Overview about vCloud Director 5.1

Hello Reader, Greeting to you!! This is my First blog about VMware vCloud Director 1.5...I am hoping it's useful to you for better understanding about VMware vCloud Director... National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cloud computing is defined as a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Cloud Computing is a revolution that will define IT beginning in the second decade of the 21st Century. This new form of computing is perfectly poised to provide solutions to a host of business problems within organizations large and small. Cloud Computing will be the catalyst for the long predicted notion of "ubiquitous computing." So just what "is" Cloud Computing, and why it is so different from what has come before? The following pages will detail four main areas in which Cloud Computing allows businesses to break from the past: Virtualization – The ability to increase computing efficiency.  Democratization of Computing – Bringing enterprise scale infrastructure to small and mid-size businesses.  Scalability and Fast Provisioning – Bringing web scale IT at a rapid pace.  Commoditization of Infrastructure – Enabling IT to focus on the strategic aspects of its role. Cloud computing promotes availability and has five essential characteristics: 1-->The first characteristic is on-demand self-service. A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically, without requiring human interaction with each service’s provider. 2--> The second characteristic is broad network access. Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms. Some examples of such client platforms include mobile phones, laptops, and personal digital assistant or PDA. 3--> The third characteristic is resource pooling. The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model which is basically defined as sharing of computing resources with multiple clients by means of virtual safeguards, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction, for example, country, state, or datacenter. Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, network bandwidth, and virtual machines. 4--> The fourth characteristic is rapid elasticity. Capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out. Capabilities can also be rapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be purchased in any quantity at any time. 5--> The last characteristic is measured service. Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service, for example, storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts. Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and the consumer of the utilized service. |-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| Cloud computing today is divided into three categories. These categories are Infrastructure-as-a-Service or IaaS, Platform-as-a-Service or PaaS, and Software-as-a-Service or SaaS. You will look at them in detail to understand what they represent. Cloud computing promotes availability and has five essential characteristics: 1-->The first characteristic is on-demand self-service. A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically, without requiring human interaction with each service’s provider. 2--> The second characteristic is broad network access. Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms. Some examples of such client platforms include mobile phones, laptops, and personal digital assistant or PDA. 3--> The third characteristic is resource pooling. The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model which is basically defined as sharing of computing resources with multiple clients by means of virtual safeguards, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction, for example, country, state, or datacenter. Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, network bandwidth, and virtual machines. 4--> The fourth characteristic is rapid elasticity. Capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out. Capabilities can also be rapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be purchased in any quantity at any time. 5--> The last characteristic is measured service. Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service, for example, storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts. Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and the consumer of the utilized service. |-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| Cloud computing today is divided into three categories. These categories are Infrastructure-as-a-Service or IaaS, Platform-as-a-Service or PaaS, and Software-as-a-Service or SaaS. You will look at them in detail to understand what they represent. IaaS: type of cloud computing is focused on providing the most generalizable solution and that is basic infrastructure as a service. This could be on-premise or off-premise. These solutions provide the consumer storage, networking, and computing capacity as a service, sometimes in very high granularities of billing such as hourly. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications, and possibly limited control of select networking components, such as host firewalls. Customers use the provider's application program interface or API to start, stop, access, and configure their virtual servers and storage. In the enterprise, cloud computing enables a company to pay for only as much capacity as is needed, and bring more capacity online as soon as required PaaS: type of cloud computing delivers development environments as a service. You build your own applications that run on the provider's infrastructure and are delivered to your users through the Internet from the provider's servers. Developers create applications on the provider's platform over the Internet. PaaS providers may use APIs, Web site portals, or gateway software installed on the customer's computer. Here, framework is what controls the underlying infrastructure and the developer has to focus on the underlying mechanism. