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Configuring end-user Option Choices in service blueprints

Based on the type of option that you choose, cloud administrators can configure options to be processed at different stages of the service offering.

For example, if you select the Request Definition type, end-users can specify the amount of RAM to deploy in the Apache Server (0 GB, 4 GB, or 8 GB) when the offering is provisioned.

Note

Services in the cloud are implemented in three stages, or "days" (as they are commonly described):

  • Day 0 — Set up the service offering in the the cloud environment.
  • Day 1 — While the cloud environment is running, end-users make their initial request of services in the cloud environment. At request time, the service is provisioned.
  • Day 2 — End-users make additional requests of the service in the future.

This topic includes the following sections:

The following BMC Communities video (5:26) describes how to configure option choices, use tag groups and tags, and configure policies in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management to ensure that network containers are placed correctly in an environment.

https://youtu.be/VfX_jHTC5rE

The following video (4:50) describes how options work with change approval using BMC Change Management in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

 https://youtu.be/a52fcO1SQtU

Option types

The following option types are available:

  • Request Definition (Delivery Requestable Offering or DRO) — You can specify which options that end-users can change during the provisioning of the offering. For example, the cloud administrator configures the service offering so that end-users can add 0 GB, 4 GB, or 8GB of memory to their Apache Server when they first provision the system.
    With a Request Definition, you have a wide choice of possible options on Day 1 of a deployment (for example, during the initial request when a VM is initially provisioned).
  • Post-Deploy Action (Transaction Requestable Offering or TRO) — You can specify which options that end-users can change on Day 2 of a deployment (to existing services). You configure the service offering so that end-users can only add memory to their Apache Server after the system is provisioned.

    With a Post-Deploy Action, your options are somewhat limited. You only have eight options you can select, for example, Software Packages or Parameters on Day 2 of a deployment (for example, after the VM is provisioned).

    After you provision a server, open the BMC My Cloud Services console, and open the Configuration page for your server, and make the necessary change. For more information, see Managing servers in a service.

    Note

    End users have the ability to add multiple post-deployment options at once. Post-deployment actions that modify a server configuration, such as adding CPU and memory, can be combined in a single transaction only if hotswap is enabled on the VM to be modified. Otherwise, at least one option will fail to complete because the server will restart after the first option has completed.

  • Any Request — You can specify which options that end-users can change on Day 1 or Day 2 of deployment. For example, you configure the service offering so that end-users can add 4 GB of memory to their Apache Server when they first provision the system at request time. But if they change their minds later, they can open the service request and then decrease or increase the memory.

For a complete list of option types and when they are available, see Option Choices available when extending service blueprints.

Before you begin

To open the Options Editor


There is no difference in functionality from where you open the Options Editor; these locations merely provide convenience to the cloud administrator.

Task

Steps

Opening the Options Editor from the Service Catalog

  1. Open the Service Catalog.
  2. Click Options Editor .

Opening the Options Editor from the service offering

  1. Open the Service Catalog.
  2. Create or modify the service offering.
  3. Specify the parameters in the General Information tab, and then click Apply to activate the Options tab.
  4. Click the Options tab.
  5. Click Options Editor .

To add options and option choices to service blueprints

  1. Open the Options Editor.
  2. In the Options area, click New Option .
  3. In the New Option window, enter a name and description for the option.
  4. For Option Type, select whether the option is for request definition (service offering), post-deploy action (requestable offering), or any request.
    • Any Request — Available as an option for both service offerings and requestable offerings.
    • Request Definition (the default) — Available as an option for service offerings. This option lets you modify the service blueprint to take parameters that are used when the packages are deployed.
    • Post-deploy Action — Available as an option for requestable offerings.
  5. Click Set Icon to upload an image (.jpeg, .png, or .gif formats) to the server and set it as an icon for the selected option.
  6. Click OK.
    The new option is listed.
  7. To allow users to choose more than one choice for an option, choose Multi-Select.
    By default, Multi-Select is not enabled, and end-users can select only one choice per option.

    Note

    Use caution when choosing Multi-Select. For example, do not choose Multi-Select if you are creating a service offering with the Storage Size option of 1 GB, 2 GB, or 3 GB. Users should only be allowed to pick one Storage Size choice in the service offering! Be careful not to create illogical combinations of fulfillment offerings.

  8. In the Option Choices area, click New Option Choice.

    Important

    You must add option choices; otherwise, the end user will see a partially created option that does not work.

