Configuring the VPC Element

The <vpc> element provides setup for creating VPCs. Assuming billing is enabled, a shopping cart item reserves requested resources until the VPC can be created. A VPC is created when funds for an associated project clear. To facilitate various administrative functions, shopping cart metadata can be specified via the <variable> element in the <cart-item> parent. Each variable must have both of the following:

1. <key> (Required) - The name of the variable (accepts any string decider).
2. <value> (Required) - The value of the variable (accepts any string decider).

The data in <cart-item> is not sent to Moab, but instead is saved to the database when a shopping cart item is created. If billing is disabled, this has no effect since no item is created.

Creating a VPC

The <create> element corresponds to the process of submitting a Moab mschedctl -c command. The mschedctl -c command is how Moab creates VPCs.

The following are supported attributes during the VPC creation command:

• <account> - Maps to the "-a account" attribute of 'mschedctl -c' (accepts any string decider).
• <profile> - Maps to the "-a profile" attribute of 'mschedctl -c' (accepts any string decider).
• <owner> - Maps to the "-a user" attribute of 'mschedctl -c' (accepts any string decider).
• <variable> - There can be 0 or more of these that will all map to the "-a variables" attribute of mschedctl -c. This serves the purpose of providing VPC metadata. It has the same requirements as the variables listed above.

The optional <cart-action> element can be used to update the database. This is only useful if billing is enabled (which creates a shopping cart item). For example, if VPC creation is successful, the database can be updated with a message such as "A new VLAN was created." If unsuccessful, a message such as "Unable to create the VLAN" can be presented to the user. The <cart-action> element requires a <message> element that accepts any string decider.

The following is an example of a <cart-action>:

<cart-action type="update">
 <message>A VPC was created!</message>
</cart-action>

Configuring Reservation Names

When a reservation is created in Moab, Moab automatically assigns a name to the reservation using its own internal business rules. The name Moab assigns to the VPC is not necessarily what Viewpoint has to use. Moab allows reservations to have a user-specified label. Viewpoint can automatically assign labels to new reservations and then use these labels as a display name for the various UI pages.

The <rsv-label> element, which is a child of the <create> element, does the following:

• Tells Viewpoint to use the reservation's label as the display name. This is done through the 'use-label-name' attribute. The value can be true or false.
• Determines what should be the assigned labels for the Moab generated reservation names. This is done using a string decider.

Setting up the label names may provide greater context to the user as you can include such things in the label as the associated project and account. Use the <calculate> element to configure the way to label the name. The following are keywords that can be specified in the string decider:

• account - The name of the account the reservation belongs to.
• rsv-id - The Moab-generated reservation name.
• Any variable set on the parent VPC.

The following is an example of a label that includes the project name (a variable on the parent VPC), the account name, and the Moab-generated reservation name.

<rsv-label use-label-name="true">
 <calculate operation="append-in-order">
  <value order="1">
   <component id="PROJECT_NAME" />
  </value>
  <value order="2">_</value>
  <value order="3">
   <component id="account" />
  </value>
  <value order="4">_</value>
  <value order="5">
   <component id="rsv-id" />
  </value>
 </calculate>
</rsv-label>

Configuring VPC Names

Configuring VPC names works similar to Configuring Reservation Names with a few exceptions:

• The format is configured using the <vpc-label> element, which is a child of the <create> element, instead of <rsv-label>.
• There is no 'rsv-id' component.
• There is an available 'owner' component that resolves to the name of the owner of the VPC.

The following example implements the vpc label vpc_{user}:

<vpc-label use-label-name="true">
    <calculate operation="append-in-order">
        <value>vpc_</value>
        <value>
                <component id="owner" />
        </value>
    </calculate>
</vpc-label>