VMware Cloud Director plug-in experiences

  • 30 June 2021
  • 7 replies
  • 494 views

Userlevel 7
Badge +19

Hi,

We are in the proces of designing an environment based on VMware VCF with VMware Cloud Director. Customers will consume VMware services and others via Cloud Director hence we are thinking to use the Cloud Director from Commvault as well. Unfortunately I do not have a lab available right now to test it out but was looking for some screenshots/videos to get a better impression on the UX and its capabilities.

Competition delivers Cloud Director nowadays based on the extension framework that was introduced some time ago, but I cannot get from the documentation if Commvault is using the same framework. VMware itself states they have an extension that is build by them, not by Commvault is that correct?


C o h e s i ty

 

R u b r i k
 

Also curious to hear experience from other Cloud Director customers. We b.t.w. do have experience with the vCenter plugin which is also very disappointing. 


7 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Hey @Onno van den Berg , moving this to Best Practices as a conversation.  Alkso looking to see if anyone internal has some advice/experience for you :grinning:

Userlevel 1
Badge +1

hi @Onno van den Berg , we do have vcloud plugin support from Commvault.  Please refer below documentation and let me know if you have any question. 

 

https://documentation.commvault.com/11.23/essential/121031_commvault_plug_in_for_vcloud_director.html

Userlevel 7
Badge +19

@Prasanna Kumar TR I know Commvault has a plugin for Cloud Director, but I asked for confirmation if this plugin delivers similar UX like the ones from the competition. So far I distillate from the documentation that Commvault delivers a plugin which I assume it is similar to the vCenter plugin which is very limited and not integrated with vCenter at all. 

VMware said to us that they themselves build a plugin for Commvault to integrate with Cloud Director using the extension framework. If that is truly the case, than that would be a missed chance which should be addressed as soon as possible. 

So can you deliver an answer to the following questions:

  • Does the Cloud Director plugin deliver similar functionality and UX as the vCenter plugin.
  • Is the plugin based on the extension framework?
  • If not, than I would like to know if development is already working on this?
  • Can you share some screenshots


See for more information: https://github.com/vmware/vcd-ext-sdk​​​​​​​

 

 

 

Userlevel 1
Badge +1

@Onno van den Berg   Please let me know if you need any other details.

  • Does the Cloud Director plugin deliver similar functionality and UX as the vCenter plugin. 
    •  <Prasanna> Yes we have built native vcloud plugin
  • Is the plugin based on the extension framework?
    • <Prasanna> Yes the plugin is based on extension framework 
  • Can you share some screenshots

Dashboard:

 

Virtual Machine:

 

Protected

 

Unprotected: (Assign to plan and run backup)

 

 

MSP Admin configuration (for administrator alone)

 

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +19

@Prasanna Kumar TR it looks great! exactly what I was hoping for so I'm rest assured. One last question I have is about authentication. Are users required to logon separately to the Commvault endpoint or does it re-use the existing VcD session to authenticate against Commvault. 

Userlevel 1
Badge +1

@Onno van den Berg  - Please let me know if you have any other question.

For Tenant admin/users - the authentication based on their IDP (SAML or AD or local vcloud user) - when user enter into the commvault vcloud plugin first time, it redirect to Command center login screen to authenticate once (for ex: if its SAML based authentication, as soon as entering user info in command center login screen it just redirect to IDP and authenticate automatically, if the vCloud authenticated session still intact). Also, The session is maintained in the commvault vcloud plugin till user manually log out or session failed to renew due to change in user account properties

For MSP admin to configure - it has authenticate screen while configuring the commvault end point

 

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +19

@Prasanna Kumar TR thanks again for the quick response, so far it looks promising and we'll follow-up if needed once we have it up and running.

are there plan to expand the vCD plugin to offer integrated support for vCD based Tanzu setups? 

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