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Creating a Custom Environment

Creating a custom environment means essentially creating an environment from scratch, by selecting individual machines.

When you create a custom environment, you start with the basic Create Environment workflow, but manually select the resources that will be used in that environment. These can include:

  • CloudShare VM Templates - Pre-built templates of VMs that already include software and licensing.
  • Imported VMs - VMs you imported into CloudShare.
  • Cloud Folders VMs - Upload your own customized virtual machines to your new or existing CloudShare environment. 
  • Copy Existing - Individual machines from the blueprints in your project.
  • SaaS Template VMs - Quickly create an experience that gives each participant direct, segregated access to your application.

From the Infrastructure menu, click Create New Environment. The Create Environment page opens with a creation wizard of three to four steps, depending on your account settings, permissions, and selections:

  • General
  • VMs/Templates
  • External Resources
  • Save

General 

  1. Select Custom Environment from the radio button options that appear in the General section:
  2. Select values for the following fields:
  • Project: The project that will be associated with this environment. 
  • Environment Owner: If it appears, assign an owner that will be responsible for this environment or leave it as yourself..
  • Policy: Select the policy that will govern the life cycle of the new environment. The policy determines how long the environment will be available for use, when it will be deleted, and what will happen to it during periods of inactivity. If needed, you can click the link provided to create a new policy.
  • Choose CloudShare Cloud/Region: If your project has access to more than one CloudShare region, select where the environment will be created.
Note: The blueprint may need to be copied to the selected regions.
  1. When finished, click the Select Template next step. The VMs/Templates section is displayed.

VM/Template Settings

  1. Add VMs from the different sources organized in tabs. You can filter the list by Category.
  2. In the resources summary on the right, use the x icon to remove machines and the pencil icon to edit the machine name.
  3. Click Add Detail & Save to proceed.



Saving the Environment

  1. Review the environment details - project, policy, region, and resources.
  2. Add a name and description for your environment.
  3. Click Confirm/Save Environment.

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 . 

Important information:

If the environment includes external resources:

  • Completing the AWS creation 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, users can still access the logs by clicking on the Environment Worker Commands List. This feature enables users to pinpoint and understand the issues that led to the environment failure.

Imported VMs - Creating a Custom Environment 

The VM Import wizard leads you step by step through automatically importing your own virtual machines (VMs) into CloudShare.

For additional information, see Importing VMs to CloudShare.

Cloud Folder VMs - Creating a Custom Environment

The VM Upload workflow offers the ability to upload your own customized virtual machines to your new or existing CloudShare environment. 

For additional information, see Importing VMs to CloudShare.

Copy Existing VMs - Creating a Custom Environment

Copying existing VMs is mainly used when you want to use a pre-configured machine from an existing blueprint.

The option to upload a machine with no network can be used if you want to copy an existing machine twice, or copy a singleton template twice.

Note that copying a VM back into its original source environment can cause some issues, as that machine is a complete clone of a version that already exists in that environment. As such, there may be some networking problems when the copy function is complete. We therefore recommend doing this only if absolutely necessary.  

SaaS Template - Creating a Custom Environment 

CloudShare supports full-featured training for SaaS applications, enabling you to quickly create an experience that gives each participant direct, segregated access to your application.

When a user accesses the VM for the SaaS application, CloudShare hides its OS and all browser interface characteristics. Instead, the user accesses a pre-opened SaaS application in "kiosk" mode.

CloudShare supports the use of dynamic URLs for assigning VM instances. This means that you can automatically create SaaS training sessions that will be personalized to their current user. 

Before setting up SaaS training, you will need to create a CloudShare custom environment that uses the out-of-the-box dedicated SaaS template and becomes the basis for the blueprint and snapshot that will be used for training.

You can add multiple SaaS Templates VMs to an environment, and can even combine them with any other VMs.

To create a SaaS training experience:

  1. While adding VMs, select the SaaS Infra Templates tab and add a SaaS Template machine from this tab to your environment. This adds a machine to your environment that will run a browser pointing directly to your application URL, without exposing the OS or browser to the user. If needed, you can add more than one SaaS VMs. Each can be used to display a different SaaS application.

  1. Add any additional VMs required for your environment and complete the environment creation steps. When preparation of the environment is complete, the new environment's Details page will be displayed.
  2. Customize the SaaS Template VM by clicking Edit Environment > Customize Viewer from the actions on the right side of the Details page. 
  3. Return to the Details page of your environment and preview the updated environment by clicking View from the actions on the right side of the page. Tweak and preview your viewer customizations until the environment looks exactly how you want it to look for your users.
  4. When environment viewer customization is complete, create a snapshot of it. Be sure to select the Set as default checkbox in the Take Snapshot form.
  5. Create the experience, specifying the blueprint that contains the snapshot you have just created. 
  6. After you have created your SaaS training experience, you can register users as needed. 
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