Using virtual machines in your topology

You can use virtual machines (VMs) in your configurations for hosting some or all of the channels in an environment. To do this, configure a system VM interface, install the dispatcher (see Installing-and-starting-dispatchers), and create a server definition (System > Servers) that uses an agent (for example, the Network Shell (NSH) agent) to communicate with your VMs and identifies them as "managed" in the system. Then, you can configure channels that target the VMs. This configuration enables VMs to be started as necessary during a deployment.

When beginning a deployment, the system checks the channels in the environment for VM labels. It uses those to create a list of server aliases and sends the aliases to the hypervisor, which starts the VMs. When the hypervisor signals that the VMs are ready, their IP addresses are retrieved and used to update the server records.

To set up a system VM interface

To configure a system VM for managing VMs, you:

1. Select a hypervisor type for it.
2. Set properties (specific to the hypervisor type) that tell the system how to communicate with the hypervisor. For example, you might need to know the hypervisor host name and communication credentials.
3. To set up a system VM interface, use the procedure explained in Managing-virtual-machines topic.