Learn about the different sections of the VCD interface.
The version used for all our VMware Cloud Director (VCD) products is version 10.5.
Requirements
- a working knowledge of Linux, vSphere, Windows, and IP networks
- a VMware Cloud Director administrator account
Instructions
VMware Cloud Director (VCD) is a cloud computing management platform. VCD enables the creation, management, and deployment of virtualized computing resources on a large scale, and offers an agile and scalable infrastructure. With an easy-to-use user interface and advanced features such as resource management, automated billing, and enhanced security, vCloud Director simplifies the management of complex cloud environments.
This solution enables you to provision and efficiently manage virtual machines, virtual networks, and other resources, providing increased operational agility and flexibility to meet changing business needs.
The following are the different sections available and are marked in the image below:
- Data Centers
- Applications
- Networking
- Content Hub
- Admin
- Monitor
- More
- Magnifier
- Completed tasks
- Resources used
Data centers
In this section, you will find all of your virtual data centers (vDC) ordered in different data center locations, a brief overview of your resource usage, and the number of vApps/VMs currently running.
The side navigation menu also gives you quick access to other areas (Compute, Networking, Storage, and Settings) of the Dashboard.
Applications
This section contains a comprehensive overview of all your vApps and virtual machines on your virtual data centers (vDCs). Here you can create, access, and delete vApps or virtual machines with ease.
Using vApps is a unique feature of vCloud Director (VCD). This allows you to create and group a set of virtual machines, and containers within the same Virtual Application (vApp), but also to go granularly to create affinity/anti-affinity rules within these vApps (network, firewall, templating, etc.). As settings for these vApps, we find the same vSphere/NSX features for the network and storage that can be applied to this centralized web console (an orchestrator).
For example, you can copy a vApp from one DC to another or migrate an application from one site to another. Below is the global view of the Applications area, with three sub-sections: Virtual Applications, Virtual Machines, and Container Applications.
Networking
VMware Cloud Director networking allows the organization’s provider and customer to create and consume networking resources from a vSphere or NSX environment. As a result, clients can create network segments, configure service with or without DHCP, perform NAT firewall, and use load balancing integrations for example.
In this section, you can find all of VMware's most advanced features within a single administration console: networks, Edge Gateways, Provider Gateways, IP address ranges, data center groups, and security tags.
VMware Cloud Director supports three types of networks: external, organization of vDC, and vApp.
Content Hub
In this section, you can manage your catalogs. Create, delete, or download ISO files or OVA templates, or simply use the preconfigured templates available in the OVHcloud catalog.
The left navigation bar gives you access to four additional areas: Welcome to the Content Hub, Content, Catalogs, and Manage Resources.
Libraries
The Libraries section gives you access to the Content Libraries and Services areas.
Administration
In this section, you can manage users in your organization, create roles and groups, and configure an identification provider (OIDC/SAML). You can also set up email alerts and expiration policies for your applications.
The left-side navigation menu includes: Access Control, Identity Providers, Certificate Management, and Settings.
Monitoring
In this section, you can access the complete history of all tasks and events that have occurred in your organization. You can filter to find the tasks/events you want more easily.
More
In this section, access the essential plugins: Veeam for data protection to back up your infrastructure and the Operations Manager for an exhaustive breakdown of your usage.
Magnifier
Use this feature to search for components within your organization. The vertical dots give you the ability to log out, change your password, and manage your user preferences.
Tasks Completed
Look here for all recent actions in your organization.
Go further
For more information and tutorials, please see our other VMware Cloud Director support guides or explore the guides for other OVHcloud products and services.
If you need training or technical assistance to implement our solutions, contact your sales representative or click on this link to get a quote and ask our Professional Services experts for a custom analysis of your project.