Setting up and using VM provisioning (from VMware VM template)

In this topic, the following sections describe the full process necessary to set up and use VM provisioning from a VMware VM template in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

Before you begin

Overview of BMC Server Automation configuration tasks for VM provisioning from a VM template

The following sections provide an overview of the required tasks you must perform in BMC Server Automation, in order to provision VMs using BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

To create the VM template

This section provides an overview of the steps when creating a VM template on VMware vCenter. A VM template is a reusable image created from an existing VM. You use these VM templates when creating a VGP in BMC Server Automation.

Requirements

Review the following requirements for VM templates.

Recommendations

Consider the following recommendations if you have mulitiple VMware vCenters in the deployment (a multi-site deployment, for example):

• Make sure you have the same VM template names available on all of the vCenters. You can then create Virtual Guest Packages (VGPs) from one vCenter and still provision VMs to other vCenters.
• To minimize template overhead, it is highly recommended to keep templates as minimal as possible (such as, only OS with optionally an enterprise-based software stack, such as antivirus program).

Adding a BMC Server Automation agent to the VM template

Before you use a VM template to create a VGP, use the following procedure to add a BMC Server Automation RSCD agent to the template:

1. Convert the template to a VM.
2. Install a BMC Server Automation RSCD agent on the VM (see Installing only the RSCD agent (Linux and UNIX) and Installing an RSCD agent (Windows)).
3. From a remote machine, use the BMC Server Automation agentinfo utility to ensure connectivity. Enter the following command:
   agentinfo hostname
   If the agent is not reachable, you may need to disable the firewall on the VM.
4. Delete the BladeLogicRSCD user before converting the VM to a template.
5. Convert the VM back to a template.

Linux VM templates

Linux VM templates must include the following:

1. Modify the /etc/rc.d/rc.localscript to ensure successful DNS registration. See the following example for the recommended modification:

   dhcpHostname=`grep "DHCP_HOSTNAME=.*" /etc/sysconfig/network`
   dhcpHostname=`echo "$dhcpHostname" | sed "s/\s*//g"`
   if [ -z "$dhcpHostname" ]; then
   echo "DHCP_HOSTNAME=$HOSTNAME" >> /etc/sysconfig/network
   reboot
   else if [ "DHCP_HOSTNAME=$HOSTNAME" != "$dhcpHostname" ]; then
   sed "s/DHCP_HOSTNAME=.*/DHCP_HOSTNAME=$HOSTNAME/g" /etc/sysconfig/network > /tmp/hostnamechange
   mv /tmp/hostnamechange /etc/sysconfig/network
   reboot
   fi
   fi
   

2. Distribute the Unix Users custom object to the BMC Server Automation agent to validate users created on VMs. See the BMC Server Automation online technical documentation for details).

To create a VGP from a VMware VM template

You can build a repeatable process for deploying new virtual systems by using a virtual guest package (VGP). The VGP describes the new virtual system you want to add. For VMware environments, you can base the VGP on an existing VMware vCenter template or clone an existing VM.

Having a base package from which to deploy new virtual machines helps enforce consistency and standards, such as including Antivirus and management software on any new virtual machine. For information about creating a VGP, see Creating a VGP in BMC Server Automation for a vCenter environment.

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To create the Deploy Job

This section provides high-level guidelines for creating a BLPackage Deploy Job. When you perform this procedure, you are creating software packages that you can use when defining an application in a service blueprint in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management. Applications let you deploy software on VMs that you provision using the cloud.

Because the BLPackage Deploy Job supports blueprint parameterization, BMC recommends that you create a BLPackage Deploy Job instead of using an application component template.

For detailed information, see the following topics in the BMC Server Automation online technical documentation:

• Working with properties
• Working with components and component templates
• Deploying files and applications using packages and depot objects
• Creating and modifying Software and BLPackage Deploy Jobs
• If you plan to create an application component template, use BMC Server Automation to create Software Deploy Jobs to install applications on target virtual machines.

