Creating a Cisco UCS Director Catalog is a critical step because it’s what your end users will request new virtual machines and services from. There are a couple types of catalogs that will deploy virtual machines, advanced and standard. Standard selects a virtual machine template from vSphere. Advanced selects a pre-defined workflow that has been built in UCSD and then published to the catalog.

Create a Standard Catalog

To create a “standard” object go to the Policies drop down and select catalogs. From there click “Add”. Select a catalog type and then click “Submit”. In this example, I’ve chosen the “Standard” catalog type.

Give the catalog a name and a description. Then select the catalog icon from the list. From there select “Applied to all groups” and “Publish to end users”.

Note: Just selecting the “Applied to all groups” doesn’t assign the permissions to those users. This just makes this catalog item available to those users should you choose to assign permissions later.

Select the cloud that the catalog will be deployed on and then select the “image” (vSphere Template) that will be used to clone. You may use linked clones as well and have options for the virtual disks. Click Next when finished.

Select the Category.

Note: Application Categories can be used to override the policies assigned at the VDC. This may be useful in order to change a VLAN for a specific catalog item or a different datastore, etc.

Enter the OS type and any application tags that should be assigned to a catalog item. Click “Next”.

Select your preference for credential items. Click “Next”.

Select lease times, guest customization and cost computations that match your desired design. Click Next.

Select what kinds of access that the end users will have to the new catalog item from the portal. Click Next.

Review the summary and click Submit.

Summary

After completing the steps in this post, a catalog item will be available to have permissions assigned to it. This catalog item will then be available for requests to be made to deploy virtual machines from. A group of catalog items will be your one-stop shop for a self service portal and will become your online store of services that you’re providing to your users. Iterate on your first catalog item and continue to build new solutions that your users can deploy to make their work lives better. No more tickets asking for new virtual machines.