  9. In the New Option Choice window, enter a name (for example, 4 GB) and description for the option choice.
  10. Set the Customer Price or Deployment Cost.
  11. In the New Option Choice window, click OK.
    The new option choice is listed.
  12. Repeat steps 8-11 for the 8 GB and 16 GB option choices.
  13. To change the order of the choices, select a choice, and click the move up or down button.
    Customers will see the order of choices that you have defined.
  14. To make a choice the default, select the Pre-Select check box.
  15. Click Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor to select the appropriate option that modifies or extends the service blueprint configuration.
    For more information, see Option Choices available when extending service blueprints.
  16. Click New Blueprint Configuration .
  17. In the editor, select a blueprint configuration.
    For example, to add a memory option that extends the service blueprint, select Blueprint Configuration > Service Deployment Definition > Compute Resources > Memory Size.
  18. In the Resource Set Identifier area, enter the Name of a resource set (or PaaS resource set) in the service blueprint, or select a Tag that identifies a server or PaaS resource set.

    For the My Cloud Services console introduced in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management 4.5, the by Name field is case-sensitive. Make sure that the name of the resource set in the blueprint exactly matches the name you enter in the by Name field; otherwise, the option choice will not appear in the My Cloud Services console.

    If a service blueprint includes multiple servers or PaaS resource sets, you must identify the particular instance. You can identify the particular instance by name or by indicating a tag group or tag that is matched to a tag in the service blueprint.
  19. Enter the values that extend the service blueprint.
    For example, enter memory size option (4096 MB).
  20. Click OK.
  21. In the Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor, click OK.
  22. Create the remaining option choices (for example, for 8 GB and 16 GB).
  23. When you are finished in the Option Editor, click OK to save your changes.

To configure optional software packages

  1. Open the Options Editor.
  2. Click New Option .
  3. Enter the Option Name and Option Description.
  4. Select an option type.
    For example, select Request Definition.
  5. (optional) Upload or copy an icon.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Click New Option Choice .
  8. Enter the option choice, description, customer price, and deployment cost.
  9. Click OK.
  10. Select the option choice, and then click Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor .
    Here you select the appropriate option that modifies or extends the service blueprint configuration.
  11. Click New Blueprint Configuration .
  12. Click Blueprint Configuration, and select an option from the list.
    For example, select Blueprint Configuration > Service Definition > Component > Software Packages.
  13. In the Component Identifier area, enter the Name of a component in the service blueprint, or select a Tag that identifies the component.

    For example, select Components > All Components to place the software on all components.
    If a service blueprint includes multiple components, you must identify the particular instance. You can identify the particular instance by Name or by indicating a tag group or tag that is matched to a tag in the service blueprint.
    Note: If you want to allow end users to add the software option, you must have a component that matches the blueprint.
  14. Select one software package from the list (consisting of BMC Server Automation packages).
    To filter the list of software packages that are displayed, type a letter, word, or phrase in the Search field, and then click the search magnifying glass. The search operation is based on all the fields that comprise the software package names.
  15. (optional) In the Install tab, for each software package, specify the pre-installation and post-installation type of action to run before or after the installation.
    1. Select the action type (an NSH script or BMC Atrium Orchestrator (AO) workflow that runs a particular action).
      For example, you can run an AO workflow that checks the hardware configuration on your VM or an NSH script that opens the Windows port.
      If you are entering a BMC Atrium Orchestrator action, enter moduleName:workflowName.

    2. Enter the name of the NSH script or AO workflow.
      For example, enter open_port_windows.nsh to open the Windows port. You must ensure that the script or workflow is actually available on your system. The NSH scripts and AO workflow are defined in BMC Server Automation.

      For information about creating NSH scripts, see the Adding a Network Shell script and the Summarized descriptions of Network Shell commands topics in the BMC Server Automation online technical documentation.

      For information about creating BMC Atrium Orchestrator workflows, see the Workflow basics and the Workflow coding recommendations topics in the BMC Atrium Orchestrator online technical documentation.

  16. (optional) Click the Operation tab.
    For each software package, define the start and stop operations to perform on the software packages.
    1. Select the action type (for example, Script).
    2. Enter the name of the NSH script or AO workflow (for example, "open_port_windows.nsh").
      If you are entering a BMC Atrium Orchestrator action, enter moduleName:workflowName.

  17. Click OK.
  18. In the Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor, click OK to save the changes.
  19. Click OK to close the Options Editor.

