If you have access to a catalog, you can use the vApp templates in the catalog to create vApps.

A vApp template can be based on an OVF file with properties for customizing the virtual machines of the vApp. The vApp inherits these properties. If any of those properties are user-configurable, you can specify their values.

Prerequisites

  • To access vApp templates in public catalogs, verify that you are an organization administrator or a vApp author.
  • To access vApp templates in organization catalogs that are shares to you, verify that you are at least a vApp user.
  • To enable operations across vCenter instances where the source and destination vCenter instances are not the same, verify that the vCenter instances trust each other independently of VMware Cloud Director. To view the certificates that a vCenter instance trusts, see the Explore Certificate Stores Using the vSphere Client in the VMware vSphere Product Documentation. Verify that each vCenter instance trusts the other vCenter instances that it needs to interact with. See also KB 89906.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the VDC you want to explore, and from the secondary left panel, select vApps.
  2. Click New and select Add vApp from Catalog.
  3. Select a template to import and click Next.
  4. Enter a name and, optionally, a description for the vApp.
  5. Enter a runtime lease and a storage lease for the vApp, and click Next.
  6. From the Storage Policy drop-down menu, select a storage policy for each of the virtual machines in the vApp, and click Next.
  7. If the placement policies and the sizing policies for the virtual machines in the vApp are configurable, select a policy for each virtual machine from the drop-down menu.
  8. If the compute properties for the virtual machines in the vApp are configurable, customize them and click Next.
    Option Description
    Virtual CPUs Enter the number of virtual CPUs for each virtual machine in the vApp.

    The maximum number of virtual CPUs that you can assign to a virtual machine depends on the number of logical CPUs on the host and the type of guest operating system that is installed on the virtual machine.

    Cores per socket Enter the number of cores per socket for each virtual machine in the vApp.

    You can configure how the virtual CPUs are assigned in terms of cores and cores per socket. Determine how many CPU cores you want in the virtual machine, then select the number of cores you want in each socket, depending on whether you want a single core CPU, dual-core CPU, tri-core CPU, and so on.

    Number of cores View the number of cores for each virtual machine in the vApp.

    The number changes when you update the number of virtual CPUs.

    Memory Enter the memory in MB for each virtual machine in the vApp.

    This setting determines how much of the ESXi host memory is allocated to the virtual machine. The virtual hardware memory size determines how much memory is available to applications that run in the virtual machine. A virtual machine cannot benefit from more memory resources than its configured virtual hardware memory size.

  9. If the hardware properties of the virtual machines in the vApp are configurable, customize the size of the virtual machine hard disks and click Next.
  10. If the networking properties of the virtual machines in the vApp are configurable, customize them and click Next.
    1. On the Configure Networking page, select the networks to which you want each virtual machine to connect.
    2. (Optional) Select the check box to switch to the advanced networking workflow and configure additional network settings for the virtual machines in the vApp.
  11. Review the vApp settings and click Finish.