The top section of the Environment Details page provides general information about the environment’s state and the actions, as described below:
Environment Name
Environment State
Shows the lifecycle state of the user’s environment.
- READY: The environment is created and available to open, view, and configure.
- SUSPENDED: The environment is paused to save resources. It can be resumed or automatically resumes when accessed by a user.
- PREPARING: CloudShare is in the process of creating the environment. Access is unavailable until preparation is complete and its status is READY.
- RESUMING: The environment is being brought back online from a suspended state.
- ARCHIVED: Archiving ends user access to the environment but maintains its storage lease, as defined by the current environment policy. During storage time, the environment will be archived. It can be made accessible by extending it from its Environment Details page. After the environment storage time expires, the environment is securely deleted.
- DELETED: The environment has been permanently removed. Instructors cannot restore it, and participants cannot access it. Its history and configuration are no longer available.
- PUBLISHING, and more background states: Represent temporary background system actions that are performed automatically.
Environment Policy
In CloudShare, a policy specifies how long an environment will run, when it will be deleted, and how long after inactivity it will be suspended.
Deletes on
Specifies the date until which the environment will run and then be deleted.
Extend – Extending the Environment’s Policy
The Extend option enables you to increase the environment’s runtime and storage duration based on your configured settings, up to the limits defined by the policy associated with the environment or experience. The following is displayed:
Extend the participant’s environment’s lease in the following fields:
- Storage Lease: Specifies the total time that the environment will remain available before it is automatically deleted. This value equals the environment's total life cycle and must be longer than the Runtime Lease described below.
- Runtime Lease: Specifies the total time that the environment will remain in the Running state, with all the machines accessible. Afterward, the environment is automatically suspended. This value must be less than or equal to the Runtime Lease of this environment’s policy.
Note: By default, the Runtime Lease and Storage Lease fields are populated with the runtime and storage values from the selected policy.
Note for Instructors: When extending environments beyond the session’s end time, also extend the session’s time to ensure participants can access their environments.
Click the Extend Environment button. The extension is implemented immediately.
Note: An environment can be extended as many times as needed.
Suspends in
Specifies the remaining inactivity time before the environment is suspended. Suspending an environment helps conserve resources and prevent unnecessary runtime usage when it is not actively in use, while keeping it available for later use.
Extend Suspend
Extends the inactivity period after which the environment is automatically suspended to the maximum.
Policy Details
To display the policy’s details, click . The following is displayed:
- Runtime Lease: Specifies the number of days that the environment can run before it is automatically suspended.
- Storage Lease: Specifies the number of days that the environment is stored before it is automatically deleted.
- Suspension Time Before Deletion: Specifies the amount of time the environment can remain suspended before it is automatically deleted.
To modify the policy, see CloudShare Policies.
Blueprint
Specifies the blueprint of this environment. Clicking the blueprint’s name displays the Blueprint Details page.
A blueprint is the master environment template. It can include VMs, networking, software, branding, collateral, overview pages, resources, and other content. It is the container that holds the snapshots used to create environments.
Snapshot
Specifies the snapshot of this environment.
A snapshot is a point-in-time version of the environment.
It captures the state of the environment, including VMs, RAM, CPU, disk allocations, network configuration, users, installed software, documents, and settings. It can also preserve RAM and disk state, allowing services and applications to be restored.
Clicking the Snapshot’s name displays the Snapshot Details page.
Revert
The Revert option restores the environment to the selected backed-up snapshot and undoes any changes made since then. Reverting an environment can be used, for example, if you made mistakes, want to retest a scenario, or remove edits.
You can also revert a single machine within an environment. That single machine will revert to its previous version based on the environment's snapshot. Reverting a single machine could take longer than reverting the entire environment.