vApp
Product Support Engineering
Rev E
VMware Confidential
Module 2 Lessons
Lesson 1 – vCenter Server High Availability
Lesson 2 – vCenter Server Distributed Resource Scheduler
Lesson 3 – Fault Tolerance Virtual Machines
Lesson 4 – Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
Lesson 5 – DPM - IPMI
Lesson 6 – vApps
Lesson 7 – Host Profiles
Lesson 8 – Reliability, Availability, Serviceability ( RAS )
Lesson 9 – Web Access
Lesson 10 – vCenter Server Update Manager
Lesson 11 – Guided Consolidation
Lesson 12 – Health Status
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Module 2-6 Lessons
Lesson 1 – vApps Overview
Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp
Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties
Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps
Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks
Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps
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vApp Overview
vApps simplify the deployment and ongoing management of an
n-tier application in multiple virtual machines by encapsulating
it into a single virtual service entity.
A vApp has the same basic operations as a virtual machine, but
can contain multiple virtual machines or multiple vApps.
vApps encapsulate not only virtual machines but also their interdependencies and resource allocations allowing for single-step
power operations, cloning, deployment and monitoring of the
entire application.
The distribution format for vApps is OVF, implying that they can
be imported and exported just like OVF VMs.
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vApp Overview (ctd)
One of the major advantages of the vApp is that they can be
configured with a number of variables.
Virtual Machines which run in the vApp are presented with this
OVF configuration, including the network information, in the form
of an XML file on a CDROM.
The vendor can then customize their appliance to pick up this
vApp information from their pseudo CDROM device.
One major use is the ability to assign a VM within a vApp an IP
address from an IP pool predefined in your cluster.
This information is then available to all the other members of the
vApp, e.g. a database VM and a web server VM automatically know
about each other.
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vApp Overview (ctd)
OVF Descriptor (XML)
Application Info
App Customization Info
Tomcat
JBoss
vApp
OS
VM
MySQL
Glue
OS
VM
Virtual Hardware and
Resource Requirements
OVF env
vApp Policies
Here we have 2 VMs in a vAPP, one is a database and the other is Java
based application.
The appliance vendor has to create some ‘glue’ code to get the XML
information into the VM. This is currently achieved by mounting a
CDROM in the Guest OS and retrieving the XML file from the CDROM.
Since it is a common XML file, all VMs in the vApp which have access to
the XML know the parameter settings for all the other VMs in the vApp.
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vApp Overview (ctd)
To access the XML file on the ISO image, you need to set the
OVF settings in the Options of the VM properties as follows:
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vApp Overview (ctd)
The contents of the XML file may also be viewed from the VM
Properties OVF settings:
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Module 2-6 Lessons
Lesson 1 – vApps Overview
Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp
Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties
Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps
Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks
Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps
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Creating a vApp
If a host is in a cluster, then
DRS must be enabled to
create a vApp.
Disabling DRS will remove
any vApps created on the
cluster.
If the host is stand-alone, a
vApp can also be created.
To create a new vApp:
Choose File > New vApp or
click on the vApp icon.
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Creating a vApp (ctd)
Enter the vApp Name and select the vApp Inventory
Location. Click Next.
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Creating a vApp (ctd)
In the Resource Allocation
page, allocate
CPU
and
memory resources for this
vApp.
This is identical to a Resource
Pool configuration.
Confirm the new vApp options
on the vApp summary page.
Click Finish to create the new
vApp.
Virtual Machines may now be
‘dragged & dropped’ into the
vApp.
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Power On a vApp
To power on a vApp:
1. Right click on the vApp
and select Power On.
2. Each VM within the vApp
will be powered on
according to how the
startup order is set.
If a delay is set, the
service waits for the set
length of time before
powering
up
that
application.
3. In the Summary tab, the
Service Status indicates
when the service has
started and is available.
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Power Off a vApp
To power off a vApp:
1. Right click on the vApp
and select Power Off.
2. Each VM within the vApp
will be powered off
according to how the
startup order is set.
(in
reverse
order)
If a delay is set, the
service waits for the set
length of time before
powering
off
that
application.
3. In the Summary tab, the
Service Status indicates
when the service has
stopped.
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Module 2-6 Lessons
Lesson 1 – vApps Overview
Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp
Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties
Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps
Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks
Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps
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IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks
The vApp IP configuration may be changed during or after
deployment.
If the OVF descriptor has one or more vApp IP properties, the
user may choose which IP allocation policy to use.
This is done on the IP Allocation Policy page.
Fixed - The user enters the IP address manually.
DHCP - IP addresses are allocated by the vApp on a DHCP server
Transient - IP addresses for each VM in the vApp are automatically
allocated by vCenter during power-on of the vApp. The addresses
are allocated from an IP range associated with the network used by a
VM, and are released when the VM or the entire vApp is powered off.
