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NCD – Viewing and Updating vDataCenter Configuration and Status


A vDataCenter (virtual datacenter or vDC) is a software-defined logical container providing computing and infrastructure resources to your Navisite Cloud Director® (NCD) networks, virtual applications (vApps), and their contents.

Your Navisite Cloud Director configuration can have multiple vDCs, which may be located in different physical vCloud locations. vDCs are specified when configuring networks and vApps.

When you create or update a vDC, you specify explicit limits on – or leave unlimited – the virtual resources contained within the vDC. vDC configuration allows you to impose limitations on the number of CPUs, amount of memory, and amount of storage allocated.

vDataCenters Page

The vDataCenters page displays a summary table or diagram of vDCs in Navisite Cloud Director. From the vDataCenters page you can add new vDCs, and access vDataCenter detail pages to review, edit, and delete existing vDCs.

Viewing the vDataCenters Page

At the Navisite Cloud Director Dashboard page, click vDataCenters in the navigation bar on the left side of the page to display the vDataCenters page.

 

vDataCenter Page Display Controls

Click the Table/Diagram selector to toggle the vDataCenter page display format.

Table Display

 

To download the displayed table data as a .csv file, click the "Download" icon above the table.

Diagram Display



The Diagram display features a Legend button which provides a summary key to the images in the diagram:



From the Diagram view, click the View by Tag drop-down list to filter the diagram according to tags assigned to the diagram objects, as illustrated below.




Below is a brief video demonstration of the vDataCenters page display controls:


Adding a vDataCenter

  1. At the NCD Dashboard page, click vDataCenters in the navigation pane to display the vDataCenters page.



  2. Click +Create vDataCenter. The Create vDataCenter page appears.



  3. Enter a name for the new vDC in the "Name" field. This name must be unique among all vDCs within all of your available vClouds.

  4. Select a vCloud instance for the vDC from the "vCloud" drop-down menu. vClouds are identified by the physical location of the data center.

  5. Click Next-> to display the "Limits" and "Storage Policies" settings.



  6. Note: All Limits and Storage Policies values are optional. Leave these fields blank to impose no limits.

  7. If necessary, specify the maximum allowable number of CPUs for VMs in this vDC in the "Maximum CPUs" field.

  8. Note: The "Maximum CPUs" value allows you to limit CPU usage for your vDC according to a default clock speed of 2 GHz per CPU.

  9. If necessary, specify the maximum allowable amount of usable memory for VMs in this vDC in the "Memory Limit" field.

  10. If necessary, specify the allowable amount of storage for the "Standard" and "High" storage policy profiles for the vDC in the appropriate "Limit" field.

  11. Note: The "Maximum cost" field updates as these limits are defined. View cost estimation details as indicated in the image above.

  12. Click Finish to create the vDC. When the task completes, the newly created vDC is listed at the vDataCenters page.

  13. Note: You can monitor the progress of the vDC creation by clicking the Recent Tasks icon in the upper right corner of the page.




    Note: Upon vDC creation, Navisite Cloud Director automatically creates a vDC network with the same name as the vDC.

vDataCenter Detail Page

The vDataCenter detail page provides summary information and configuration options for a selected vDC.

Viewing the vDataCenter Detail Page

To review or edit an individual vDC, click the vDC's name in the vDataCenters page Table or Diagram view to display its vDataCenter detail page.





The vDataCenter detail page displays:
  • Current Status – vDataCenter status information, including:

    • vDC Diagram – Clicking objects in the vDC diagram provides pop-up summaries for Edge Gateways, vDC Networks, and vApps, which in turn link to further detail screens.

      The Legend button provides a summary key to the images in the diagram. The diagram's vApp icon includes symbols indicating power state (running, stopped, partially running) of virtual machines (VMs) within the vApp.

      The View by Tag drop-down list allows you to filter the diagram according to selected tags assigned to the diagram objects. For example, a vApp displayed in the diagram when "Backup" tag filtering is invoked indicates that one or more of its VMs has backups enabled.