To create a BLPackage Deploy Job

BMC Server Automation BLPackages can be used to install applications on target virtual machines. A BLPackage is a collection of server assets, software packages, and an XML instruction set. A BLPackage can include installers, files, configuration objects, and so on. The BLPackage can also include parameterized property values among its server assets. The parameterized property values must match exactly the blueprint parameter values used by the service blueprint.

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To execute the Publish Product Catalog Job

The Publish Product Catalog Job in BMC Server Automation retrieves a list of virtual guest packages and system packages from specially named BMC Server Automation folders, and publishes those to the Product Catalog. The Product Catalog is an application that is installed on the BMC Atrium CMDB and stores your hardware and software metadata. It is also known as the DML (Formerly DSL).

In BMC Server Automation, ensure that you have created the object to be published and stored the object in its appropriate folder, as described above.

To publish the product catalog

1. If you have already configured the CMDB in your BMC Server Automation Console, proceed to Step 4.

2. Choose Atrium Integration > Configuration from the Configuration menu and enter the following BMC Atrium CMDB details on the AR/CMDB Configuration tab:
   AR/CMDB Configuration parameters

   Parameter	Description
   Host Name/IP Address	Host name or IP address of the computer where BMC Atrium CMDB is installed.
   CMDB Port	Port used for communicating with BMC Atrium CMDB. Note If you are using a portmapper service for AR system, enter a value of 0.
   CMDB User	User Name for connecting to BMC Atrium CMDB.
   CMDB Password	Password for connecting to BMC Atrium CMDB.

3. Click Test Connection to verify that the credentials that you entered are correct.
4. Right-click the Jobs > CSM_Jobs folder, and select New > Publish Product Catalog Job.
5. In the General panel, name the job and give it a description.
6. In the Default Notifications panel, define default notifications that are generated when the job completes. Default notifications can take the form of e-mails or SNMP traps. For more information, see the Managing jobs topic in the BMC Server Automation online technical documentation.
7. In the Schedules panel, schedule the job to execute immediately, at a specific time in the future, or on a recurring basis, and define notifications that are issued when the job runs. For more information, see the Managing jobs topic in the BMC Server Automation online technical documentation.
8. In the Properties panel, there is a list of properties automatically assigned to each object. In this list, you can modify the value of any properties that are defined as editable. For more information, see the Setting values for system object properties topic in the BMC Server Automation online technical documentation.
9. In the Permissions panel, grant roles access to any objects created in the system, such as jobs, servers, or depot objects. Using the Permissions panel, you can add individual permissions to an object. You can also set permissions by adding access control list (ACL) templates or ACL policies. For more information, see the Defining permissions for a system object topic in the BMC Server Automation online technical documentation.
10. Click Finish to run the Publish Product Catalog Job.
11. Review the job execution logs to verify that content created within the specially named folders in BMC Server Automation has been published into the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management product catalog.

Viewing published objects in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management

Objects published to the Service Catalog are available to the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Service Designer workspace, where they can be added to service blueprint components.

For more information about defining service blueprints, see Creating, copying, or editing a service blueprint. For more information about PaaS provisioning, see Setting up and using PaaS provisioning.

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Overview of BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management configuration tasks for VM provisioning from a VM template

After completing the configuration steps to prepare the virtual machine with template for provisioning in BMC Server Automation, launch the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management--Administration console. In the console, establish the foundation for the provisioning service by onboarding and creating the related BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management resources.

The following sections provide an overview of the setup process. Each section provides a link to more details of each procedure.

To onboard the pod containing the PXE datastore instance

Onboard the pod containing the PXE datastore instance you created in BMC Server Automation. The format of the datastore instance name must be CSM Datastore - <name of pod>.

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 at left, click Pods under the General section.
3. Click the Onboard Pod icon . The Onboard Pod dialog box is displayed.
    
