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Chapter 5. Network Managers

In Red Hat CloudForms, a network manager is an inventory of networking entities on existing cloud and infrastructure providers managed by your CloudForms appliance.

This provider type exposes software-defined networking (SDN) providers including OpenStack Network (Neutron), Azure Network, Amazon EC2 Network, and Google Cloud Network, which enables software-defined networking inventory collection. The OpenStack Network provider collects inventory of floating IPs from OpenStack so that IPs can be allocated without querying OpenStack database every time. Also, it refreshes all Neutron data from both OpenStack and OpenStack Infrastructure, and extracts the Neutron logic to a shared place. Note that management via the network providers configuration is currently disabled.

This chapter describes the different types of network managers available to CloudForms, and how to manage them. Network managers are discovered automatically by CloudForms from other connected providers.

5.1. Adding or Viewing Network Providers

Note

All supported network providers — OpenStack Network, Azure Network, and Amazon EC2 Network, are added or removed automatically upon adding or removing the respective cloud provider.

Viewing network providers:

  1. Navigate to Networks → Providers to see a list of all network providers, along with information such as Name, Type, EVM Zone, Number of Instances, Subnets, and Region.
  2. Click on a provider from the list to view its summary screen.

Network providers summary:

The summary screen includes tables containing information on Properties, Status, Relationships, Overview, and Smart Management. Click on rows in the Relationship and Overview tables to see detailed information for individual entities.

Accordion tabs in the sidebar provide access to Properties and Relationships details.

Click on Reload, Configuration, Policy, and Monitoring actions in the taskbar to manage the selected provider.

Note

Alternatively, click on a cloud provider to see the cloud provider details and its relationships such as Network Manager, Tenants, Instances among others. In Relationships, click Network Manager to see information about the network provider, and its relationship with the cloud provider, on the summary page.

5.2. Refreshing Network Providers

Refresh a network provider to find other resources related to it. Ensure the selected network providers have the correct credentials before refreshing.

  1. Navigate to Networks → Providers.
  2. Select the network providers to refresh.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Refresh Relationships and Power States (Refresh Relationships and Power States).
  4. Click OK.

5.3. Tagging Network Providers

Apply tags to network providers to categorize them together at the same time.

  1. Navigate to Networks → Providers.
  2. Select the network providers to tag.
  3. Click Policy (Policy), and then Edit Tags (Edit Tags).
  4. Select a customer tag to assign from the first list.
  5. Select a value to assign from the second list.
  6. Click Save.

5.4. Removing Network Providers

Although network providers are added or removed automatically upon adding or removing the respective cloud provider, you can manually remove a network provider if it is no longer in use. This will remove the network provider from the VMDB and any relationship with the cloud provider.

  1. Navigate to Networks → Providers.
  2. Click the network provider to remove.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Remove this Network Provider from the VMDB (Remove this Network Provider from the VMDB).
  4. Click OK.

5.5. Viewing a Network Provider’s Timeline

View the timeline of events for instances registered to a network provider.

  1. Navigate to Networks → Providers.
  2. Click the network provider you want to monitor the timeline for.
  3. Click Monitoring (Monitoring), and then Timelines (Timelines).

  4. From Options, select the event type and interval, and customize the period of time to display and the types of events to see.

    • Select Management Events or Policy Events from the Show list.
    • Select an Interval between Hourly and Daily.
    • Select Date.
    • If you selected Daily for Interval, set the number of days in the past to see the event timeline for. The maximum is 31 days back.
    • Select Summary or Detail for Level.
    • Select the required Event Groups from the lists you want to monitor the timeline for.

You can also assign policy profiles to network providers, or remove them. The method for doing so is similar to that of any normal policy profile. See Assigning Policy Profiles to a Network Provider and Removing Policy Profiles from a Network Provider in the Policies and Profiles Guide.

5.6. Using the Topology Widget for Network Providers

The Topology widget is an interactive topology graph, showing the status and relationships between the different entities of the network providers that Red Hat CloudForms has access to.

The topology graph includes cloud subnets, virtual machines, security groups, floating IP addresses, cloud networks, network routers, cloud tenants, and tags within the overall network provider environment.

Each entity in the graph displays a color indication of its status: green indicates an active entity, while red indicates inactivity or an issue.

Network Topology

Using the Topology Widget

  1. Navigate to Networks → Topology.
  2. Click the desired network provider for viewing the provider summary.

Alternatively, you can open the topology widget from the provider summary page by clicking Topology under Overview.

  • Hovering over any individual graph element will display a summary of details for the individual element.
  • Double-click an entity in the graph to navigate to its summary page.
  • Drag elements to reposition the graph.
  • Click the symbols in the legend at the top of the graph to show or hide entities.
  • Click the Display Names checkbox to show or hide entity names.
  • Click Refresh to refresh the display of the network provider entities.
  • Enter a search term in the Search box to locate an entity by full or partial name.