Cisco Virtual Application Container Services Configuration Guide, Release 5.2STV1.1
- Updated:
- July 10, 2015
Chapter: Overview
Overview
This chapter contains the following information.
- About Cisco Virtual Application Container Services
- Accessing Cisco Virtual Application Container Services
- Understanding the Cisco VACS Interface
- Cisco VACS Topology
- Cisco VACS User Roles
- Related Documentation for the Cisco Virtual Application Container Services
About Cisco Virtual Application Container Services
Cisco Virtual Application Container Services (Cisco VACS) is a software solution that automates the coordinated licensing, installation, and deployment of multiple virtual services in your datacenter to enable you to easily and efficiently set up virtualized applications.
Cisco VACS provides ready-to-use application container templates that define the rules for a collection of virtual machines (VMs) within an internal network and a firewall. An application container is a set of virtual services, such as routers, firewalls, and other network devices configured in a consistent manner, to deploy different workloads. When you create and instantiate an application container, Cisco VACS deploys the VMs, and configures the networks, the firewall, the virtual switches, and enables quick provisioning of network and security at the virtual layer.
Cisco UCS Director will act as the management interface to deploy, provision, and monitor the Cisco VACS solution.
For more information on the licensing requirements and how to install the Cisco VACS software solution, see the Cisco Virtual Application Container Services Installation Guide.
Accessing Cisco Virtual Application Container Services
After successfully installing the Cisco UCS Director, applying theCisco Virtual Application Container Services license, and applying the Cisco VACS patch to the Cisco UCS Director, you can view Cisco VACS in Cisco UCS Director under the tab.
The Cisco VACS menu can be viewed when you apply the Cisco VACS patch to the Cisco UCS Director. However, you can use the Cisco VACS functionality only after the Cisco VACS licenses are installed. You must do a manual restart after you install the Cisco VACS patch or apply the Cisco VACS license.
We recommend that you restart the UCS Director services manually.
To manually restart the UCS Director services, log in to the SSH application with Shell admin credentials, proceed to the Cisco UCS Director Shell Menu, and enter one of the following number from the Cisco UCS Director Shell menu:
 Note | For detailed instructions about how to install the Cisco VACS license and the base components, see the Cisco Virtual Application Container Services Installation Guide. |
Understanding the Cisco VACS Interface
| Number | Description |
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1 |
The Menu bar displays tabs that allow you to view the Cisco VACS solution interface, along with the UCS Director tabs. |
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2 |
The Application Containers tab displays the submenu corresponding to an application container. To navigate to the Application Container tab, choose . |
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3 |
The Application Containers tab displays buttons that allow you to view reports, clone an existing container, power on or off a container, add or delete VMs, monitor ERSPAN, add or edit firewall policies, and configure Static NAT. |
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4 |
The Application Containers area displays the deployed application containers. |
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5 |
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6 |
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Cisco VACS Topology
The following figure shows the physical and logical topology of Cisco VACS.
Cisco VACS User Roles
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Service End User—Enables you to instantiate a Cisco VACS container from the catalog and services that are related to the container.
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System Administrator—Enables you to have full privileges to manage Cisco VACS in Cisco UCS Director including adding accounts, defining policies, creating application templates, instantiating application containers from the templates, and troubleshoot problems.
Depending on your user role, your view of Cisco VACS solution, and the permissions to access and perform tasks in Cisco UCS Director might differ. For detailed information about user roles and privileges, see the Cisco UCS Director Administration Guide and the Cisco UCS Director Self-Service Portal Guide.
Related Documentation for the Cisco Virtual Application Container Services
This section lists the documents used with the Cisco VACS components and are available on Cisco.com at the following URL:
General Information
Cisco Virtual Application Container Services Release Notes
Installation
Cisco Virtual Application Container Services Installation and Upgrade Guide
Configuration
Cisco Virtual Application Container Services Configuration Guide
User Information
Cisco Virtual Application Container Self-Service Portal User Guide
Nexus 1000V Documentation
For the Cisco Nexus 1000V for VMware vSphere Documentation:
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