Get started with Rackspace SDDC Flex

Welcome to Rackspace SDDC Flex. This chapter describes how to get started.

Things to know before you begin

• The instructions in this chapter assume that you are a Rackspace Technology customer and that you have access to the Rackspace Customer Portal.
• There are two portals that you can use:
  • Rackspace Customer Portal: Use this to create organizations and virtual data centers (VDCs).
  • Rackspace SDDC Flex portal: Use this to create and manage virtual machines (VMs) and vApps.

To get started, begin in the Rackspace Customer Portal and provision into the Rackspace SDDC Flex portal.

Pre-populated entities

You can use the default entities to build your first VMs. By default, Rackspace SDDC Flex contains the following organization and network entities:

• Organization: The organization that you create in Step 2 in this section also creates the organization entity in Rackspace SDDC Flex.
• Virtual data center (VDC): The VDC you create in Step 3 in this section also creates the VDC in Rackspace SDDC Flex.
• Edge gateway: The system assigns an edge gateway to the default data center group.
• External network: The edge gateway connects to the external network.
• Distributed firewall: This comes already enabled.

How to get started

Complete the following steps to get started with Rackspace SDDC Flex.

Step 1: Verify that your account exists

When you become a Rackspace SDDC Flex customer, Rackspace creates the account to which you add organizations and VDCs.

Note: You should receive access to the Rackspace Customer Portal and the Rackspace SDDC Flex portal within one business day of deal closure in the Rackspace system.

To verify your account, perform the following steps:

1. Log in to the Rackspace Customer Portal.
2. From the Products menu, select VMware Private Cloud.
3. Click Accounts.

The account name, account ID, and service block appear in a tile on the Accounts page.

Step 2: Create an organization

An organization is an entity that you create in a data center location. You can create one organization, which contains VDCs, in each location.

You can base the location in which you choose to create an organization on the following factors:

• The location of your end users and acceptable network latency for your applications
• Data privacy laws
• Any other region-specific restrictions

Complete the following steps to create an organization:

1. Log in to the Rackspace Customer Portal.
2. Navigate to your Rackspace SDDC Flex account.
3. In the account tile, click the account name.
4. In the region for which you want to create an organization, click Provision into Region.

The system automatically creates the organization with a name based on the account name and the region in which you create the organization.

Step 3: Create a virtual data center

A virtual data center (VDC) is a virtualized pool of compute, storage, and network resources that you can use to create the VMs and vApps you require to run your business.

You can create an unlimited number of VDCs within each organization.

Complete the following steps to create a VDC:

1. Log in to the Rackspace Customer Portal.
2. Navigate to the organization in which you want to add a VDC.
3. Click the location name at the top of the organization tile.
4. Click the Create Virtual Data Center tile.
5. Enter a virtual data center name and click Next.
6. Click View VDCs.

The VDC appears on the VDC page.

Step 4: Open the Rackspace SDDC Flex portal

You can open the Rackspace SDDC Flex portal directly from within the Rackspace Technology Customer Portal.

Complete the following steps to open the Rackspace SDDC Flex portal:

1. Navigate to the VDC.
2. Click Console.

You are now ready to use Rackspace SDDC Flex to create and manage VMs.

Step 5: Create users (optional)

Before you start working in Rackspace SDDC Flex, you can optionally Create a Rackspace SDDC Flex user so that other people can access the portal.

Step 6: Create edge firewall rules

By default, Rackspace creates an edge gateway for you. In this step, you Create an edge gateway firewall rule.

Step 7: Create a data center group network

By default, Rackspace creates a data center group that you can use to Create a data center group network. The data center group network must be in place before you create a VM.

Step 8: Create a VM

After you configure your edge gateway and data center group network, you can Create a virtual machine from a template.

Step 9: Configure distributed firewall rules (optional)

By default, all VMs can communicate with all other VMs. If you want to segment your traffic, you can Create distributed firewall rules.