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Adding External Cloud Resources to an Environment 

Note: In order to define and edit External Resources, you must have the required permissions. For more details, click here.

Creating a New Environment

  1. From the Infrastructure menu, click Create New Environment. The Create Environment page opens with a creation wizard of 3-4 steps depending on your account settings, permissions and selections:
    • General
    • VMs / Templates
    • External Resources
    • Save
  2. Use the External Resources step to optionally add external cloud platform resources to your environment.
  3. Select from the resource options that appear in the External Resources section:
    • Select Cloud Provider: Click the icon of the desired cloud provider to display its configuration dialog. You can select and configure multiple external cloud providers for the environment, when needed.
    • Use an External Resource Script: Activate this checkbox to enable selection of a predefined Terraform script from the list. For complete details on creating Terraform scripts for your account, click here.
    • Region: The Region where the selected cloud provider will create the environment.

This field enables you to specify a unique region for each instance of a selected environment. The values available in this field will vary according to your selected cloud provider. To support technical or cost considerations, environments can be restricted to usage only in selected regions. For more details, contact your CloudShare Support representative.

Note: For Azure, only regions that support Azure Resource Groups will be available for selection.

For more details on regions, see the selected cloud provider's documentation.

  • Zone (GCP only): For GCP, select a Zone where GCP will create the environment. Each GCP region supports different zones. This field enables you to specify a unique zone, as well as a unique region, for each instance of a selected environment.
  • Create an External Cloud User: Select No if your end user will only need to access the VMs on the selected external cloud. Select Yes if your end user will need to perform additional activities on the selected external cloud. An additional drop-down list will be displayed, enabling you to set the exact role that will be used by the external cloud. 
  • User Role or IAM Policy (AWS only): When Creating an External Cloud User is set to Yes, select the role that will be assigned by the external cloud to the end user of this environment. CloudShare lists all default user roles that are available on the relevant external cloud. When you use GCP, any additional custom roles that you created for the GCP project will be listed here as well. Custom roles enable tight control over usage permissions that are granted to an end user in the external cloud. 

When you use AWS, select from:

  • Administrator Access Without IAM: Grant Admin capabilities to the user. Note, however, that no edit permissions for the IAM service are provided.
  • Viewer. Grant only view-level capabilities to the user.
  • Add an Admin Console Machine: Activate this checkbox to automatically add the cloud provider's Administration Console to the end-user environment. Selecting this option will also allow an Experience Manager to help participants during the experience - for example for tracking their work and providing assistance. In order to use this feature, the role that is assigned to the end user on the external cloud must allow sufficient user permissions.
  1. When you are done, click the Add Details & Save next step. The Save Environment page is displayed, displaying all configuration details that you have provided for the environment.

Saving a New Environment

  1. In the Name and Description text fields, enter a unique name and a helpful description for this environment.
  2. Optionally activate the Ensure a snapshot exists before the environment deletion checkbox. This will automatically create a snapshot of the complete environment state - if no snapshot exists - before it is deleted.
  3. Check to ensure that all details on the page are correct. When finished, click Save Environment. The new environment will be created in your account.

After saving and completing the creation process, you can monitor the progress through the top progress bar on the Environment Details page. You also have the ability to individually track the progress of each of the public cloud providers added during the environment creation process. 

Each resource is accompanied by its own dedicated progress bar, clearly indicating the various stages of completion. 

  • To view individual progress bars, click the loading icon to the left of the general progress bar.
  • To view completed actions, click the check icon
  • To view failed actions, click the alert icon . 

Completing the AWS installation process requires the additional action of opening the Environment Viewer.

In the event of a failure in the environment creation process, all activity buttons, except for the share and delete options, will be disabled. Although the Viewer and log become inaccessible through regular means - for public clouds, users can still access the logs by clicking on the Public Cloud Logs. This feature enables users to pinpoint and understand the issues that led to the environment failure.

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