VMware Solutions Getting Started

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For optimal viewing and working on the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions console, set the screen resolution to at least 1024 px width by 500 px height.

User accounts

You need an IBM Cloud account and an IBM Cloud infrastructure account.

Account Description
IBMid Provides a login to...

IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions infrastructure solution in the IBM Cloud catalog
IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions console

When you log in to the console for the first time, you are guided to either associate your existing IBMid with an IBM Cloud account, or to sign up for a new IBM Cloud account. The new IBM Cloud account is automatically associated with your IBMid. You need to go through this process only once. If you've problems see Why is my password incorrect?.
IBM Cloud account To order and use IBM Cloud services, an IBM Cloud account is required. Billing information is associated with the IBM Cloud account. The price of the physical and virtual infrastructure and the resulting licenses are charged to your IBM Cloud account.
IBM Cloud infrastructure account See: Requirements for the IBM Cloud infrastructure account.

You can link IBM Cloud infrastructure accounts with IBM Cloud accounts to use combined infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) resources. Then, you can access IaaS resources and PaaS resources from a single login. Linking your accounts also provides you with a single invoice for all the PaaS and IaaS resources that you use:

If you do not have an IBM Cloud infrastructure account, see Signing up for an IBM Cloud infrastructure account, and then link your IBM Cloud infrastructure account with your IBM Cloud account by following the procedure in Upgrading your account.

If you've an IBM Cloud infrastructure account, you can link it with your IBM Cloud account by following the procedure in Upgrading your account.

Deployment offerings

Review and choose your deployment offering.

Deployment offering Description
VMware Solutions Shared Provides standardized and customizable deployment choices of VMware virtual data center environments.
VMware Solutions Dedicated - vCenter Server Deploy a VMware virtual environment by using custom compute, storage, and network resources to best fit your business needs.
VMware Solutions Dedicated - IBM Cloud for VMware Regulated Workloads Extension of the VMware vCenter Server offering, which enhances the basic vCenter Server architecture to deliver a secure, high-performance platform.
VMware Solutions Dedicated - VMware vSphere Provides a customizable virtualization service that combines VMware-compatible bare metal servers, hardware components, and licenses, to build your own IBM-hosted VMware environment.
Single-node for Migration and App Modernization Test drive IBM Cloud to migrate VMware workloads to the IBM Cloud and then modernize simple workloads using containers.
Single-node for Data Protection and Disaster Recovery Test drive IBM Cloud to migrate and recover VMware workloads to the IBM Cloud.

Add-on services

Review and choose add-on services for your deployment offering.

