Manage vSphere Virtual Machines in Nutanix PRISM

With the Nutanix AOS 5.0 release it is now possible to manage VMware vSphere ESXi based virtual machines (VMs) via Nutanix PRISM. VM management is controlled via the VM section in PRISM which you’ll reach by:

• Selecting VM in the main drop down menu
  
• Click Table and you’ll see all the VMs in table format.
  

Both the management flavours available will be discussed and the difference between the two is a vCenter Server registration or no venter Server registration so the options are:

• ESXi Host VM Management
• vCenter Server VM Management

ESXi Host VM Management

The actions available per VM in the ESXi host VM management mode, which is the default one, will be shown when you highlight a VM.

• Launch Console
  
• Power Operations
  • Power On – Not visible on the above print screen since the VM is powered on already. There will be a PowerOn link instead of the “Power Off Actions” link as shown above
  • Power Off
  • Reset

There is a Create VM link to the (almost) top right corner and if you click that one before register a vCenter Server you’ll get the following error:

vCenter Server VM Management

So this requires a vCenter Server registration and will give quite a few more options. This section will include:

• vCenter Server Registration
• VM Management

vCenter Server Registration

Setup the vCenter Server registration by following the below procedure.

• Click the Gear Icon and select vCenter Registration
  
• Fill in the information required and click Register.
  • Address
  • Port
  • Admin Username
  • Admin Password
    

Highlight a VM to verify you got some additional VM management options.

VM Management

After the vCenter Server registration is completed we will have the following VM Management options available:

• Create
• Clone
• Delete
• Launch Console – Not new with the vCenter Server registration
• Power Operations
  • Power On –  Not new with the vCenter Server registration
  • Power Off – Not new with the vCenter Server registration
  • Reset
  • Guest Shutdown
  • Guest Reboot
  • Suspend
• Update

Let’s cover the new options one by one.

Create

Create a VM by following the below procedure

• Click the Create VM link
  
• Fill in the information required and click Save
  • Name
  • Description
  • Guest OS
  • vCPUs
  • Number of Cores per vCPU
  • Memory
  • Add the number of disks you want and it include (per disk) the following options:
    • Type
    • Operation
    • BUS Type
    • Storage Container
    • Size
      
  • Add number of NICs required and it includes (per NIC) the following options:
    • VLAN Name – vSphere Port Group
    • Network Adapter Type
      
  • Verify your settings and click Save
    
    

The VM, VM100, is created and i verified that via the vSphere HTML5 interface. Pay attention to the Configuration and Notes.

Clone

Clone a VM by following the below procedure

• Highlight the VM you want to cone, in my case VM1000, and click Clone
  
• Fill out the VM specification (Name, CPU, Memory) and click Save. The following options are clone workflow specific parameters.
  • Number Of Clones – Default value is 1
  • Name – Default the name is based on VM name plus -1. in my case VM1000-1
    
  • In my case i wanted to make 2 clones of the VM and use them for a specific application so my configuration looks like the following
    
• Verify the VMs were created
  • Prism
    
  • vCenter Server
    

Update

Update a VM by following the below procedure.

• Highlight the VM you want to update, in my case VM1000, and click update
  
• Make the necessary changes for one or more of the below fields and click Save
  • Name – Will change the VM display name and not the files on the NFS datastore.
  • Description
  •  vCPUs
  • Number of Cores per vCPU
  • Memory
  • Disks
  • Network Adapters
  • In my case i wanted to increase Memory for the VM from 4 GB to 8 GB
    
• Verify the changed via:
  • Prism
    
  • vCenter Server
    

Delete

Delete a VM by following the below procedure.

• Highlight the VM you want to delete, in my case VM1000, and click Delete
  
• Click OK on delete confirmation pop up.
  
• Verify that the VM is deleted and the delete task can be viewed from:
  • PRISM – Tasks section where all VM operations will be displayed meaning create, update, clone and not just delete as shown below.
    
  • vCenter Server