This allows an IT admin to dedicate a pool of IP addresses to
specific vApps.
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Editing vApp Properties
The Summary tab will display descriptor information about the
vApp which can be configured via the Properties of the vApp.
Right click the vApp, and select Edit vApp Settings:
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Editing vApp Properties (ctd)
You can configure several aspects of a vApp, including
startup order, resources, and custom properties.
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Editing vApp Properties (ctd)
The Advanced IP
Allocation lets you
change the supported
IP allocation schemes
of the vApp.
A vApp can obtain its
network configuration
through
the
OVF
environment
or
a
DHCP server or the
from vCenter (default).
We will talk about this
more
in
the
Customization
section.
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Editing vApp Properties (ctd)
Select the Start Order tab to
set the startup order of the
applications:
Select a virtual machine and
use the arrow keys to change
the startup order. This order
will also be used for shutdown
in the reverse order
Specify the delay and action for
startup and shutdown for each
virtual machine in the vApp.
Click OK to confirm your
changes.
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Module 2-6 Lessons
Lesson 1 – vApps Overview
Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp
Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties
Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps
Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks
Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps
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Clone a vApp
To clone a vApp:
vApp must be powered off.
In the Inventory view, right
click the vApp and select
Clone.
The Clone vApp Wizard
appears.
Choose a host, cluster, or
resource pool on which this
service runs.
Click Next to continue.
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Clone a vApp (ctd)
Select the location
within the datacenter
(host/cluster/pool)
that you want the
clone to be stored.
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Clone a vApp (ctd)
Select the Name and
Folder of
where the
cloned vApp will be stored.
Select the networks this
service will use. This step
is only available when the
new service has a different
host than the original
service.
Select
a
datastore.
destination
Inspect your values in
before clicking Finish to
complete
cloning
the
service.
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Module 2-6 Lessons
Lesson 1 – vApps Overview
Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp
Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties
Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps
Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks
Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps
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Customize Virtual Machines (ctd)
To specify an IP address range for the vApp:
Select the Data Center and select the IP Pools tab.
Click Add.
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IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks (ctd)
In the New IP Pool Properties
dialog, you may enter a comma
separated list of host address
ranges in the Address Range
field.
In this example I have given an
address range of 192.168.0.2
thru 192.168.0.17. Note the use
of the ‘#’ character to specify a
range.
This range would be used if we
setup the IP Allocation to
transient.
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IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks (ctd)
The next step is to
associate the IP Pool
with the VM network
used by the vApp.
Select the Associations
tab of the New IP Pool
Properties.
This will list the VM
networks and you select
which one to associate
with the pool.
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Module 2-6 Lessons
Lesson 1 – vApps Overview
Lesson 2 – Creating a vApp
Lesson 3 – Editing vApp properties
Lesson 4 – Cloning vApps
Lesson 5 – IP Pools & Customizing vApp Networks
Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting vApps
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Troubleshooting
The option to select New vApp is greyed out. What are the
possible causes?
The hosts are not part of a DRS cluster, or DRS is not enabled on
the cluster.
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Troubleshooting (ctd)
Powering up a vApp results in the following message appearing
in the task bar. Which Advanced IP Allocation Policy do you think
was configured on the vApp? What do you think the root cause
is?
The Advanced IP allocation policy was set to ‘Transient’ but there
was no IP Pool created for the network.
A second possible issue is that the VMs have been moved to
another portgroup but the vApp did not refresh this information.
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Troubleshooting (ctd)
Powering up a vApp results in the following message
appearing in the task bar. Which Advanced IP Allocation
Policy do you think was configured on the vApp? What do
you think the root cause is?
The Advanced IP allocation policy was set to ‘Transient’ but there
were not enough free IP addresses left in the IP Pool to start the
vApp.
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Troubleshooting (ctd)
A customer has setup an IP Pool, and set the IP Allocation to
Transient, but yet the MS Windows 2003 VM in the vApp
continues to pick up an IP address presented by DHCP rather
than the IP Pool. Why?
Remember that for this to work, there has to be ‘glue’ written by
the appliance vendor to mount the CDROM, pickup the OVF
XML file and pick the IP information from there.
If this is a standard MS Windows 2003 deployment, then there
will be no glue in the Guest OS to pick up this information so its
IP configuration will be derived in the standard way.
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Lesson 2-6 Summary
vApp is a new feature of vSphere to facilitate the management
of many Virtual Machines via a single entity.
This is very beneficial for tiered applications.
Each VM in a vApp can learn about each other through the
means of and OVF XML file, as long as the vendor has scripted
the ‘glue’ inside the VM to pickup this information.
vApps provide one click power-on, power-off and cloning for
many virtual machines.
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Lesson 2-6 - Lab 6
Module 2-6 Lab 6 – VMware vCenter vApps
Create a vApp
Import a vApp
Export a vServcie
Clone a vApp
Troubleshooting vApps
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