6 Setting Up the IaaS Self Service Portal

This chapter describes the process of setting up the Self Service Portal. It contains the following sections:

• Setting Up the Self Service Portal

Setting Up the Self Service Portal

The Self Service Portal allows administrators to configure the cloud and perform various operations such as defining policies for the cloud, exposing it to certain users, deciding the total amount of resources each user can reserve, and so on. Users can log in to the Self Service Portal and identify the images they need, reserve resources (for example, compute power, storage, memory, and so on) and define policies specific to their system.

Before the Self Service Portal can be used, the user quota, roles for zone access, and software components must be defined.

Prerequisites

• Enterprise Manager Cloud Control is set up to manage the cloud environment.

• The Enterprise Manager administrator has the privileges to set up the self service application. This user must have the EM_SSA_ADMINISTRATOR role. See Defining Roles and Assigning Users for details.

Follow this process to set up and configure the Self Service Portal.

1. From the Setup menu, select Cloud, then select Infrastructure. Click Machine Sizes in the left panel. Small, Medium, and Large machine sizes are available out-of-the-box.

   Figure 6-1 Self Service Portal Setup - Machine Sizes

   
   

   • To view a demo on setting up the self service portal, click the video link next to the Page Refreshed section of the page. Click Create to add a machine size. You are prompted for the Name (internal name of the machine size), number of VCPUs, amount of memory and local storage to be assigned to machines of this size. Click Save to add this machine size.

   • Select a machine size from the list and click Edit. You can configure the machine sizes by specifying the amount of memory, number of CPUs, and the local storage for each machine. While requesting a server, the SSA user can specify any of the machine sizes defined here.

2. Click Request Settings in the left panel to define request related policies. On this page, you can enter the following details:

   • Future Reservation: Indicate how far in advance you can make a request.

   • Request Duration: The maximum duration for which requests should be made.

   • Configure EM Agent: Select the Enable EM Agent Configuration check box to configure the Management Agent on the servers while the SSA user's request is being processed.

     Note:

     If you have chosen to configure the Management Agent, you must ensure that the user has:

     • Write permissions to the directory specified in the Installation Base Directory field.

     • Write permissions to the /home/oracle/agent directory specified during assembly or template deployment.

   • Allow Partial Deployment: Select this option to enable partial deployment. By default, when a deployment fails, the assembly instance, tier instance, and the Guest VMs that have been created are automatically deleted. But if partial deployment is enabled, this clean up activity is disabled.

   • Software Library Top Folder: Select the top level folder in the Software Library in which user specific folders need to be created. This folder is used by the SSA users to save their environment and store their assemblies and templates.

     Figure 6-2 Self Service Portal Setup - Request Settings

     
     

3. Click Roles in the left panel to define the mappings between roles and other entities like zones, quota, and network profiles. The SSA administrator can control the quota that the SSA user can request which ensures that there is no over provisioning of cloud resources.

   Figure 6-3 Self Service Portal Setup - Roles

   
   

4. In the Roles page, click Assign Quota to Role to define quota at the role level. The quota assigned to a role is available to all users with that role. For example, if the Number of Servers for the SSA_USER_ROLE1 is set to 5, all users with this role can have a maximum of 5 servers. The quota is the aggregate amount of resources that can be granted to each self service user belonging to a certain role. If the user has more than one role, his quota is calculated as the absolute maximum across the roles for each attribute value.

   • Select Roles: Click the torch icon to select a role for which the mapping is to be defined. The list of all the SSA roles appears.

   • Select Zones: Click the torch icon. All zones marked as Cloud Self Service Zones during zone creation are displayed here. Select a zone from the list and click OK.

   • Number of Servers: Maximum number of servers that can be reserved at any time. This number is across the zones. For example if the quota for a user is 5. Then, the total number of instances from all zones is 5. So the user can have 3 instances in zone 1 and 2 instances in zone 2, or all 5 instances in the same zone.

   • Number of VCPUs: Maximum number of VCPUs that can be allocated.

   • Memory: Maximum amount of memory that can be allocated.

   • Local Disk: Maximum amount of local storage that can be allocated.

   • Additional Storage: Maximum amount of additional storage that can be allocated.

   • Allow Archiving to Software Library: Indicate whether the machine images can be stored in the Software Library after expiry. You can also select this option to save the machine image as a template when the guest virtual machine is stopped.

   • Select Network Profiles: Select the network profile to assigned to the selected role. All deployments are done in a specific network defined by the network profile.

   • Override Global Request Settings: Select this checkbox to override the request settings for the selected role. You can modify the Future Reservation, Request Duration, and configure the Management Agent.

   Select a role and click Edit. You can modify the role mappings in the Assign Quotas, Zones & Network Profiles to Role page.

5. Click Software Components in the left panel to select the set of templates or assemblies that are accessible to the SSA users. You can publish the assemblies and templates to the SSA Portal and provide SSA users with access to these software components.

   Figure 6-4 Self Service Portal Setup - Software Components

   
   

6. Click Add Components. The Publish Assemblies / Templates to Roles page appears.

   Figure 6-5 Publish Assemblies / Templates to Roles

   
   

   In this page, do the following:

   1. Click Add. Select the assembly or template from the list and click Select.

   2. Click Add in the Select Roles section. Select the role from the list and click Select.

   3. Click Publish to publish these software components to the SSA Portal. These software components are now available to the SSA users and can be deployed.

   Note:

   You will see a list of assemblies or templates if they have been uploaded to the Software Library. See the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Administration Guide for details on uploading components to the Software Library.

7. You can import the published assembly to a selected set of server pools and zones. Select the assembly and click Import. In the Zone and Server Pool selection page, select one or more zones and pools and click Save to import the assembly to the selected server pools and zones.

8. You can define rules to import published assemblies and templates to server pools and zones on a periodic basis based on a predefined schedule. Click Create in the Import Rules section. Enter a Rule Name, select a set of zones and server pools, a schedule for the import and click Save. The published assembly or template is imported to the selected server pools and zones on a regular basis.

9. Click Chargeback tab in the left panel. The Chargeback application allows the SSA Administrator to define a charge plan and assign the plan to a specific zone or target.

   Figure 6-6 Chargeback

   
   

10. Setting up the Chargeback Plan involves:

    • Defining Extended Charge Plans: Click Configure Charge Plan. You can edit the Base Charge Plan or create an Extended Charge Plan to customize the charge plan for a specified target type.

    • Assigning Charge Plans: Click Configure Targets. You can assign charge plans to a set of targets.

    • Setting Up the Cost Center: Click Configure Cost Center. You can setup cost centers to aggregate costs among groups of users.

    For more details on setting up the chargeback plan, see Chapter 22, "Chargeback Administration".