To configure a service monitoring option

  1. Open the Options Editor.
  2. Click New Option .
  3. Enter the Option Name and Option Description.
  4. Select an option type.
    For example, select Any Request.
  5. (optional) Upload or copy an icon.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Click New Option Choice .
    Enter the option choice, description, customer price, and deployment cost.
    For example, the choice might be named Service Monitoring.
  8. Click OK.
  9. Select the option choice (for example, Service Monitoring), and then click Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor .
    Here you select the appropriate option that modifies or extends the service blueprint configuration.
  10. Click New Blueprint Configuration .
  11. Click Blueprint Configuration, and select an option choice.
    • If the option type is Request Definition, select Blueprint Configuration > Service Deployment Definition > Monitoring.
    • If the option type is Post-deploy Action or Any Request, select Blueprint Configuration > Monitoring.
  12. In the New Blueprint Configuration dialog, set the following fields:
    • Enable Monitoring—Select Yes to enable service monitoring, and allow users to view, create, and edit charts for their service through the My Cloud Services console.
    • Enable Monitoring Policy—Select Yes if you want to enable users to create policies. If policies are enabled, end users can create rules that perform actions based on service thresholds being breached. For example, a user might create a rule to notify an administrator when the memory utilization of a service exceeds 95% for 15 minutes. Rules also enable users to take remedial action, such as adding capacity when thresholds are breached. See Managing cloud resources for more information. You can control the amount of resources that can be added through rules by adjusting quota. See Setting and managing quota for more information.
    • Monitoring Level—Select a monitoring level, which determines how often performance data is collected from the resources provisioned as part of the service. By default, the Gold level is selected. See Enabling resource monitoring for end users for more information.
  13. Click OK.
  14. In the Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor, click OK.
  15. When you are finished in the Option Editor, click OK.

    Note

    You must click OK in the Options Editor to save your changes to the options and option choices.

To configure optional custom actions

  1. Open the Options Editor.
  2. Click New Option .
  3. Enter the Option Name and Option Description.
  4. Select an option type.
    For example, select Any Request.
  5. (optional) Upload or copy an icon.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Click New Option Choice .
  8. Enter the option choice, description, customer price, and deployment cost.
    For example, typical custom action options might be Take snapshot or Format Disk.
  9. Click OK.
  10. Select the option choice (for example, Format Disk), and then click Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor .
    Here you select the appropriate option that modifies or extends the service blueprint configuration.
  11. Click New Blueprint Configuration .
  12. Click Blueprint Configuration, and select an option choice.
    For example, select Blueprint Configuration > Custom Action.
  13. In the Resource Set Identifier area, enter the Name of a server or PaaS resource set in the service blueprint, or select a Tag that identifies the server or PaaS resource set.
    For example, select Resource Sets > All Servers to identify that you want this custom action to apply to all servers, not just your database servers or web servers.
    If a service blueprint includes multiple servers or PaaS resource sets, you must identify the particular instance. You can identify the particular instance by Name or by indicating a tag group or tag that is matched to a tag in the service blueprint.
  14. From the Action Type menu, select the action (an NSH script or AO workflow) that specifies what change to make.
  15. In the Action field, enter the name of the NSH script or AO workflow.
    For example, enter format D 100 or lvm /data 100 (to format the virtual system disk into one 100 GB partition). You must ensure that the script or workflow is actually available on your system. They are defined in BMC Server Automation.

    For information about creating NSH scripts, see the Adding a Network Shell script and the Summarized descriptions of Network Shell commands topics in the BMC Server Automation online technical documentation.

    If you are entering a BMC Atrium Orchestrator action, enter moduleName:workflowName.

    For information about creating BMC Atrium Orchestrator workflows, see the Workflow basics and the Workflow coding recommendations topics in the BMC Atrium Orchestrator online technical documentation.


    Note

    Do not use the Additional input field to enter parameters; the field has been deprecated is used for backward compatibility purposes only.

    To enter parameters, see To configure optional parameters.

  16. Click OK.
  17. In the Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor, click OK.
  18. When you are finished in the Option Editor, click OK.

    Note

    You must click OK in the Options Editor to save your changes to the options and option choices.

To add custom panels to the Advanced Configuration section

To configure options for PaaS provisioning

  1. Click Options Editor .
  2. In the Options list, click New Option .
  3. In the New Option window, perform the following steps:
    1. Enter a name for the option.
    2. For Option Type, select Request Definition, which lets you modify the service blueprint so it can offer parameters when PaaS provisioning occurs.
    3. For Option Description, enter optional descriptive text.
    4. To upload an icon to the server and select it as the icon for the selected option, click Upload Icon (.jpeg, .png, or .gif formats).
    5. Click OK.
      The new option is listed.
  4. In the Option Choices list, perform the following steps:

    1. Click New Option Choice .

    2. In the New Option Choice window, enter a name (for example, Memory Capacity) and description for the option choice.
    3. Set the Customer Price or Deployment Cost.

    4. In the New Option Choice window, click OK.
      The new option choice is listed.
  5. Repeat step 4 to define additional option choices.
  6. To change the order of the choices, select a choice, and click the move up or down button.
    Customers will see the order of choices that you have defined.
  7. To make a choice the default, select the Pre-Select check box.
  8. Select an option and then click Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor to select an option that modifies or extends the service blueprint configuration.
  9. Click New Blueprint Configuration and then select Blueprint Configuration > Service Deployment Definition.
    A list of options is displayed. Only the options beginning with "PaaS" apply to PaaS provisioning. Some PaaS options apply to the overall resource (that is, the database), while others apply to the resource set instance (the database instance).
    For example, to add a memory option that extends the service blueprint, select Blueprint Configuration > Service Deployment Definition > PaaS Resource Instance > Memory Size
    For a description of each PaaS-related option, see Option Choices available when extending service blueprints.
     
