An environment is a resource that consists of one or more associated cloud regions and cloud accounts and that has been set aside for specific deployment needs. Users deploy applications to deployment environments, and deployment environments can be shared with multiple users.
For example, a Development environment could be associated with a development cloud and a Production deployment environment could be associated with a production grade high-performance cloud. Users on a development team would have the ability to deploy only to the Development environment and users on an operations team would have the ability to deploy only to the Production environment.
The Environments Page
You can add, view, manage, and delete deployment environments from the Environments page. To access this page, choose the Environments tab.
When you create a deployment environment and share it with a user without checking the Promote from option, be aware that the Migrate action will not be available when this user deploys an application that uses this deployment environment.
Delete
Delete a deployment environment.
If you choose to delete a configured deployment environment, the Delete Deployment Environment popup to confirm your intention, deletes the configured environment, and displays a status message at the top of the Environment page.
Associate Rules
Add system tag matching rules to a deployment environment.
When you use this deployment environment to deploy an application or an application profile you can select a tag that is associated with this environment. This automatically populates the cloud account configuration information.
If rules-based governance is enabled, the system takes various automatic actions based on the tags that are associated with this deployment environment. See System Tags for additional context.
Adding an Environment
When you add an environment, you create a new deployment environment based on configuration settings that you make. To add a deployment environment, follow these steps:
You can add multiple cloud accounts for each cloud region. You can additionally select a default cloud account for each deployment environment by clicking the Pin icon, as shown in the following screenshot.
Access the CCM UI and navigate to the Environments tab. The Deployments page refreshes to display the configured environments.
Click Add Environment. The New Deployment Environment page displays.
In the General Settings section:
Provide the deployment environment Name
(Optional) Provide a Description.
(Optional) Toggle the Approval required to deploy to this environment switch.
On: To require the approval an authorized user for the deployment of any application to this deployment environment.
Off: (Default) Approval is not required.
In the Cloud Selection section:
Select the checkbox for the required Cloud Region or Container Cloud. This cloud region must be the same as the CCO cloud region (used to manage your new APIC controller extension in the above section). You can select any combination of clouds from the available clouds list.
Select the Cloud Account from the dropdown list, if multiple clouds are available for this account.
(Optional) Configure the Cloud Settings section and the UseSimplifiedNetworks section for your cloud.
If multiple users have access to some regions/clouds as part of the deployment environment, be aware that these users may not be able to access all cloud accounts and regions used in deployment environments. In such cases, the Network Mapping option is disabled for these users and they will not be able to delete any existing networks, if already defined as part of the deployment environment.
VMware - Cloud and Network Settings
VMware Cloud Settings
Configure the fields described in the table below for VMware cloud regions. These fields are configurable for the following features:
Environments to view, manage, and delete deployment environments
The CloudCenter platform does not explicitly request the disk provisioning type for root disk or additional volumes on the virtual machines that it deploys on vCenter, to be thin provisioning, thick provisioning eager zeroes or thick provisioning lazy zeroed. The root disk provisioning type is the vCenter default which is the same format as the source template or snapshot on the VM. For additional volumes it will either be the vCenter default or the datastore default depending on the type of datastore.
CloudCenter 4.9.1 introduces the Allowed Additional Volume that was configured as specified in the Region-Level Cloud Settings > Allowed Additional Volume Sizes field
CloudCenter 4.8.2 and earlier versions: In the CloudCenter platform definition, the instance type disk size is for the ephemeral disk. If it is specified in an instance type, the CloudCenter platform attaches another disk with specified size to the VM when launching a VM using this instance type. See VMware Network Settings for additional context.
CloudCenter 4.9.0: The Root Disk setting is available as a separate field and you can only select the Root Disk size if the Cloning Mode is set to Full Clone (Enable Full Clone = Selected). See VMware Network Settings for additional context.
CloudCenter 4.9.1: The following Region-Level Cloud Settings are determined for use in the Deploy form for vCenter deployments
Allowed Root Disk Sizes
Allowed Additional Volume Sizes
Select the required option from the dropdown lists for each field identified in the following table:
Field
Description
Root Disk
Effective CloudCenter 4.9.0, the Root Disk setting is available in the Tier Settings > Volumes section on the Deployments page (not the Deployment Environment Defaults page).
