VMware vCloud Director Cookbook

VMware vCloud Director Cookbook

by Daniel Langenhan
Released October 2013
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781782177661

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Book description

Over 80 recipes to help you master VMware vCloud Director

  • Learn how to work with the vCloud API
  • Covers the recently launched VMware vCloud Suite 5.5
  • Step-by-step instructions to simplify infrastructure provisioning
  • Real-life implementation of tested recipes, packed with illustrations and programming examples

In Detail

VMware vCloud Director is an enterprise software solution that enables the building of secure, private clouds by pooling together infrastructure resources into virtual data centers. The tool enables self-service via a web interface to reduce the management overhead and offers amazing possibilities for production and development environments. Thus, the tool will ensure efficient management of resources with data center efficiency and business agility.

"VMWare VCloud Director Cookbook" will cover a lot of ground, ranging from easy to complex recipes. It will not only dive into networks, data-stores, and vApps, but also cover vCloud design improvements, troubleshooting, and the vCloud API.

"VMWare VCloud Director Cookbook" is split into different sections, each of which deals with a special topic in vCloud - from networks, to vApps, to storage and design. This book contains over 80 recipes with the difficulty levels ranging from simple to very advanced. You will learn how to automate vCloud easily and quickly with the API, and also learn how to isolate a vApp and still fully access it without risking the network. Design considerations that need to be addressed while deploying the vCloud and more will also be looked into.

"VMWare VCloud Director Cookbook" will make your life as an admin a lot easier by providing you with some good recipes that have been proven to work in small to large enterprises.

