Configuring the Provider VM

You complete the Provider VM configuration in the Data Management for VMware Tanzu Provider console.

Step 1: Satisfy the Prerequisites
Step 2: Create an Organization
Step 3: Choose the user identity source, and configure an Organization Administrator user
Step 4: Configure access to Templates and software updates
Step 5: (Optional) Configure other settings
Step 6: Define an Instance Plan
Step 7: Publish a Database Template
Step 8: Validate Provider Readiness for Onboarding

Audience

The procedures in this topic are performed by a Data Management for VMware Tanzu user in the Provider Administrator role.

Step 1: Prerequisites

Before you begin configuring the Provider, ensure that:

• You have installed and configured all the Hardware and Software Requirements.

• You can identify your Data Management for VMware Tanzu Provider Administrator console login credentials. These are the Provider email and Provider password specified when you deployed the Provider VM.

• You can identify the IP address of the Provider VM.

You must perform these tasks on a host that can access the Provider VM.

Step 2: Creating an Organization

An Organization is a logical grouping of users. The Provider Administrator adds an Organization in the Data Management for VMware Tanzu UI.

When the Provider Administrator adds an Organization, they must identify the Instance Configuration Mode available to users in the Organization. The Instance Configuration Mode identifies how Data Management for VMware Tanzu determines the vCPU and memory resources initially available to a provisioned Service Instance VM. Data Management for VMware Tanzu supports two modes of vCPU and memory resource configuration when a user in the Organization provisions a Service Instance:

• Free Mode - The provisioning user specifies the vCPU and memory settings for the Service Instance VM.
• Plans Mode - The vCPU and memory settings for the Service Instance VM are constrained by the currently configured instance plans (named, pre-defined combinations of compute and memory resources), one of which must be selected by the provisioning user.

Plans Mode requires that you define at least one instance plan for the Data Management for VMware Tanzu installation (described in Step 6: Defining an Instance Plan). No additional configuration is required on your part for Free Mode.

Procedure

Perform the following procedure to add an Organization to your Data Management for VMware Tanzu installation:

1. Open a browser window, and enter the Provider VM IP address.

2. Provide your credentials to log in to the Data Management for VMware Tanzu console.

3. Select Organizations from the left navigation pane.

   This action displays the Organizations view, a table that lists the configured organizations.

4. Click CREATE ORGANIZATION in the upper right corner of the view.

   This action opens the Create Organization form.

5. Specify the Organization Name and company Email address. The organization name must be unique.

6. Select the desired service Instance Configuration Mode for the organization.

7. Click ADD to create the organization.

   The new organization is added to the table.

Step 3: Choosing the User Identity Source and Configuring an Organization Administrator User

Data Management for VMware Tanzu user accounts can originate from two different identity sources: the DMS Provider local database (Local user) and a configured LDAP server (LDAP user). DMS manages Local users and LDAP users independently and differently.

You can choose to use one, or both, identity sources in your Data Management for VMware Tanzu installation. For deployment, you must choose the identity source for an Organization Administrator user to manage the Organization that you created in Step 2. An Organization Administrator user has administrative privileges within an Organization, and is permitted to manage and monitor any service provisioned within the org.

• If you choose to use a Local identity source, create an Organization Administrator Local user.
• If you choose to use an LDAP identity source, you must both configure an LDAP server and import organization users from LDAP.

Creating an Organization Administrator Local User

The Provider Administrator adds an Organization Administrator Local user in the Data Management for VMware Tanzu UI, identifying the user's name, email address, password, and role. The Provider Administrator must also specify the Organization to which the user belongs.

Be sure to assign the Organization Administrator user the Admin role.

Procedure

Perform the following procedure to add an Organization Administrator Local user to your Data Management for VMware Tanzu installation:

1. Navigate to Users in the left pane.

   This action displays the Users view, a table that lists the configured users.

2. Click CREATE USER in the upper right corner of the view.

   This action opens the Add User form.

3. Set the following properties for this new Organization Administrator Local user:

   Property Name	Value
   First name	The first name of the user.
   Last name	The last name of the user.
   Organization	The organization to which to assign the user; use the drop-down list to select the organization that you just created.
   Email id	The email address of the user. This is the user's login username in the Data Management for VMware Tanzu console.
   Role	The user's role in the organization; click the checkbox to assign the Admin role to this user.
   Password	The password for the user. This is the user's login password in the Data Management for VMware Tanzu console.
   Confirm Password	Enter the password a second time.
   Contact Number	The contact number for the user. Optional.

4. Click ADD

   The new Local user is added to the table.

Configuring an LDAP Server

You can integrate Data Management for VMware Tanzu with an external identity provider and import those users into a DMS organization. The integration with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) enables an organization to use its existing LDAP service as a user source for DMS.

