Creating a VM Lifecycle Policy for VMware

To set up VM Lifecycle Management, you must create a virtual machine template.

Before You Begin

The following conditions must be met to use VM Lifecycle Management:

• To verify the version of VMware software that is required to support this feature, see System Requirements.

• A version of VMware Tools that is supported by the host must be installed on virtual machine templates (preferably the latest supported version)

• Supported operating systems:

  • Windows Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016

  • Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10

  • Linux RHEL 5, 6, and 7, CentOS, Oracle, and Ubuntu

You must install the following components to set up VM Lifecycle Management:

• Virtual Server Agent. For installation instructions, see Deployment - Virtual Server Agent for VMware.

• Web Server and Web Console. For installation instructions see Installing the Web Console.

• Virtual Machines used as templates must have VMware Tools installed.

About This Task

To administer VM provisioning using the VM File Recovery Plug-In in the vSphere client, a vCenter user must be assigned permissions as described in Permissions for Custom User Accounts.

Procedure

The following is a high-level process for setting up VM Lifecycle Management:

1. Create a VMware Client.

2. Create Policies:

   • Create a VM Lifecycle Policy

     A VM Lifecycle Policy is required for VM Lifecycle Management.

   • Create a Provisioning Policy for Live Mount

     If you want to use Live Mount, you must also create an additional Provisioning Policy for Live Mount.

Creating a VMware Client

You must create a VMware client before you can create a VM Lifecycle Policy.

Procedure

1. In the CommCell Browser, right-click Client Computers, point to New Client > Virtualization, and click VMware vCenter.

   The Create VMware vCenter Client dialog box appears.

2. In the vCenter Host Name box, enter the name of the host computer.

3. Enter user credentials that have access to the host computer, and click OK.

   The vCenter client appears in the CommCell Browser under Client Computers.

4. Expand Client Computers > vCenter Client > Virtual Server.

5. Retrieve a list of all virtual machines and Datacenters in the vCenter:

   1. Right-click VMware, point to All Tasks, and then click Refresh Datacenters.

   2. On the Refresh Datacenters dialog box, refresh the virtual machine status or discover virtual machines:

      • If you want to update the status of all discovered virtual machines, click Refresh VM Status.

      • If you want to discover all virtual machines on the vCenter and add them to the CommCell Console as clients, click Discover VMs.

        Clients are created for each discovered virtual machine, and that might take some time.

   3. Click OK.

Creating a VM Lifecycle Policy

You must create a VM Lifecycle Policy so that users can create their own virtual machines.

Before You Begin

• Create a VMware client.

Procedure

1. In the CommCell Browser, expand Policies, right-click Virtual Machine Policies and then click Create New Policy.

2. In the Virtual Machine Policy Options dialog box, select the vendor and policy options:

   1. From the Virtualization Vendor list, select VMware.

   2. From the Policy Type list, select Clone from Template.

   3. Click Next.

   The VM Lifecycle Policy dialog box appears.

3. On the Enter the Policy Name and Description page, name the policy and configure advanced settings:

   1. In the Policy Name box, enter a name for the policy

      Note: Make a note of the Policy name. This is needed later for users to create virtual machines.

   2. In the Quota box, type or select the VM limit per user.

   3. Optional: Configure the period of time before a VM is decommissioned and then deleted. Select Enable Decommission, and then configure the time period:

      • In the Decommission VM after list, select or type a number of days.

      • In the Deletion grace period list, select or type a number of days.

      All the decommissioned machines are automatically turned off, and when you perform a backup for these machines, they are archived.

   4. In the Description box, enter a description for the policy

   5. Click Next.

4. On the Select the vCenter and Datacenter page, specify the vCenter and Datacenter to use.

   1. In the vCenter list, select the name of a vCenter.

   2. In the Datacenter list, select the name of a datacenter.

   3. Optional: Click Advanced Policy Features, and then configure any of the available settings in the Advanced Policy Features dialog box:

      • To specify the client group that can use this policy, select Associated Client Group, and then select a client group name from the list.