Table of contents

  1. VMware vCloud Director Cookbook
    1. Table of Contents
    2. VMware vCloud Director Cookbook
    3. Credits
    4. About the Author
    5. About the Reviewers
    6. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
        1. Why Subscribe?
        2. Free Access for Packt account holders
        3. Instant Updates on New Packt Books
    7. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
      4. Conventions
      5. Reader feedback
      6. Customer support
        1. Downloading the example code
        2. Errata
        3. Piracy
        4. Questions
    8. 1. Setting Up Networks
      1. Introduction
        1. Network Pools
      2. Setting up an External Network
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      3. Creating 1,000 isolated networks without VXLANs
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      4. Making VXLANs work
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
        5. See also
      5. Integrating the Cisco 1000v into vCD
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      6. Giving your networks an Edge
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      7. Doing it all(most) without a Distributed Switch
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
    9. 2. vCloud Networks
      1. Introduction
        1. Usage of different Network types
          1. Isolated vApp Network
          2. VMs directly connected to an External Network
          3. vApp Network connected via vApp router to an External Network
          4. VMs directly connected to an isolated Organization Network
          5. vApp connected via a vApp router to an isolated Organization Network
          6. VMs connected directly to an Edge device
          7. A vApp connected to an Edge via a vApp router
          8. IP management
          9. Some things you will need for all of the recipes for this chapter
      2. Deploying a vApp with a vApp router
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
      3. Forwarding an RDP (or SSH) session into an isolated vApp
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more…
          1. Creating multiple forwards
          2. Logging network traffic
          3. Other ideas
        5. See also
      4. Accessing a fully isolated vApp or Organization Network
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      5. Using Organization Networks for interconnection between vApps
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more…
      6. Using templates with firewall and NAT settings
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      7. Connecting a physical device to an isolated network
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
      8. Sharpening the Edge
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      9. Using vApp Network fencing
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      10. Creating multitiered vApp Networks
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
          1. Downloading and importing a virtual router into vCloud
          2. Setting up the networking
          3. Setting up the web interface
          4. Configuring the WAN interfaces with the correct network settings
          5. Configuring the OPT1 interfaces with the correct network settings
          6. Configuring static routing
        5. See also
      11. Ensuring no change in IP after redeployment
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Ensuring no change occurs in IP after redeployment by setting up the vApp
          2. Ensuring no change occurs in IP after redeployment by retrofitting an existing vApp
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      12. Automatic IP management for External Network Pools
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
          1. Static DNS Pool
          2. Preallocated DNS pool with a manual IP
          3. Automated setup
          4. Linux and Guest Customization
        5. See also
      13. Creating load-balanced VMs in an organization
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
          1. Load balancer methods
        5. See also
      14. Creating a secure connection between organizations (which can be in different vClouds)
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
          1. Connecting to other networks in the same organization
          2. Connection to the outside
          3. Public IPs
          4. More VPN possibilities
      15. Monitoring which network resources have been used where
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
    10. 3. Better vApps
      1. Introduction
        1. vSphere and vCloud vApps
        2. Roles and rights
      2. Proper vApp startup and shutdown
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
          1. Important changes in vCloud 5.5
        4. There's more...
          1. Power Off
          2. Templates
      3. Adding a VM to a vApp
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      4. Importing a vApp into vCloud
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Importing a VM from vSphere
          2. Importing an OVF/OVA into a catalog
          3. Import an OVF/OVA into My Cloud
          4. Importing from Workstation/Fusion
        3. How it works...
          1. Important changes in vCloud 5.5
        4. There's more...
          1. Aftercare
          2. Migrating running VMs
        5. See also
      5. Exporting a vApp from vCloud
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Exporting a vApp from a catalog
          2. Exporting a vApp from My Cloud
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      6. Creating a sandbox environment
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Creating an organization for the sandbox
          2. Creating an OvDC for the sandbox
          3. Adding networking
        3. How it works...
          1. Lease time
          2. Allocation model
          3. Networking
        4. There's more...
          1. Fair warning
          2. Using an Edge gateway to give access to the play infrastructure
      7. Using Guest Customization with pre and post deploy
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
          1. Limits
          2. Old bugs
          3. Logfiles
          4. Template Guest Customization
        5. See also
      8. Using PowerShell or Perl to perform Guest Customization tasks
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Using PowerShell or Perl to perform Guest Customization tasks via the VM Properties
          2. Using PowerShell or Perl to perform Guest Customization tasks via an OS script
        3. How it works...
          1. Windows PowerShell wrapper
          2. Linux Perl wrapper
        4. There's more...
        5. See also
      9. Sharing a vApp
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      10. Joining VMs automatically to domains
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
          1. Configuring the organization
          2. Configuring the VM
      11. Using vApp maintenance mode
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
    11. 4. Datastores and Storage Profiles
      1. Introduction
        1. Datastores, profiles, and clusters
        2. Thin provisioning
        3. Fast provisioning
      2. Adding a new storage profile to vCD
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      3. Using a specific datastore for templates
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      4. Using storage profiles for storage tiering
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      5. Making operations on NFS datastores faster
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      6. Working with vApp templates and their Shadows
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more…
      7. Reducing the chain length of Linked Clones
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
      8. Configuring storage alarms
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      9. Monitoring storage
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
      10. The problems associated with the backup and restore of vCloud
        1. How it works...
    12. 5. Working with the vCloud API
      1. Introduction
        1. Logging in to the System organization
        2. Gathering prerequisites and information gathering
        3. Project Onyx
      2. Using PowerShell with vCloud Director
        1. Getting ready
          1. Installing PowerCLI
          2. A PowerShell editor
        2. How to do it...
          1. Connecting vApp
          2. Gathering information
          3. Creating vApp
          4. Powering on vApp
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      3. Accessing REST with Firefox
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. The first connection
          2. Gathering information
          3. Creating a new vApp
          4. Powering on
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      4. Accessing vCD via PHP
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Base PHP skeleton
          2. Connecting to vCloud
          3. Gathering information
          4. Creating a new vApp
          5. Powering on the vApp
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      5. Using vCenter Orchestrator to automate vCloud
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. The first connection
          2. Gathering information
          3. Creating a new vApp and powering it on
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      6. A scripted cell shutdown
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. The script
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more…
      7. Adding ISO files to vCD automatically
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
    13. 6. Improving the vCloud Design
      1. Introduction
      2. Creating a naming standard
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. vSphere naming standard
        4. vCloud naming standard
          1. Example of a naming standard notation