You can only select the Root Disk size if the Cloning Mode is set to Full Clone (Enable Full Clone = Selected).
Specify the Root disk size to be greater than the size specified in your template/snapshot.
Additional Volume (if configured)
Effective CloudCenter 4.9.1 the Regions tab for VMware vCenter environments displays two new fields:
Allowed Root Disk Sizes
Allowed Additional Volume Sizes (allows users to delete or use the specified GB for this setting)
Disabled – Default. Can select a cluster during deployment because the CloudCenter platform determines the cluster for the deployment. The Cluster, Datastore, and Resource Pool settings are available and can be configured.
Enabled – Cannot select a cluster during deployment because the CloudCenter platform determines the cluster for the deployment. The Cluster, Datastore, and Resource Pool settings are NOT available and cannot be configured.
Or
This group of settings are required
Cluster
The name of the server group in this datacenter's virtual environment in vSphere where you want to deploy VMs.
Datastore
The list of DataStores (DS) from vSphere. You can select both the datastore cluster and the the DS if DRS is disabled. When you select a Datastore cluster, if DRS is:
Disabled – Select a Datastore deployment from a dropdown menu or leave the DS un-selected so the CloudCenter platform can assign the logic for the datastore selection.
Enabled – The Datastore dropdown is disabled and neither you nor the CloudCenter platform can make any selection.
Resource Pool
The default computing resources used to manage resource allocations between VMs. Use the default source pool name from vSphere where you need to deploy instances.
Target Deployment Folder
The default folders used to group objects of the same type for management and VM deployment.
Enable Full Clone
If you use VM Template when configuring images for VMware cloud environments, be aware of the following settings.
Setting
Description
Full Clone
Use if deploying to a different VMware cluster from the worker image.
Use if you select an image that is mapped to a Template. Add this Template to the CliqrTemplates folder
The full clone operation is performed on the source VM or VM template, the cloned VM can be on either datastore or datastore cluster that you specify.
You can use the Full clone option for both Snapshots and Templates.
Linked Clone
Use if the image is mapped to a snapshot.
Add a folder in vSphere (to store your CloudCenter snapshots), name it CliqrTemplates, and add this snapshot to the CliqrTemplates folder.
At the time of deployment, deploy to the datastore where the snapshot is present.
When you use a Snapshot, both the Linked Clone and Full Clone options are possible settings. See Configure Image IDs for additional context.
To configure these settings, you should have already configured the following entities in VMware:
A VMware cluster
A datastore cluster
To configure the clone settings in the CloudCenter platform, select the Enable Full Clone (linked clone) checkbox
Full Clone Setting
Description
Selected
CloudCenter creates a full disk clone of the VM.
If the root size reflects the same size as the template, be sure to resize the partition once the instance is up and running.
Not Selected (default)
CloudCenter creates a thin clone which is faster but relies on the original VM disk being available in its original location.
The format is the same as the source template/snapshot disk format (the default when you create a VM from the vCenter UI).
Root Disk Resizable
This field is deprecated in CloudCenter 4.9.0 and later releases.
You can only select the Root Disk Resizable if the Cloning Mode is set to Full Clone (Enable Full Clone = Selected).
This feature is only available for VMware VMs.
The CloudCenter platform provides the capability to resize the root disk for VMware VMs by a configurable setting to specify the root disk size based on the OS type. This configuration setting is similar to the data store cluster setting.
When you initially provision the VM, you can define the base OS disk size in the instance type configuration for each VM. A default VM includes a base (root) OS disk and an ephemeral disk. Some enterprises may have a requirement in place to only use one disk instead of both disks.
You can only increase (not reduce) the VM root disk size – The new root disk size should not be smaller than the default root disk size.
For example, if the root disk size is 250 GB, then you can only resize the instance type to be greater than 250 GB. The instance size in this case cannot be less than 250 GB.
Enabled: When you specify the Instance Type Storage for a deployment and if this setting is greater than the configured root disk size in the template or snapshot, then the root size of the deployed VM will be set to the size specified in the instance type.
The additional space is not formatted or partitioned by CloudCenter. Use the Node initialization script to perform these tasks.
Disabled: When this option is disabled, an additional disk with the specified size is created in the instance type.
