More questions on vCloud

[jx]

Hello All,

Still new to vCloud.. so these are "getting to know" questions.

Thanks in advance

~jx

1) I guess there is an identifier (GUID) for every VM in the vCloud. Question is: Is it safe to assume that those identifiers will be unique under a given organization? OR would it be possible that a VM running under another vApp can have the same GUID?

2) Another question on the ID: What is the best way to find out the ID of a running VM from itself?

3) Is it possible to add a disk while the VM is running? (Sorry for mentioning this but: Amazon allows to do so)

4) Will it ever be possible to share a disk between VMs in a vApp (besides the traditional sharing over the network such as NFS)

[Steve_Jin]

1) There is UUID for VM, but I don't think it's exposed via vCloud API. It's exposed from vSphere API though.

2) I assume you meant from the OS running on the VM. I don't think it's exposed there directly.

3) I think it's doable with vSphere API. Most like it's not with vCloud API. You can double check. The Amazon case, you meant the EBS, right? Unlike Amazon case in which a VM gets destroyed once it's powered off or crashed, vSphere VM persists disks. So you less likely need this feature.

4) It's possible in vSphere, but could be risky in so doing. Check out this KB article: Sharing a virtual disk between multiple virtual machines, With vCloud API, it relies on OVF to specify hardware configuration. From the spec, it seems possible. But you should really try it out.

Steve JIN

Author of VMware VI and vSphere SDK (Prentice Hall)

Creator of open source vSphere (VI) Java API(Tutorial, Testimonials, Download, Samples, Forum)

Blog: DoubleCloud.ORG ( Top 10 Best Practices,[Object Model|http://www.doublecloud.org/2010/02/object-model-of-vmware-vsphere-api-a-big-picture-in-2-minutes/],[Common Mistakes|http://www.doublecloud.org/2010/01/31/common-mistakes-using-vmware-vi-and-vsphere-sdk/], Tiny REST API, Cloud Application Architecture)