operation requires that Cyfuture Cloud Tools is installed on the virtual machines in the vApp. When you quiesce a virtual machine, Cyfuture Cloud Tools quiesces the file system of the virtual machine. A quiesce operation ensures that a snapshot disk represents a consistent state of the guest file systems. Quiesced snapshots are appropriate for automated or periodic backups.

For example, if you are unaware of the virtual machine's activity, but want several recent backups to revert to, you can quiesce the files.

You cannot quiesce vApps that have large capacity disks.

  1. Click OK.

Results

A snapshot of the vApp is created.

What to do next

You can revert all the virtual machines in the vApp to the most recent snapshot.

Revert a vApp to a Snapshot

You can revert all virtual machines in a vApp to the state they were in when you created the vApp snapshot.

Prerequisites

Verify that the vApp has an existing snapshot.

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp you want to revert, select Revert to Snapshot.

  1. Click OK.

Results

All virtual machines in the vApp are reverted to the snapshot state.

Remove a Snapshot of a vApp

You can remove a snapshot of a vApp.

When you remove a vApp snapshot, you delete the state of the virtual machines in the vApp snapshot and you can never return to that state again. Removing a snapshot does not affect the current state of the vApp.

 Prerequisites

You have taken a snapshot of the vApp.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp for which you want to remove a snapshot, select Remove Snapshot.

  4. Click OK.

Results

The snapshot is removed.

Take Snapshots of Multiple vApps

By taking snapshots of multiple vApps, you take snapshots of all virtual machines in the vApps. After you take the snapshots, you can revert all virtual machines in the vApps to the snapshots, or remove the snapshots if you do not need them.

vApp snapshots have some limitations.

  • vApp snapshots do not capture NIC configurations.

  • If any virtual machine in a vApp is connected to a named disk, you cannot take a vApp snapshot.

  • Taking snapshots of multiple vApps does not create snapshots of the memory of the vApps and does not quiesce the guest file system of the vApps. If you want to create a snapshot of the memory of your vApps or to quiesce the guest file system, you must create individual snapshots for each vApp. See Take a Snapshot of a vApp.

Procedure 

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  1. Select the vApps for which you want to create snapshots. 

  1. From the Actions menu, select Create Snapshot, and click OK to confirm.

What to do next

Remove the Snapshots of Multiple vApps

If you don't need the snapshots of multiple vApps, you can remove them simultaneously.

When you remove a vApp snapshot, you delete the state of the virtual machines in the vApp snapshot and you can never return to that state again. Removing a snapshot does not affect the current state of the vApp.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  1. Select the vApps the snapshots of which you want to remove.

  1. From the Actions menu, select Remove Snapshot.

Revert Multiple vApps to Snapshots

You can revert all virtual machines in multiple vApps to the state they were in when you created the vApp snapshots.

Prerequisites

Verify that the vApps that you want to revert have existing snapshots.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  1. Select the vApps that you want to revert to their most recent snapshots.

  1. From the Actions menu, select Revert to Snapshot.

  1. Click OK to confirm.

Change the Owner of a vApp

You can change the owner of the vApp, for example, when a vApp owner leaves the company or changes roles within the company.

Prerequisites 

This operation requires the rights included in the predefined Organization Administrator role or an equivalent set of rights.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp for which you want to change the owner, select Change owner.

  4. Select a user from the list.

  1. Click OK.

Results

The owner of the vApp is changed.

Move a vApp to Another Virtual Data Center

When you move a vApp to another virtual data center, the vApp is removed from the source virtual data center.

Prerequisites

  • You are at least a vApp author.

  • Your vApp is powered off.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp you want to move, select Move to.

  1. Select the virtual data center where you want to move the vApp and click OK.

  1. (Optional) Select the storage policy.

  1. Click OK.

Results

The vApp is removed from the source data center and moved to the target data center.

Copy a Stopped vApp to Another Virtual Data Center

When you copy a vApp to another virtual data center, the original vApp remains in the source virtual data center.

Prerequisites

  • You are at least a vApp author.

  • The vApp is powered off.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp you want to copy, select Copy to.

  1. Type a name and description.

  1. Select the virtual data center in which you want to create the copy of the vApp.

  1. (Optional) Select a storage policy.

  1. Click OK.

Results

The vApp is copied with the name and description you provided to the specified virtual data center.

Copy a Powered-On vApp

To create a vApp based on an existing vApp, you can copy a vApp and change the copy so that the copy meets your needs. You do not have to power off virtual machines in the vApp before you copy the vApp. The memory state of running virtual machines is preserved in the copied vApp.

Prerequisites

Verify that the following conditions are met.

  • You are at least a vApp user.

  • The organization virtual data center is backed up by VMWare vCenter Server 5.5 or later.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp you want to copy, select Copy to.

  1. Type a name and description.

  1. Select the virtual data center in which you want to create the copy of the vApp. 

  1. (Optional) Select a storage policy.

  1. Click OK.

Results

A copy of the vApp is created and the vApp copy is in a suspended state. The copied vApp is enabled for network fencing.

What to do next

Modify the network properties of the new vApp or power on the vApp.

Add a Virtual Machine to a vApp

You can add a virtual machine to a vApp.