4. Click the Provider Name menu button to select the resource provider instance for the pod. The default network resource provider is listed as BBNA for BMC Network Automation.
5. Select the pods that you want to onboard.
6. Click Onboard to onboard the selected pods and close the dialog box.

For a more detailed procedure, see Onboarding and offboarding network pods.

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To import the container blueprint

The next step is to import the container blueprint that the Publish Product Catalog Job has made available to BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

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 Pods under the General section.
3. Click the Import Network Container Blueprints icon .
   The Import Network Container Blueprints dialog box is displayed. The dialog shows the Pod name, the version number (if the pod has been updated), and a description (if available).
    
4. Select the network container blueprints that you want to import.
5. Click Import to onboard the selected blueprints and close the dialog box.

For a more detailed procedure, see Importing network container blueprints.

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To create the network container

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.

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

For a more detailed procedure, see Creating network containers.

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To onboard resources for virtual clusters

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 .

Select one or more resources and click the Add button to move them to the Selected Resources table, or drag and drop resources from the Available Resources table to the Selected Resources table. When finished, click Onboard.

For a more detailed procedure, see Onboarding and offboarding compute resources.

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To create compute resource pools

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.

For a more detailed procedure, see Creating compute resource pools.

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To import tenants

1. From the Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu and select Tenants.
2. In the Tenant Management pane, click Create or import tenant .
3. In the Add Tenant dialog box, enter the required details.
   Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are mandatory. 
   1. Select the Import Existing Tenant button.

   2. From the Company Name list, select the tenant that you want to import.
      The Company Name list comprises the tenants created in BMC Remedy IT Service Management Foundation, which are not yet imported. After you select the tenant, the details are displayed. You cannot edit the tenant details from BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

      Note

      You cannot import a tenant if the location for the tenant is not specified in BMC Remedy ITSM Foundation.

   3. Click the Contract End Date calendar icon and select the date when the tenant's users will no longer to be able to request cloud services in the BMC My Cloud Services Console.
      

      Note

      The Contract Start Date is set to the date that you onboard the tenant and you cannot change it. The Contract Start Date defaults to the start of the day, at 12:00 A.M. To increase the the length of the contract to the end of the day, add an additional day. 

       

   4. From the list of Available Entitlement Packages, select the packages you want to apply to this tenant.
   5. Click Add > to move them to the Selected Entitlement Packages area. 
      You can use the search field to search for the preferred entitlement package. For details about the entitlement packages, see Creating entitlement packages.
   6. Click the Quotas tab to define the quota for the tenant. 
      By default, the Unlimited check box is selected for a tenant. For details about quota, see Setting and managing quota. 
   7. If you want to specify a limited quota for the tenant, perform the following steps in the Allocation area:
      1. Clear the Unlimited check box for the Server, CPU Count, Memory (GB), and the Local Storage (GB) fields.
      2. In the Tenant Quota text box for the Server field, enter the number of servers that you want to assign to the tenant. 
      3. In the Tenant Quota text box for the CPU Count field, enter the number of CPUs that you want to assign to the tenant.
      4. In the Tenant Quota text box for the Memory (GB) field, enter the memory in GB that you want to assign to the tenant.
      5. In the Tenant Quota text box for the Local Storage (GB) field, enter the local hard disk in GB that you want to assign to the tenant.  
4. Click Add.
   The tenant is imported successfully.

To verify whether the tenant is onboarded successfully, click the Activities tab. The Update Tenant Quota activity and its status are displayed. 

For a more detailed procedure, see Creating and importing tenants.

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To create entitlement packages

Entitlement packages are groups of requestable offerings to make available to one or more tenant companies.

1. From the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu on the left side of the window and select Service Catalog.
2. Click the Entitlement Packages tab.
   The Packages workarea is displayed.
3. Click the Create Entitlement Package icon .
   The Package Details dialog box is displayed.
   
