You need to create two vApps. You will fill one with the entire infrastructure VMs such as DHCP, DNS, Active Directory, database servers, and mail servers.

The other vApp contains your test set of VMs that will make use of the infrastructure VMs.

We haven't really done much. We have used the vApp concept to separate all VMs that are reusable, from the ones that are just there for testing. The following diagram shows the configuration for this recipe:

In addition, we use snapshotting or the catalog function to facilitate a new clean image of the reusable VMs.

You could also add a Jumphost VM to the infrastructure vApp, making it accessible from the outside. See the Accessing a fully isolated vApp or Organization Network recipe in this chapter.

You can take this concept further to create a copy of your production infrastructure. This copy can be used to test out changes or to track faults.

To import your production VMs into vCloud without downtime, check out the Importing a VM into vCloud recipe in Chapter 3, Better vApps.