Note: This capability needs to be enabled for an account. Contact your CloudShare Account Manager for additional information.
Using CloudShare’s external cloud resources capability, you can conduct virtual experiences transparently over a designated external cloud, using all of CloudShare's virtual experience features.
CloudShare supports the three leading commodity clouds:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Running Your Environments Using a CloudShare AWS Account
- Running Your Environments Using Your Organization AWS Account (BYOA)
- Microsoft Azure
- Running Your Environments Using a CloudShare Azure Account
- Running Your Environments Using Your Organization Azure Account (BYOA)
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
- Running Your Environments Using a CloudShare GCP Account
- Running Your Environments Using Your Organization GCP Account (BYOA)
To use an external cloud platform in an environment, you simply add the relevant cloud settings when you create the environment. If needed, CloudShare also enables the creation of mixed environments that use external cloud resources together with CloudShare VMs.
When you add external resources to an environment, they will be saved with the environment's snapshot, so they will also be part of any other environment that is created from the snapshot.
You can optionally add a Terraform creation script to define all (or just some) of the required resources in the designated cloud. The Terraform script is read dynamically each time its associated environment's snapshot is used.
Upon spin up, CloudShare initializes each end-user environment to provide all of the configured cloud services for your virtual lab.
The CloudShare external resources feature also supports:
- Automatic creation and deletion of dedicated cloud users, as needed
- Fully segregated environments for each end user
- Assigning roles to external cloud users
- Polling of external resource quota metrics (e.g., available CPUs, CPU usage time, disk size, etc.) to limit consumption
- Real-time access to the admin console for the external cloud during your class
- Automatic teardown of all external cloud services and resources at the end of your class
- Ability to select which region and zone a cloud provider will use.
You can use the Create Environment menu to add external cloud resources to an existing or new blueprint.
In this section, we will cover:
- Using External Cloud Resources. Add external cloud platform resources to your environment.
- Creation Scripts. Use custom Terraform scripts to enable tight functional integration with external clouds.
- Creating a Terraform Script. Create a new Terraform script for an account from within CloudShare, by manually entering or pasting the script code.
- External Resources Summary. View a detailed summary of the resources being used by external clouds in CloudShare.
- External Cloud FAQs. Answers to the most frequently-asked questions about configuring external clouds with CloudShare.
- AWS. Run your environments on AWS, using either a CloudShare AWS account, or your organization’s AWS account (Bring Your Own Account).
- Azure. Run your environments on Azure, using either a CloudShare Azure account, or your organization’s Azure account (Bring Your Own Account).
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Run your environments on GCP, using either a CloudShare GCP account, or your organization’s GCP account (Bring Your Own Account).