4. Enter a name for the package.
5. Enter a description.
6. In Company, select the tenant company for the package or select Global to make the package available to all companies.
7. You can enter or select a package group.
   Package Group marks a package as being part of a group. The Package Group value is not used anywhere else.
8. In the Available Requestable Offerings (SRDs) table, select the offerings that you want to make available to the selected company.
9. Click Add to move the offering to the Selected Requestable Offerings (SRDs) table.
   You can also drag and drop entitlement packages from one table to the other.
10. Click Save.
11. Click Close.

You can now associate the new entitlement package with a particular tenant company, as described in Selecting tenant entitlement packages.

For a more detailed procedure, see Creating entitlement packages.

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To map compute resource pools to network containers

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. 

For a more detailed procedure, see Mapping resource pools to network containers.

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To map tenants to network containers

1. From the the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management – Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu and select Resources.
2. Under Quick Links > Network section, click Network Containers.
3. Select the network container to which you want to map one or more tenants.
4. Click Manage Tenant Mappings .
   The Map Tenants dialog box is displayed for the selected network container. In the Name field, the name of the tenant is displayed. In the Available Tenants table the list of onboarded tenants is displayed.
   

5. Select one or more tenants from the tenants table and click Add >.
   The selected tenant or tenants are moved to the Mapped Tenants table. You can search for a tenant by using the Search field.

   Note

   The Search field is case-sensitive.

6. Click Save. 
   The selected tenant or tenants are mapped to the network container.  

For a more detailed procedure, see Mapping tenants to network containers.

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To define the service blueprint

Prior to defining the service blueprint, review the prerequisites.

1. Do one of the following:

   If you want to...	Complete these steps
   Create a new blueprint	In the Service Designer workspace, click Create New, and then select the type of blueprint you want to create. A new service blueprint is opened in the Blueprint Editor. By default, you begin working in Definition 1. If you are creating an Application, Server, or PaaS Blueprint, your blueprint will contain only one application, server, or PaaS database object. Click Save. Enter a unique name for your blueprint to describe the application or server type (for example, LAMP Gold or MediaWiki). Provide a Description. Click OK.
   Copy an existing blueprint	In the Service Designer workspace, click a service blueprint in the Blueprint Library. The service blueprint appears in view-only mode. Select Version > Clone. Enter a unique name for your blueprint to describe the application or server type (for example, LAMP Gold or MediaWiki). Click Create Copy. The new service blueprint is opened as a working copy and is available to edit.

2. As needed, add and define the components in your blueprint.

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To add components and define compute resources

Whether creating, copying, or editing a service blueprint, you can add several different types of objects, and define network connections between those objects in many ways. The procedures referred to in the table below offer a suggested path through the initial creation process, though you can add some or all of these objects in almost any order.

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To create the service offering

Use the Service Catalog to create services, which are composed of one or more service offerings and requestable offerings. You create services and offerings to provide cloud services that your user can request. For overview information about services, see Services overview.

Except storage services, a service blueprint is required for all services, as described in Building service blueprints. You can you can start creating the service without a service blueprint, but you must select a service blueprint in order for the service to be functional.

1. Create a new service, as described in Creating new services for the Service Catalog.
2. Create a service offering, as described in Creating a service offering.
3. Create a requestable offering, as described in Creating a requestable offering.
4. Create options for services, as described in Service Catalog options and option choices.

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To make the provisioning request

1. Access Workspaces > Service Instances to display the Service Instances workspace, and click the New Service Request icon to display the New Service Request dialog box.
2. In the New Service Request dialog box, click the server provisioning service you want to request to display the Submit Request dialog box.
3. Enter the data in the required fields to complete the request for an instance of the service request. You can click Next to review the details.
4. Click Submit. The request is added to the Pending Activity list in the Service Instances window.

The request status is displayed in the Pending Activity list of the Service Instances window. You can double-click on the service request to see its detailed information.

For more detailed procedures, see Requesting cloud services.

Related topics

Setting up and using PaaS provisioning

Setting up and using physical server provisioning

Setting up and using bare-metal VM provisioning