4.2.1 Catalog Items
To populate catalog items such as vApp templates, use the vCloud Director Catalogs tab (see Figure 4)
, or add them from the My Cloud tab of a powered-off vApp.
Figure 4. vCloud Director Catalogs Tab
Consider the following when determining the number of vApp templates to add to the catalog:
A need to
enforce standardized virtual machine configurations.
A requirement to provide applications pre-
configured as vApps.
User privileges needed to modify vApp and virtual machine configurations.
The size of the anticipated user base and the level of control granted to users determines how many vApp templates to create.
The following are examples of common use cases for catalog entities:
A
vApp Author, or
application developer,
who deploys
a vApp as a development
and testing platform.
A
vApp User, or business user,
who deploys a vApp with the
latest version of an internally developed application for user acceptance testing (UAT).
4.2.1.1. Application Developer Use Case
Application developers are skilled in IT and require many vApp configurations with different internal virtual machine configurations and software package installation configurations. Rather than trying to predict the requirements for each developer, the infrastructure team can provide a collection of media files and basic, predefined standard vApp templates based on an existing corporate standard. Developers can then construct their own individual vApps and modify the configuration (CPU, RAM, disk) of the contained virtual machines. You might not need to create many vApp templates in advance because a single vApp template for each major guest operating system and application might be enough. There is no requirement to define small, medium, and large hardware-based derivatives of the same vApp template, because the user can edit the virtual hardware after deployment.
4.2.1.2. Business User Use Case
Business users are not necessarily aware of IT requirements and often do not fully understand the differences and implications of virtual machine-level hardware changes. An infrastructure team would not delegate full control to business users and therefore could deploy a predefined vApp configuration that meets their requirements. Because the user cannot edit the hardware after deployment, there could be a requirement to offer a more extensive catalog, including small, medium, and large hardware-based derivatives of the same vApp template.