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure, including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly application hosting environment configurations. SaaS: type of cloud computing delivers a single application through the browser to thousands of customers using a multi-tenant architecture. On the user side, it means no upfront investment in servers or software licensing; on the provider side, with just one application to maintain, costs are low compared to conventional hosting. SaaS is a very broad market. Services can be anything from Web-based email to inventory control and database processing. Because the service provider hosts both the application and the data, the end user is free to use the service from anywhere. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure, including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings. type of cloud computing delivers development environments as a service. You build your own applications that run on the provider's infrastructure and are delivered to your users through the Internet from the provider's servers. Developers create applications on the provider's platform over the Internet. PaaS providers may use APIs, Web site portals, or gateway software installed on the customer's computer. Here, framework is what controls the underlying infrastructure and the developer has to focus on the underlying mechanism. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure, including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly application hosting environment configurations. Cloud environments may be separated into four categories based on the consumers they serve: Private cloud—The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an organization. It may be managed by the organization or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise. Community cloud—The cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be managed by the organizatio or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise. Public cloud—The cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or a large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services. Hybrid cloud—The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (private,community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load-balancing between clouds). vCloud Director is a software product that provides the interface, automation, and management feature set to allow enterprises and service providers to supply vSphere resources to users through Web-based portals and programmatic interfaces as a fully-automated, catalog-based service. vCloud Director can help you create, use, and manage virtual machines and vApps, while IT maintains control and bills for your usage. After deploying vCloud Director, you can dramatically increase datacenter efficiency by managing resources as pure capacity and increasing hardware utilization. They can also standardize services and automate repetitive management tasks, further reducing operating costs. Additionally, you can enable innovation by making IT more responsive to the business, to significantly reduce application time to market. Deploying vCloud Director also helps you improve your experience with self-service portals, customized service catalogs, and transparent usage-based chargeback, and leverage existing investments in vSphere and preserve the flexibility to expand capacity into public clouds. vCloud Director delivers pooling of resources, zero-touch automated infrastructure, self-service user access, security and control, open and interoperability, and applicability to existing workloads and investments. It is a key product for the cloud, whether internally in a private cloud or with a service provider in a public cloud. Many enterprises and IT service providers are developing cloud service offerings for public and private environments. All above given information related to Cloud computing it's essential for better understand to VMware vCloud Director 1.5... VMware vCloud Director: The VMware vCloud solution is a suite of products designed to enable an IT organization to build a private cloud on top of a vSphere environment. The product suite consists of vCloud Director 1.5, VMware vShield Edge 5.0 and VMware vCenter chargeback1.6.2. vCloud Director a single instance of vCloud Director is known as a “cell.” A cell consists of the vCloud Director components installed on a supported system. In larger implementations, multiple cells can be deployed with a front-end IP load balancer to direct end-user traffic to the correct cell. vCloud Director stores information about managed objects, users and other metadata in a database. The current release of vCloud Director supports Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server for database platforms. In most environments, the vCloud Director and database components are installed on separate virtual machines for proper load handling. vCenter Server : Each vCloud Director cell can connect to one or more vCenter Server instances to access resources for running workloads. Each attached vCenter Server instance provides resources, such as CPU and memory, which can be leveraged by vCloud Director.You have to deploy vcloud VM over vCenter by Installabe Package or OVF Appliance , you can donwnlaod trial Package by www.vmware.com. VMware ESXi hosts: VMware ESXi hosts provide the compute power for vCloud Director. ESXi hosts are placed in groups of resources, such as clusters or resource pools. These groups and their associated storage are then made available to vCloud Director. Add Esxi Host in Cluster and make a Resource Pool, if you are seeing no option for enabling Resource Pool, edit the cluster setting and select DRS option enable. VMware vShield Manager: VMware vShield Manager provides a central