1.2 The Cloud Manager Environment
The Cloud Manager environment consists of three layers: Cloud Manager, PlateSpin Orchestrate, and a virtual infrastructure.
Cloud Manager
Cloud Manager provides the portal for initiating and managing business services. When a customer requests a business service, Cloud Manager sends instructions that PlateSpin Orchestrate uses to provision the service’s workloads (virtual machines) through the virtual infrastructure technologies.
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Cloud Manager Console: The console is for both Cloud Manager administrators and users. As an administrator, you use the console to organize your computing resources so that users can consume them as business services. Users access the console to request and manage business services. Login to the Cloud Manager console occurs through an LDAP directory designated as the authentication source.
Cloud Manager provides two versions of the console. The primary console is the Web browser console. The secondary console is the mobile console, which lets you perform most console functions via a mobile device.
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Cloud Manager Server: The Cloud Manager Server supports the Cloud Manager console and communicates with the PlateSpin Orchestrate Servers to provide instructions for provisioning, managing, and removing workloads. It also performs user authentication with the LDAP server.
PlateSpin Orchestrate
PlateSpin Orchestrate automates the creation and management of the workloads in the virtual infrastructure. When it receives a business service request from Cloud Manager, PlateSpin Orchestrate directs the creation of the service’s workloads from the appropriate VM template and the deployment of the workloads to the appropriate VM host. In addition, PlateSpin Orchestrate discovers and surfaces your virtual infrastructure resources (hypervisor technologies, VM hosts, VM templates, and so forth) in Cloud Manager so that you can organize them into the catalog components that customers use to build their business service requests.
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PlateSpin Orchestrate Server: Receives workload instructions from the Cloud Manager Server and directs the creation and management of those workloads by the virtual infrastructure. Depending on the size of your virtual infrastructure, you might have one or many PlateSpin Orchestrate Servers.
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PlateSpin Orchestrate Development Client: Monitors the activity of the PlateSpin Orchestrate Servers, enabling you to view and troubleshoot jobs associated with workload creation and management.
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PlateSpin Orchestrate Agent: Provides communication between the PlateSpin Orchestrate Server and the VM hosts managed by the server. The agent (not shown in the illustration) is installed on the VM hosts.
Virtual Infrastructure
The virtual infrastructure forms the foundation of the Cloud Manager environment. The hypervisor technologies (VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Xen) virtualize the underlying physical resources and enable the creation and management of virtual machines.
The virtual infrastructure components are dependent on the hypervisor technology. Refer to the hypervisor documentation for information.