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Create Virtual Site

Published April 5, 2023 | Last modified October 29, 2024

Objective

This guide provides instructions on how to create a custom label and then apply it to create a virtual site. A virtual site provides a mechanism to perform operations on a group of sites, reducing the need to repeat the same set of operations for each site. Each label consists of a key-value pair. There are no limitations on the type of sites that can be grouped together. Both cloud and physical sites can be grouped together to create a virtual site. To learn more about virtual sites and labels, see Virtual Site and Labels, respectively.

You can use virtual sites to deploy applications, discover service endpoints, and advertise services across a number of sites selected per the site selection criteria of the virtual site.

Labels can be provided by the system (existing) or can be user-defined (custom). For more information, see Labels.

Using the instructions provided in this guide, you can create and assign custom labels to your sites and group them together to create a virtual site using a selector expression.

Prerequisites

Create a Custom Label

Perform these steps to create a custom label:

Step 1: Create the custom key.

  • Click Shared Configuration.

  • Select Manage > Label > Known Keys.

  • Click Add Known Key.

  • In the form that appears, perform the following:

    • In the Label key (Required) field, enter the name of the new custom key.

    • In the Label description field, optionally enter information to describe this new custom key.

    • In the Label values field, enter a potential value that can be used with the new custom key. Click + Add Label Value to add more than one value.

    • After you finish, click Add Key.

Figure: Key-Value Creation

Figure: Key-Value Creation

Step 2: Verify the custom key and value.

  • Navigate to Select Manage > Label > Known Keys to verify all keys.

  • Navigate to Select Manage > Label > Known Labels to verify all keys and their values.

Apply a Custom Label

Perform these steps to apply a custom label:

Step 1: Navigate to the list of sites.
  • Click Multi-Cloud Network Connect.
Figure: Console Homepage

Figure: Console Homepage

  • Find your site and then click ....

  • Click Manage Configuration.

Figure: List of Sites

Figure: List of Sites

  • Click Edit Configuration.
Step 2: Enter a value for the corresponding key.

  • Navigate to the Labels field in the Metadata section.

  • Select Add Label and performing the following:

    • Enter the name of the newly created custom key and then select it.
Figure: Key Search

Figure: Key Search

  • Enter the name of the value to assign to the key.
Figure: Value Search

Figure: Value Search

  • Click Save and Exit.
Step 3: View the newly applied label.

  • Navigate to your site from Site List and expand the metadata JSON section.

  • Expand "labels" to view the newly applied site label.

Figure: JSON for Labels

Figure: JSON for Labels

Note: The "metadata" field contains all labels associated with your site. As sites are registered, Distributed Cloud Services automatically populates some labels, such as hw-vendor, provider, hw-model, etc. You can determine the existing labels assigned to your site by checking the site schema from Console or using APIs.

Figure: JSON for Metadata

Figure: JSON for Metadata

Create a Virtual Site

Create a virtual site using the selector expressions to group sites together.

Note: The steps below show how to create a virtual site in the Distributed Apps service. This option limits the virtual site to a specific namespace. You can also create a virtual site in the Shared Configuration service. With the Shared Configuration service option, multiple site objects across different namespaces can use the same virtual site and be grouped together.

Step 1: Start creating the virtual site.
  • In Console, click Distributed Apps.
Figure: Console Homepage

Figure: Console Homepage

  • Navigate to your desired namespace.

  • Click Manage > Virtual Sites.

  • Click Add Virtual Site to load the creation form.

Figure: Add Virtual Site

Figure: Add Virtual Site

Step 2: Enter the required information.

  • In the Metadata section Name field, enter a virtual site name.

  • In the Site Type section, select a site type from the drop-down menu.

Step 3: Frame the selector expressions to group sites.
  • From the Selector Expression field, click Add Label.
Figure: Selector Expression

Figure: Selector Expression

  • To frame the selector expression, perform the following:

    • Enter the name of the custom key created previously and then select it.
Figure: Selector Expression for Key

Figure: Selector Expression for Key

  • Select an operator.

  • Select the custom value assigned previously.

Figure: Selector Expression for Value

Figure: Selector Expression for Value

Step 4: Complete creating virtual site.

Click Save and Exit.

Step 5: Verify the new virtual site.

  • In the Distributed Apps service, navigate to Applications > Virtual Sites.

  • Confirm your virtual site is listed.

Concepts

API References

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