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Creating service offerings for the Azure provider

This topic describes how to create Microsoft Azure service offerings that cloud users can request from the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management – My Cloud Services Console.

It includes the following sections:

About the service offerings

A service offering describes a function or capability that a cloud administrator makes available to users in the cloud. Application stacks, single servers, and adding a new account to a Microsoft Exchange server are all examples of services. For more general information about services, see Services-overview.

After you have mapped the tenants to the logical data centers or network containers, you then can define your service blueprint for the Azure Provider. Service blueprints define the software, hardware, and deployment options for a service in the Service Catalog. A service blueprint is required before you can create a service. For service blueprint overview information, see Service blueprints overview.

Next, BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management administrators create options and option choices for the Azure Provider service offerings as per the cloud service provided by Microsoft Azure, so that end users can provision a virtual machine (VM) and modify the configurations after a VM is provisioned. You then add the options and option choices to the Service Catalog so that they can be used with the Azure service offerings you create.

You can group requestable offerings into packages to which different tenants can be entitled. This grouping makes it easier for service providers to partition and manage services created specifically for particular tenants.

Before you begin

To create the Azure service offering

  1. From the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu on the left side of the window, and click Service Catalog.
  2. From the Service Catalog, select the service you previously created and click the Edit icon edit_icon.gif.

  3. In the General Information tab, edit the default service offering:

    Field

    Description

    Default Service Offering

    Enable this option to make the selected service offering the default for the service. Unless users select a different service offering, the default service offering is used. 

    Name

    A short, descriptive name for the service offering.

    Description

    A more detailed description of the service offering.

    Service Blueprint 

    Specify the software and hardware to associate with the service offering by selecting one of the service blueprints you created previously.

    Reference Definition

    Specify the version of the selected service blueprint you want to use. 

    Definition

    Specify how to deploy the selected service blueprint. From the list, select a service definition that is available for the chosen service blueprint.

  4. Add a Base Customer Price to define the amount charged to the customer for the service offering. You can enter multiple customer prices per service. For more information, see Adding-a-customer-price-or-delivery-cost-to-an-option-service-or-request-action.
  5. Add a Base Deployment Cost to define the amount that it costs to provide the service offering. 
    You can enter one deployment cost per service. For more information, see Adding-a-customer-price-or-delivery-cost-to-an-option-service-or-request-action.
  6. Click Apply, which activates the Options tab.
  7. Click the Options tab to add options to the service offering. 
    You can only select options whose Type is set to Any request or Request Definition. The choices for the selected option appear in the Option Choice table.
  8. Click Apply to save the current settings. You can now create the requestable offering definition.

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To create a requestable offering definition

The request definition describes the details of the service offering, including the name, description, and one-time delivery price (which is different from the service offering price that describes the ongoing maintenance price). The cloud administrator can define only one request definition for a particular service offering, and a request definition must be created for the service offering to be available in the BMC My Services Cloud Console. Request definitions can also be added to packages.

  1. From the Service Catalog, select the service to which you want to create the request definition.
  2. Click the Edit icon edit_icon.gif.
  3. In the Service Offerings section, select a service offering from the left side of the section.
    CrtReqOff.png
  4. Click Create request definition.
    (If the service offering has an existing request definition, this option is not available because only one request definition is allowed for each service offering.)

    CrtReqDefn1.png

  5. In the Request Definition dialog box, complete the following fields:

    Field

    Description

    Title

    Enter a descriptive title for the requestable offering. This example uses Msft SO instance as the title. The customer will use this offering to request the provisioning of an Azure instance which is based on a general purpose Azure instance type.

    Description

    Enter a detailed description of the requestable offering.

    Note: Only 255 characters can be shown in the Request Entry console. Any text greater than 255 character is indicated by ellipsis points (...), although you cannot access this text in the Console.

    Keywords

    Enter aliases (keywords) used to search for requestable offering in the My Cloud Services Console. Requesters can enter these keywords when they search for services in the My Cloud Services Console.

    One-time Price

    Enter the actual price of this requestable service.

    Start Date

    Enter the date that this requestable offering goes online. After the requestable offering is approved and deployed, it becomes available online after the date you enter here.

    Change Policy

    Specify the type of Change Policy to be used, if your BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management environment has been integrated with BMC Change Management. In this example, we choose No change required, as change management is not enabled in this environment. 

    Type

    Select Compute.

    Image

    Specify which image appears to users in the My Cloud Services Console.

    Approval Type

    Specify the type of approval required for the service request, if your BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management environment has been integrated with BMC Change Management. This example uses None as the approval type, as change management is not enabled in this environment, and no approval chain record is associated with the service request when it is submitted.