VMware Network Settings
Toggle the Visibility switch to determine if you want to allow your end users to use pre-configured settings.
OFF: (Default) End users are not allowed to use preconfigured ACI extensions.
Select the Network in the NIC section. See IP Allocation Mode for additional context on NIC configuration.
Add additional NICs, if required.
ON: End users are allowed to use preconfigured ACI extensions.
Select the required extension, the corresponding options are displayed in the dropdown list for the remaining fields (see Extensions for additional details):
Select the APIC Extension from the dropdown list (see ACI Extensions for additional details).
Select the APIC Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) associated with this APIC Extension from the filtered dropdown list .
Select the APIC Tenant associated with this APIC Extension from the filtered dropdown list.
Select the Network in the NIC section.
If you select VMware, select the Network in the NIC section. See IP Allocation Mode for additional context on NIC configuration.
If you select Cisco ACI, select the type in the End Point Group (EPG) Type field.
Existing EPG: If you select this type, you must further select a pre-existing EPG (that is already connected to one of the Bridge Domains) from the Existing EPG dropdown, which appears if you select this type.
New EPG: If you select this type, you must further select a pre-existing Bridge Domain (to which this EPG must connect) from the Bridge Domain dropdown list.
Bridge Domain Template: See Extensions for additional context.
Environments to view, manage, and delete deployment environments
Select the required option from the dropdown lists for each field identified in the following table:
Field
Description
vCloud Org VDC
Required. The name of the Virtual Data Center (VDC) in vCloud Director.
vCloud Storage Profiles
Required. The storage profiles to deploy the VMs.
vCD Network Settings
Select the Network in the NIC section. If you select vCD, select the OrgVdcNetwork in the NIC section. See IP Allocation Mode for additional context on NIC configuration
Environments to view, manage, and delete deployment environments
Field
Description
Cloud Tenant
Multiple OpenStack tenants share cloud accounts in the CloudCenter platform. At deployment time, the CloudCenter platform allows you to select the required OpenStack tenant. You can create access key pairs in the OpenStack console so these key pairs are visible when submitting jobs using the CloudCenter platform.
In this case, the concept of Tenant Name and Tenant ID is specific to the OpenStackcloud, not the CloudCenter platform. See OpenStack Configurations for additional context.
Disabled – Default. Can select a zone during deployment because the CloudCenter platform determines the zone for the deployment. The Availability Zone(s) settings is available and can be configured.
Enabled – Cannot select a zone during deployment because the CloudCenter platform determines the zone for the deployment. The Availability Zone(s)setting is NOT available and cannot be configured.
Availability Zone(s)
The default and/or additional Availability Zone(s) for this region. See Availability Sets and Zones for additional context.
OpenStack Network Settings
Toggle the Visibility switch to determine if you want to allow your end users to use pre-configured settings.
OFF: (Default) End users are not allowed to associate the public IP with the NIC.
ON: End users are allowed to associate the public IP with the NIC.
Select the required Network in the NIC section.
Select the Private IP Allocation mode in the NIC section. See IP Allocation Mode for additional context on NIC configuration.
DHCP: (Default) This strategy allows the IP to be allocated by the DHCP server to the instance on server boot up. This IP address is not known prior to server boot up.
Preallocate IP: This strategy allows the cloud infrastructure IP allocation to be dynamically provided before the server boots up.
IBM BlueMix (SoftLayer) - Cloud and Network Settings
IBM BlueMix (SoftLayer) Cloud Settings
Effective CloudCenter 4.9.0 and later, configure the fields described in the table below for IBM Bluemix cloud regions. These fields are configurable for the following features:
Environments to view, manage, and delete deployment environments
Field
Description
Root Disk
Effective CloudCenter 4.9.0, the Root Disk setting is available in the Tier Settings > Volumes section.
Additional Volume
This field only displays if it is configured in the application (see Application Tier Properties > General Setting > Number of Volumes and Default Volume Size for additional context).
If configured, you will see this field populated with the relevant information. You can configure the GB size for this deployment.
The only available type for this field is SAN disks.
IBM BlueMix (SoftLayer) Pack Network Settings
Effective CloudCenter 4.9.0, the Default Private VLAN & Default Public VLAN fields are not available as region-level settings when you Configure a SoftLayer Cloud. Instead, you can configure the following settings.
