Cisco Virtual Network Management Center GUI Configuration Guide, Release 1.0.1
Configuring Tenants
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Configuring Tenants

This chapter includes the following sections:

Tenant Management

Tenant Management and Multi-Tenancy

Cisco VNMC provides the ability to achieve multi-tenancy. Multi-tenancy enables the division of large physical infrastructures into logical entities called organizations. As a result, you can achieve logical isolation between organizations without providing a dedicated physical infrastructure for each organization.

The administrator can assign unique resources to each tenant through the related organization in the multi-tenant environment. These resources can include different policies, pools, device profiles, firewalls and such. The administrator can use locales to assign or restrict user privileges and roles by organization if access to certain organizations need to be restricted.

Cisco VNMC provides a strict organizational hierarchy as follows:
  1. Root
  2. Tenant
  3. Data Center
  4. Application
  5. Tier

The root can have multiple tenants. Each tenant can have multiple data centers. Each data center can have multiple applications, and each application can have multiple tiers.

The policies and pools created at the root level are systemwide and are available to all organizations in the system. However, any policies and pools created in an organization are only available to organizations that are below it in the same hierarchy.

For example, if a system has tenants named Company A and Company B, Company A cannot use any policies created in the Company B organization. Company B cannot access any policies created in the Company A organization. However, both Company A and Company B can use policies and pools in the root organization.

Name Resolution in a Multitenancy Environment

In a multitenant environment, Cisco VNMC uses the hierarchy of an organization to resolve the names of policies and resource pools. The steps Cisco VNMC takes to resolve the names of policies and resource pools are as follows:

  1. Cisco VNMC checks the policies and pools for the specified name within an organization assigned to the device profile or security policy.
  2. If the policy or pool is found, Cisco VNMC uses that policy.
  3. If the policy or pool does not contain available resources at the local level, Cisco VNMC moves up the hierarchy to the parent organization and checks for a policy with the specified name. Cisco VNMC repeats this step until the search reaches the root organization.
    Attention:

    The object name reference resolution takes an object name and resolves an object from an organization container to the object with the same name which is closest in the tree up to the root of the tree. If an object with the specified name is not found, it uses a corresponding default object. For example, there is an SNMP policy under data center called MySNMP, and there is an SNMP policy in the tenant in the same tree that is also MySNMP. In this case, the user cannot explicitly select the MySNMP policy under tenant. If the user wants to select the SNMP policy under tenant, they must provide a unique name for the object in the given tree.

  4. If the search reaches the root organization and an assigned policy or pool is not found, Cisco VNMC looks for a default policy or pool starting at the current level and going up the chain to the root level. If a default policy is found, Cisco VNMC uses it. If a policy is not available, a fault is generated.

Configuring Tenants

Creating a Tenant

Procedure
    Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
    Step 2   In the Navigation pane, click the root node.
    Step 3   In the Work pane, click the Create Tenant link.
    Step 4   In the Create Tenant dialog box, complete the following fields:
    Name Description

    Name field

    A user-defined name for the Tenant.

    This name can be between 1 and 32 identifier characters. You can use alphanumeric characters including hyphen, underscore, dot, and colon. You cannot change this name after it is saved.

    Description field

    A user-defined description of the Tenant.
    Step 5   Click Save.

    Editing a Tenant

    Procedure
      Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
      Step 2   In the Navigation pane, click the root node to expand.
      Step 3   Click the Tenant_name you want to edit.
      Step 4   In the Work pane, click the Sub-Elements tab.
      Step 5   In the Work pane, click the Edit Tenant link.
      Step 6   In the Edit Tenant dialog box, edit the Tenant description.
      Step 7   Click Save.

      Deleting a Tenant

      Attention:

      When you delete an organization, all data contained under the organization is deleted, including sub-organizations, compute firewalls, resource pools, and policies.

      Procedure
        Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
        Step 2   In the Navigation pane, click the root node to expand.
        Step 3   Click the Tenant_name you want to delete.
        Step 4   In the Work pane, click the Sub-Elements tab.
        Step 5   In the Work pane, click the Delete Tenant link.
        Step 6   In the Confirm dialog box, click Yes.

        Configuring Data Centers

        Creating a Data Center

        Procedure
          Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
          Step 2   In the Navigation pane, expand the root node.
          Step 3   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant_name where you want to create a Data Center.
          Step 4   In the Work pane, click the Create Data Center link.
          Step 5   In the Create Data Center dialog box, complete the following fields:
          Name Description

          Name field

          A user-defined name for the Data Center.

