• Skytap overview
  • Skytap features by region
  • Skytap service limits
• Access requirements
• Creating environments
  • Creating an environment from a template
    • Skytap public templates
      • Ansible dynamic inventory
      • Configuring an Ubuntu Server VM created from a Skytap public template
  • Copying environments
  • Copying environments with running VMs (live clone)
    • Quiescing VM activity
  • Building a VM from an ISO
• Importing VMs into Skytap
  • Preparing Power LPARs for import into Skytap
  • Preparing x86 VMs and vApps for import
    • Creating MD5 hash values for VM imports
  • Importing VMs using the VM Imports page
    • Retrying a failed import
  • Importing Power LPARs into Skytap
    • Importing IBM i workloads into Skytap using NIS
    • Importing IBM i workloads into Skytap using IBM Cloud Storage Solutions for i (ICC)
    • Importing IBM i workloads into Skytap using direct transfer
    • Creating a Skytap AIX VM from a mksysb image
    • Creating a mksysb from an AIX VM in Skytap
    • Downloading IBM-hosted AIX VMs and importing them into Skytap
    • Additional ways to import Power LPARs into Skytap
  • Testing imported VMs
  • Resolving import errors
• Running and stopping VMs
• Accessing VMs
  • Accessing VM desktops from a browser
    • Testing access requirements with Connectivity Checker
    • Using audio with a VM
      • Troubleshooting VM audio
    • Using an SSH connection in a browser client session
    • Copy and paste text between the local machine and a VM
    • Insert text into a Power VM
    • Keyboard shortcuts for browser client views
    • Improving browser client performance
    • Optional URL parameters for sharing an SRA browser client view
  • Accessing VMs with RDP
• Transferring files to a VM
  • Adding and sharing files with the Assets page
  • Using ISO files
  • Using ISO files with an AIX LPAR
  • Using Skytap public assets
• Editing environments and networks
  • Adding VMs to an environment
  • Multi-attach storage for Power VM environments
  • Locking environments
  • Editing VMs
    • VM hardware and guest OS settings
      • Editing VM CPUs and RAM
      • Enabling nested virtualization
      • Upgrading VM hardware versions
      • Using an international keyboard layout with a VM
      • Editing VM BIOS clock sync settings
      • Adding or extending a virtual disk
      • Deleting a virtual disk
      • Enabling audio for a VM
      • Enabling SSH on a VM for use in SRA browser client sessions
      • IBM i default license program packages (LPPs)
      • IBM i optional license program packages (LPPs)
      • Overview of Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software on Skytap VMs
      • Installing Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software on Skytap VMs
      • Upgrading Assure MIMIX™ Software version 10.0.20.00 and newer on Skytap VMs
      • Upgrading Assure MIMIX™ Software version 10.0.19.00 and older on Skytap VMs
    • VM network settings
      • Attaching VMs to networks
      • Adding secondary IP addresses
      • Editing VM MAC address
      • Editing VM hostname or primary IP address
      • Enabling promiscuous mode
      • Using static IP addresses
      • Ensuring unique hostnames for Windows VMs
    • Storing VM credentials
    • Licensing the guest OS
    • Installing and upgrading VMware Tools - Linux
    • Installing and upgrading VMware Tools - Windows
    • Improving operating system or application performance within the VM
  • Adding containers and container hosts
    • Getting started with containers
    • About the container host
    • Creating a container host
      • Enable IP address forwarding for a container host
    • Adding containers to a container host
    • Managing individual containers
    • Containers: Known issues
    • Troubleshooting the VM Agent
  • Managing networks
    • Network overview
      • Default host-naming behavior
      • What is the difference between automatic and manual networks?
    • Viewing the network topology for an environment
    • Using multiple networks in an environment
      • Creating an automatic network
      • Creating a manual network
      • Routing between networks in the same environment
      • Avoiding restricted subnets and IP addresses
    • Networking between environments
      • Using NAT to avoid IP address conflicts
    • Editing an automatic network
      • Editing the network NAT subnet
    • Connecting an environment network to a VPN or Private Network Connection
    • Manually configuring domain name servers
    • Exposing and blocking public Internet access to VMs
      • Accessing VMs with published services
        • Adding published services
        • Connecting to a published service
        • Troubleshooting my connection to a published service
        • Removing a published service
        • Example - Accessing VMs with RDP
        • Example - Accessing VMs with SSH
      • Using public IP addresses
        • Attaching a static public IP address to a VM
        • Adding a managed DNS name and public IP address to a VM
        • Editing a managed VM DNS name
        • How does Skytap generate the VM DNS name?
        • Detaching a static public IP address or DNS name from a VM
        • What is the difference between static public IPs and dynamic public IPs with DNS?
        • Troubleshooting issues connecting to a public IP address or Skytap-managed DNS name
      • Issue - I can’t access the public Internet from my VM.