Effective CloudCenter 4.9.0 and later, you have the option to configure these details:
Select the required Private VLAN and Subnet fields in the Cloud Settings section. These fields specify the default private cloud network to which this CloudCenter instance must be launched.
Toggle the Visibility switch to determine if you want to allow your end users to configure the Public IP settings.
OFF: (Default) End users are not allowed to assign the public IP.
ON: End users are allowed to assign the public IP.
Select the required Public VLAN and Subnet fields. These fields specify the default public cloud network to which this CloudCenter instance must be launched.
Environments to view, manage, and delete deployment environments
Field
Description
Zone
The default and/or additional zone(s) to be launched for this region. See Availability Sets and Zones for additional context.
Project
The list of projects from which you can choose network.
If using an Shared VPC network, you have the following options:
Select the host project associated with your Shared VPC.
Select the service or the host project associated with your Shared VPC.
The list of projects is shown for narrowing down the list of networks. The application instances will be deployed in the project associated with the cloud account.
Network Mapping
The name of the network that you created in the CloudCenter platform when you assigned the Google Network Settings (see the next section).
The NIC configuration and Simplified Networks configuration is available for both networks and sub-networks. The CloudCenter platform only supports a single NIC configuration.
Select one of the configured networks retrieved from Google cloud:
Non-legacy Networks – Select the required network and then select the sub-network-based Google project (or the CloudCenter-specific Shared VPC host project) contained within that network.
Legacy Networks – Select the legacy network and the sub-network selection is no longer available.
Select the checkbox to indicate if a public IP in the NIC section. See IP Allocation Mode > Cloud-Specific Nuances > Google for additional context.
Select the Kubernetes Settings from the Namespace dropdown list, if applicable. This is a new field effective CloudCenter 4.9.0. The list is automatically populated and only requires a selection to be made. Go back to the following pages for related details.
Environments to view, manage, and delete deployment environments
Kubernetes Network Settings
Kubernetes container configurations do not require additional network settings.
AWS - Cloud and Network Settings
AWS Cloud Settings
The Instance Profile field is optional – provide the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) used for the Instance Profile configured in your AWS Cloud account. If you specify the Instance Profile name, the CloudCenter platform launches VMs within the IAM role that is associated with the corresponding instance profile.
The instance type disk size is for ephemeral (temporary scratch) disk, the root disk size is what specified in the VM image. Some instance types may have multiple ephemeral disks. You can change the root disk size at deployment time, if required, to a size that is higher than what is in a VM image.
Configure the fields described in this section for AWS cloud regions. These fields are configurable for the following features:
Environments to view, manage, and delete deployment environments
AWS Network Settings
Select the required option from the dropdown list for the VPC field. See AWS Configurations for additional context.
Toggle the Visibility switch to determine if you want to allow your end users to use pre-configured settings.
OFF: (Default) End users are not allowed to associate the public IP with the NIC.
ON: End users are allowed to associate the public IP with the NIC.
Select the required Network in the NIC section.
The Private IP Allocation mode in the NIC section defaults to DHCP. The DHCP strategy allows the IP to be allocated by the DHCP server to the instance on server boot up. This IP address is not known prior to server boot up. See IP Allocation Mode for additional context on NIC configuration.
Configure the fields described in the table below for Azure Stack cloud regions (effective CloudCenter 4.9.0). These fields are configurable for the following features:
Environments to view, manage, and delete deployment environments
Field
Description
Resource Group
The same region as your CCO.
Storage Account
The reason to create two storage accounts is that, some instance types (for example, Standard_DS1, Standard_GS1) can use the premium storage account to enhance performance and use standard storage account. The other instance type can use the standard storage account only.
Enable Availability Set
All VMs within a cluster are placed in the same subnet. So all VMs inside the same Availability Set are placed in the same subnet. If you do not enable the Availability Set, an availability set is NOT created. To ensure high availability, the VM(s) placement in fault/update domains are not guaranteed to be in different domains. See Availability Sets and Zones for additional context.
Configure the fields described in the table below for Azure Stack cloud regions (effective CloudCenter 4.9.0). These fields are configurable for the following features:
Environments to view, manage, and delete deployment environments
Field
Description
Resource Group
The same region as your CCO.
