Product features and components
Read about the main features and components of IBM® Cloud Orchestrator.
Managing OpenStack Heat
OpenStack Heat templates are suitable for scenarios that focus on the infrastructure. You can create resources such as instances, networks, volumes, security groups, and users, and define the relationships between these resources (for example, a volume must be attached to a specific instance, some instances are to be connected by using this network). It allows the addition of autoscaling services that are integrated with OpenStack Ceilometer. Images to be deployed through Heat templates require that cloud-init to be installed. For more information, see Working with Heat templates and stacks and Managing Heat templates.Supporting private, public, and hybrid cloud environments
IBM Cloud Orchestrator is a private cloud offering that significantly simplifies the task of managing an enterprise-grade cloud. You use a core set of open-source-based technologies to build enterprise-class cloud services that can be ported across hybrid cloud environments. You can use the Public Cloud Gateway to communicate with Amazon EC2 or IBM SoftLayer. For more information, see Using the Public Cloud Gateway.The supported hypervisors are:
- In Heat: KVM, VMware, PowerVC, PowerKVM, z/VM®, and Hyper-V.
- In Hybrid: Amazon EC2, IBM SoftLayer, and Microsoft Azure.
Designing business processes
IBM Cloud Orchestrator is integrated with IBM Business Process Manager version 8.5.7, a workflow engine with graphical tools. You can extend the capabilities of IBM Cloud Orchestrator by using the simple drag-and-drop technology in Business Process Manager to create and edit complex workflows: you can design, run, monitor, and optimize business processes. For more information, see Custom extensions.Promoting open source technology
IBM Cloud Orchestrator works with the open source OpenStack software (the Kilo, Mitaka, and Ocata releases). OpenStack is a collection of open source technologies that provide scalable computing software for both public and private clouds. For detailed information about OpenStack, see the OpenStack documentation. For more information, see Overview of OpenStack.Administering the cloud infrastructure
Administrators can use the OpenStack Dashboard, which is extended by IBM Cloud Orchestrator, to easily manage and monitor the cloud infrastructure. Administrators can define networks and flavors; inspect the actual resource consumption; and manage users, roles, and projects. For more information about using the OpenStack Dashboard, see Administering as cloud administrator.Customizing the Self-Service Catalog
The intuitive Self-service user interface provides users with a customizable catalog of offerings. The offerings can be grouped into categories that are created by administrators to suit the needs of the work environment. For more information about self-service, see Designing self-service.Storing persistent data
An IBM DB2® version 10.5.0.9 database is used to store all the IBM Cloud Orchestrator persistent data. Business Process Manager uses this database. A DB2 instance is also used to store installation and configuration data.Ensuring high availability
High availability is provided by introducing redundancy and improved recovery for core software components of the IBM Cloud Orchestrator management stack that is managed by using Tivoli® System Automation for Multiplatforms.Note: IBM Cloud Orchestrator does not provide high availability for the
OpenStack components. For information about high
availability in IBM Cloud Manager with OpenStack, see the IBM Cloud Manager with OpenStack
documentation.
Managing cost
The IBM SmartCloud® Cost Management component of the Enterprise Edition provides functions for collecting, analyzing, reporting, and billing that is based on usage and costs of shared computing resources. With this tool, you can understand your costs and track, allocate, and invoice based on allocated or actual resource use by department, user, and many more criteria. For more information about cost management, see Metering and billing.Within IBM Cloud Orchestrator, metering is primarily driven from the OpenStack layer to capture all virtual machine provisioning requests. For more information, see the OpenStack Collector topic.