Cluster Blueprint

A Cluster Blueprint describes the base configuration shared by all virtualized clusters in a region. There is exactly one cluster blueprint per region. It lets you express your desired cluster architecture upfront, ensuring that capacity added over time conforms to that architecture.

A blueprint covers the following areas of configuration:

• Networking: host network configuration and physical network definitions
• Block Storage: one or more volume backend types available to VMs
• Image Library Storage: where virtual machine images are stored
• VM Storage Path: the ephemeral disk location on each hypervisor
• Console Proxy: the IP or domain name used to access VM consoles

Create a Cluster Blueprint

To deploy and use a virtualized cluster, create a cluster blueprint first.

Navigate to Infrastructure > Cluster Blueprints in the Private Cloud Director UI to create your cluster blueprint.

Follow the details in Networking Configuration to configure networking as part of the cluster blueprint.

Follow the details in Block Storage Service Configuration to create one or more storage types as part of the cluster blueprint.

Customize Cluster Defaults

Image Library Storage Location

Specify the storage type and location where virtual machine images will be stored.

You can specify a file system path or a volume type name for this option.

If you specify a volume type name for the image library location, that volume type will be used to store images in the image library. If you specify a filesystem path instead, you must indicate whether the path corresponds to local or shared storage. Enable the Shared Storage toggle if the path is configured to use NFS or an equivalent setup that is shared and mounted on all image library hosts.

Virtual Machine Storage Path

The virtual machine storage path specifies the disk location on each hypervisor that will be used to store:

• Ephemeral root disk files for VMs running on this hypervisor that are using ephemeral disks.
• Any additional VM metadata and files.

Read What Is Ephemeral Storage for an in-depth understanding of what ephemeral storage is and its advantages and disadvantages before you configure this for your setup.

The default value for this path is /opt/data/instances. You can modify the default to a different location based on your preference.

This can be a local disk or an NFS shared disk, depending on how the storage path is configured at each hypervisor level.

Note that you configure this path once at the blueprint level for all hosts across all clusters in the region.

Virtual Machine Console IP

Specify an IP address or a domain name to be used to access the console of all VMs in the region. You can configure this in the blueprint. Ensure that proper routing or DNS resolution is in place so the console can be accessed reliably. Read more details here on how to set this up.

Update Cluster Blueprint

Some blueprint settings can be changed after hosts have been added to clusters; others are locked once hosts are authorized to the region.

Configuration	Editable after hosts are authorized?
Cluster Network Parameters	No
Image Library Storage Location	No
VM Storage Path	No
Add a network interface to an existing Host Configuration	Yes
Host Configuration key-value metadata	Yes

Changes to network interfaces and key-value metadata are propagated to existing hosts already part of a cluster. When adding a new network interface to an in-use Host Configuration, you cannot change system traffic options to use that interface, but you can create a new Physical Network using its Physical Network Label.

Editing Host Config

Within the Edit Roles modal, the Host Config (network configuration) selection can only be modified when no roles are currently installed on the host. If roles (such as Hypervisor, Image Library, or Persistent Storage) are already active, the network configuration dropdown will be disabled. To change the network configuration for an existing host, the host must be fully reset. This process requires the removal of all assigned roles from the host within the blueprint, followed by a Deauthorize and Decommission action on the host. Once the host is cleared and successfully re-onboarded to the platform, the Host Config can be modified during the role assignment process.

Once your cluster blueprint is in place, you can proceed to create a virtualized cluster.