  10. In the Resource Set Identifier area, enter the Name of a PaaS resource set in the service blueprint, or select a tag that identifies the resource set.
  11. Enter the values that extend the service blueprint.
    For example, enter a memory size option, such as 2 MB.
  12. Click OK.
  13. In the Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor, click OK.
  14. Create the remaining option choices (for example, for 1 MB and 4 MB).
  15. When you are finished in the Option Editor, click OK to save your changes.

To configure optional parameters

For example, the cloud administrator can configure the Apache server package so that end-users can modify the HTTP port or webmaster email address when they provision the VM.

  1. Open the Options Editor.
  2. Click New Option .
  3. Enter the Option Name and Option Description.
  4. Select an option type.
    For example, select Request Definition.
  5. (optional) Upload or copy an icon.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Click New Option Choice .
  8. Enter the option choice, description, customer price, and deployment cost.
  9. Click OK.
  10. Select the option choice, and then click Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor .
    Here you select the appropriate option that modifies or extends the service blueprint configuration.
  11. Click New Blueprint Configuration .
  12. Choose one of the following options in the Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor:
    • Blueprint Configuration > Service Definition > Service Definition > Parameters
    • Blueprint Configuration > Service Deployment Definition > Service Deployment Definition > Parameters


      Note

      Service Definition parameters apply to all deployments for the service (for example, Small, Medium, and Large); Service Deployment Definition parameters apply only to one deployment (for example, Small but not Medium and Large).

  13. Enter a unique parameter name.
    This field is required. You cannot edit this value later. If you made a mistake, delete the parameter and create a new one.

    Note

    If you enter a BLPackage or NSH script, the values must match the local properties of your BLPackage or the parameters of your NSH script.

  14. Enter a "user friendly" display label.
    The end user sees this label when the package is provisioned instead of the parameter name. This field is required.
  15. Enter a short description.
    This information appears as a tooltip.
  16. Select the appropriate data type: String, Numeric, Boolean, or Token. If you select Token, see Passing deployment data using tokens for additional instructions on using custom tokens.
    Depending on which data type you select, only specific options are displayed. For example, if you select Boolean, only the Default Value, User Entry, and Required options appear.
    You cannot modify data types later.

    Important

    Do not mismatch data types after you create a parameter in the service blueprint. If your parameter is a String data type in the service blueprint, do not try to override it by changing to a different data type (for example, Numeric) in the optional parameter.

  17. For Default Value, enter a default parameter value (for example, the default value if you are storing user input).
    Make sure that you enter appropriate values per data type; there is no validation checking in the UI other than the Java Regular Expression pattern. However, the Numeric data type will not let you enter non-numeric values.
    If you select Boolean, you can only choose true or false as the default value.
  18. If you select a data type of Boolean proceed to step 20. If you select a data type of String or Numeric, for Regular Expression Validation, enter the pattern text that the parameter must match for validation.
    For example, if you want the parameter value to consist only of alphabetical characters, enter
    [a-zA-Z]*.
  19. Click Ignore Case to only compare character sequence.
    For example, select Ignore Case if ABC and abc are both considered valid matching patterns.
  20. Click User Entry to prompt the user to enter a value when the application is being provisioned.
    This action allows the end-user to specify an input and, if needed, override the default value. It also activates the Required field.
  21. Click Required if user input is mandatory.
  22. Click Hidden for password-style input where a value is not displayed.
    The password text is initially displayed when the user enters it, but after saving the parameter, the text appears as asterisks. The Hidden field is independent of the User Entry field; you can mask the default value even if User Entry is not selected.
  23. Click OK.
  24. In the Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor, click OK.
  25. Click OK to close the Options Editor.

    Note

    You must click OK in the Options Editor to save your changes to the options and option choices.

To set an icon (for use with the selected option)

Tip

Start with 16-by-16-pixel icons to see how they display in the Service Catalog.

  1. Open the Options Editor.
  2. Click Upload Icon .
  3. Navigate to the image that you want to use and then select Open.
    The image then appears in the Icon column.
  4. Create or modify a service offering.
  5. Click the Options tab.
  6. Add the option (that includes the icon) to the Selected Options list.
  7. Continue to create the requestable offering.
    When the requestable offering becomes available in the Service Catalog (in SRM), this icon will be displayed in the service request.

Related topics

Creating cloud services

Defining Service Catalog entries for Amazon Web Services

Defining Service Catalog entries for vCloud

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