Service category Service name Description
Security and compliance Caveonix RiskForesight Manages cyber and compliance risk with proactive monitoring and automated defense controls to protect against threats and to meet industry or government regulations.
Security and compliance FortiGate Security Appliance Deploys either the FortiGate Security Appliance 1 Gbps or FortiGate Security Appliance 10 Gbps service.
Security and compliance FortiGate Virtual Appliance Deploys a pair of FortiGate Virtual Appliances to the environment, which can reduce risk by implementing critical security controls within the virtual infrastructure.
Security and compliance F5 BIG-IP Provides intelligent L4-L7 load balancing and traffic management services at a local and global scale, robust network and web application firewall protection, and secure and federated application access.
Business continuity and migration HCX Extends the networks of on-premises data centers into IBM Cloud, which allows virtual machines (VMs) to be migrated to and from the IBM Cloud without any conversion or change.
Security and compliance HyTrust CloudControl Enforces and controls compliance against security standards, and provides detailed role-based access control (RBAC), approval, and auditing capabilities. When combined with HyTrust DataControl, the service can ensure that virtual machines and workload data do not leave a particular region, cluster, or ESXi server within the IBM Cloud data center.
Security and compliance HyTrust DataControl Offers strong encryption with integrated key management to secure workloads throughout their lifecycle. The service can provide encryption at both the operating system level and at the data level, which means that any directory, folder, or file within a workload can be encrypted and decrypted.
Security and compliance HyTrust KeyControl Simplifies the management of encrypted workloads by automating and simplifying the lifecycle of encryption keys. The service can manage encryption keys at scale by using FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption.
Professional services IBM Cloud Expert Services Engage Expert Services to help modernize and deploy your business by adopting VMware on IBM Cloud.
Business continuity and migration IBM Cloud for VMware Mission Critical Workloads Delivers a multizone cloud architecture to help enterprises prevent downtime for cloud applications and to automate failovers within a cloud region.
Featured workload solutions IBM Security Services for SAP Offers a cybersecurity solution to automate the monitoring and protection of SAP applications on IBM Cloud, and to keep workloads compliant and secure from inside and outside threats.
Business continuity and migration IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Provides an efficient and scalable solution for data protection, data reuse, and data recovery for virtual environments. You can implement the service as a stand-alone solution or you can integrate it with your IBM Spectrum Protect environment to offload copies for long-term storage and data governance.
Security and compliance Juniper vSRX Provides security and networking services at the perimeter or edge in virtualized private or public cloud environments. Within a VMware infrastructure, vSRX runs as a virtual machine (VM) within the VMware vSphere environment. The vSRX provides a complete Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) solution.
Security and compliance KMIP for VMware Provides a highly available service to manage encryption keys that are used by VMware in the IBM Cloud. This service offers runtime capability to allow customers to create, retrieve, activate, revoke, and destroy the encryption keys. It also provides management capability to maintain the associations between the client credentials and the encryption keys.
Professional services Managed Services for VMware Workload Transformation Takes away the responsibility of the day to day management of the virtual infrastructure.
Professional services Managed VMware Services Simplify VMware virtual infrastructure management with modular services. It uses advanced automation and analytics to manage critical infrastructure components worldwide and to deliver dynamic remote management services for a broad range of traditional and cloud virtual infrastructures.
Professional services Managed Disaster Recovery Services Provides replication and disaster recovery capabilities. These capabilities can be integrated into the deployment offerings to protect and recover data in the VMware virtual environment on IBM Cloud.
Professional services NetApp ONTAP Select Extends existing data management capabilities by implementing NetApp ONTAP software as a service on the dedicated IBM Cloud bare metal servers.
Business continuity and migration PrimaryIO HDM Decouples virtual machines (VMs) and storage (VMDKs) to move workloads to and from IBM Cloud faster and efficiently.
Transformation and modernization of VMware applications Red Hat OpenShift for VMware Brings together Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and the VMware software-defined data center stack.
Business continuity and migration Veeam Integrates directly with the VMware hypervisors to help your enterprise achieve high availability. This service can provide recovery points and time objectives for your applications and data. The recovery points and time objectives can be provided in less than 15 minutes after configuration is completed. By using this service, you can directly control both the backup and restore of all virtual machines for your infrastructure from the Veeam console.
Featured workload solutions VMware Horizon 7 Delivers an integrated hybrid cloud for virtual desktops and applications.
Management tools vRealize Operations and Log Insight Deploys the VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) and VMware vRealize Log Insight (vRLI) tools, which help you operate and monitor the performance, health, and capacity of your IBM-hosted, dedicated VMware environment.
Business continuity and migration Zerto Provides replication and disaster recovery capabilities, which can be integrated into the deployment offerings to protect and recover data in the VMware virtual environment on IBM Cloud.

Step 1: Accessing the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions console

The IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions console is the interface where you order and manage your deployments. Each deployment is managed as an instance in the console. The console is a stand-alone user interface that is separate from the IBM Cloud infrastructure customer portal.

To access the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions console:

Go to https://cloud.ibm.com/infrastructure/vmware-solutions/console.
Log in to the console with your IBMid.

Step 2: Setting up your environment for your first order

Decide upon a deployment offering, which is managed as an instance in the console, and then ensure that your environment is ready for your order. Follow the instructions in the Before you begin section on the ordering page. The instructions might vary depending on the instance type that you select.

For information about how to set up the environment for your first order, see Setting up your environment for your first order.

Step 3: Ordering an instance

After setting up the environment, begin the ordering process.

For information about how to order an instance, see the following topics based on your selection of deployment offering:

Ordering virtual data center instances
Ordering vCenter Server instances
Ordering vSphere clusters
Ordering Single-node for Migration and App Modernization instances
Ordering Single-node for Data Protection and Disaster Recovery instances

Step 4: Viewing the instance

After placing an instance order in Step 3, the deployment of the instance starts automatically. You can track the status of the deployment by viewing the instance details. When the instance deployment is completed, you can view the summary and detailed information of the instance and its add-on services on the instance details page too.

For information about how to view the instance you ordered, see Viewing vCenter Server instances.

Deployment offering	Description
VMware Solutions Shared	Provides standardized and customizable deployment choices of VMware virtual data center environments.
VMware Solutions Dedicated - vCenter Server	Deploy a VMware virtual environment by using custom compute, storage, and network resources to best fit your business needs.
VMware Solutions Dedicated - IBM Cloud for VMware Regulated Workloads	Extension of the VMware vCenter Server offering, which enhances the basic vCenter Server architecture to deliver a secure, high-performance platform.
VMware Solutions Dedicated - VMware vSphere	Provides a customizable virtualization service that combines VMware-compatible bare metal servers, hardware components, and licenses, to build your own IBM-hosted VMware environment.
Single-node for Migration and App Modernization	Test drive IBM Cloud to migrate VMware workloads to the IBM Cloud and then modernize simple workloads using containers.
Single-node for Data Protection and Disaster Recovery	Test drive IBM Cloud to migrate and recover VMware workloads to the IBM Cloud.