    • Resource Limits and usage information – Provides graphic and text representations of:

      • The resources used in the vDataCenter – memory, CPUs, and storage policy information.

      • The resource limits for the vDataCenter – any upper limits imposed on the memory, CPUs, and storage available to the vDataCenter. A vDataCenter will never be allocated more than its upper limits, even if there are resources available.

      To alter resource limit values:

      1. Click the "gear" icon in the upper right corner of the "Limits" section.

      2. Specify any adjustments to be made to limits on the vDC's number of CPUs, amount of Memory, or amount of Storage. Leave the fields blank if no limits should be imposed.

      3. Click Save.

      Changes are reflected in the "Limits" section.

    • Task History – Displays a subset of system task history, relating to actions taken on the vDC's configuration. See How do I monitor my tasks? for more information.

    • Billing data – In addition to the billing information available from the Account Billing screen, each vDataCenter detail page includes a "Billing" section displaying bar graphs depicting billing data for the applicable cloud object over time.

      The graphs provide an additional display of projected billing for the current month, based on extrapolation from existing monthly charges. You can click the graph's bars to jump to the billing page applicable for the selected bar. See Managing Your Billing for more information.



  • Children – vDataCenter child object information, including:





  • Network Services – vDC network services information, including:

    • Firewall – The "Firewall" section indicates the vDC's firewall service status and default action, and lists firewall rules in effect. Click the "gear" icon in the upper right of the "Firewall" section to add, edit, or remove firewall rules.

    • NAT – The "NAT" section displays the vDC network's network address translation (NAT) service status and NAT rules. See Configuring NAT Rules for more information.

    • Load Balancing – The "Load Balancing" section provides a summary display of vDC network load balancing service status and applicable load balancing rules. See Configuring Load Balancing for more information.

    • VPN – The "VPN" section displays status information for virtual private network (VPN) connections, and allows you to configure the following types of VPN connections:


    • Static Routing – The "Static Routing" section allows you to add static routes to edge gateways to define the path to an otherwise inaccessible network, or to override the default route to a network.

    • Edge Gateway – The "Edge Gateway" section indicates the type and size of the vDC's edge gateway.

      This section allows you to redeploy the edge gateway, if desired.

      This section also allows you to request an upgrade of the edge gateway. Available sizes include "Compact," "Full," "Full-4," and "X-Large." Note that requesting "Full-4" and "X-Large" selections require you to confirm that additional cost will be incurred. The upgrade request is submitted for review via a generated support ticket.




  • vDataCenter Configuration information, including:

    • Public IPs – the "Public IPs" section provides a list of the vDC network's public IPs, and allows you to add or remove them. See How do I add or remove Public IPs? for more information.

    • Object Properties – the "Object Properties" section provides the vDC's vCloud and Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) values.

Downloading Table Data

To download any displayed table data as a .csv file, click the "Download" icon above the table.

Adding Tags to a vDC

Tags are keywords that you can use to identify or logically group items. They are useful in finding items through the universal search or a table’s filter.

Click the Add Tag button at the top of the vDataCenter detail page to add a tag to the vDC item.

See What is a Tag? and How do I add or remove Tags? for more information.

Viewing the vDC in vCloud Director

Click the View in vCloud button at the top of the vDataCenter detail page to launch VMware vCloud Director® and use the interface to view the vDC. See What is View in vCloud? for more information.

Deleting the vDataCenter

The Delete button at the top of the vDataCenter detail page allows you to delete the vDC from your Navisite Cloud Director environment.

Note: A vDataCenter cannot be deleted if it is the only vDC in its vCloud.

Note: A vDC can be deleted only after all of its vApps, Networks, Templates, and Media have been deleted. Once the vDC's contents have been deleted, the vDataCenter detail page's Delete button becomes active and available for use.

Click Delete at the top of the vDataCenter detail page to delete the vDC, and click OK to confirm the deletion. The deleted vDC is removed from the vDataCenters page list.

Related vCD Documents

Understanding VMware vCloud Director
Managing Virtual Datacenters
Configuring Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Settings



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