      • To enable backups for the virtual machines that users create, select Enable VM Backup, and then in the Backup Set and Subclient lists, select the backup set and subclient that will control the VM backups.

      • To configure email addresses for the people who will be notified about VM operations, in the E-mail addresses to notify box, enter email addresses separated by commas.

      • To configure the email sender's address, in the Sender's email address box, type an email address.

      • If you don't want to notify users about VM operations that succeeded, select Disable e-mail notifications for successful VM operations.

      • To allow auto-migration of VMs created with this policy, select Enable VM Auto-migration.

      • To configure ESX Server threshold limits, select Enable ESX Threshold Limits, and then in Memory Freespace Required and Datastore Freespace Required, select the applicable percentages.

        Virtual Machine provision will be skipped if its hosting server memory or Datastore has less than the required freespace.

      Click OK to close the Advanced Policy Features dialog box.

   4. Optional: If you want to refresh Datacenters for the Virtualization Client, click Update vCenter and Datacenter Information.

      We recommend that you perform this step before you create the VM Lifecycle Policy, at the instance level when you create the vCenter client, so that the vCenter and Datacenter lists contain all of the vCenters and Datacenters that you want to use.

      This step can take some time if there are many ESX servers.

   5. Click Next.

5. On the Select ESX Servers page, specify the ESX servers that you want to make available to users.

   1. From the Available list, select the ESX Servers, and then click Add to add them to the Selected list.

   2. Click Next.

6. On the Select Datastores page, specify the data stores that you want to make available to users.

   1. From the Available list, select the data stores, then click Add to add them to the Selected list.

   2. Click Next.

7. On the Select Templates page, specify the templates that you want to make available to users.

   1. From the Available list, select the templates, and then click Add to add them to the Selected list.

   2. Click Next.

   If a template is not visible, verify that the most current version of VMware Tools is installed on the virtual machine template, and then refresh datacenters again, as described in this step in Create a Virtualization Client for the vCenter.

8. On the Enter Resources page, enter the minimum and maximum values allowed for each virtual machine and then specify the network names that can be used:

   1. Next to # of CPUs, set the minimum and maximum number of CPUs for each virtual machine, and the cost per core.

   2. Next to Memory (GB), set the minimum and maximum amount of memory for each virtual machine, and the cost per GB.

   3. Next to # of NICs, set the minimum and maximum number of NICs for each virtual machine.

   4. Next to Network Names, from the Available list, select one or more networks, and then click Add.

   5. Click Next.

9. On the Enter Storage Information page, specify the disk type, disk number, amount of disk space, and the maximum number of allowed snapshots for users.

   1. Next to Disk Type, select the type of disk that you want to make available.

   2. Next to Number of Disks, set the maximum number of allowed disks.

   3. Next to Disk Space, enter the minimum and maximum amount of disk space allowed for each disk, and the cost per GB.

      Note: The minimum disk size that is available to users is determined by the hard disk size that is configured in the template. Therefore, when you set the minimum disk size on this page, it might be different than the minimum disk size that is available to users when they create virtual machines.

   4. Next to Number of Snapshots, enter the maximum number of snapshot backups allowed for the virtual machine.

   5. Click Next.

10. On the Enter the Naming Pattern for VMs page, set the naming pattern that users must use to name their new virtual machines.

    1. In the VM Naming Pattern box, type a naming pattern.

       Use the asterisk (*) to require at least one additional character in a portion of each virtual machine name.

       For example, the default value, VM*Eng, requires each virtual machine name to contain at least one additional character following the text, VM, and before the text, Eng. Therefore, users could give names to their virtual machines such as VMBobEng or VMJane1Eng.

    2. Click Next.

11. On the Select User Membership page, select the user groups that will have access to VM Provisioning.

    1. From the Available list, select the user groups, and then click Add to add them to the Selected list.

    2. Click Next.

12. On the Summary page, click Finish.

Provide users with the VM Naming Pattern for naming virtual machines so that they can begin creating and managing their virtual machines. For instructions on creating virtual machines, see Create a Virtual Machine - VM Lifecycle Management.