Skip to main content

FAQ – Public Cloud powered by VMware

Last update:

Organizations, vDCs, pools, regions

I cannot access the Cloud Director panel, even though I have funds in my account

You might be trying to access a Moscow Cloud Director account via the St. Petersburg Cloud Director web panel (or vice versa). In that case, check the web panel URL:

  • for Moscow resources: vcd-msk.selectel.ru
  • for resources in St. Petersburg: vcd.selectel.ru

The Cloud Director account is locked for 10 minutes after 5 unsuccessful password attempts. You can change your password on the Users tab of the Control Panel.

I do not see my vDCs in the Cloud Director panel. What should I do?

Our infrastructure has two Cloud Director panels — one for resources in Moscow (vcd-msk.selectel.ru) and one in St. Petersburg (vcd.selectel.ru). Therefore, Moscow resources are managed via the Moscow Cloud Director, and resources in St. Petersburg are managed via the St. Petersburg Cloud Director.

To open the region-appropriate Cloud Director, click the Virtual Data Center card header in the Control Panel.

You can link two regions in one web panel using the Multisite feature; see the documentation for details.

How do I move a VM from one pool to another?

You can only change the VM pool for an entire vApp:

  1. Move the VM to a separate vApp.
  2. Power off this vApp in the Cloud Director interface, then select Move to from the context menu.
  3. In the Virtual Datacenter field, select the data center with a different pool type.
  4. Click OK.

For a VM with a disk of up to 40 GB, the migration time is no more than 10 minutes.

I need to move a vDC to another account. Is this possible?

Yes. This is possible, but subject to certain conditions and limitations:

  • there must not be any vDCs in the new account;
  • only all vDCs can be moved at once from the old account to the new one;
  • the move is performed at the Organization level, meaning the entire Organization and all its vDCs are moved;
  • there is no VM downtime;
  • all Organization users are preserved and moved along with it.

To perform the move, you must submit a request via the ticket system.

What are the limits for resources and the number of vDCs?

The limit is 5 virtual data centers per account.

You can view virtual data center limits in the Create a Virtual Data Center instructions.

How do I delete a vDC?

You can only delete empty vDCs. Before doing so, delete all vApps, VMs, vApp templates, and catalogs via Cloud Director.

In the Control Panel, go to the VMware Cloud section. Expand the menu (⋮) on the virtual data center card and click Delete Data Center.

Networks

How many networks can be created in one vDC?

Up to 50 networks per vDC. The limit can be increased upon request.

Local network to other services?

vDC networks can be connected to the local network of dedicated servers, colocation servers, racks, and leased network equipment.

You can use any addressing within the local network.

QnQ is not supported. If you use QnQ in your physical local network, you must create a new local VLAN and connect it to VMware. Send a request via the ticket system. In the request, specify which vDC the network will be configured in, the addressing in the physical network, and the desired addressing in the VMware network.

Is there redundancy for network equipment?

Yes. All network equipment, from access switches to routers, is fully redundant. The failure of any network device will not affect the availability of VMs from public and local networks.

Can I assign a public IP directly to a VM without NAT?

Yes. We will provide a Direct Connected subnet /29 or /28. You can request a subnet of up to /24 via the ticket system. You can use any available address within the allocated subnet. The cost of one address block is listed on the service page.

The address is assigned automatically upon machine deployment if the following conditions are met:

  • vmware-tools (Windows)/open-vm-tools (*nix) utility is installed inside the VM;
  • the machine's network interface is connected to the required network.

No access from a VM to its own external IP via NAT; what to do?

You need to perform NAT reflection, also known as NAT hairpinning or NAT loopback; example:

ActInterfaceSourcePortDestinationPortProto
DNATWAN85.119.148.1238010.60.0.680TCP
DNATLAN85.119.148.1238010.60.0.680TCP
SNATLAN10.60.0.6any85.119.148.123anyany

NAT or firewall is not working. What is wrong?

If the firewall is disabled, NAT rules will not function.