point of control for managing, deploying, reporting, logging and integrating vShield as well as third-party security services. Working in conjunction with vCenter Server, VMware vShield Manager enables role-based access control and separation of duties as part of a unified framework for managing virtualization security. vShield Edge secures the perimeter, or edge, around a virtual datacenter. vShield Edge secures the edge of a virtual datacenter with firewalling, VPN, NAT, DHCP, and Web load-balancing capabilities. vShield Edge allows cloud infrastructures to be scaled in a rapid and secure manner. vCloud Director Components:---> VMware vCloud Datacenter Services: vCloud Datacenter Services define a new enterprise-class cloud computing segment. It is the hybrid cloud solution for enabling enterprises to extend their private cloud to the public cloud with flexibility, scalability, security and operational efficiency. Through a common platform built around vSphere and VMware vCloud Director, with common management and security models, in an environment that provides on-demand application portability, enterprise customers and leading global service providers are delivering cloud-compatible, connected and integrated hybrid clouds. VMware vCloud Datacenter Services are cobranded by the service provider and VMware; they initially were offered by a small number of service providers worldwide. This gives the enterprise customers of VMware a choice of 100-percent compatible services that are based on VMware vCloud architecture and are certified by VMware. vCloud Service Definition: The public cloud will need a service definition and service offerings. VMware vCloud Datacenter Services deliver three classes of on-demand, self-service virtual datacenters (VDCs) as shown in figure above. The service is designed to make it as easy as possible for enterprises to move their workloads to vCloud Datacenter Services. Any existing VMware virtual machine or VMware virtual application (VMware vApp) can be run with little or no modification on vCloud Datacenter Services, and compatibility with existing enterprise. All VMware vCloud Datacenter Services infrastructures and datacenters have been audited against a standard set of compliance controls for SAS 70 Type II or have received ISO 27000 certifications. In addition, all vCloud Datacenter Services will provide customers with relevant audit logs and compliance reports for their cloud environments, to ensure that enterprises can meet their own internal audit requirements. Service Offerings: VMware vCloud Datacenter Services consist of three different service offerings. A single customer can have one or more of the three offerings: • Basic VDC –This service offering is an instance-based, pay-as-you-go resource consumption model. Each virtual machine provisioned in this VDC is charged separately, and separate billing records are produced for each virtual machine. Customers using the Basic VDC service will be charged for each hour or partial hour of consumption. For example, if a customer uses a machine for 5 minutes, they will be charged for one hour of usage. If a customer changes the virtual machine size after 5 minutes, this starts a new hour. Instance-based model refers to the bundling of vCPU and memory together into a single virtual machine instance and price. • Committed VDC – The Committed VDC service offering currently uses the allocation-pool Consumption model. A user is allocated a VDC that contains a certain amount of CPU (GHz), memory (GB) and storage (GB). The allocation-pool model is defined using two parameters: the reservation percentage and the total allocation (also called limit). The reservation percentage is how much in resources will be guaranteed or committed for the customer. The total allocation, or limit, is the maximum amount of resources the customer can consume. For the Committed VDC, the reservation percentage is initially set to 75 percent of the total Allocation/limit. This means the customer can burst up to an additional 25 percent of resources they originally requested. So, for example, if a customer buys a VDC with 10GHz of CPU resources, a VDC is created for the customer and 10GHz is allocated for the customer. This is the maximum amount of CPU the customer can ever consume. Of this 10GHz, the service provider should reserve 75 percent, which is 7.5GHz. This is the amount of CPU that’s guaranteed for the customer. The 25 percent, or 2.5GHz, will be available to the customer if the underlying cluster has available resources. This model enables service providers to charge a price that’s generally higher than for just 7.5GHz, given the additional burstable capacity, but it gives customers the benefit of potentially paying less than if the resources were fully guaranteed. • Dedicated VDC –The Dedicated VDC service offering uses the reservation pool–based model. A customer works with a service provider to provision a cluster of servers dedicated to this customer. The hardware (network, storage, servers) is not shared with other customers. The customer gets full control over the reservation and limit of this set of resources. This service offering will be a fixed-price monthly subscription. Evolving to a Private Cloud: When planning to evolve the IT infrastructure to a cloud computing model, the fundamental question is - What are the existing models? As a starting point, the need is to evaluate the applications to determine the right infrastructure for each, based on business requirements NetApp defines the following IT infrastructure models, as illustrated in Figure 11. vCloud Director 1.5 Installation Demo: Make sure that the machine where you are planning to install vCloud Director satisfies the hardware requirements displayed on the screen. Disk Space Requirements: Approx 950MB Memory Requirements: At least 1GB and 2GB Recommended. CPU: 2vCPU After the