vApp Product Support Engineering Rev E VMware Confidential

VI4 - Mod Slide 2 Module 2 Lessons Lesson 1 – vCenter Server High Availability Lesson 2 – vCenter Server Distributed Resource Scheduler Lesson 3 – Fault Tolerance Virtual Machines Lesson 4 – Enhanced vMotion Compatibility Lesson 5 – DPM - IPMI Lesson 6 – vApps Lesson 7 – Host Profiles Lesson 8 – Reliability, Availability, Serviceability ( RAS ) Lesson 9 – Web Access Lesson 10 – vCenter Server Update Manager Lesson 11 – Guided Consolidation Lesson 12 – Health Status

VI4 - Mod Slide 3 Module 2-6 Lessons Lesson 1 – vApps Overview Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps

VI4 - Mod Slide 4 vApp Overview vApps simplify the deployment and ongoing management of an n-tier application in multiple virtual machines by encapsulating it into a single virtual service entity. A vApp has the same basic operations as a virtual machine, but can contain multiple virtual machines or multiple vApps. vApps encapsulate not only virtual machines but also their inter- dependencies and resource allocations allowing for single-step power operations, cloning, deployment and monitoring of the entire application. The distribution format for vApps is OVF, implying that they can be imported and exported just like OVF VMs.

VI4 - Mod Slide 5 vApp Overview (ctd) One of the major advantages of the vApp is that they can be configured with a number of variables. Virtual Machines which run in the vApp are presented with this OVF configuration, including the network information, in the form of an XML file on a CDROM. The vendor can then customize their appliance to pick up this vApp information from their pseudo CDROM device. One major use is the ability to assign a VM within a vApp an IP address from an IP pool predefined in your cluster. This information is then available to all the other members of the vApp, e.g. a database VM and a web server VM automatically know about each other.

VI4 - Mod Slide 6 vApp Overview (ctd) vApp OS MySQL OS Tomcat JBoss Glue VM OVF env Virtual Hardware and Resource Requirements vApp Policies App Customization Info Application Info OVF Descriptor (XML) Here we have 2 VMs in a vAPP, one is a database and the other is Java based application. The appliance vendor has to create some ‘glue’ code to get the XML information into the VM. This is currently achieved by mounting a CDROM in the Guest OS and retrieving the XML file from the CDROM. Since it is a common XML file, all VMs in the vApp which have access to the XML know the parameter settings for all the other VMs in the vApp.

VI4 - Mod Slide 7 vApp Overview (ctd) To access the XML file on the ISO image, you need to set the OVF settings in the Options of the VM properties as follows:

VI4 - Mod Slide 8 vApp Overview (ctd) The contents of the XML file may also be viewed from the VM Properties OVF settings:

VI4 - Mod Slide 9 Module 2-6 Lessons Lesson 1 – vApps Overview Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps

VI4 - Mod Slide 10 Creating a vApp If a host is in a cluster, then DRS must be enabled to create a vApp. Disabling DRS will remove any vApps created on the cluster. If the host is stand-alone, a vApp can also be created. To create a new vApp: Choose File > New vApp or click on the vApp icon.

VI4 - Mod Slide 11 Creating a vApp (ctd) Enter the vApp Name and select the vApp Inventory Location. Click Next.

VI4 - Mod Slide 12 Creating a vApp (ctd) In the Resource Allocation page, allocate CPU and memory resources for this vApp. This is identical to a Resource Pool configuration. Confirm the new vApp options on the vApp summary page. Click Finish to create the new vApp. Virtual Machines may now be ‘dragged & dropped’ into the vApp.

VI4 - Mod Slide 13 Power On a vApp To power on a vApp: 1. Right click on the vApp and select Power On. 2. Each VM within the vApp will be powered on according to how the startup order is set. If a delay is set, the service waits for the set length of time before powering up that application. 3. In the Summary tab, the Service Status indicates when the service has started and is available.

VI4 - Mod Slide 14 Power Off a vApp To power off a vApp: 1. Right click on the vApp and select Power Off. 2. Each VM within the vApp will be powered off according to how the startup order is set. (in reverse order) If a delay is set, the service waits for the set length of time before powering off that application. 3. In the Summary tab, the Service Status indicates when the service has stopped.

VI4 - Mod Slide 15 Module 2-6 Lessons Lesson 1 – vApps Overview Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps

VI4 - Mod Slide 16 IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks The vApp IP configuration may be changed during or after deployment. If the OVF descriptor has one or more vApp IP properties, the user may choose which IP allocation policy to use. This is done on the IP Allocation Policy page. Fixed - The user enters the IP address manually. DHCP - IP addresses are allocated by the vApp on a DHCP server Transient - IP addresses for each VM in the vApp are automatically allocated by vCenter during power-on of the vApp. The addresses are allocated from an IP range associated with the network used by a VM, and are released when the VM or the entire vApp is powered off. This allows an IT admin to dedicate a pool of IP addresses to specific vApps.