Prerequisites

You must be an organization administrator or vApp author to access virtual machines in public catalogs.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click to view the vApps in a card view.Card Icon

  1. From the Actions menu of the vApp to which you want to add a virtual machine, select Add VM.

The list of virtual machines that are associated to the vApp displays in the Add VMs window.

  1. To create a new virtual machine and associate it with the vApp automatically, click Add Virtual Machine.

  2. Enter the name and the computer name for the virtual machine.

Important- The computer name can contain only alphanumeric characters and hyphens. A computer name cannot consist of digits only and cannot contain spaces.

  1. (Optional) Enter a meaningful description.

  1. Select whether you want the virtual machine to power on right after it is created.

  1. Select how you want to deploy the virtual machine.

Option

Action

New

You deploy a new virtual machine with customizable settings. a    Select an Operating System family and Operating System. b (Optional) Select a boot image.

  1. Select the compute policy.

  2. Select the size of the virtual machine or click Custom Sizing Options to enter the compute, memory, and storage settings manually.

The predefinded sizing options are small, medium, or large.

  1. Specify the storage settings of the virtual machine, such as storage policy and size in GB.

  2. Specify the network settings for the virtual machine, such as network, IP mode, IP address, and primary NIC.

From Template

You deploy a virtual machine from a template that you select from the templates catalog.

a    Select the virtual machine template from the catalog.

     9. (Optional) Select to use a custom storage policy and select the policy from the Custom storage policy to use.

    10. If there is an end user license agreement available, you must review and accept it.

    11. Click OK to create the virtual machine.

    12. Click Add to add the virtual machine to the vApp.

Save a vApp as a vApp Template to a Catalog

By adding a vApp to a catalog, you convert the particular vApp to a vApp template.

Starting with Cyfuture Cloud Console 10.2.2, when you add a vApp to a catalog, the vApp template includes the placement and sizing policies of the source vApp as unmodifiable tags.

Prerequisites

  • This operation requires the rights included in the predefined vApp Author role or an equivalent set of rights.

  • Your organization must have a catalog and a virtual data center with available space.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp you want to add to a catalog, select Add to Catalog.

Note- You can add vApps to a catalog even if the virtual machines that belong to the vApp are in a running state. However, if you select a running vApp, it is added to the catalog as a vApp template and all the virtual machines are in a suspended state.

  1. Select the destination catalog from the Catalog drop-down menu.

  1. Enter a name and, optionally, a description for the vApp template.

  1. (Optional) Select Overwrite catalog item if you want the new catalog item to overwrite any existing vApp template and select the catalog item to overwrite.

For example, when you upload a new version of a vApp to the catalog, you might want to overwrite the old version.

  1. Specify how the template must be used.

The setting applies when you are creating a vApp based on the vApp template. It is ignored when you build a vApp by using individual virtual machines from this template.

Option

Description

Make identical copy

Select to make an identical copy of the vApp when you create a vApp from the vApp template.

Customize VM settings

Select to enable customization of the virtual machine settings when you create a vApp from the vApp template.

 

  1. To complete the creation of the vApp template, click OK

Results

The vApp template appears in the specified catalog.

Download a vApp as an OVF Package

You can download a vApp as an OVF package or as an OVA, which is a single file distribution of the same OVF file package.

Prerequisites

  • This operation requires the rights included in the predefined vApp Author role or an equivalent set of rights.

  • Verify that the vApp is powered off and undeployed.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Click Card Icon to view the vApps in a card view.

  3. From the Actions menu of the vApp that you want to download, select Download.

  1. Select the format in which you want to download the vApp.

  1. (Optional) Select Preserve identity information to include the UUIDs and MAC addresses of the virtual machines that reside in the vApp in the downloaded OVF package.

This limits the portability of the package and must be used only when necessary.

  1. Click OK to confirm the selection and start the download.

Results

By default, the package is downloaded in the Downloads folder for your browser.

Renew a vApp Lease

If the lease of a vApp has expired, or it is about to expire, you can renew it.

Prerequisites

Verify that you are assigned the predefined role vApp User or an equivalent set of rights.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Select the vApp you want to renew.

  1. From the Actions menu, select Renew Lease.

  1. Renew the runtime lease of the vApp.

  • Select the Runtime lease check box.
  •  From the drop-down menu, select a value for the runtime lease.

 You can select a value in hours, days, or set the lease to Never Expires. System administrators can limit the maximum length that you can choose.

  1. Renew the storage lease of the vApp.

  •  Select the Storage lease check box.
  •  From the drop-down menu, select a value for the storage lease.

You can select a value in hours, days, or set the lease to Never Expires. System administrators can limit the maximum length that you can choose.

Delete a vApp

You can delete a vApp, which removes it from your organization.

Prerequisites

Your vApp must be stopped. 

You must be at least a vApp author.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Select the vApp you want to delete.

  1. From the Actions menu, select Delete.

  1. Click OK.

Results

The vApp is deleted.

Delete Multiple vApps

То remove multiple vApps from your organization, you can delete them simultaneously.

 Prerequisites

  • Verify that your vApps are stopped.

  • Verify that you are at least a vApp author.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select vApps.

  2. Toggle on the Multiselect option.

  1. Select the vApps that you want to delete.

  1. From the Actions menu, select Delete.

  1. To confirm, click Delete.

 


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