How to Manage Cloud Accounts

This section describes how to manage your cloud accounts in ALM.

For an overview, see Cloud Accounts Overview.

In this topic:

Adding a Cloud Account

This task describes how to add a cloud account to ALM and how to link projects to that account.

1. Prerequisites

   To add a cloud account to ALM, you must have an existing cloud account with a supported cloud provider.

   After you have your cloud account ready, you need to record the following information from your cloud provider's website:

   • Account Access Key (for Amazon EC2 accounts only)
   • Account Secret Key (for Amazon EC2 accounts only)
   • Account Number (for Amazon EC2 accounts only)
   • Subscription ID (for Microsoft Azure accounts only)
   • Certificate File (for Microsoft Azure accounts only)
2. Add a cloud account to ALM

   To add a cloud account to ALM:

   1. In ALM or Lab Management, go to Cloud Settings > Cloud Accounts.
   2. Click the New Cloud Account button . This opens the New Cloud Account Dialog Box.
   3. Enter your cloud account information. Click OK to add the cloud account to ALM.

   4. If the Provider is Microsoft Azure, the MS Azure API Access Certificate dialog box opens.

      1. Select the Microsoft Azure service certificate in the Personal Information Exchange (.pfx) format.
      2. Enter the password for the service certificate.
      3. Click OK.

   Note: The account creation process may take several minutes to complete.

   Note: Cloud accounts added from user projects are private and can be used only by the projects that created them. However, if a project shares a pool with other projects, the provisioned machines will be seen from all projects that are sharing the same pool.

   You can now create templates and provision hosts from this cloud account.

3. Link projects to your cloud account

   Every project that needs to provision hosts from a cloud account created in Lab Management must be linked to that account.

   To link projects to a cloud account created in Lab Management:

   1. In Lab Management, go to Cloud Settings > Cloud Accounts.
   2. In the Accounts grid, select the cloud account you would like to link.

   3. In the Linked Projects tab, click Assign Projects to Cloud Account . This opens the Assign Projects to Cloud Account Dialog Box.

   4. Select projects from the grid and click Assign. This links the selected projects to the cloud account.

   All linked projects may now provision cloud hosts from the selected cloud account.

   Note: Only accounts added in Lab Management can be linked to projects. An account added from a user projects is automatically linked to the project that added it, and it may not be linked to any other project.

4. Define the total number of credits for your cloud account

   When defining credits in Lab Management, you allocate credits for each project listed in your cloud account. In ALM, you define credits for a single project.

   • Lab Management: In the Linked Projects tab, under Credit Balance, define the number of credits for each project listed in the account.
   • ALM: Go to Cloud Settings > Cloud Accounts. In the Accounts grid, select the cloud account. In the Credits tab, define the number of credits for the account.
     

   Note:

   • After a host is provisioned, it consumes credits from the project and the account that provisioned it.
   • Credits are consumed for each host on an hourly basis, and the number of credits consumed per hour is specified in the host template.
   • Hosts can only be provisioned if sufficient credits are available. When the total amount of credits drops to zero, you will not be able to provision new hosts. Already provisioned host will continue to consume credits.
   • You can set up to receive email alerts notifying you when your credits drop below a defined amount. For details, see How to Configure Cloud Alerts. You can also monitor your cloud credit consumption by generating usage reports.

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Modifying Cloud Account Details

To modify details for a cloud account:

1. Log into the project that created the cloud account.
2. In Cloud Settings > Cloud Accounts, select a cloud account in the grid and click the Cloud Account Details button . This opens the Cloud Account Details Dialog Box.
3. Make any necessary changes and click OK.

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Deleting a Cloud Account

To delete a cloud account:

1. Terminate all cloud hosts provisioned from the cloud account you wish to delete. See How to Provision and Terminate Cloud Hosts for more information.
2. Log into the project that created the cloud account you wish to delete.
3. In Cloud Settings > Cloud Accounts, select a cloud account in the grid and click the Delete button . The cloud account and all host templates using the cloud account are deleted.