VMware vCloud Connector

VMware vCloud Connector is a free downloadable product from VMware that lets you copy, view, and operate your computing resources, using a single pane of glass, across private vSphere, private vCloud Director, public vCloud Service Provider partners and the VMware vCloud Hybrid Service. Moving beyond workload transfer, vCloud Connector Advanced Edition also offers the Stretch Deploy and Content Sync features for taking the Hybrid Cloud to the next level. vCloud Connector Advanced is included with vCloud Suites and the vCloud Hybrid Service.

VMware vCloud Connector makes hybrid cloud computing easy. Whether you need an internal private cloud, a public cloud, or a hybrid cloud that combines the best of both, vCloud Connector can get you there. Bring your existing applications, workloads and templates to a public cloud while retaining the freedom to move these applications back into your own data center when desired. Built-in compression, multi-part transfer and checkpoint restart makes transferring workloads between your connected clouds reliable and easy, all from a single pane of glass.

The ‘Core’ edition of VMware vCloud Connector is available to all current vSphere and vCloud Director customers as a free download. To get support for the Core edition of vCloud Connector, you must have an active support contract for vSphere or vCloud Director. The ‘Advanced’ edition of vCloud Connector, which includes the Data center Extension and Content Sync features, is available as a part of the vCloud Suites and the VMware vCloud Hybrid Service.

vCloud Connector comes with Release Notes and a User's Guide. The User Guide details more information on working with the clouds and how to implement them. You can also learn more in the vCloud Learning Center at: www.vmware.com/go/vcc_docs or by participating in the vCloud Community discussion groups at communities.vmware.com.

vCloud Connector Advanced binaries are contained in the same download as vCloud Connector Core. As such, you simply install Core and then apply the vCloud Connector Advanced License Key, which is provided in your welcome kit, into the vCloud Connector Server Admin interface.

vCloud Connector Advanced keys are available within the Partner’s VSPP Product catalog.

Yes. If the customer wants to use vCloud Connector’s ‘Data center Extension’ feature, you need to make sure your environment has all the required technology properly configured. A Service Provider does not need to unlock vCloud Connector Advanced in their Cloud in order for their customers to use it in their tenant environments. The customer simply needs to locally unlock their vCloud Connector Advanced via their vCloud Suite key as they normally would and connect to a supported Public Cloud.

You can use VMware vCloud Connector to migrate VMware vSphere virtualized servers and applications to your private or public cloud. VMware vCloud Connector provides a centralized interface to connect, view, copy, and operate vSphere virtualized applications across vSphere based clouds.

VMware vCloud Connector can also be used to leverage the hybrid cloud by connecting VMware vSphere or vCloud Director virtualized applications to the vCloud Hybrid Service, as well as partners within VMware’s vCloud Service Provider ecosystem. This allows you to reuse your existing applications in the cloud and gives you the freedom to move these applications back into the data center when desired.

VMware vCloud Connector can connect vSphere 4.x and 5.x as well as vCloud Director 1.5, 5.1, and all VMware vCloud Suite-based private and public clouds. To use vCC Advanced Edition's Data center Extension feature, you need vSphere 5.1 & vCloud Network and Securiry 5.1 (formerly vShield) or vCloud Director 5.1 in your data center and an account with a vCloud Director 5.1-based public vCloud Service Provider.

vCC UI is accessible within the traditional vSphere Client 4.x and 5.x.

Visit http://vcloud.vmware.com/partners/vsp

You can upgrade by simply using the upgrade mechanism built in to the vCloud Connector Server admin interface. To upgrade from ‘Core’ to ‘Advanced’, which includes the Data center Extension and Content Sync features, simply enter the vCloud Suite or vCloud Connector Advanced license key in the vCloud Connector admin interface.

Data Center Extension, or ‘DCE’, extends your workloads to the public cloud while maintaining network configuration. DCE extends a private data center enterprise network to a public cloud by creating a Layer 2 extension over a SSL VPN tunnel. This allows the customer to move workloads from the data center to the public cloud while retaining its network settings, including MAC & IP addresses. This enables other applications or users in the data center to continue to consume and use the workload, and other system management solutions can continue to manage the workload without any changes. This is how vCloud Connector Advanced connects applications across clouds to deliver One Network.

No. In order to transfer workloads from one VMware-based cloud to another, you will need to power off your VMs and vApps before using vCloud Connector to perform the transfer.

You can now manage a single content catalog across your entire cloud environment using Content Sync. Content Sync allows you to manage One Catalog of content across hybrid clouds. It allows you to publish a vSphere folder or a vCloud catalog and then subscribe to it from one or multiple vSphere folders or vCloud catalogs. Any new or modified templates in the published folder or catalog will be synchronized and copied to the subscribers.

No. Today these features can only be leveraged with clouds based on the VMware vCloud platform.