How to enable console access and VM disks/cpu/memory changes to end users

[electricd7]

Hello-

We are a VMware Service Provider and provide hosted VMs to our customers which are housed in our datacenter and controlled by a single vCenter server.  We haven't done much with this implementation, but need to get to a more "user-friendly" and user-driven model.  I need to be able to solve the following problems:

1.  Customers need console access to their VMs - currently our vCenter server has no external access and users can't access their consoles because of this.  I believe there is a product offering somewhere that allows internet users to access their VMs from anywhere like you can with AWS cloud hosting

2.  Customers should be able to make billable changes to their VMs - currently our customers call us to add things like CPUs, memory, or expanding disks to their VMs.  Those changes get picked up with our billing scripts, but it would be great to offer ala cart service to customers to make their own changes

I am sure there would be more I would like to do, but those are the pressing issues.  I *thought* what I needed was VMware Cloud Directory or vCloud Director, but those both don't seem to align with what I am trying to do.  What am I missing and what product should I be using to make these changes?

[LeNNyfromNL]

HI,

It seems like VCD is able to do just that. What is the reason you think it's not?

Cheers, Daniël

[jrapine]

1.  Customers need console access to their VMs - currently our vCenter server has no external access and users can't access their consoles because of this.  I believe there is a product offering somewhere that allows internet users to access their VMs from anywhere like you can with AWS cloud hosting

VCD has a built-in proxy that allows external access to VM consoles even if your vCenter instance is not exposed to the client network.

2.  Customers should be able to make billable changes to their VMs - currently our customers call us to add things like CPUs, memory, or expanding disks to their VMs.  Those changes get picked up with our billing scripts, but it would be great to offer ala cart service to customers to make their own changes

You can create user accounts within each customer organization and grant these user accounts the ability to modify VM hardware configuration.

My org uses VCD specifically for both of the tasks you mentioned with great success. 

[nachogonzalez]

Out of the box vCloud Director is what you need.

You might be able to do the same with vRealize automation, it is not intended for provider use, but I've seen it in some telcos and it works as a charm.

Let me know if you need further assistance.

[electricd7]

Thanks for the replies.  I guess vCD is the way to go, I just am lost on setting it up and configuring it it seems.  Will reach out to VMware and find the appropriate help I need.  Thanks again!

[LeNNyfromNL]

If your an SP and participate in the VCPP program, you should have access to the software and license for Cloud Director. The only thing to get started is you need and NFS share and installed and configured NSX Manager. NSX does not even has to be configured on you ESXi clusters, but is recommended.

Maybe this post can get you started. It's about the 9.7 version, but the 10.2 (latest) does not differ that much, but in fact is more easy.

https://blogs.vmware.com/telco/vmware-vcloud-director-9-7-appliance-installation/

Initially a single installed VCD is appliance is good enough to test console access and VM re-configuration. Be sure to start with the appliance version of VCD since that is the way forward.

Succes with your deployment!