Getting started by user role

BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management presumes the following distinct user roles for cloud environments, each with different sets of responsibilities:

• Cloud end user, who requests services through the cloud
• Cloud tenant administrator, who is responsible for monitoring a subset of resources in the cloud
• Cloud administrator, who is responsible for the full lifecycle of the cloud environment, including initial planning, deployment, configuration, and continued administration, operation, and maintenance
• Developer, who is responsible for customizing and expanding the capabilities of BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management

Cloud end user

Cloud end users rely on cloud resources to complete their work. For example, they might be responsible for development and test servers, sales demonstration environments, and so on. Cloud end users request services, such as the deployment of virtual machines (VMs), through the BMC My Cloud Services console. This section describes the primary tasks for cloud end users of BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

Request access to the BMC My Cloud Services console

Cloud end users can request access to the BMC My Cloud Services console. The cloud administrator provides each user with an account, through which the user requests resources to be commissioned. Accounts enable BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management to protect commissioned resources with a random password that is made available to the user of the account. For more information about requesting access to services in the console, see Using the My Cloud Services console.

View available resources

Cloud end users can use the BMC My Cloud Services console to view the resources available to them, based on the access and service configurations defined by the cloud administrator. This library of resources includes standard templates provided by IT, bundles of templates that can be deployed together in sequence, and software packages. Cloud end users can choose a resource from the library and make changes to a range of default properties, such as the memory required, disk size, and so on, according to their specific needs. For more information about viewing resources, see Requesting cloud services.

Request virtual and physical resources

Cloud end users can request virtual machines (VMs) and physical servers from the library of resources. The BMC My Cloud Services console simplifies this process, navigating the cloud end user through a series of steps, and prompting for information that it needs to complete the process. For example, the cloud end user might specify the amount of memory needed, the size of the virtual disk, the service levels of the compute and storage resources to use, and so on. For more information about requesting resources, see Requesting cloud services.

Manage commissioned resources

Cloud end users can view and make adjustments to their commissioned resources. For example, cloud end users can start and stop a commissioned service, and request an extension to the length of time resources remain commissioned. Cloud end users can also request additional application storage for commissioned systems. For more information about managing commissioned resources, see Managing cloud resources.

Share resources 

Cloud end users can share the resources that they own with one or more users within the same tenant. They can also revoke sharing with any users. For more information about sharing services, see Managing cloud resources. 

Assess the health of commissioned resources

Cloud end users can view basic performance information for their commissioned resources. This information helps users determine whether they need more resources from the cloud. The BMC My Cloud Services console displays current and historical performance metrics for the past five minutes, hour, day, week, month, and year. For more information about assessing the health of commissioned resources, see Managing cloud resources.

Decommission resources

Though resources are scheduled for decommission when initially commissioned, cloud end users can decommission resources before the scheduled time. Cloud end users can specify whether the virtual disks are archived after the resources are decommissioned. After it is started, the decommission process is automatic. For more information about decommissioning resources, see Managing cloud resources.

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Cloud tenant administrator

Cloud tenant administrators also known as cloud organization administrators, are responsible for managing a subset of the cloud. Although cloud administrators can enable cloud organization administrators for both enterprise and service-provider environments, cloud tenant administrators are most commonly used in service-provider environments. For example, the cloud administrator might configure one cloud organization administrator for each organization using the cloud.

Cloud tenant administrators use the BMC My Cloud Services console to complete cloud-related tasks. As a user, cloud tenant administrators can do everything cloud end users can do, as described in Cloud end user. This section describes additional tasks for cloud tenant administrators of BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

Monitor services in the organization

Cloud tenant administrators can view all of the services requested by users in that organization. This enables the cloud tenant administrator to monitor the overall usage of the cloud by his or her users. For more information about viewing the services in an organization, see Monitoring cloud services in your organization.

Manage services in the organization

Cloud tenant administrators can perform all the activities for the service offering instances that a cloud end user can perfom. Apart from the end user actions, cloud tenant administrators can perform several administrative tasks such as transferring service offering instances, sharing services, or requesting a service offering instance on behalf of the end user. For details, see Working with service offering instances. 

Manage virtual firewall rules in the organization

Cloud tenant administrators can add, edit, and delete the rules for virtual firewalls for servers and for network containers belonging to the organization. For more information about virtual firewall rules in an organization, see Managing firewalls in your organization as a tenant administrator.

Manage load balancer pools in the organization

Cloud tenant administrators can add and remove load balancer pools from servers belonging to the organization.  Cloud tenant administrators can also enable or disable those load balancer pools. For more information about load balancer pools in an organization, see Managing load balancers in your organization.