          This name can be between 1 and 32 identifier characters. You can use alphanumeric characters including hyphen, underscore, dot, and colon. You cannot change this name after it is saved.

          Description field

          A user-defined description of the Data Center.
          Step 6   Click Save.

          Editing a Data Center

          Procedure
            Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
            Step 2   In the Navigation pane, expand the root > Tenant_name nodes where you want to edit a data center.
            Step 3   In the Work pane, click the Sub-Elements tab.
            Step 4   Click the Data Center_name you want to edit.
            Step 5   Click the Edit link.
            Step 6   In the Edit dialog box, edit the data center description.
            Step 7   Click OK.

            Deleting a Data Center

            Attention:

            When you delete an organization, all data contained under the organization is deleted, including sub-organizations, compute firewalls, resource pools, and policies.

            Procedure
              Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
              Step 2   In the Navigation pane, click the root > Tenant_name nodes where you want to delete a data center.
              Step 3   In the Work pane, click the Sub-Elements tab.
              Step 4   Click the Data Center_name you want to delete.
              Step 5   Click the Delete Data Center link.
              Step 6   In the Confirm dialog box, click Yes.

              Configuring Applications

              Creating an Application

              Procedure
                Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
                Step 2   In the Navigation pane, click the root node to expand.
                Step 3   In the Navigation pane, click the Data_Center_name where you want to create an Application.
                Step 4   In the Work pane, click the Create Application link.
                Step 5   In the Create Application dialog box, complete the following fields:
                Name Description

                Name field

                A user-defined name for the Application.

                This name can be between 1 and 32 identifier characters. You can use alphanumeric characters including hyphen, underscore, dot, and colon. You cannot change this name after it is saved.

                Description field

                A user-defined description of the Application.
                Step 6   Click OK.

                Editing an Application

                Procedure
                  Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
                  Step 2   In the Navigation pane, click the root > Tenant_name > Data Center_name nodes where you want to edit an application.
                  Step 3   In the Work pane, click the Sub-Elements tab.
                  Step 4   Click the Application_name you want to edit.
                  Step 5   Click the Edit link.
                  Step 6   In the Edit dialog box, edit the application description.
                  Step 7   Click OK.

                  Deleting an Application

                  Attention:

                  When you delete an organization, all data contained under the organization is deleted, including sub-organizations, compute firewalls, resource pools, and policies.

                  Procedure
                    Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
                    Step 2   In the Navigation pane, click the root > Tenant_name > Data Center_name nodes where you want to delete an application.
                    Step 3   In the Work pane, click the Sub-Elements tab.
                    Step 4   Click the Application_name you want to delete.
                    Step 5   Click the Delete Application link.
                    Step 6   In the Confirm dialog box, click Yes.

                    Configuring Tiers

                    Creating a Tier

                    Procedure
                      Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
                      Step 2   In the Navigation pane, click the root node to expand.
                      Step 3   In the Navigation pane, click the Application_name where you want to create a Tier.
                      Step 4   In the Work pane, click the Create Tier link.
                      Step 5   In the Create Tier dialog box, complete the following fields:
                      Name Description

                      Name field

                      A user-defined name for the Tier.

                      This name can be between 1 and 32 identifier characters. You can use alphanumeric characters including hyphen, underscore, dot, and colon. You cannot change this name after it is saved.

                      Description field

                      A user-defined description of the Tier.
                      Step 6   Click OK.

                      Editing a Tier

                      Procedure
                        Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
                        Step 2   In the Navigation pane, click the root node to expand.
                        Step 3   In the Navigation pane, click the Tier_name you want to edit.
                        Step 4   In the Work pane, click the Properties tab.
                        Step 5   In the Description field, edit the Tier description.
                        Step 6   Click Save.

                        Deleting a Tier

                        Attention:

                        When you delete an organization, all data contained under the organization is deleted, including sub-organizations, compute firewalls, resource pools, and policies.

                        Procedure
                          Step 1   In the Navigation pane, click the Tenant Management tab.
                          Step 2   In the Navigation pane, expand the root > Tenant_name > Data Center_name > Application_name nodes where you want to delete a tier.
                          Step 3   In the Work pane, click the Sub-Elements tab.
                          Step 4   Click the Tier_name you want to delete.
                          Step 5   Click the Delete Tier link.
                          Step 6   In the Confirm dialog box, click Yes.