Working in your Organization

Most operations in vmForge occur in an organization. When your vDC is configured, ipHouse creates the organization and creates an organization administrator account to manage it.

You will receive the URL of the organization in your setup email from ipHouse. In the Home page click, Set up the Organization to assign resources and manage a variety of operations on the organization.

  • Set Up an Organization
  • Review Your Organization Profile
  • Modify Your Email Settings
  • Modify Your Organization's Policies
  • Enable Guest Personalization in Your Organization
  • Manage Users and Groups in Your Organization
  • Manage Resources in Your Organization
  • Manage Virtual Machines in Your Organization
  • Viewing Organization Log Tasks and Events

    Set Up an Organization

    After you receive the URL of your organization from the vmForge administrator, you must set it up. On the vmForge Home page, click Set up this organization.

    You are an organization administrator.

    Procedure

    1. Change the Organization Full Name
      You can change the full name of an organization. This name appears in the vmForge application header when users log in.
    2. Add Local Users to the Organization
      Every organization has an organization administrator account which is configured by ipHouse during the account creation process.
    3. Configure Email Preferences
      vmForge requires an SMTP server to send user notification and system alert emails. An organization can use the system email settings or use its own email settings.
    4. Understanding Leases
      Creating an organization involves specifying leases. Leases provide a level of control over an organization's storage and compute resources by specifying the maximum amount of time that vApps can be running and that vApps and vApp templates can be stored.

    Change the Organization Full Name

    You can change the full name of an organization. This name appears in the vmForge application header when users log in.

    You are an organization administrator.

    Procedure

    1. On Name this Organization page, in the Organization full name, type the new full name.
    2. (Optional) Type a description of the organization.
    3. Click Next.

    Add Local Users to the Organization

    An organization administrator can add users to the organization to delegate responsibility for certain tasks.

    Procedure

    1. Click Add.
    2. Type a user name and password.
    3. Assign a role to the user.
    4. Type the contact information for the user.
    5. Specify a user quota for stored and running virtual machines and click OK.
      These quotas limit the user's ability to consume storage and compute resources in the organization.
    6. Click Next.

    Configure Email Preferences

    vmForge requires an SMTP server to send user notification and system alert emails. An organization can use the system email settings or use its own email settings.

    NOTE: We recommend that you leave the SMTP server settings as configured by ipHouse.


    Procedure

    1. Select an SMTP server option.
      • Use the system default SMTP server
        The organization uses the system SMTP server.
      • Set organization SMTP server
        The organization uses its own SMTP server. Type the DNS host name or IPaddress and port number of the SMTP server (Optional) Select the Requires authentication check box and type a user name and password.
    2. Select a notification settings option.
      • Use the system default notification
        The organization uses the system notification settings.
      • Set organization notification
        The organization uses its own notification settings. Type an email address that appears as the sender for organization emails, type text to use as the subject prefix for organization emails, and select the recipients for organization emails.
    3. (Optional) Type a destination email address and click Test Email Settings to verify that all SMTP server settings are configured as expected.
    4. Click Next.

    Understanding Leases

    Leases provide a level of control over an organization's storage and compute resources by specifying the maximum amount of time that vApps can be running and that vApps and vApp templates can be stored.

    The goal of a runtime lease is to prevent inactive vApps from consuming compute resources. For example, if a user starts a vApp and goes on vacation without stopping it, the vApp continues to consume resources.

    A runtime lease begins when a user starts a vApp. When a runtime lease expires, vmForge stops the vApp.

    The goal of a storage lease is to prevent unused vApps and vApp templates from consuming storage resources.

    A vApp storage lease begins when a user stops the vApp. Storage leases do not affect running vApps. A vApp template storage lease begins when a user adds the vApp template to a vApp, adds the vApp template to a workspace, downloads, copies, or moves the vApp template.

    When a storage lease expires, vmForge marks the vApp or vApp template as expired, or deletes the vApp or vApp template, depending on the organization policy you set.

    Users can configure email notification to receive a message before a runtime or storage lease expires. See "Set User Preferences," for information about lease expiration preferences.

    Configure Organization Lease, Quota, and Limit Settings

    Leases, quotas, and limits constrain the ability of organization users to consume storage and processing resources. Use these settings to prevent users from depleting or monopolizing an organization's resources.

    For more information about leases, see "Understanding Leases," .

    Procedure

    1. Select the lease options for vApps and vApp templates.
      Leases provide a level of control over an organization's storage and compute resources by specifying the maximum amount of time that vApps can be running and that vApps and vApp templates can be stored. You can also specify what happens to vApps and vApp templates when their storage lease expires.
    2. Select the quotas for running and stored virtual machines.
      Quotas determine how many virtual machines each user in the organization can store and power on in the organization's virtual datacenters. The quotas you specify act as the default for all new users added to the organization.
    3. Select the limits for resource intensive operations.
      Certain vmForge operations, for example copy and move, are more resource intensive than others. Limits prevent resource intensive operations from affecting all the users in an organization and also provide a defense against denial-of-service attacks.
    4. Select the number of simultaneous VMware Remote Console connections for each virtual machine.
      You may want to limit the number of simultaneous connections for performance or security reasons.
      NOTE This setting does not affect Virtual Network Computing (VNC) or Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connections.
    5. Click Next.

