Cisco CloudCenter is a hybrid cloud management platform that securely provisions infrastructure resources and deploys application components and data in more than 19 data centers and private and public cloud deployments. Because Cisco CloudCenter abstracts the application profile from the underlying infrastructure, the workload requirements can be translated into cloud-specific practices and API calls. As a result, developers can deploy and manage their workloads in multiple environments without having deep cloud expertise or needing to learn multiple cloud-specific management tools. Workloads can be deployed and managed for development, test, or production purposes, in any mix of public cloud or private infrastructure.
IBM Cloud Private is a scalable private container as a service (CaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud platform. IBM Cloud Private allows users to develop and manage microservice-based applications that can securely integrate with external data and services. IBM Cloud Private uses Kubernetes for container orchestrator, has the ability to create a private image registry, and has a unique management console and robust monitoring and logging.
Challenge
Our customer needed a cloud management platform (CMP) solution capable of delivering IBM Cloud Private instances in a reliable and secure manner for their end-users. The CMP solution needed to provide a robust governance framework that allowed for visibility, control, and accounting to enable the customer to manage and optimize a single central platform without encumbering end users. The IBM Cloud Private services needed to be customizable, reusable, and deployable in hybrid multi-cloud environments.
Solution
Metsi proposed Cisco CloudCenter for hybrid multi-cloud management of both infrastructure and applications, along with self-service catalog capabilities. Cisco CloudCenter allowed the customer to model IBM Cloud Private based on their requirements, deploying as many instances as required the cloud of their choice. The advanced features of CloudCenter gave the customer the ability to create governance policies for control of services utilization and resource consumption. CloudCenter reporting also provided billing and audit history for a chargeback to internal cost centers.
The customer’s IT teams appreciated the speed, standardization, and self-service of CloudCenter. Operations and security teams could be relieved from the routine requests, allowing for self-service (within the boundary defined by the policies that they define).
Cisco CloudCenter proved to be an effective solution to automate the deployment of IBM Cloud Private with full control and visibility of all IBM Cloud Private instances.
Summary
Metsi offers Platform as a Service (PaaS) consulting, design, and delivery services with Cisco CloudCenter, with an ongoing break/fix support or advisory support. Metsi offers IT automation and orchestration expertise for automating workflow and business processes into agnostic repeatable blueprint applications that are designed to be deployed consistently and efficiently every time.