     

    CrtReqDefn3.png

  6. Click Next.
    CrtReqDefn4.png
  1. Specify the category type that applies to the requestable offering (in this example, Cloud Services).
  2. Associate one or more packages with the requestable offering. 
    Note that at least one package needs to be associated with the requestable offering
    1. To associate a package, select it from the Available Packages table, and click Add.
    2. You can also drag and drop packages from the Available Packages table to the Associated Packages table. 
      Packages that are related to the Company for this requestable offering are listed in the Available Packages table.
    3. To filter the packages listed in the Available Packages table, enter a word or string in the Search field, and press Enter.
  3. Click Finish.

You can now create a post-deploy action, or associate end-user options with the requestable service offering.

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To create a post-deploy action

A post-deploy action is an action an end-user can take on a service instance after it has been provisioned. For example, after an Azure instance has been provisioned, the user might request a different amount of memory or CPU. Post-deploy actions are not required, and the cloud administrator can create any number of post-deploy actions per service offering. 

  1. From the Service Catalog, select the service to which you want to add a post-deploy action.
  2. Click the Edit icon edit_icon.gif.
  3. In the Service Offerings section, select a service offering from the left side of the section.
  4. Click Create post-deploy action. 
    Selecting_postdeployaction.gif
    The Request Definition window appears.
  5. Complete the steps described in To create a requestable offering definition.
  6. After creating a post-deploy action, you can associate options with it.
  7. Click Save.

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To associate options with a service offering

To enable the options to be presented to end-users, you must associate the options with a service offering request definition or post-deploy action.

  1. From the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu on the left side of the window and select Service Catalog.
  2. In the Service Catalog workspace, select the Azure service to which you want to associate an option. 
    This example uses the Azure service offering created in the previous procedure.
  3. Click Edit edit_icon.gif. The Edit Service window is displayed. 
    CrtReqOff.png
  4. Click the Options tab. 
    The Options panel is displayed. 
  5. Click the Options editor icon options_editor_icon.gif. 
    The Options editor is displayed

  6. Select the Option and the related Option choices you want to associate with the service offering. 

    Note

    Ensure that you have defined the Azure Instance service offering option and option choices in the Service Catalog for the Azure Provider. For more information, see Populating-the-Service-Catalog-for-the-Azure-provider.

  7. Click OK. 
    The options are added to the list of available options for the service offering request definition.
  8. From the list under Available Options, select the options to add to this service offering and click Add. 
    Note that because you are editing the request definition for the service offering, only options whose Type is set to Any request or Request Definition. If you are editing a post-deploy action, you can only select options whose Type is set to Any or Post-Deploy Action.
  9. The options that you selected appear in the list under Selected Options, and the associated option choices appear in the table at the bottom of the window. 
  10. Click Apply and then click Save.

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To modify compute resources for Azure Resource Manager

(Applicable for 4.6.07.003 and later) To modify compute resources as part of the post-deploy action, do the following:

  1. Open the Options Editor.
  2. Click New Option New.gif.
  3. Enter the Option Name and Option Description. For example, InstanceSize
  4. From the Option Type list, select Post-deploy Action.
  5. Click OK.
  6. In the Option Choices area, click New Option Choice.
  7. In the New Option Choice window, enter a name and description for the option choice. For example, AzureInstanceSize.
  8. Click OK.
  9. Click Option Choice Blueprint Configuration Editor.
  10. Click New Blueprint Configuration New.gif.
  11. Select Blueprint Configuration > Parameters.
  12. In the Name field, enter InstanceSize.
  13. In the Label field, enter InstanceSize.
  14. From the Data Type list, select String.
  15. Click OK.
  16. To associate the newly created option with the service catalog, do the following:
    1. Open the Service Catalog tab.
    2. Click the service offering for which you want to associate the newly created option.
    3. Click Edit.
    4. Select Create post-deploy action.
    5. Enter the required details.
    6. Click Next.
    7. Select the applicable Navigational Category.
    8. Select the applicable Request Definition Packages.
    9. Click Finish.
    10. Ensure that the Post Deploy Action is displayed in the left pane.
    11. Click the newly created Post Deploy Action.
    12. Click Options.

    13. From the list of Available Options, select the option that you created and drag it to the Selected Options window. For example, InstanceSize.
      This option will be displayed as a text field in the End User Portal while performing the post-deploy activity.

      Important: Using data sources to modify compute resources

      While modifying the compute resources of the provisioned server in the Azure Environment as part of post-deploy activity, you cannot use data sources .

    14. Click Apply.
    15. Click Save.

Where to go from here

Now that the service offering has been created, an administrator or end user can request an Azure cloud service.

Related topics

For overview information and detailed procedures related to this topic, refer to Creating-cloud-services and related subtopics.

 

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