How to manage hosted VMs and VDCs in our private cloud

Manage virtual machines and virtual data centres in our private cloud using VMware Cloud Director

Before you can manage your resources in our private cloud you will need the following details:

  • The management URL for your resource
  • Your login details

These will have been provided when your virtual resources were commissioned.

If you are new to VMware Cloud Director then we recommend that you familiarise yourself with key concepts and UI navigation through an introductory course or video such as vCloud Director for Cloud and IT Admins (VMware Cloud Provider @ YouTube).

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  1. Visit the management URL you were given at sign-up. This will start https://vcloud.ox.ac.uk/cloud/org/
  2. Login with your vCloud username and password

Method

  1. Login to your management URL
  2. Select Administration > Access Control > Users
  3. Select New user   and complete the form details, making sure that Enable is selected
  4. Select Save

In step 3 you are required to select a role. The pre-defined roles grant access as follows (or view VMware Cloud Director Rights in Predefine Global Tenant Roles):

Predefined role Access summary
vApp Author Use catalogs and create vApps
Console Access Only View virtual machine state and properties and to use the guest OS
vApp User Use existing vApps
Organization Administrator Manage users and groups in their organization and assign them roles via the tenant portal or OpenAPI
Catalog Author Create and publish catalogs

Method

  1. Login to your management URL
  2. Select My Cloud > VMs
  3. Find the VM you want to access and select Actions > Power On  
  4. Select Actions > Launch Web Console

You can also install use the VMware remote console app. Details on this are included in the VMware guide Opening a Virtual Machine Console.

  1. In vSphere, select File > Export > Export OVF Template for the virtual machine you want to migrate
  2. Complete the Name, Location and Description fields then select OK and wait for the download of three files to complete (vm001.ovf, vm001.mf, vm001-disk1.vmdk). There will be additional files if your VM has multiple disks attached
  3. Close the export dialog
  4. Login to vCloud portal and select My Organisation > Catalogs > vApp Templates
  5. Select Upload, pick the OVF file you just downloaded and select Open
  6. Complete the vApp template details including selecting your organisation VDC and private catalog, then select Upload
  7. Once the upload completes, you can select it and choose Add to My Cloud to create a cloud instance of the VM, noting the following settings:
    Setting Value
    Network Either orgname_Ext_Org_Net or orgname_Int_Org_Net
    IP Assignment Static - IP Pool
    Configure Networking Always use assigned IP addresses until this vApp or associated networks are deleted

We recommend the VMware documentation for further reading and guidance on any other operations. Some common tasks include:

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