Managing Virtual Networks for the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure provider

A Virtual Network enables you to create a logically isolated section in IBM Bluemix Infrastructure (formerly IBM SoftLayer) and securely connect it to your on-premises data center or a single client machine. An IBM Bluemix Infrastructure Virtual Network allows you to extend your data center, build distributed applications, and debug your applications remotely.

This topic describes how to customize BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management to manage the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure Virtual Networks. To understand how BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management objects correspond to the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure constructs, see Overview of the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure Provider.

You can perform the onboard, edit, offboard, and mapping a tenant operations on a Virtual Network on the Network Container tab (part of the logical hosting environment) of the Resource Management workspace.

Before you begin

• Ensure that you have installed and configured the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure provider.
• Ensure that you have at least one virtual network in the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure management portal.
• Ensure that you have registered the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure provider and defined the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure account credentials; otherwise, Virtual Network search will not display results.
• Ensure that you have created and imported the tenant for which you want to onboard the Virtual Network. For more information, see Creating and importing tenants.
• To use a third-party external IPAM (Infoblox or VitalQIP) with BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, ensure that you have the third-party external IPAM solution configured with your BMC Network Automation. (See Enabling IP address management for details.) The following topics detail the steps for installing and configuring a third-party external IPAM with BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management:
  • VitalQIP setup
  • Infoblox setup
  • Configuring BMC Network Automation to support a third-party IPAM solution
  • Creating and configuring BMC Atrium Orchestrator modules to communicate with other third-party IPAM systems

To onboard a Virtual Network

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. On the Resource Management page, click Network Containers.
3. Click Onboard Logical Data Center .
4. In the Onboard Logical Data Centers dialog box, select the Provider name, for example, IBM SoftLayer.
   

5. Select the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure account name to be used for onboarding the resources, for example, QuickD.
   
   
   
   

   Information

   The Available Logical Data Centers list displays the name of all the logical data centers (LDCs) and the virtual networks associated with your IBM Bluemix Infrastructure account. The name of a LDC is displayed as Your Account Prefix: IBMBluemixInfrastructureDataCenterName (for example, Finance:San Jose1).

6. From the Available Logical Data Centers list, select a Virtual Network entry, and click Add.
   

7. Click Onboard. 
   The selected Logical Data Center is added to the Network Containers workspace.
   
   

To edit a Virtual Network

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. On the Resource Management page, click Network Containers.
3. Select the Virtual Network that you want to edit.
4. Click Edit .
   
   
   
   

5. In the Edit Logical Data Centers window, you can perform the following actions for an IBM Bluemix Infrastructure Virtual Network:

   1. Define or edit the tag values of the Virtual Network and click Save.

      Information

      For tagging requirements, see Tagging recommendations and examples.

      The tag details of Virtual Network are added, as shown in the following figure. For more information, see Creating tag groups and tags.
      
      

   2. Select Use External IPAM to enable the External IP Address Management for the Virtual Network, and click Save.
      

      For more information, see Enabling IP address management.

To enable VM placement in single or multiple subnets for a Virtual Network

To enable VM placement in the Virtual Network subnets, you must define single or multiple subnets in a Virtual Network address space using the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure Management Portal. Subnets allow you to better organize the storage and applications for your virtual network. An address space of a Virtual Network defines the IP address ranges to assign to resources deployed to the virtual network. You can create subnets within this address range to further define IP address allocation for resources.

When you have onboarded a virtual network in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, the subnets are also onboarded and are visible in the Summary > Network panel.

To enable VM placement in specific subnets, you must tag the subnet individually and also define the same Network Type tags in the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure service blueprint. For a suggested tagging strategy, see Tagging recommendations and examples. To create or manage tag groups and tags from the Service Designer workspace, see Managing blueprint tags.

To offboard a Virtual Network

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. On the Resource Management page, click Network Containers.
3. Select the Virtual Network that you want to offboard, and click Offboard Logical Data Center .
4. When the confirmation dialog box is displayed, click OK.

To map a tenant with a Virtual Network

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. On the Resource Management page, click Network Containers.
3. Select the Virtual Network that you want to map with a tenant.
4. Click Manage Tenant Mappings .
5. Select a tenant name from the Available Tenants list.
   
   
6. Click Add.
   The selected tenant is displayed in the Mapped Tenants list.
   
   
7. Click Save.

Where to go from here

Managing the IBM Bluemix Infrastructure service offerings