    • Deleting a network
  • Moving a VM to a different environment
  • Deleting VMs
• Sharing VMs and environments with sharing portals
  • Creating a sharing portal
    • Overview of sharing portal options
    • How to create custom HTML content for a sharing portal
    • Custom content tab – starter templates
    • Custom content tab - allowed HTML
  • Using a VM or environment from a sharing portal URL
  • Finding and sharing the URL for a sharing portal
  • Exporting sharing portal information and URLs
  • Disabling or deleting a sharing portal
• Sharing resources with projects
  • Creating and deleting projects
  • Adding and removing environments
  • Adding and removing templates
  • Adding and removing assets
  • Adding and removing users
  • Adding and removing groups
  • Understanding project roles
  • Finding project resources
• Adding a shared template to your account
• Saving an environment as a template
  • Copying a template
  • Deleting templates
• Understanding regions
  • Changing your default region
  • Copying an environment to another region
  • Copying a template to another region
  • What to expect when you copy an environment or template
• Managing your account settings
  • Changing your marketing email preferences
  • Changing your password
  • Changing your user account time zone
  • Finding your primary administrator
  • Finding your Skytap user role
  • Finding your user name and API token
  • Resetting your API token
• Viewing your current usage and usage limits
  • Viewing recent activity for an environment
• Best practices
  • Automating VMs and environments
    • Automatically suspend or shut down inactive environments
      • Sending keep-alive messages from a VM
      • Troubleshooting automatic shutdown
    • Automating actions with schedules
      • Adding a new schedule to an environment or template
      • Editing an existing schedule
      • Deleting a schedule
    • Controlling the order of VM startup with VM sequencing
    • Accessing the VM metadata service
  • CI/CD reference architectures
    • Jenkins build farm
    • Functional test environments
    • Systems integration test environments
  • IBM i Data Protection and Resiliency Solutions
    • IBM i backup and restore
    • IBM i disaster recovery and high availability
  • Creating recovery copies of VMs and environments
  • Disaster recovery reference architectures
    • On-premises data center to Skytap – cold recovery
    • On-premises data center to Skytap – warm recovery
    • Skytap region-to-region – cold recovery
    • Skytap region-to-region – warm recovery
  • Monitoring your usage with email notifications
  • Organizing resources with labels and tags
    • Adding and removing labels for environments
    • Adding and removing labels for templates
    • Adding and removing labels for VMs and other resources
    • Adding and removing tags for environments
    • Adding and removing tags for templates
    • Error messages for tags and labels
  • Security best practices
  • Using Skytap for demos
  • Using Skytap for training classes
    • Choosing an environment architecture and remote connection method
    • Creating class lab environments
    • Best practices for preparing student VMs
    • Preparing for and delivering a training class
• Knowledge base
  • Skytap security improvements: Deprecation and end of life (EOL) notices
  • How to add notes to VMs, environments, templates, and assets
  • How to change the name of a VM
  • How to change the name or description of an environment
  • How to check VM hardware version
  • How to connect to a VM from an iPad or iPhone
  • How to connect to Skytap using a private WAN connection
  • How to delete environments
  • How to export a list of environments, templates, or assets
  • How to export VMs
  • How to find the ID for a VM, VPN, environment, or template
  • How to find the Instance URL for a Skytap on Azure account
  • How to find the IP addresses for a VM
  • How to find the network gateway IP address
  • How to find your user name and API security token
  • How to generate an API security token for your account
  • Guide to the Dashboard
  • Protecting a VM that is exposed to the internet or compromised
  • Time zones and UTC offsets
  • Understanding storage in Skytap
  • Using search
  • Using Windows in Skytap
    • Fixing duplicate SID errors for Windows networking
    • Managing Windows hostnames with Skytap Helper
    • Resolving prompts to reactivate a Windows license
    • Running a Windows domain
  • Using Power VMs in Skytap
    • Differences between Power and x86 VMs
    • IBM i FAQ
    • Viewing system reference codes for an IBM i VM in Skytap
    • Applying PTFs to an IBM i VM in Skytap
    • Manually refreshing IBM i licenses
    • Refreshing IBM i licenses with LICKEY
    • Booting an AIX VM into maintenance mode
    • Configuring TCP/IP network settings for an AIX VM
    • Connecting to an AIX VM with X Windows
    • Importing Power VMs into Skytap
    • Known issues for Power VMs in Skytap
    • Preserving AIX disk numbering with ghostdev
    • Overview of Assure MIMIX™ Software
  • Editing VMs outside of Skytap
    • Compressing VMX files to OVA for import
    • Converting a physical machine to a VM
    • Converting non-VMware-based VMs for import
    • Converting OVF files to VMX for use with VMware Converter
  • Troubleshooting connections to a Skytap VM from a Windows 10 computer?
• Troubleshooting

