Add Services to the Catalog – Legacy Model

Service Description Page

The display name for this service in the Service Catalog (maximum 100 characters).

This name is used as the label for the Service section of the Request New Service form. Choose a distinctive Service Name to help requesters fill out the form.

Optional; up to 1000 characters.

Along with the Name field, the Service Description field is used in Service Catalog searches.

Choose an icon from those available, or click Manage Icons to add an icon. See Manage icons for the service catalog for more details.

To help users find this service in a long list, choose one or more categories from those available, or click Manage Categories to add a category. See Manage Service Catalog categories for more details.

Components Page

To add a VM or virtual service component to the service:

1. Click Add and choose VM Component or Virtual Service Component.
2. In the dialog that appears, select a component.

3. Use the tree or enter text in the search field to narrow the component list. The search field searches the Name and Guest OS properties for VMs and the Name property for virtual services.

   vCenter and SCVMM: All components in a Service Catalog entry must belong to the same cloud account.

   Public Cloud: If no templates are available for your public cloud account, you need to add images to your public cloud account first. You do this in the AWS Management Console, or Microsoft Azure Management Portal. Note that you can add only private images to the Commander Service Catalog. So, if you created an instance from a public image, you need to convert the instance into a private image before you can add it to the Service Catalog. Note also that all components added to a Service Catalog entry must belong to the same region.

4. (Optional; applies to vCenter and SCVMM only) To display VMs in the component list as well as templates, enable Allow VMs in Catalog.
5. Optional: Use the Name field to customize the display name for this component in the Service Catalog (maximum 100 characters).

This is the component name that a user sees when completing a service request form.

6. Click Add to Service.
• To add a new custom component type to the service, click Add > New Component Type. Provide a name (maximum 64 characters), optional description and the annual cost. See also Manage component types for the service catalog.
• To add an existing custom component type to the service, click Add and select the component type from the drop-down menu. If more than five custom component types already exist, you need to instead select Custom Type from the menu, and in the Select Custom Component Type dialog, select a component from the list.

The maximum number of components in a service is 15.

When you have finished adding components, click Close to return to the wizard.

Under Component Forms, choose Legacy (deprecated).

Page for each Service Component

Optional: Customize the display name for this component in the Service Catalog (maximum 100 characters). A user sees the component name when viewing service details and when completing a service request form.

This name is used as the label for the Component section of the Request New Service form. Choose a distinctive component name to help requesters fill out the form.

Optional: Customize the description for this component in the Service Catalog (maximum 1000 characters). A user sees the component description when viewing service details and when completing a service request form.

Specify the name for deployed instances of this component.

Select Use default naming format to use the default naming convention, or specify a customized deployed name.

Click Configure global text replacement rules to shorten your component names. See also Set up text replacement rules for service names.

Customization specs allow Commander to modify source images during deployment, greatly reducing the number of templates you must maintain to deliver a variety of services based on the same OS.

If the component is a Windows or Linux template with a customization specification, you can select a different specification for the template by selecting a specification from the drop-down menu. This specification becomes available during deployment of a VM.

You can also assign a customization spec through a completion workflow with a Customize VM step. To avoid collisions, choose one of these methods, not both.

The preconfigured annual cost is displayed. You can change it in the Manage Custom Component Types dialog.

If you have set up one or more component-level completion workflows, you can select one from the menu.

While it's possible to create completion workflows for all component types, they are especially recommended for all custom components. If no completion workflow is assigned, a custom component moves immediately to the Completed state once approved. A completion workflow allows for provisioning steps to be carried out before the component moves to Completed. The completion workflow for a database instance, for example, could include a script to create the database.

Choose Linked Clones to deploy the VM components as linked clones. Otherwise, choose Standalone VMs.

A linked clone is created from a snapshot of the parent. Because the linked clone relies heavily on the parent snapshot, the parent or snapshot location should be on a very fast SAN (SSD), especially if multiple linked clones are created from the same parent. The linked clone consists of the snapshot plus the metadata and the delta between the snapshot and the deployed image.

Commander always uses the most recent snapshot to create the linked clone.

If the component is a template without a snapshot, deployment of the component as a linked clone will fail.

Select the instance types that users requesting this service will be able to choose from. Note that if you have configured automated deployment, the instance types you select must be available in the target region.

Click Manage Instance Type Names to edit the global display labels for instance type names, so that they're easier for users to understand. See Provide friendly names for instance types for more details.

Enter user data to customize this VM during provisioning. See AWS User Data Syntax and Supported Variables for more information.

Optional: Enter an AWS IAM role for this component. The maximum number of characters is 255.

Important: Commander doesn't validate IAM role names, so ensure that role names entered in Commander match those in AWS. IAM role names are not case-sensitive.

Using variable substitution, you can assign the IAM role based on information from the request process. Both custom attributes and Input Text Fields are supported as variables. For example, on the Attributes tab of the blueprint, you can create a custom attribute called IAM Role. On the Form tab of the blueprint, you can add the IAM Role custom attribute form element. Then, back on the Infrastructure tab, click  in the IAM Role field, then select the IAM Role custom attribute: #{target.settings.customAttribute['IAM Role']}.

