We have a local Hyper-V cluster that we recently upgraded from Windows Server (and VMM) 2008 R2 up to 2012 R2.
Obviously, VMMs model, particularly as it pertains to self service users has changed quite a bit. I'm having a little bit of trouble understanding how it should be used.
Primarily - I'm trying to understand the purpose of the existence of "clouds". I see that they are required for VMs to show up in App Controller, but I do not understand what functionality they are actually providing.
First, let me describe our users. They are predominately software developers. There are different projects going on. Some people only work on one project, some work on multiple. Most of our VMs are conceptually associated by a project. A handful though are more general (shared source control servers, etc).
At first, I thought I would create a cloud for each project team we have. What we would like is for any of the project team members to manage (esp start/stop existing VMs, but also create them) VMs that are in the cloud for that project. Members of Project B on the other hand, would never see these VMs.
So, I setup a user role and a cloud for "Project A". However, when a VM was assigned into that cloud, no one in the Project A user role could see the VM until the owner actually went in and explicitly shared it (to the Project A user role).
To accomplish what I was wanting, it seems like instead I should simply create a single cloud (a "default" cloud - simply because I must have one, else VMs do not show up in App Controller). Then user's will have to grant access on the VMs they own to the appropriate team members (by user or by role). Not ideal, I would have hoped everyone would automatically get access to what was in that cloud, but at least I know how to manage that (and how to tell users to grant access to others).
But that leaves the question - what is a cloud? Why would I want one? Or more importantly - why would I want MORE htan one? I feel like I'm just missing the point of it.
I tried Googling around, but everything just seemed to focus on HOW to create them, not why I want to do so. Appreciate any insight you might have (or even just links to articles that actually touch on this).
Thanks,
Adam