VI4 - Mod Slide 17 Editing vApp Properties The Summary tab will display descriptor information about the vApp which can be configured via the Properties of the vApp. Right click the vApp, and select Edit vApp Settings:

VI4 - Mod Slide 18 Editing vApp Properties (ctd) You can configure several aspects of a vApp, including startup order, resources, and custom properties.

VI4 - Mod Slide 19 Editing vApp Properties (ctd) The Advanced IP Allocation lets you change the supported IP allocation schemes of the vApp. A vApp can obtain its network configuration through the OVF environment or a DHCP server or the from vCenter (default). We will talk about this more in the Customization section.

VI4 - Mod Slide 20 Editing vApp Properties (ctd) Select the Start Order tab to set the startup order of the applications: Select a virtual machine and use the arrow keys to change the startup order. This order will also be used for shutdown in the reverse order Specify the delay and action for startup and shutdown for each virtual machine in the vApp. Click OK to confirm your changes.

VI4 - Mod Slide 21 Module 2-6 Lessons Lesson 1 – vApps Overview Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps

VI4 - Mod Slide 22 Clone a vApp To clone a vApp: vApp must be powered off. In the Inventory view, right click the vApp and select Clone. The Clone vApp Wizard appears. Choose a host, cluster, or resource pool on which this service runs. Click Next to continue.

VI4 - Mod Slide 23 Clone a vApp (ctd) Select the location within the datacenter (host/cluster/pool) that you want the clone to be stored.

VI4 - Mod Slide 24 Clone a vApp (ctd) Select the Name and Folder of where the cloned vApp will be stored. Select the networks this service will use. This step is only available when the new service has a different host than the original service. Select a destination datastore. Inspect your values in before clicking Finish to complete cloning the service.

VI4 - Mod Slide 25 Module 2-6 Lessons Lesson 1 – vApps Overview Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps

VI4 - Mod Slide 26 Customize Virtual Machines (ctd) To specify an IP address range for the vApp: Select the Data Center and select the IP Pools tab. Click Add.

VI4 - Mod Slide 27 IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks (ctd) In the New IP Pool Properties dialog, you may enter a comma separated list of host address ranges in the Address Range field. In this example I have given an address range of thru Note the use of the ‘#’ character to specify a range. This range would be used if we setup the IP Allocation to transient.

VI4 - Mod Slide 28 IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks (ctd) The next step is to associate the IP Pool with the VM network used by the vApp. Select the Associations tab of the New IP Pool Properties. This will list the VM networks and you select which one to associate with the pool.

VI4 - Mod Slide 29 Module 2-6 Lessons Lesson 1 – vApps Overview Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps

VI4 - Mod Slide 30 Troubleshooting The option to select New vApp is greyed out. What are the possible causes? The hosts are not part of a DRS cluster, or DRS is not enabled on the cluster.

VI4 - Mod Slide 31 Troubleshooting (ctd) Powering up a vApp results in the following message appearing in the task bar. Which Advanced IP Allocation Policy do you think was configured on the vApp? What do you think the root cause is? The Advanced IP allocation policy was set to ‘Transient’ but there was no IP Pool created for the network. A second possible issue is that the VMs have been moved to another portgroup but the vApp did not refresh this information.

VI4 - Mod Slide 32 Troubleshooting (ctd) Powering up a vApp results in the following message appearing in the task bar. Which Advanced IP Allocation Policy do you think was configured on the vApp? What do you think the root cause is? The Advanced IP allocation policy was set to ‘Transient’ but there were not enough free IP addresses left in the IP Pool to start the vApp.

VI4 - Mod Slide 33 Troubleshooting (ctd) A customer has setup an IP Pool, and set the IP Allocation to Transient, but yet the MS Windows 2003 VM in the vApp continues to pick up an IP address presented by DHCP rather than the IP Pool. Why? Remember that for this to work, there has to be ‘glue’ written by the appliance vendor to mount the CDROM, pickup the OVF XML file and pick the IP information from there. If this is a standard MS Windows 2003 deployment, then there will be no glue in the Guest OS to pick up this information so its IP configuration will be derived in the standard way.

VI4 - Mod Slide 34 Lesson 2-6 Summary vApp is a new feature of vSphere to facilitate the management of many Virtual Machines via a single entity. This is very beneficial for tiered applications. Each VM in a vApp can learn about each other through the means of and OVF XML file, as long as the vendor has scripted the ‘glue’ inside the VM to pickup this information. vApps provide one click power-on, power-off and cloning for many virtual machines.

VI4 - Mod Slide 35 Lesson Lab 6 Module 2-6 Lab 6 – VMware vCenter vApps Create a vApp Import a vApp Export a vServcie Clone a vApp Troubleshooting vApps