[Beta] Creating the First Environment

Description 

Create a first environment and decide which virtual machines it will contain. Every environment in CloudShare is customized to the company.

CloudShare provides three main options for adding virtual machines to an environment:

• Use CloudShare virtual machine templates from the CloudShare library. These are preconfigured machines with an operating system and common tools that are ready to use.
• Import existing virtual machine images using the Virtual Machine (VM) import feature, so that machines previously built in the company’s own infrastructure can be reused.
• Combine both approaches in a single environment, using CloudShare templates together with imported machines.

To get started, CloudShare recommends building the first environment only from CloudShare virtual machine templates. These templates are already tuned to run on CloudShare, so they start quickly and reliably. Once a first operational environment is in place and familiarity with the platform has been established, it is natural to move on to importing existing virtual machines and building mixed environments for more advanced scenarios.

Quick Start Steps

To begin defining the underlying infrastructure and creating the first environment:

1. In the top left corner of the Home page, select the Infrastructure button. 
2. Select one of the options in the My Environments area. The Environments List page displays, as shown below:

3. At the top of the Environments List, select Create New. The following is displayed: 

The Select Method section displays three options: My Projects Environment Templates, Custom Environment, and CloudShare Environment Templates. 

4. Select the Custom Environment option in the middle to create the first environment from scratch by selecting virtual machines.

Note: The My Projects Environment Templates and CloudShare Environment Templates options rely on environments or templates that are already defined for a specific company and are therefore typically not relevant for other companies.

The following is displayed: 

5. For detailed instructions on how to create and manage environments, refer to Creating a Custom Environment.

Best Practices – CloudShare Cloud Environments

Consider Using CloudShare Template Virtual Machines Instead of Importing Virtual Machines

On many occasions, it is better to start with a fresh virtual machine template provided by CloudShare than to import a virtual machine from another system. While importing virtual machines can save time during the initial build of an environment, it can lead to unexpected issues when system settings are configured differently in the donor system. These issues might only be uncovered later when new environment instances are created from a saved blueprint (during a class, for example). See Creating a Custom Environment for additional information.

Ensure that VMWare Tools are Installed in the Virtual Machines

This has been done for all CloudShare Virtual Machine (VM) templates. However, VMware Tools may need to be installed on imported virtual machines.

If Using Imported Virtual Machines, Ensure They Have the Correct vNICs and the Latest VMware Drivers Installed.

For example, ensure that the virtual machines are using the VMware vmxnet3 vNIC and the latest display drivers. Also, ensure that each vNIC is configured to use the correct MAC address type (usually, “Static MAC”). MAC addresses are static, meaning that vNICs created from a blueprint in all environments use the same MAC address. 

Design the Labs to be Delivered as a Single Replicable POD for a Single Participant

CloudShare experiences work best when delivered as a standalone environment for each participant. When moving from a physical on-prem lab delivery where multiple users worked on a single network, the lab methodology may need to be re-architected. Individual environment instances scale better, are easier to troubleshoot, and provide more accurate analytics. Of course, if multiple users must connect to a shared server pool (acting as clients), this is also possible. Reach out to the company’s Account Manager, or email success@cloudshare.com for more information. 

Turn off Desktop Backgrounds and Browser Startup Images

These can cause the Viewer to appear slow and unstable for users with poorer Internet connections. This is especially true if moving images and video are shown. 

Set Windows Performance → Visual Effects for Best Performance

Adjusting this setting removes unnecessary Windows visual effects that can cause lag over a remote network connection. 

Set the OS Account Password to Never Expire

In a Windows virtual machine, when using a single shared password, ensure the password is set to never expire; otherwise, months later, when deploying an environment, users may see change password prompts. See this link for additional information.

Disable Automatic Updates

CloudShare environments are intended to be short-lived. Therefore, the virtual machines should not ask the users to update software. Regular maintenance should be run on the virtual machines to ensure that updates are applied to the default snapshot. See these links for more: Third-party documentation to disable Windows updates, Third-party documentation to disable automatic updates on Ubuntu.

Create a Boot Order or Ensure Virtual Machines Start from Off?

It is possible to ensure that virtual machines start from a known state and in the correct order. Customers can create a boot order themselves, although disabling the suspend feature requires the Technical Support team to adjust the configuration.    It is possible to ensure that virtual machines start from a known state and in the correct order. Customers can create a boot order themselves and configure whether virtual machines are created and resumed with their memory state restored, or go through a cold boot cycle.