Ensure that the firewall is enabled and has rules that allow the necessary traffic. Otherwise, enable the firewall and add the necessary rules manually.

Which firewall (FW) is used?

We recommend using the one built into NSX.

Volumes

Virtual volume speed

Disk speeds can be found in the VMware-based Public Cloud product description guide.

Can I attach virtual volumes from different pools to the same VM?

No. When creating a virtual machine, you can use different types of volumes, but only within the pool where it was created. For example, both vSSD and Fast vSSD, or vHDD and Fast vHDD. You can create VMs in different pools and see them together in your Cloud Director organization, as well as connect them to the same network.

VM snapshots: How to use and manage them?

You can create, delete, and restore snapshots via the Cloud Director panel.

One snapshot per VM. When a VM snapshot is created, snapshots of all volumes attached to the VM are created as well. There are no limits on volume snapshots.

You cannot create a disk from a snapshot. You can revert a virtual machine to a version saved in a snapshot.

We do not recommend keeping a snapshot for more than 72 hours. Keeping snapshots longer than this can lead to degraded VM volume performance. Use a backup service for long-term backups.

What formats can templates be imported in?

Cloud Director supports templates in ova and ovf formats. An ovf template must be uploaded along with the accompanying files: vmx, mf, vmdk.

I cannot select a storage policy when creating a VM from a template in Cloud Director

When you create a virtual machine, the last column in the Templates table shows only the template's storage.

You can configure the storage policy after the VM has been created:

  1. Click Details on the created VM card.
  2. In the Storage Policy field, select a storage policy and click Save. You can select a storage policy that matches your virtual data center pool (vHDD and Fast vHDD for Silver, vSSD and Fast vSSD for Gold).

Backup

How is backup implemented?

Backup is implemented based on Veeam Backup & Replication™ (VBR). The Veeam® Backup Enterprise Manager console is used to manage backups.

Learn more about the backup service.

How do I manage backups?

Veeam Backup & Replication™ (VBR) is connected separately for organizations in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

To access the Veeam® Backup Enterprise Manager console, use the appropriate link:

  • vbr.selectel.ru/vCloud/<org-name>/ for St. Petersburg
  • vbr-msk.selectel.ru/vCloud/<org-name>/ for Moscow

Specify <org-name> — the organization name.

To sign in, enter the credentials for the corresponding region account.

Other

Does the VMware cloud support nested virtualization?

Yes, it is supported, though operational functionality is not guaranteed. More details are available in the VMware documentation.

Maximum CPU, RAM, and volume size for a virtual machine

For VMs whose performance we guarantee, the maximum specifications are as follows:

  • vCPU — 72 (Platinum cluster);
  • vRAM — 256 GB;
  • virtual volume — 10 TB.

Is Microsoft software available in a cloud powered by VMware?

Yes. You can install server editions of Windows from your own VM image:

  • Windows Server 2019 Standard;
  • Windows Server 2016 Standard;
  • Windows Server 2012R2 Standard.

You can use the server edition with the Desktop Experience package installed.

Do Selectel employees have access to vDCs and client data?

There is technical capability for a limited number of company employees to access the infrastructure and customer data. This access is required for fulfilling obligations to maintain the performance of the infrastructure that is being provided to the customer.

According to regulations, customer data cannot be copied, modified, or deleted without the express permission of the customer.

How does isolation work between customer clouds? If one customer loads the host, will others be affected?

VMware vSphere® includes a mechanism called DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler), which automatically and transparently migrates neighbors to less loaded hosts.

How do I migrate my VMs to Selectel infrastructure?

You can use the VMware Cloud Director Availability™ client to migrate virtual machines. To learn how to configure the client, see the article How to install on-prem VMware Cloud Director Availability.

Alternatively, you can export/import your VMs via an OVA template:

  1. To export machines, move them to a separate vApp. Open the menu on the vApp card and click Download. A template file in OVA format will be downloaded.
  2. Next, import the downloaded template into the Cloud Director based on the Selectel infrastructure. Follow the instructions in How to import a VM.

