Question

1. In a few sentences, describe how the functionality of vApps would be useful in a multi-tier application.

Answer 1

You can use VMware vSphere as a platform for running applications, in addition to using it as a platform for running virtual machines. The applications can be packaged to run directly on top of VMware vSphere. The format of how the applications are packaged and managed is called vSphere vApp.

A vApp is a container, like a resource pool and can contain one or more virtual machines. A vApp also shares some functionality with virtual machines. A vApp can power on and power off, and can also be cloned.

In the vSphere Client, a vApp is represented in both the Host and Clusters view and the VM and Template view. Each view has a specific summary page with the current status of the service and relevant summary information, as well as operations on the service.

The distribution format for vApp is OVF.

Multi-tier and complex applications are used to distribute workloads across servers and to provide a higher level of security, performance, and scalability. When deploying applications that need components running on different servers, deploying virtualized servers on VMware vSphere provides a number of advantages. You can deploy virtual servers in a VMware cluster, provision as many hardware resources as you need, and add more storage, CPU, and memory capacity without experiencing significant downtime. Virtual machines (VMs) that are used to run complex applications can be grouped in VMware vApps for more rational management and convenience. Today’s blog post covers VMware vApps, relevant use cases, and the process of creating vApp in a VMware vSphere virtual environment. The blog post about VMware vApp includes the following sections:

• What is the VMware vApp?
• Requirements
• How to set up the VMware vApp
• Additional vApps options
• Cloning vApps
• Exporting vApps to OVF templates
• Creating nested vApps