    Review Your Organization Profile

    You can review and modify some of the information in your organization's profile

    You are an organization administrator.

    Procedure

    1. Click Administration.
    2. In the left pane, select Settings > General.
    3. You can complete these operations.
      • Review your organization's default URL.
      • Modify your organization's full name.
      • Type a description.
    4. Click Apply.

    Modify Your Email Settings

    You can review and modify the default email settings that were made when your organization was created.

    You are an organization administrator.

    Procedure

    1. Click Administration.
    2. In the left pane, select Settings > Email.
    3. Under SMTP Server, if you select Set organization SMTP server, type your SMTP server name (DNS name or IP address) and the port.
    4. If your server requires authentication, select Requires authentication.
    5. Under Notification Settings, if you select Set organization notification settings, type the sender's email address, an email subject prefix, and to whom you want the system notification to be sent.
    6. (Optional) Type the destination email address and click Test Email Settings.
    7. Click Apply.

    Modify Your Organization's Policies

    You can review and modify the default policies that were set by the vmForge administrator when your organization was created.

    You are an organization administrator.

    Procedure

    1. Click Administration.
    2. In the left pane, select Settings > Policies.
    3. Under Leases, use the drop-down menus to set the maximum period before vApps and vApp templates expire.
    4. Using the Storage cleanup drop-down menus, select whether you want to move the object to the Expired Items page or permanently delete it.
    5. Under Quotas, define how many virtual machines a user in your organization can store and power on a vDC.
      The default selection is Unlimited.
    6. Under Limits, set a variety of limits, such as the number of simultaneous connections per virtual machine.
      These are set by ipHouse, and are not configurable.
    7. Click Apply.

    Your policies for your organization are set.

    Enable Guest Personalization in Your Organization

    You can enable guest personalization for the virtual machines that are created in your organization.

    You are an organization administrator.

    Procedure

    1. Click Administration.
    2. In the left pane, select Settings > Guest Personalization.
    3. Select the Enable domain join for virtual machines in this organization.
    4. Type your domain name and login credentials, such as the domain name, domain user name, domain password. These credentials apply to a regular domain user, not a domain administrator.
    5. Click Apply.

    Guest personalization is enabled in your organization.

    Manage Users and Groups in Your Organization

    You can manage the roles and rights that users and groups have in your organization.

    You are an organization administrator.

    Procedure

    1. Click Administration.
    2. In the left pane, select Members > Users or > Groups.
      You can modify properties or roles.
    3. In Users, select Properties or in Groups, select Properties.
    4. Make the necessary changes and click OK.

    Your user or group settings are updated. See also Chapter 2, "Managing Users and Groups,"

    Manage Resources in Your Organization

    You must monitor and manage the resources you add to your organization.

    You are an organization administrator.

    Procedure

    1. Click Administration.
    2. In the left pane, under Cloud Resources, select Virtual Datacenters or Networks.

    The vDCs and networks in your organization appear in the right pane. See also Chapter 3, "Using the Resources Available to Your Organization,"

    vApp networks are not shown in this view. To view vApp networks, see "Working with Networks in a vApp,"

    Manage Virtual Machines in Your Organization

    You can manage virtual machines in your organization. Virtual machine permissions affect access to vmForge operations at the virtual machine console level.

    You are an organization administrator.

    Procedure

    1. Click My Cloud.
    2. In the left pane, select VMs.
    3. Select a virtual machine, right-click, and select Properties.
    4. Modify the relevant properties in each of the tabs and click OK.

    What to do next

    For more information on managing virtual machines, see "Managing Your Virtual Machines,"

    Viewing Organization Log Tasks and Events

    You can view tasks and events in your organization to monitor and audit vmForge activities.

    vmForge tasks are long-running operations and their status changes as the task progresses. For example, a task's status generally starts as Running. When the task finishes, its status changes to Successful or Error.

    vmForge events are one-time occurrence that indicate an important part of an operation or a significant state change for a vmForge object. vmForge also logs an event every time a user logs in, and notes whether the attempt was successful or not.

    View Organization Events

    You can view the log for an organization to monitor organization-level events. Failed events and view events are listed by user.

    You are an organization administrator.

    Procedure

    1. Click the My Cloud.
    2. In the left pane, click Logs.
    3. Click the Events tab.
      vmForge displays information about each organization-level event.
    4. Double-click an event for more information.
      Only system administrators can view the details about most events.

    View Organization Tasks

    You can view the tasks in an organization, which helps you monitor and troubleshoot more effectively.

    You are an organization administrator.

    Procedure

    1. Click My Cloud.
    2. In the left pane, click Logs.
    3. On the Tasks tab, you can examine the tasks in the organization.
    4. Select a task, right-click, and select Open.
    5. Review the information and click OK.

    What to do next

    If you need help troubleshooting a failed task, contact vmForge support. So we can help you better, please note what you were doing at the time of the failure and any error messages you received.