hardware requirements are satisfied, the vCloud Director server needs to be prepared with the required software. The server must have Red Hat Enterprise Linux or RHEL operating system. The compatible versions with vCloud Director are displayed on the screen. Additional software must also be installed on each vCloud Director. The packages listed on the screen are typically installed by default with the operating system software. If any of these packages are missing, the installer fails with a diagnostic message. Now the system is ready with the required hardware and software, so you can proceed to the third step, installing vCloud Director server software. The vCloud Director server software can be installed on a virtual or physical machine. If you install vCloud Director on a virtual machine, then remember to install VMware Tools on the virtual machine. The vCloud Director software is distributed as a Linux executable file named vmware-clouddirector1.0.0-nnnnnn.bin, where nnnnnn represents the build number of this version. Running this file requires super user or root privileges. vCloud Director Installation Demo: https://vmware.adobeconnect.com/_a58402297/p9pwgv9xjuj/ |------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| vShield Manager : vCloud Director requires vShield Manager. You must install vShield Manager prior to installing vCloud Director. Once vShield Manager and vCloud Director are installed and configured to communicate with each other VMware vShield Manager will automatically deploy vShield Edge virtual appliances as needed to support VCD networking. vShield Edge requires a vShield Manager appliance to be available in each vCenter Server that is providing cloud resources. This indicates that you need to install and configure vShield Manager before you begin installing vCloud Director. vShield Manager must be deployed using the VMware vSphere Client, whereas the vShield Edge appliances are deployed by vShield Manager based on requests from vCloud Director. One vShield Manager is required per vCenter Server. This means that you must have a unique instance of vShield Manager for each vCenter Server you add to vCloud Director. In order to use site-to-site virtual private networks or VPN and Web load balancing, the vShield Edge license must be upgraded. vShield Manager versions supported with vCloud Director are displayed on the screen. |------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| vCloud Database: It’s about the requirements for creating a vCloud Director database user account. Do not use the Oracle system account as the vCloud Director database user account. VMware does not recommend using the system account in Oracle as the vCloud Director database user account because it will fill up the system-related table space. You must create an admin account for the purposes of vCloud Director and grant the following system privileges to the account: CONNECT, RESOURCE, CREATE TRIGGER, CREATE TYPE, CREATE VIEW, CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW, CREATE PROCEDURE, and CREATE SEQUENCE. You cannot use oracle as username or password because it is a reserved word. It’s about the requirements for creating a vCloud Director MS SQL database user account. You must not use the active directory user account for the vCloud Director MS SQL database. There is no need to create a local Windows user account on the SQL Server. Instead create an MS SQL database user account. This user account must have database ownership rights or DBO over the VCD database. VMware does not recommend using the system account in MS SQL as the vCloud Director database user account because it fills up the system-related table space. You must uncheck the "Enforce password expiration" option for this user account in MS SQL database manager. You must also set the authentication method under security for the server to SQL Server and Windows authentication mode. If SQL authentication is not allowed, then the vCloud Director installer is not able to continue and acts as if the MS SQL Server is unresponsive and the installation fails. SSl Certificates: You also need Secure Sockets Layer or SSL certificates to install vCloud Director. vCloud Director requires the use of SSL to secure communications between clients and servers. Each system on which you intend to install vCloud Director must have two IP addresses, one for the Hypertext Transfer Protocol or HTTP service and one for the console proxy service. The system should also be capable of establishing an SSL connection at each IP address. This requires that each host have two SSL certificates, one for each IP address, in a Java keystore file. You can use signed certificates, which are certificates signed by a trusted certification authority or are self-signed certificates. Signed certificates provide the highest level of trust, whereas self-signed certificates provide a convenient way to configure SSL for vCloud Director in environments where trust concerns are minimal. A self-signed certificate is created and signed by the person who is creating it, rather than a trusted certificate authority such as Verisign. The certificate can be created using Microsoft Internet Information Services or IIS, Apache, and Java Keytool. The self-signed certificate can be used on an intranet, a development server, or personal sites with few visitors. You can use a self-signed certificate when clients only have to go through a local intranet to get to the server and there is virtually no chance of a man-in-the-middle attack. You can also use self-signed certificates for development servers, where you are only developing or testing an application. Additionally, you can use self-signed certificates for personal sites with few visitors. If you have a small personal site that transfers noncritical information, there is very little incentive for someone to attack the connections.