Is there Terraform support?

Yes, we recommend using: https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraformdocs/providers/vcd/index.html

What APIs are provided?

We offer customers the use of the Cloud Director API to manage virtual machines, networks, volumes, and other objects. Documentation is available on the VMware website:

We use Cloud Director 10.3.3, which supports API versions 34.0–36v3.

To create virtual data centers (vDCs), we will provide a separate Selectel API. Currently, the API and its documentation are under development.

How do I ensure VMs are always on different cluster hosts?

In Cloud Director, you can create Affinity rules, which allow you to specify VM placement rules for the VMware DRS mechanism.

There are two types of rules:

  • Affinity — instruct the DRS mechanism to place VMs on the same virtualization host;
  • Anti Affinity — allow VMs to be placed on different cluster hosts, which increases service availability in case one or more hosts fail.

These rules differ by type:

  • hard (required) rules, which prevent the mechanism from ignoring the rule when no sufficient hosts are available. For example, if a rule specifies 10 machines, but only 8 hosts are available in the cluster, the machines will not start;
  • soft (preferred) rules, which allow bypassing rule requirements if resources that satisfy the rule are unavailable.

To configure an Anti Affinity rule:

  1. Go to the vDC management section.
  2. In the Compute section, select Affinity Rules.
  3. Click New in the required section (Affinity Rules or Anti Affinity Rules).
  4. Enter the rule name.
  5. Specify the rule type using the Required checkbox — checking it will create a hard rule, unchecking it will create a soft rule.
  6. Click the Save button.

We recommend against creating rules that include a large number of VMs; it is more practical to group VMs by the services they provide and create separate rules for each group of VMs.

After downloading a virtual machine from the cloud, it cannot be uploaded to any VMware platform

After downloading the virtual machine, the following symptoms may appear:

  • it cannot be uploaded to Cloud, vSphere, or Workstation;
  • when attempting to extract a VM using the 7zip archiver, an error occurs: There is data after the end of the payload block;
  • in the extracted folder, the virtual machine disk file appears to have zero size;
  • the virtual machine cannot be converted via OVFTool; errors occur.

This issue occurs for virtual machines larger than 8 GB. It is caused by the use of the pax ustar extension when creating an OVA file on the Cloud Director platform.

Solution: the OVA file must be extracted using an archive tool other than 7-Zip, for example, WinRAR for Windows or tar for Linux/Unix. Once all files are extracted, they can be uploaded to any supported platform.

Unable to mount a custom ISO image from the library

This error is often observed when multiple VDCs have been created in an organization across different pools.

The problem occurs because the ISO image is hosted in a library with a storage policy for a pool different from the pool where the VM to which the image is being mounted is hosted.

Solutions:

  1. Create a new catalog with a predefined policy matching the intended pool of the hosted VM, and copy the ISO image into it.
  2. Change the storage policy on the current catalog and re-upload the image to it.

Error occurs when uploading a custom ISO image to the local library

There is a restriction on uploading ISO images to local libraries in MSK-SILVER-1 clusters.

If an error occurs, create a ticket and provide a link to the ISO image. We will create a custom service library and upload your image to it.

Unable to delete a virtual machine from the Cloud Director panel

If you encounter one of these problems:

  • an error appears when trying to delete a VM;
  • the logs contain an event like this: vApp 'vApp Name' () deletion start attempt;
  • in the Virtual Applications tab, there is no vApp associated with the VM with the specified name.

If a VM was created as a standalone VM without a vApp, a vApp is still created as a system, hidden object. After the VM is shut down, the system vApp remains in the Partially Running status and blocks the VM from being deleted. The problem might occur when turning off the VM from inside the guest OS. To correctly delete the VM, turn it on and off from the Cloud Director panel, or use the option to convert the VM into a vApp.

To convert a VM to a vApp:

  1. In the VM actions drop-down menu, select Convert to vApp.
  2. Open the Virtual Applications tab.
  3. Power off the vApp.
  4. Delete the vApp and the VM.