Cloud Manager consists of two main components: the Cloud Manager Application Server and the Cloud Manager Orchestration Server. The Cloud Manager Application Server and the Cloud Manager Orchestration Server sit on top of your virtual infrastructure to automate Cloud services for your customers.
The Cloud Manager Application Server provides the portal for initiating and managing business services. When a customer requests a business service through the Application Console, the Application Server sends instructions that the Orchestration Server uses to provision the service’s workloads (virtual machines) through the virtual infrastructure technologies.
Application Console: A Web application that can be run on any computer with a supported Web browser. The console is for both Cloud Manager administrators and users. Cloud Manager administrators use the console to organize computing resources so that users can consume them as business services. Users access the console to request and manage business services. Login to the console occurs through an LDAP directory designated as the authentication source.
Application Server: Supports the Application Console and communicates with Orchestration Servers to provide instructions for deploying, managing, and removing business service workloads. It also performs user authentication with the LDAP source.
The Cloud Manager Orchestration Server automates the creation and management of business service workloads in the virtual infrastructure. When the Orchestration Server receives a business service request from the Application Server, the Orchestration Server 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, Cloud Manager Orchestration Server discovers and surfaces your virtual infrastructure resources (hypervisor technologies, VM hosts, VM templates, and so forth) in the Cloud Manager Application Console so that you can organize them into the catalog components that customers use to build their business services.
Orchestration Server: Receives workload instructions from the Application 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 Orchestration Servers.
Cloud Manager Orchestration Console: Monitors and manages the activity of the Orchestration Servers, enabling you to view and troubleshoot jobs associated with workload creation and management.
Cloud Manager Orchestration Agent: Provides communication between the Orchestration Server and the VM hosts managed by the server. The hypervisor technology (vSphere, Citrix Xen, Hyper-V, SUSE Xen, and KVM) determine where the agent is installed.
The virtual infrastructure forms the foundation of the Cloud Manager physical topology. The hypervisor technologies (VMware, Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, SUSE Xen, and KVM) virtualize the underlying physical resources and enable the creation and management of virtual machines.
The virtual infrastructure components are dependent on the hypervisor technology. The illustration shown above does not represent all components of the virtual infrastructure (such as networks, storage, virtual machines, and so forth). It is intended simply to show how the Cloud Manager components sit on top of your virtual infrastructure and interact with it to provide cloud services. The Cloud Manager documentation assumes that the person who will implement Cloud Manager is knowledgeable about your virtual infrastructure components and management. Refer to your hypervisor documentation for information.