Overview of Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software on Skytap VMs

You can install Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software to enable HA/DR support for IBM i VMs in Skytap on Azure. Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software support requires two IBM i VMs: a production or source VM and a backup or target VM. Assure MIMIX™ Software replicates data between the production and backup VMs and allows these roles to be reversed so that the backup VM becomes the production VM. The software includes three major components:

• Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software – Provides IBM i data replication.
• Precisely License Manager – Manages Precisely product installations, license keys and product level security.
• Precisely Assure Unified Interface (AUI) – Displays a Assure MIMIX™ Software web interface server.

Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software topologies

The Assure MIMIX™ Software package currently supports configurations of two or more IBM i nodes, at least one of which is a Skytap VM. Supported configurations include a completely new instance of Assure MIMIX™ Software, an Assure MIMIX™ Software instance that has been transferred to Skytap VMs, or a hybrid configuration that includes a mixture of Skytap VMs and on-premises IBM i LPARs. More information about these supported topologies is included below.

New Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software instance on Skytap VMs

In a new Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software instance, Assure MIMIX™ Software is installed on a Skytap production VM and a Skytap backup/DR VM where no Assure MIMIX™ Software installation existed previously. Customer applications may or may not be already installed on the production VM. A default Assure MIMIX™ Software configuration based on system replication best practices is created to replicate common operating system level elements. You’ll need to define additional configuration to replicate customer application data.

To install Assure MIMIX™ Software, see Installing Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software on Skytap VMs.

Migrated Assure MIMIX™ Software instance moved to Skytap VMs

If you have previously migrated an IBM i LPAR with a billed instance of Assure MIMIX™ Software from your on-premises datacenter into Skytap, don’t check the Enable Assure MIMIX™ Software for IBM i checkbox. Doing so could cause you to be double-billed for this instance of Assure MIMIX™ Software

In an existing, on-premises Assure MIMIX™ Software instance moved to Skytap VMs, Assure MIMIX™ Software has been previously installed and configured to replicate applications on one or two non-Skytap LPARs and have been transferred to Skytap VMs. The Skytap MIMIX installation process retains the configuration and adjusts it with the following additional best practices to establish communication:

• Both systems set to Assure MIMIX™ Software management (*MGT) systems.
• Assure MIMIX™ Software Data Protection Reports (DPR) enabled on both production and backup systems.
• Transfer definitions updated to the specified host and port names.
• Secure sockets (TLS/SSL) used for AUI connections.

Make sure that the same version of Assure MIMIX™ Software is installed on both source and target systems.

Hybrid installation

A hybrid installation of Assure MIMIX™ Software is one that establishes an HA/DR relationship between a Skytap VM and a non-Skytap VM.

You can create a hybrid installation in one of two ways:

• Install Assure MIMIX™ Software on a new Skytap node and specify a *MGT node from an existing Assure MIMIX™ Software configuration, which automatically adds the new Skytap VM to the existing Assure MIMIX™ Software configuration.
• Add a new installation of Assure MIMIX™ Software to an existing Skytap VM that you then manually add to a Assure MIMIX™ Software configuration with other nodes.

Make sure that the same version of Assure MIMIX™ Software is installed on both source and target systems.

Skytap may support other topologies in the future. If your implementation plans do not meet the supported topologies mentioned above, please contact your next level of support.

Assure MIMIX™ Software license keys

The Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software on Skytap package includes Assure MIMIX™ Software license keys, which you typically won’t have to manage for Assure MIMIX™ Software enabled on Skytap VMs. These keys will work in the Skytap IBM i environment even if the VMs are moved. However, you must enable HA/DR support on the Skytap VM for Assure MIMIX™ Software to run. Assure MIMIX™ Software license keys will refresh automatically if the Skytap HA/DR support is still enabled. Nodes that aren’t Skytap VMs or that aren’t enabled for Assure MIMIX™ Software in the Skytap configuration must have keys provided by Precisely.

Precisely Assure MIMIX™ Software billing

Assure MIMIX™ Software billing is based on Entitled Capacity per month.

Monthly is the only billing option for Assure MIMIX™ Software. Hourly billing is not available.