Service category	Service name	Description
Security and compliance	Caveonix RiskForesight	Manages cyber and compliance risk with proactive monitoring and automated defense controls to protect against threats and to meet industry or government regulations.
Security and compliance	FortiGate Security Appliance	Deploys either the FortiGate Security Appliance 1 Gbps or FortiGate Security Appliance 10 Gbps service.
Security and compliance	FortiGate Virtual Appliance	Deploys a pair of FortiGate Virtual Appliances to the environment, which can reduce risk by implementing critical security controls within the virtual infrastructure.
Security and compliance	F5 BIG-IP	Provides intelligent L4-L7 load balancing and traffic management services at a local and global scale, robust network and web application firewall protection, and secure and federated application access.
Business continuity and migration	HCX	Extends the networks of on-premises data centers into IBM Cloud, which allows virtual machines (VMs) to be migrated to and from the IBM Cloud without any conversion or change.
Security and compliance	HyTrust CloudControl	Enforces and controls compliance against security standards, and provides detailed role-based access control (RBAC), approval, and auditing capabilities. When combined with HyTrust DataControl, the service can ensure that virtual machines and workload data do not leave a particular region, cluster, or ESXi server within the IBM Cloud data center.
Security and compliance	HyTrust DataControl	Offers strong encryption with integrated key management to secure workloads throughout their lifecycle. The service can provide encryption at both the operating system level and at the data level, which means that any directory, folder, or file within a workload can be encrypted and decrypted.
Security and compliance	HyTrust KeyControl	Simplifies the management of encrypted workloads by automating and simplifying the lifecycle of encryption keys. The service can manage encryption keys at scale by using FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption.
Professional services	IBM Cloud Expert Services	Engage Expert Services to help modernize and deploy your business by adopting VMware on IBM Cloud.
Business continuity and migration	IBM Cloud for VMware Mission Critical Workloads	Delivers a multizone cloud architecture to help enterprises prevent downtime for cloud applications and to automate failovers within a cloud region.
Featured workload solutions	IBM Security Services for SAP	Offers a cybersecurity solution to automate the monitoring and protection of SAP applications on IBM Cloud, and to keep workloads compliant and secure from inside and outside threats.
Business continuity and migration	IBM Spectrum Protect Plus	Provides an efficient and scalable solution for data protection, data reuse, and data recovery for virtual environments. You can implement the service as a stand-alone solution or you can integrate it with your IBM Spectrum Protect environment to offload copies for long-term storage and data governance.
Security and compliance	Juniper vSRX	Provides security and networking services at the perimeter or edge in virtualized private or public cloud environments. Within a VMware infrastructure, vSRX runs as a virtual machine (VM) within the VMware vSphere environment. The vSRX provides a complete Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) solution.
Security and compliance	KMIP for VMware	Provides a highly available service to manage encryption keys that are used by VMware in the IBM Cloud. This service offers runtime capability to allow customers to create, retrieve, activate, revoke, and destroy the encryption keys. It also provides management capability to maintain the associations between the client credentials and the encryption keys.
Professional services	Managed Services for VMware Workload Transformation	Takes away the responsibility of the day to day management of the virtual infrastructure.
Professional services	Managed VMware Services	Simplify VMware virtual infrastructure management with modular services. It uses advanced automation and analytics to manage critical infrastructure components worldwide and to deliver dynamic remote management services for a broad range of traditional and cloud virtual infrastructures.
Professional services	Managed Disaster Recovery Services	Provides replication and disaster recovery capabilities. These capabilities can be integrated into the deployment offerings to protect and recover data in the VMware virtual environment on IBM Cloud.
Professional services	NetApp ONTAP Select	Extends existing data management capabilities by implementing NetApp ONTAP software as a service on the dedicated IBM Cloud bare metal servers.
Business continuity and migration	PrimaryIO HDM	Decouples virtual machines (VMs) and storage (VMDKs) to move workloads to and from IBM Cloud faster and efficiently.
Transformation and modernization of VMware applications	Red Hat OpenShift for VMware	Brings together Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and the VMware software-defined data center stack.
Business continuity and migration	Veeam	Integrates directly with the VMware hypervisors to help your enterprise achieve high availability. This service can provide recovery points and time objectives for your applications and data. The recovery points and time objectives can be provided in less than 15 minutes after configuration is completed. By using this service, you can directly control both the backup and restore of all virtual machines for your infrastructure from the Veeam console.
Featured workload solutions	VMware Horizon 7	Delivers an integrated hybrid cloud for virtual desktops and applications.
Management tools	vRealize Operations and Log Insight	Deploys the VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) and VMware vRealize Log Insight (vRLI) tools, which help you operate and monitor the performance, health, and capacity of your IBM-hosted, dedicated VMware environment.
Business continuity and migration	Zerto	Provides replication and disaster recovery capabilities, which can be integrated into the deployment offerings to protect and recover data in the VMware virtual environment on IBM Cloud.