Creating a Provider Virtual Data Center in VMware vCloud Director

Products

VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to create a Provider Virtual Data Center (PvDC) in VMware vCloud Director.

Environment

VMware Cloud Director 5.5.x
VMware Cloud Director 5.1.x
VMware Cloud Director 1.5.x
VMware Cloud Director 1.0.x

Resolution

A PvDC creates an abstraction of Compute and Storage Virtual Resources that can represent a geographically located compute (for example, East Coast vCenter), a level of service (for example, fast compute and/or storage), or a set of shared storage.

A PvDC is a 1-to-1 mapping to a Resource Pool from the Resource Creation Layer (RCL) and contains Datastore(s) seen by that Resource Pool. A PvDC is then used to provide resources to Organizations via Organization vDCs (Org vDCs).

Before you create a PvDC, ensure that you:

Have a configured vSphere environment
Set up VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), as it is a pre-requisite for VMware vCloud Director
Set up vShield Manager Appliance for spinning up vShield Edge devices
Create a Resource Pool for mapping it to the PvDC
Set up a vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS), as this is a prerequisite for the creation of certain Network Pool types in VMware vCloud Director
Attach VMware vCloud Director to vCenter Server

To create a PvDC:

Log in to the web interface using the vCloud Director Administrator account.

Note: The steps in this article can only be performed by vCloud Director Administrator.

The VMware Cloud Director user interface guides you through the configuration steps.
After attaching to vCenter Server and vShield Manager, in the vCloud user interface, click option 2 – Create a Provider Virtual Datacenter. This launches the Provider vDC wizard.
Identify the PvDC in the vCloud Director by providing a Name and Description.
Ensure the Active checkbox is selected (disabling also disables the Org vDCs backed by this PvDC). By default, it is selected.
On the next screen, you are presented with a list of vCenter Servers. Select the available vCenter Server.
The web interface lists available Resource Pools and displays any External (Provider) Networks available to this Resource Pool. Select the Resource Pool created for the PvDC.
On the next screen, you are presented with a selection of datastores associated with the resource pool.

Datastores can be shared between multiple PvDCs. Use the Add button to choose available datastores to the PvDC.
Prepare the ESX hosts. Download a network fencing agent (vslad) onto the hosts to enable cross host network fencing.
Credentials must be provided for the unprepared host that supports the selected Resource Pool. The Agent is then pushed down to the host.

If all the ESX hosts in your environment have the same root password, then you can use the single credential option. If the hosts have different root passwords, use the option to provide credentials for each host.
At the Ready to Complete window, click Finish.

Returning to the Quickstart window, you see that option 2 is now completed.