Virtual Appliance Setup Process

Supported Virtual Appliances

Major CloudCenter releases include appliances for the following components and cloud providers. Cisco builds these appliances on CentOS 7.x base images.

General Virtual Appliance Approach

To prepare infrastructure for the appliance approach, follow this process.

1. Review the Hardware Requirements for each CloudCenter component and ensure that you have met the requirement for each component.

2. Prepare the Checker JSON file that must be used in to verify your installation scenarios (see Phase 3 in the CloudCenter Installation process).

3. Configure Firewall Rules.

4. Download Images:

   1. See Virtual Appliances to see the supported Virtual Appliances for each component.

   2. Virtual appliances are available for each CloudCenter component from software.cisco.com.

   3. Follow directions as specified in the following table to obtain the image/import each image.

      Cloud-Specific Appliances	Image Type	Details
      Amazon	Shared image (AMI)	Obtain launch permissions for the AWS account. Request image sharing for the AWS account by opening a CloudCenter Support case (https://mycase.cloudapps.cisco.com/case or http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/index.html). In your request, specify the following details: Your AWS account number Your CloudCenter version Your Customer ID (CID) Your customer name Specify if your setup is in production or for a POC You Contact Email address
      AzureRM and Azure Stack	Downloaded Virtual Appliance (VHD from the ZIP folder)	Import the VHD image for each component.
      Google	Shared image	Obtain launch permissions for the Google account. Request image sharing for the Google account by opening a CloudCenter Support case (https://mycase.cloudapps.cisco.com/case or http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/index.html). In your request, specify the following details: Your Google Email address associated with the Google cloud account Your CloudCenter version Your Customer ID (CID) Your customer name Specify if your setup is in production or for a POC You Contact Email address
      OpenStack	Downloaded Virtual Appliance (QCOW2)	Import the QCOW2 image file for each component.
      SoftLayer (Bluemix)	Shared image	Obtain launch permissions for the Bluemix account. Request image sharing for the Bluemix account by opening a CloudCenter Support case (https://mycase.cloudapps.cisco.com/case or http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/index.html). In your request, specify the following details: Your SoftLayer (Bluemix) account number Your CloudCenter version Your Customer ID (CID) Your customer name Specify if your setup is in production or for a POC You Contact Email address
      VMware	Downloaded Virtual Appliance (OVA)	Create a folder named CliqrTemplates and import the corresponding OVA file for each component.

5. Create instances for each component using the imported/shared appliance images.

   1. One CCM, Log Collector, and Repo (conditional on a dedicated server) is required for each CloudCenter setup.

      As a worker image is defined in the CCM, you do not need to launch an instance for this component.

   2. One AMQP and CCO are required for each cloud region.

6. Setup the hostname for all launched virtual machines and update the hostname. This step is required if you prefer to use DNS names instead of IP addresses for each CloudCenter component. If you prefer to use IP addresses, you can skip this step.

   1. Choose a hostname that matches the Role. For example:

      Example

      CCM.mydomain.com

      Changing the hostname after you install and configure the VMs may cause unknown issues.

   2. Once you setup the hostname, ensure that the VM hostname is resolvable by running the following command:

   1. 1. hostname
         

      2. If the VM name is not resolvable, edit the file /etc/hosts and add your VM’s hostname.
         For example:

         Example

         <hostname> 12.10.12.1

      3. Ensure that the hostname is resolvable in the /etc/hosts file:

         • Add a hostname and the IP address for the component(s) in the /etc/hosts file.
           
           

         • The hostname cannot contain any special characters, including underscore, hyphen, or space for the database servers as it causes the authentication to fail.

         • The hostname cannot be on the same line as the localhost – add the hostname on a separate line in the /etc/hosts file.

7. Network routing loopback:

   • Refers to deployed CCMs that are running behind the Network Address Translation (NAT).

   • This setup places a restriction on machines from internal networks to ensure that they do not use an external IP to access the CCM.

   • To address this restriction, you must add a line to the CCO and AMQP server's /etc/hosts file and include the internal private IP of the CCM. For example: If the CCM DNS name is ccm.example.com and it is behind a NAT, and the internal private IP address is 192.168.20.5 and its external public IP address is 54.16.20.5, then enter the following line in the local /etc/hosts file:

     Example

     192.168.20.5 ccm.example.com

     When configuring the CCM, the hostname used above (ccm.example.com) must match what you configure as the Public DNS while configuring CCM.

     After you create the Checker JSON file, proceed to Prerequisite Checker JSON File to understand the file structure.

8. At this point, you will need to run the wizard for each component to ensure communication between the CloudCenter components. See Phase 4 Overview for additional details.

Cloud-Specific Setup Details

• Sample VMware Appliance Setup

• Sample OpenStack Appliance Setup

• Sample Azure Stack Appliance Setup (effective CloudCenter 4.9.0)

• Sample AzureRM Appliance Setup

• Sample AWS Appliance Setup