Need a Desktop Resumed in a Saved State? 

By default, CloudShare Cloud environments start virtual machines in a powered-off state, which benefits many virtual machines as they start from a clean boot. However, a virtual machine can be configured to start from a resumed state, allowing it to be prepared with running applications so that participants are presented with a fully configured and running virtual machine at startup. See Resume Settings for more information. ++

Set Up Remote Access Protocols Correctly, Especially for Imported Virtual Machines

Using SSH or RDP/RDP10 instead of the Console connection can improve the user experience (the CloudShare template virtual machine will have these settings configured out of the box). Setting this up correctly means configuring the networking in CloudShare and the virtual machine OS. For more details, see RDP Connectivity Issues and Editing Networks. ++

Ensure that OS Users are Configured within the CloudShare GUI

This is especially true on imported virtual machines. Adding a username and password allows the users direct access to the virtual machines.

Start Small and Increase Virtual Machine Specifications if Required

Often, customers want to build their CloudShare environment using virtual machine specifications designed for a production deployment. Yet, typical CloudShare environments (such as PoCs, demos, labs, sandboxes, and so on) do not require these high specifications. Overspecifying virtual machines and environments can have the opposite effect, degrading performance in CloudShare or failing to deliver the additional performance expected. Instead, start small and increase as needed, but ensure performance is tested and measured if the configuration exceeds the limits imposed in the GUI.

Do Not Underspecify Virtual Machines

Virtual machines running Windows (for example) can benefit by configuring their hardware to use either 2 or 4 vCPUs. Our advice is to test the performance of an end-user environment. 

Consider Multi-Region Variations

CloudShare currently has three Data Centers (DC). The primary DC is in the US (Miami). There is also one in Europe (Amsterdam), and one in Asia (Singapore). There are also regional variations (for example, surrounding inbound port filtering). 

Blueprints should be developed in the primary DC (US), then snapshots copied across to the other regions, with environment deployments tested separately in each region. The time required to copy a snapshot from Miami to another region should also be taken into account. Because other customers may be performing similar copy operations, a queue is created, and snapshots are copied one at a time; canceling a copy process can result in losing the current place in the queue. For more, see Managing Snapshot Regions. 

Nested Hypervisors Can Provide a Workaround for Edge Cases

CloudShare provides environment templates that show example environment builds. 

Here, nested VMware ESXi host templates are available. These templates allow nested guest virtual machines to run on the nested host, providing additional control over a virtual machine beyond the CloudShare ecosystem. Nested guests can be accessed via tabs in the Viewer, and the environment network can be configured to allow communication with the native CloudShare virtual machines. 

Provisioning all environment virtual machines on the nested host is not recommended; only virtual machines that require this functionality should be placed there. For further details, contact the assigned account manager and CloudShare technical resource.

Test, Test, Test

Once the environment has been built, a snapshot is taken, and a blueprint is created. The creation of a new end-user environment from the blueprint should be tested. Confirm that everything looks and functions as expected and that all regions behave as required.

Test keyboard mappings, remote protocols (SSH, RDP/RDP10, CON, VNC), auto logins, etc. Also, remember the connectivity checks that can be run for each participant. 

Best Practices – Building Public Cloud Environments 

Bring Your Own (BYO) Public Cloud

This option enables the delivery of Azure, AWS, and GCP services to participants, while using a CloudShare managed account can limit available options, for example Active Directory access for app registrations. For more, see Using External Cloud Resources.

Cloud Resources When a CloudShare Environment is Suspended/Resumed/Deleted

Behavior is complex and depends on the cloud provider and account type. Some cloud resources cannot be stopped or hibernated when a CloudShare environment is suspended, so costs can continue to increase. Contact the Account Manager or the Customer Success team via success@cloudshare.com, for additional information.

AWS  –  Understanding Single Account (SA)/Multi Account (MA)

When a Single Account is used, user console access should not be enabled (this might have already been removed entirely as an option). A multi-user account provides a clean AWS console for each user.

Azure  – Understand Subscriptions and Resource Groups

CloudShare will map an Azure subscription to a CloudShare account, and then use Resource Groups to contain all individual environment resources.