To take advantage of this LDAP integration, you must configure an LDAP server for your Data Management for VMware Tanzu installation. This server becomes the single LDAP user source for all organizations that are configured in DMS.

Prerequisites

Before you configure an LDAP server, ensure that you can identify the server host address, domain, and the user name and password of a read-only service user.

The LDAP endpoint must be resolvable by the DNS server specified at the time of Provider VM deployment.

Procedure

Perform the following procedure to configure an LDAP server:

1. Select Settings from the left navigation pane.

   This actions displays the Settings view, Information pane.

2. Select the LDAP Settings tab to view and configure/update the LDAP settings.

3. Set the LDAP properties:

   Property Name	Value	Required?
   Host Address	The hostname or IP address of the LDAP server.	Required
   Port	The port number on which the LDAP server is listening. For LDAP, the default port number is 389. For LDAPS, the default port number is 636.
   Username	The ID of a read-only user in the domain.	Required
   Password	The password of the user who is specified by Username.	Required
   Domain	The FQDN of the domain.	Required
   Base Dn	The base distinguished name identifies the location in the LDAP directory from which to start user searches. The default behaviour is for search to start from the root DN.
   Search Filter	The filter that defines the criteria to restrict access. The default value is (&(objectClass=user)).
   Login Attribute	The LDAP attribute to map to the DMS Email Id. The default value is userPrincipalName.
   Firstname Attribute	The LDAP attribute to map to the DMS First Name.
   Lastname Attribute	The LDAP attribute to map to the DMS Last Name.
   TLS Enabled	Check this box if your server is using LDAPS.	Required

4. Click SAVE or UPDATE to apply the LDAP settings.

   Data Management for VMware Tanzu validates the LDAP settings that you provide, and returns an error if validation fails.

   Note: It may take a few minutes for Data Management for VMware Tanzu to synchronize with LDAP.

Importing Organization Users from LDAP

You can import users from a previously-configured LDAP identity provider and assign them the Organization Administrator role in a Data Management for VMware Tanzu Tenant Org. You can configure the LDAP group-to-DMS-role mapping after organization creation as described in the procedure below.

Procedure

Perform the following procedure to import users from LDAP and assign them the Organization Administrator role:

1. Select Organizations from the left navigation pane.

   This action displays the Organizations view, a table that lists the configured organizations.

2. Examine the organizations listed in the table, identify the Tenant Org into which you want to import LDAP users, and navigate to that table row.

3. Click anywhere in the row.

   The Organizations > <org_name> pane, Databases tab displays.

4. Click the Settings tab.

   The LDAP Integration pane displays.

5. Click EDIT in the upper right corner of the pane.

   The LDAP Integration dialog displays.

6. Specify the LDAP group to DMS role mapping:

   Property Name	Value
   Admin Groups	The LDAP groups whose users you want Data Management for VMware Tanzu to assign the Organization Administrator role in the organization.

7. Click UPDATE.

   Data Management for VMware Tanzu associates the LDAP users in the specified groups to the Organization Administrator role. These users can now log in to the Data Management for VMware Tanzu console using their LDAP credentials.

Step 4: Configuring Access to Templates and Software Updates

VMware releases certified Data Management for VMware Tanzu database templates and software updates to Tanzu Network.

The Provider requires access to an S3-compatible object store and Tanzu Network to automatically obtain and locally store templates and software updates:

Setting Name	Description
Provider Repo	S3-compatible object store that DMS uses to store local copies of available database templates and software updates.
Tanzu Net Token	Tanzu Network UAA API TOKEN that you generate from a Tanzu Network account.

Data Management for VMware Tanzu saves a local copy of each template and software update that it downloads from Tanzu Network to the Provider Repo.

After you configure both the Provider Repo and Tanzu Net Token, it may take about ten minutes for available templates to propagate to the Provider.

Note: If you are deploying Data Management for VMware Tanzu in an air-gapped environment (an environment with no internet connectivity), refer to Manually Populating Templates and Updates for the information required to manually populate these objects in the DMS Provider Repo.

Procedure

Perform the following procedure to configure the Provider object storage repository and the Tanzu Network refresh token:

1. Select Settings from the left navigation pane.

   This action displays the Settings view, which includes tabs for Information, Storage Settings, SMTP Settings, and LDAP Settings.

2. Locate and select the Storage Settings tab.

3. Examine the External Storage pane, locate the Provider Repo Url row, and click Add configuration in the Status column.

   This action opens the Configure Settings form.

4. Set the following properties for the Provider repository:

   Property Name	Value
   Setting Type	The name of the object store setting - Provider Repo Url. (Read-only)
   Storage Type	Select the type of storage from the drop-down list. You can choose S3_COMPATIBLE_STORAGE or AWS.
   AWS Region	If you selected the AWS storage type, specify the AWS region for the object store.
   Storage URL1	The URL to the object store. If you do not specify the protocol, Data Management for VMware Tanzu assumes it to be https.
   Access Key	The access key for the object store.
   Secret Key	The secret key for the object store.
   Bucket Name	The name of the bucket.