Storage Account
The reason to create two storage accounts is that, some instance types (for example, Standard_DS1, Standard_GS1) can use the premium storage account to enhance performance and use standard storage account. The other instance type can use the standard storage account only.
Enable Availability Set
All VMs within a cluster are placed in the same subnet. So all VMs inside the same Availability Set are placed in the same subnet. If you do not enable the Availability Set, an availability set is NOT created. To ensure high availability, the VM(s) placement in fault/update domains are not guaranteed to be in different domains. See Availability Sets and Zones for additional context.
Environments to view, manage, and delete deployment environments
Field
Description
Resource Group
The same region as your CCO.
Storage Account
The reason to create two storage accounts is that, some instance types (for example, Standard_DS1, Standard_GS1) can use the premium storage account to enhance performance and use standard storage account. The other instance type can use the standard storage account only.
Diagnostics
CloudCenter users can view diagnostics provided by Azure Resource Manager from multiple places in the Azure console. The metrics and logs are stored in the related storage account.
Microsoft has multiple settings to determine how metrics are collected (time interval) and to specify the metrics to be collected. CloudCenter uses the default Microsoft settings.
Enable Availability Set
All VMs within a cluster are placed in the same subnet. So all VMs inside the same Availability Set are placed in the same subnet. If you do not enable the Availability Set, an availability set is NOT created. To ensure high availability, the VM(s) placement in fault/update domains are not guaranteed to be in different domains. See Availability Sets and Zones for additional context.
Virtual Network
Based on the Resource Group and the CCO location.
AzureRM Network Settings
Toggle the Visibility switch to determine if you want to allow your end users to use pre-configured settings.
OFF: (Default) End users are not allowed to associate the public IP with the NIC.
ON: End users are allowed to associate the public IP with the NIC.
You can configure a multi-site deployment to enable users to deploy N-Tier applications with each tier being configure in a different cloud or in the same cloud in different segmented networks while ensuring SLA guaranty and data sovereignty. This feature allows you to use different clouds for different tiers.
While the multi-site feature is supported for all supported clouds (see What Is Supported? for a complete list), the Set Defaults functionality is only supported for AWS, OpenStack, and VMware clouds.
For example, in a 2-Tier application, the load balancer and app cluster can be in AWS or any other public cloud offering and the database can be in the private datacenter like VMware with/without ACI. This example is also applicable in cases where the two different datacenters (regions) of an enterprise is maintained as two different cloud families and the user wants the different tiers in the application to be deployed to these two datacenters or clouds.
If a deployment environment has more than one cloud selected in the Deployment page, you see a new option in the Cloud dropdown list called Hybrid. When you select this option, you can choose different instance types and provide Advanced cloud/network settings specific to the selected cloud for each tier. The following screenshot shows an example.
Multi-Account Cloud Configuration
You can also configure each application tier to be deployed in different cloud accounts (multi-account) within the same datacenter. The Hybrid option allows you to choose the same cloud and different cloud accounts for each tier.
For example, a datacenter admin maintains a single cloud (for example, VMware) for the entire datacenter but maintains different cloud accounts for different segments that are managed by different Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controllers (APICs). In this case, each tier for this application can be deployed to these different segments. The database can be deployed to the pod or segment that has stricter security policies enforced by APIC1 and the AppCluster tier can go into different pod that is managed by a different APIC2.
Migrate without Suspending Deployments
Suspension is an optional setting during the migration process. This change helps when testing your migration – without suspending your deployment. The following screenshot highlights suspending a deployment.
If you check (unchecked by default) the check box, the application is terminated and NOT suspended.
Restful JSON for APIs
If using the Submit Job (v2) API, you have the added advantage of completing the forms associated with the New Deployment workflow and retrieving the corresponding JSON request body for use with the API(s). The following screenshot shows an example.
The Restful JSON button (or the restful.json link) becomes available when you complete the General Cloud Settings details (with the required selection for the clouds and network settings) and you are able to proceed without any errors or missing fields in this workflow. This button generates the contents of the job deploy page before a submit operation.
This button currently displays for N-tier deployments. When you click the Restful JSON button (or the restful.json link), a popup responds with the corresponding JSON request body. You can copy the entire REST payload and paste it in your RESTClient application to issue the API call. The following image shows an example.
