Configure environments

This topic describes how to specify an environment in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management; an environment defines the compute, storage, and network resources available for a virtual machine.

This topic contains the following sections:

To create network containers

A network container is a data object that provides network isolation for tenants in the cloud. You must create and onboard a pod before you create a network container. You must have at least one network container in a pod. If you have multiple tenants, you might want to create a network container for each tenant. See Network resources overview for more information.

The configuration of a network container is specified in a network container blueprint. Network container blueprints are created in BMC Network Automation, as described in Creating network container blueprints. You must create at least one network container in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

To create a new network container, you launch a wizard that contains three dialog boxes. In the first dialog box, you specify the unique name of the container, its pod, network container blueprint, NAT range (if applicable), and any tags. In the second dialog, you specify networks, firewalls, and associated load balancers. In the third dialog, you enter any additional parameters.

1. From the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu on the left side of the window and select Resources.
2. Under Quick Links on the left, click Network Containers under the Network section.
3. Click the Create Network Container icon 
   The Create Network Container wizard is displayed.
   
   

4. Complete the following fields:

   Field	Description
   Name	Required. Enter a unique name. The name can include only alphanumeric characters. It cannot include symbols or special characters such as a single quote (') or dollar sign ($).
   Description	Provide a description that helps to distinguish this container.
   Tags	Metadata that helps to define and classify the network container. Click the Add Tag icon to open the Tag Details dialog box from where you select or add a tag. See Creating tag groups and tags.
   Pod	Select an appropriate pod from the list of available ones.
   Container Blueprint	Select a network container blueprint from the list of available ones. The selection of the network container blueprint determines whether the container is dynamic and whether it supports Network Address Translation.
   NAT Address Pools	This table shows the pools of registered IP addresses to which Network Address Translation can map an unregistered IP address. This section is enabled if the selected container blueprint supports Network Address Translation.
   Add NAT Address Pools	Use the following fields to add a new NAT Address Pool: Address - Enter a single IP address to identify the starting point of the address range. Mask - 24\- or 32-bit mask that divides the IP address into subnets and identifies the available hosts in the network. Click Add to add the new NAT Address Pool. The Address in combination with the Mask defines the address range to be allocated for the network container. These fields are enabled if the selected container blueprint supports Network Address Translation.

5. Click Next to open the Dynamic Components dialog box. It displays the available networks and corresponding load balancers. For details, see Managing dynamic components for network containers.

6. Click Next to add parameters to the network container.
   If you have a long list of parameters, press Ctrl+F to find a specific parameter.

7. Click Submit to submit your changes and close the dialog box.

The container will be provisioned on the network by BMC Network Automation using the specified network container blueprint.

To create compute resource pools

You must add compute resources to an administrator-created compute resource pool before the resources can be used in the cloud.

1. From the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu on the left side of the window and select Resources.
2. Under Quick Links on the left, click Compute Pools under the Compute section. The list of current compute resource pools is displayed.
3. Click the Create Compute Pool icon . The Create Compute Pool dialog box is displayed.
   
4. Type a name for this pool.
5. Type a useful description. Descriptions can help you distinguish pools from each other and can help you find a pool by using Search.
6. If needed, create or select tags, as described in Creating tag groups and tags.
7. From the Pod menu, select the network pod to which this pool will belong.

8. From the Resource Type menu, select the type of resources that this pool will contain:

   Note

   If you would like to place VMs on DRS-enabled clusters, make sure to set up Compute Pools of VirtualClusters. If you would like to place VMs on non-DRS clusters, make sure to setup your Compute Pools of VirtualHosts or VirtualResourcePools.

   • Virtual Cluster—You must also pick the Vendor and HW Architecture of the cluster. 

   • Physical Server—You must also pick the HW Architecture of the server. 

   • Virtual Resource Pool—You must also pick the Vendor and HW Architecture of the virtual resource pool. 

   • Virtual Host—You must also pick the Vendor and HW Architecture of the virtual host. 

   • Virtual Disk Repository—You must also pick the Vendor of the virtual disk repository. 

9. From the Provider Type menu, select the provider for this pool. 

10. From the Vendor menu, select the vendor for the compute resources in this pool. 

11. From the Hardware Architecture menu, select the architecture type for the compute resources in this pool. 

12. Click Next.
    The Create Compute Pool Resources dialog box is displayed.
    
    

    • Availability column—This column is displayed for the Virtual Resource, Virtual Host, and Virtual Disk Repository resource types. A value of Available indicates that the virtual resource can be used as an active resource in the compute pool. Items displayed as Unavailable have been marked for deletion and should not be included as a compute resource for the pool. 

    • Type column—This column is displayed for the Virtual Disk Repository resource type. If you are adding a compute pool with a Virtual Disk Repository resource type, you will also see a Type column on this dialog box. If the resource is a VMware datastore cluster, you will see the following format in the Type column: Cluster:<fileType>. For example, a VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) data store cluster would be displayed in the Type column as Cluster: VMFS. 

13. Click Save to create an empty pool or continue with the following steps to add resources to the pool. 

14. Find the resources that you want to add. 

    • You can page through a long list by clicking the Page button . 

    • You can search for resources by entering a search string in the Search box and clicking the search icon . 

15. Select one or more resources and click the Add button to move them to the Selected Resources table. You can also drag and drop resources from the Available Resources table to the Selected Resources table. 

16. Click Save.

To onboard compute resources

You must onboard the compute resources that will be used in the cloud. You can onboard virtual clusters and physical servers. When you onboard a virtual cluster, any associated virtual resource pools, virtual hosts, and virtual disk repositories are also onboarded. When you onboard a resource, it is placed in the pod's default compute pool until that resource is assigned to a specific, administrator-created resource pool. The default pool's name is <pod_name>_default_pool. There is one default pool for each pod. An onboarded compute resource cannot be used until it is assigned to an administrator-created compute pool.

1. From the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration console, click the vertical Workspaces menu on the left side of the window and select Resources
2. Under Quick Links on the left, click Resources under the Compute section.
3. Click the Onboard Resource icon .
   The Onboard Resource dialog box is displayed.
   
4. Select the Pod, Provider Name, and Resource Type for the resource you want to onboard. By selecting a Resource Type, you can onboard resources from a virtual cluster or physical server. When you onboard a virtual cluster, you are also onboarding the virtual hosts, virtual resource pools, and virtual disk repositories (also called datastores) associated with the virtual cluster. An alphabetical list of resources is displayed in the Available Resources table.
5. Find the resources that you want to add.
   • You can page through a long list by clicking the Page button .
   • You can search for resources by entering a search string in the Search box and clicking the search icon .

To map compute pools to network containers

Before you can use the compute resources in a compute resource pool, you must associate the compute resource pool with a network container. Network containers can share compute resource pools if you associate (or map) the pool to more than one network container.

1. From the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu at left and select Resources.

2. Under Quick Links at left, click Network Containers under the Network section.

3. Select the network container to which you want to map one or more resource pools.
4. Click Manage Pool Mappings .
   The Map Pools dialog box opens.
    
5. Find the resource pools that you want to add to the network container:
   • You can page through the list by clicking the Page button .
   • You can search for resource pools by entering a search string in the Search box and clicking Search .
6. Select one or more resource pools in the Available Pools table and click Add to move them to the Mapped Pools table.
   You can also drag and drop resource pools from the Available Pools table to the Mapped Pools table. 
7. Click Save.
   The selected pools are mapped to the network container. 

Where to go next

Create services