   ¹ If you selected the AWS Storage Type, refer to the Amazon Simple Storage Service documentation describing the URL endpoints for specific regions.

   1. Click SAVE to save the Provider Repo object storage settings.

5. Locate the Tanzu Net Token pane, Refresh Token row, click the three vertical dots in the Action column, and select Add from the pop up menu.

   The Add Refresh Token dialog displays.

6. Enter your Tanzu Network UAA API TOKEN in the field provided, and then click SAVE.

   Note: Data Management for VMware Tanzu begins to download the templates and software updates. The time that this takes to complete is dependent upon the number of objects and the network latency between the Provider VM and Tanzu Network.

Step 5: Configuring Other Settings

While these tasks are not required for deployment, you may choose to configure other settings for your DMS installation at this time:

• SMTP Settings
• Provider Backup Settings
• Provider Log Storage Settings (Optional)

Step 6: Defining an Instance Plan

An instance plan is a named, pre-defined combination of compute and memory resources. When you configure an instance plan, you provide a name, a number vCPUs, and a memory amount in GBs.

If you chose Plans Mode when you configured the Organization, you must define one or more instance plans that a user can choose from to specify the resources allotted to a provisioned Service Instance VM.

Note: This configuration step is not required for Organizations that you configured to use the Free Mode service Instance Configuration Mode.

Procedure

Perform the following procedure to define a new instance plan:

1. Select Instance Plans from the left navigation pane.

   This action displays the Instance Plans view, a table that lists the configured instance plans.

2. Click ADD NEW PLAN in the upper right corner of the view.

   This action opens the Add Instance Plan form.

3. Set the desired resource configuration properties:

   Property Name	Value
   Plan name	The name of the instance plan.
   vCPU	The number of vCPU cores to assign to a provisioned Service Instance VM.
   Memory	The amount of memory (in GBs) to allocate to a provisioned Service Instance VM.

4. Click ADD.

   The new instance plan is added to the table.

Step 7: Publishing a Database Template

Configuring the Provider Repo and Tanzu Net Token in Step 4: Configuring Access to Templates and Updates prompts Data Management for VMware Tanzu to automatically pull VMware-certified database templates and make them available to the DMS installation.

Publishing a template makes a specific version of a service available for provisioning. For example, a template may exist for PostgreSQL version 11.8.

You must publish at least one template before users can provision a Service Instance, and any template that you publish becomes available to all users in all organizations.

Procedure

Perform the following procedure to publish a template:

1. Select Templates from the left navigation pane.

   This action displays the Templates view.

2. Examine the templates listed in the table, identify the template that you wish to publish, and navigate to that table row.

3. Click on the Action column value, and select Publish from the pop-up menu.

   The Publish Template dialog displays.

4. Click CONFIRM.

   Note: Publishing a template may take some time.

5. Monitor the status of the publish operation.

   If the operation completes successfully, the template's Status in the table changes to PUBLISHED.

Step 8: Validating Provider Readiness for Onboarding

The version of a Agent onboarded with Data Management for VMware Tanzu must be compatible with the version of the Provider. At initial deployment, DMS cannot determine this compatibility until after database templates are downloaded to the Provider Repo.

You can validate Provider readiness for onboarding by viewing the Agent Onboarding State. The Agent Onboarding State table, located in the Settings view, Storage Settings tab, displays the following information:

• The Agent Min Version identifies the minimum Agent version number supported by the Provider.
• The Agent Max Version identifies the maximum Agent version number supported by the Provider.
• The Status column identifies the status of Provider readiness for onboarding.

A Ready to onboard Status indicates that the Provider is ready and prepared to accept onboarding requests for new Agents (whose version is within the specified mininum-maximum range).

Also ensure that you perform the following validation steps:

1. From the left navigation pane, select System Audit.

2. Set System Audit Events per page (at the bottom of the table) as 100.

3. For the DMS RELEASE Component, ensure that the Event Type is DMS LOAD RELEASES and the Event Details is DMS Release N.N.N processed successfully, where N.N.N represents the current release of Data Management for VMware Tanzu.

   Note: You can click the column headers to arrange the rows in alphabetic order.

Next Steps

You have completed the required minimal configuration of the Provider. Next:

• Provide the following information to the Organization Administrator user:

  • The Data Management for VMware Tanzu URL (i.e. the Provider VM IP address).
  • The Local user's login credentials to the Data Management for VMware Tanzu console, or instruct the user to log in with their LDAP creds.

• You may choose to log in to Data Management for VMware Tanzu and access the provider console to begin monitoring and managing the infrastructure.