You can assign an IAM role to the deployment destination rather than the catalog blueprint, if you deploy the same template (AMI) to multiple deployment destinations, or if you have a large number of catalog entries. If an IAM role is configured in both the deployment destination and the blueprint, the blueprint takes precedence.

Administrators can override the IAM role during manual deployment.

To enable memory usage monitoring, enable the option Send guest OS memory usage statistics to Amazon CloudWatch.

Memory usage monitoring requires the VM to have credentials with CloudWatch read / write permissions. You can enter a role in the IAM Role field for this purpose.

For more information, see Monitor Memory Metrics for EC2 Linux Instances and Monitor Memory Metrics for EC2 Windows Instances.

Endpoints Page (Microsoft Azure only)

Configure endpoints for all Azure VM templates in the service. Endpoints are used for  opening SSH, VNC or RDP connections to an Azure VM. The SSH endpoint is also required for the Run Program workflow step on Azure Linux VMs. To ensure that inbound network traffic is allowed, endpoints must be named as follows:

• SSH: Commander uses the port configured for the endpoint named "SSH".
• VNC: Commander uses the port configured for the endpoint named "VNC".
• RDP: Commander uses the port configured for the endpoint named "Remote Desktop".

Deployment Page

For vCenter, selecting Virtual Service means this service will be deployed as a virtual service. Selecting Individual Components means that the service will be deployed as individual VMs. Deploying a service as a virtual service means that you can manage the service as a whole after the service request has been completed.

When deploying as a virtual service, Service Portal users will still be able to see and manage individual VMs within the vApp.

When creating a service that contains a single virtual service component, choose Individual Components. Otherwise, the service will be deployed as a virtual service within a virtual service.

When you choose to deploy the service as a virtual service, you can specify a customized name for deployed instances of this service. Select Use default naming format to use the default virtual service naming convention, or specify a customized deployed name.

When you choose to deploy as Individual Components, it's not possible to specify a deployed name for the service, because only components are deployed (the service itself isn't deployed).

Click Configure global text replacement rules to shorten your service names. See also Set up text replacement rules for service names.

Applies only to VM and virtual service components. Some components in a multi-tier service may require other components to be started and running before they can start.

For vCenter, if you choose to deploy the service as a virtual service, you specify both the order in which the components are deployed and the order in which the components are started.

If you choose to deploy the service as individual components, you specify the order in which the components are deployed.

Within each group, components are sorted in alphabetical order.

The reverse order is used for shutdown.

There is a 120 second delay between startup and shutdown of each component. There is no delay for deployment, but components are deployed serially, not in parallel.

An administrator can override this deployment order by manually deploying components in a different order.

Commander and Service Portal users with permissions can edit the start order for a deployed vCenter vApp.

If you have set up one or more service-level completion workflows, you can select one from the drop-down menu.

Enable this option if you will deploy this service in an isolated (fenced) network. See Create Services Using Fenced Networks to learn how to create a service for a fenced network.

By default, VMs are powered on during deployment. If you want to deploy VMs in this service in a powered-off state, disable this option.

vCenter: When this option is disabled, if you assign a customization spec to a component in the service and migrate the VM to a different datastore before its first power on, the customization spec won't run.

If you enable this option, all components in the service will be highly available.

An administrator can override this option during manual deployment. If this option is enabled, automated deployment will use a deployment destination that supports high availability.

Enter an availability set name. Microsoft Azure availability sets ensure both fault tolerance and service availability. If the availability set you specify doesn't exist in the target location, it will be created. Availability set names are case-insensitive, must contain from 1 to 80 characters, and may contain letters, numbers, underscores and hyphens.

Placement Page

When you assign a placement attribute value to a published service, you're identifying the requirements of that published service to help ensure that services are deployed to the best destination.

1. Click Edit Placement Attributes.
2. In the Edit Placement Attributes dialog, in the Not Required pane, select an attribute value that's provided by this destination and click Add to move it to the Required pane.
3. Click OK to close the Edit Placement Attributes dialog.
4. The placement attribute values you've assigned to this service are displayed on the Placement page.
5. For a placement attribute with selectable values, use the Up and Down arrow buttons to order the attribute values by preference. For example, if a service can be deployed on either private or public cloud, but private cloud is preferable, make sure the Private Cloud attribute value is first in the list.

For more information, see Configure Placement Attributes.

Visibility Page

The service is in the catalog but isn't available for selection (temporarily disabled).

See also Permanently remove services from the Service Catalog.

The service is available to all organizations, users and groups.

A published service is available for a Service Portal user to select only if the Request New Service permission is given to the user's Service Portal role. See Customize Service Portal Roles for Users.

The service is available to organizations, users and groups that you specify.

On the Organizations tab, select an organization from the drop-down menu. On the Users/Groups tab, enter the username or email address for one or more users or groups. You can assign a single service to both organizations and users/groups.

When an organization member requests this service, the deployed service will automatically be assigned to the organization, with the requester as primary owner.

Summary Page