Manage users in the organization

Cloud tenant administrators can add, edit, or delete cloud end user and cloud tenant administrator users within the same organization. A cloud tenant administrator cannot add, edit, or delete the cloud administrator. 

Capabilities and limitations when managing multiple tenants

When managing multiple tenants, cloud tenant administrators have the following capabilities and limitations. 

Cloud tenant administrators can manage multiple tenants, based on how the AR Access Restrictions are configured. Cloud tenant administrators can:

• See services from all Tenants that they can manage.
• Perform start, stop, sync, suspend, extend, decommission, and modify actions on servers across Tenants they can manage.
• View Service Health charts and manage Service Health policies for services for tenants they can manage.
• Share service across users within a specific tenant.
• Create and manage users across tenants that they can manage.

However, cloud tenant administrators currently have the following limitations. They cannot:

• Provision VMs as cloud tenant administrators unless the quota is created for the tenant to which they belong (and not the tenants that they can manage).
• Select a specific tenant and transfer ownership of SOIs to users across tenants that they can manage.
• Cannot share SOIs across tenants.

For more information, see Creating and managing users. 

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Cloud administrator

The cloud administrator is an IT professional responsible for the full lifecycle of the cloud environment, including initial planning, deployment, and configuration, and continued administration, operation, and maintenance. The cloud administrator uses the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console for most tasks. This topic describes the primary tasks for cloud administrators of BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

Before you begin, understand your current level of cloud implementation. You might need to complete various planning tasks before working with the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution. For more information, see BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management end-to-end.

Install BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management

After planning the cloud environment, cloud administrators install BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management to work in that environment. A simple installation interface enables cloud administrators to install on multiple computers remotely and concurrently. For detailed information about installing BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, see Installing BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

Create and manage service blueprints

Service blueprints enable you to design, manage, and build all of the underlying components and operations that define services. Cloud administrators use service blueprints to provision systems with appropriate hardware and software, and make them ready for network operation. Cloud administrators can tag blueprints to aid the automated placement of resources when a cloud end user makes a request for services. For more information about creating and managing service blueprints, see Building service blueprints.

Manage resources and resource providers

Cloud administrators make network, computer, and storage resources available to users in the cloud. The BMC Network Automation product provides network resources, and the BMC Server Automation product provides compute resources. Cloud administrators configure these providers, and then use the onboarded resources that they provide as part of services end users can request through the BMC My Cloud Services console. The cloud administrator pools onboarded compute resources to make them available for provisioning. For more information about resource types, see Resource types. For more information about adding resources to a cloud, see Resources.

Configure provisioning policies

Cloud administrators create policies that ensure that resources are provisioned to maintain an environment that is appropriate for the cloud tenants, cloud end users, and the type of service requested. For example, in a service provider environment, an IT organization might have service level agreements that require a Gold level of service to one tenant, and a Bronze level of service to another tenant. Policies ensure that the cloud administrator can make best use of the available resources to meet those needs. For more information about managing provisioning policies, see Creating and managing policies.

Create and manage service offerings in the service catalog

Cloud administrators establish a catalog of service offerings and options that cloud end users can request through the BMC My Cloud Services console. They can transfer, share, or request service offerings on behalf of other users.Cloud administrators can also detail the cost and price of services and options. Services can be grouped in entitlement packages that can be assigned to tenants of the cloud, simplifying the process of making several services available with one task. For more information about creating and managing a service catalog, see Services.

Organizing the cloud for tenants

In a service-provider environment, cloud administrators must configure which services will be available to different tenants of the cloud. Cloud administrators must also determine which resources will be available to each tenant to support the services they can request. For more information about creating and managing tenants, see Tenants.

Create and manage cloud users

Cloud administrators manage the user accounts and permissions granted to the people who use the resources of the cloud infrastructure. Individual users should not be able to see or access services or resources that they do not have permission to use. For more information about managing permissions and access control, see Creating and managing users in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management. 

Setting and managing quota

Cloud administrators can determine how many resources (servers, CPUs, memory, and local hard disk) can be allocated to any tenant depending upon the tenant's requirement. Users are assigned quota from the quota of the tenant to which they belong. Setting tenant and user quota allows the cloud administrator to allocate and monitor the resource usage. For more information about managing quota see, Setting and managing quota.

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Developer 

Developers work to customize and expand the capabilities of BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management. A developer might extend the existing capabilities of BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management by adding support for a new resource provider, such as RedHat KVM. A developer might also write code for an entirely new console through which users can request services. BMC Professional Services and partners are likely to fill this role, though developers can come from other sources. For example, a service provider customer of BMC might want to change the appearance of the BMC My Cloud Services console.

For more information about the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management API, see Developing.

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