Lab Manager vs. vCloud

[eldadc]

Hi All,

I'm evaluating vCloud after using Lab manager for quite a while. I was wonder if some one with experience with vCloud can help me.

What is the flow in vCloud of creating vm templates and populating it compared to lab manager.

Thanks in Advanced.

[barnette08]

I actually just put a how-to together for our developers internally and can share it with you.  Let me know if it is helpful as I threw it together pretty quickly so it might need a few small tweaks.

[JayhawkEric]

It depends on how you use templates in your Lab Manager environment as different companies use them differently.

End users didn't use "VM Templates" in our environment as we are a software development shop with no need for Actived Directory or DNS integration.  We setup base Library entries for them to use.  We also use the same base VM's that have the same IP's that were behind a virtual router in Lab Manager.  For vCloud Director we imported these VM's into a vApp, created a vApp Internal Network, and the connected that network to the Organizational Network.  When deployed a Virtual Router is created to NAT the External IP to the Internal Network IP.  The big catch between vCloud Director and Lab Manager with this setup is when I capture the vApp to the Catalog I must select "Make Identical Copy" or else the networking gets blown away when a user deploys from the vApp Template.

If you can explain how your LM configurations are setup we could give you some more guidance.

Eric

[JayhawkEric]

Also, there's a bug currently with vCD that if you are using any IP assigning method other than "DHCP" for the NIC on the VM within the vApp it will change it to DHCP.

The hotfix for this is not out yet but you can update the DB.  Here's the blog post about it --  http://veric.me/2012/12/22/vapp-template-not-capturing-nics-ip-pool-address-setting/

Eric

[eldadc]

Hi Eric,

Thanks so much on your help and efforts. BTW Happy New year !!

In our Lab Manager configuration we set up VM template for each machine we wanted to test, Basically each machine in our environment is built from different Anti Virus and firewalls application, We test our application compatibility with other third party applications. We created a list of VM templates each templates has a unique third party application,  we then deploy each vm template for testing to several users.

I'm trying to do it on vCloud or even make our testing & deployment much better and faster.

Let's say our testing matrix includes : Differnt OS's + Differnt third party applications (Anti Virus or Firewalls), I thought creating for each environment a vApp templates.

Any Thoughts or other leads.

Thanks In Advanced.

[eldadc]

Hi,

I relay appreciate your help.

Thanks on the document, it is well written and help me a lot.

I'm still missing a document similar to your great doc with other method on how deploy large scale of  vitual machines in vCloud.

Thanks a Lot.

[barnette08]

What is the number you are looking to deploy and do you already have templates created for them?

[eldadc]

Hi,

Let's say I will have to create more then 100 template of diffrent OS's+Third Party application. The OS's are microsoft (XP,7,8, x86 & x64) The deployment is for 2-4 users.

Thanks

[JayhawkEric]

It sounds like you are wanting to do Guest Customizations on each one of these when they are deployed.  You can script all of this, and the post functionality, by using the PowerCLI modules provided at http://velemental.com/2012/05/05/unofficial-vmware-vcd-cmdlets/ or with vCenter Orchestrator and the VCD Plug-in.  We are currently using a combination of both depending what we are trying to achieve.

[JayhawkEric]

You can also use these scripting processes to capture vApps to the catalogs as Templates.

[eldadc]

Hi Eric,

Thanks on your explanations and links you post for me.

We have already set up Guest OS customization process by using an In-house tool based on VIX. The tool is creating all sort of operation on the Guest OS.

I'm still debating and considering how to make the easiest flow for creating large scale of machines ( vapps templates) with different third party applications. Large matrix of Microsoft OS's each OS has different permutations of third party applications

Thanks

[JayhawkEric]

The hardest part will be getting your software installed. How to do this will depend on the individual software packages and if they can be installed via scripts or not.

The scripting methods mentioned above will help create, start, stop, and capture as vApp Templates.

If these are already templates within Lab Manager you can export them from LM and import them into vCD. The export process is manual but you can fully script the import process.  This might be quicker than rebuilding everything, and is what we have done.  I use PowerCLI to create a vApp, import the VM, configure networking, capture to the proper catalogs, and set as Gold Master if needed.

Eric

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