        5. How it works...
      3. Using service accounts in the vCloud environment
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Creating a service account in AD
          2. Creating a service account in SSO
          3. Assigning a service account in vCenter
          4. Adding a vCloud service account to vCNS
        3. How it works...
          1. AD or SSO?
          2. Understanding vCloud connections
        4. There's more...
        5. See also
      4. Setting up networks for the vCloud VM
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Optimal ESXi network setup
          2. Optimal vCD Cell network setup
        3. How it works...
          1. ESXi setup
          2. vCloud Cell setup
        4. See also
      5. Working with vCloud roles
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Creating a new role
          2. Assigning a role to a user or a group
        3. How it works...
          1. Changes in vCloud 5.5
        4. There's more...
      6. Keeping your templates under control
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Creating the ADMIN Organization
          2. Storage profile
          3. Creating an OvDC
          4. Creating a published catalog
          5. Creating an Organization Network
          6. The ADMIN Organization work cycle
        3. How it works...
      7. Choosing the right Allocation Model
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
          1. The three little Allocation Models
          2. Overcommit, reservation, and limit
          3. vCPU speed
        4. There's more...
        5. See also
      8. Using OvDCs for compute tiering
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. An example
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      9. Understanding how the different vCloud types impact the design
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
          1. Private vCloud
          2. Public vCloud
      10. Retrofitting a shared directory into an existing vCD Cell
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      11. Connecting more than one vCloud Cell to the same infrastructure
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      12. Creating multiple vCD Cells for the same vCloud
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Preparation of the first cell
          2. Installing the second cell
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
        5. See also
      13. Load balancing vCD
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Preparation
          2. Configuring the load balancer
            1. The HTTP interface
            2. The console interface
          3. Configuring vCloud for load balancing
        3. How it works...
          1. SSL certificates
          2. Load balancing modes and SSL certificates
        4. See also
      14. Working with catalogs in vCloud 5.5
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Configuring sharing, publishing, and subscribing
          2. Sharing an existing catalog
          3. Publishing an existing catalog
          4. Subscribe to a catalog
        3. How it works...
          1. Sharing
          2. Publishing/subscription
        4. There's more...
          1. Synchronizing published/subscribed catalogs
          2. Media & Other
          3. Versioning
    14. 7. Operational Challenges
      1. Loading Windows Sysprep packages in vCloud
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Downloading and preparing the Sysprep files
          2. Uploading and integrating the Sysprep files
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      2. Exchanging SSL certificates
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Preparation
          2. Deleting an old certificate
          3. Creating a certificate request and importing it
          4. Creating a new self-signed certificate
          5. Finishing touches
        3. How it works...
          1. Self-signed certificates with longer duration
          2. Exporting and importing self-signed certificates
        4. See also
      3. Bypassing SSO login into vCloud
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      4. Backing up vCloud
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. SSO backup
          2. vCenter backup
          3. vCNS backup
          4. vCloud backup
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
        5. See also
      5. Recovering the vCloud system
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Restore vSphere from scratch
          2. Restore the vSphere environment from DB
          3. Restore vCNS
          4. Restore vCloud
          5. Restore vCloud DB
          6. Restore one vCloud Cell (in a multicell environment)
        3. How it works...
      6. Changing the name of an organization
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
      7. Shutting down and starting up the vCloud environment
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Start-up sequence
          2. Shut-down sequence
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more…
      8. Using metadata to improve provisioning
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Creating metadata
          2. Using metadata
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
        5. See also
      9. Using vSphere Host Profiles with vCloud
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
      10. Using vCloud with vCenter Auto Deploy
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Preparing the infrastructure
          2. Preparing Blade Center
          3. Creating a base ESXi Host Profile
          4. Preparing a base image for Auto Deploy
          5. Testing Deploy
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      11. Defining a vCloud development cycle
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
        5. See also
      12. Making the VM BIOS ID (UUID) unique
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
      13. Importing from Lab Manager into vCloud
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Transferring networks
          2. Transferring organizations and their resources
          3. Transferring library or VM template elements
          4. The rest
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      14. Using branding to make vCloud look different
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Changes to vCloud
          2. Changing the company name
          3. Changing the logo
          4. Changing the login theme
          5. Changing the theme
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      15. Putting an ESXi host into maintenance
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      16. Updating vCloud Cells without interruption
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      17. Updating a vCloud with only one cell
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
      18. Updating a vCenter in vCloud
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      19. Updating vCNS
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
          1. Updating an Edge
          2. Updating a vApp Network
      20. Expanding vCD resources
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. An OvDC storage profile needs more space
          2. A storage profile needs more space
          3. An Organization needs more resources
          4. An OvDC needs more resources
          5. A PvDC needs more resources
        3. How it works...
      21. Resizing a VM hard disk
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Not fast-provisioned VMs
          2. Fast-provisioned VMs
        3. How it works...
      22. Cloning a running vApp
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Clone to a catalog
          2. Deploy a cloned VM from a catalog
          3. Clone to My Cloud
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more...
      23. Removing infrastructure from vCloud
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Removing an ESXi Host from vCloud
          2. Removing a cluster
          3. Removing a cell from vCloud
          4. Removing a vCenter from vCloud
        3. How it works...
    15. 8. Troubleshooting vCloud
      1. Introduction
        1. Where to look for help
      2. Looking for errors in the vCloud GUI
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Creating an error
          2. Fail log
          3. Direct error messages
          4. Organization of error logs
          5. System logs
        3. How it works...
          1. Filtering the events
        4. There's more
      3. Working with vCloud logfiles
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Working with a vCD cell logfile
          2. Cell log
          3. Debug log
          4. vCNS logs
        3. How it works...
          1. Other logfiles
          2. Important logfile locations
          3. Cell.log
          4. Debug log
          5. Log rotate
        4. There's more
      4. Creating and uploading VMware support files
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Create vCloud support files
          2. Create vCNS support files
          3. Upload to VMware
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more
      5. Setting up and using vSphere Syslog Collector
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
          1. Installing VMware Syslog server
          2. Integrating vCloud into Syslog
          3. Working with Syslog
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      6. Troubleshooting vCloud Router traffic
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works….
      7. Troubleshooting the Java client
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
        4. See also
      8. Recovering from an outage
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works...
    16. A. Appendix
    17. Index

Product information

  • Title: VMware vCloud Director Cookbook
  • Author(s): Daniel Langenhan
  • Release date: October 2013
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781782177661