5.8

Tenants
Tenant can represent business units in a company that subscribe to cloud
services from a service provider. Each tenant has its own dedicated
configuration. Some system-level configuration is shared across tenants.
The networks in the example diagram are routed by using vShield Edge instances, which in turn connect to
internal and external networks.
Delivering Platform as a Service
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) lets you model and provision applications across private, public, and hybrid
cloud infrastructures.
PaaS is a type of cloud computing service that provides a computing platform and a solution stack as a
service. Along with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure-as-Service (IaaS), PaaS is a service model
of cloud computing that lets you create an application (or service) using tools and libraries supplied by the
provider. You control software deployment and configuration settings. The provider provides the networks,
servers, storage, and other services required to host your application.
Automate Application Provisioning
A key aspect of PaaS is the ability to automate the provisioning of applications. VMware vCloud
Automation Center is a model-based application provisioning solution that simplifies creating and
standardizing application deployment topologies on cloud infrastructures. Application architects use the
drag-and-drop interface to create application deployment topologies called application blueprints. These
application blueprints define the structure of the application, enable the use of standardized application
infrastructure components, and include installation dependencies and default configurations for custom and
packaged enterprise applications. You can use the prepopulated and extensible catalog of standard logical
templates, application infrastructure service, components, and scripts to model an application blueprint.
These blueprints standardize the structure of the application, including software components,
dependencies, and configurations, for repeated deployments. Application blueprints are logical deployment
topologies that are portable across VMware-based IaaS clouds such as vCloud Director and vCloud
Automation Center, and across public clouds such as Amazon EC2.
Using vCloud Automation Center, you "declare" the application and service structure with the assumption
that the underlying cloud infrastructure will deliver the necessary compute, network and storage
requirements. Once built you can deploy the blueprints on any VMware vSphere-based private or public
cloud, delivering on the cloud promise of choice. This application provisioning model frees developers and
application administrators from dealing with infrastructure, OS, and middleware configuration issues, and
allows you to focus on delivering business value with your applications.
Enterprise users can standardize, deploy, configure, update, and scale complex applications in dynamic
cloud environments. These applications can range from simple Web applications to complex custom
applications and packaged applications. With its catalog of standard components, or services, vCloud
Application Director automates and manages the update life cycle of deployments for multi-tier enterprise
applications in hybrid cloud environments.
Monitor Application Performance
Monitoring provides capabilities for performance management related to applications.
Pre-built Application Components
VMware Cloud Management Marketplace provides blueprints, services, scripts and plugins that you can
download and use to more rapidly develop your own application services. The pre-built components are
provided by leading middleware, networking, security and application vendors using highly reusable and
flexible configurations that you can insert into any multi-tier application-provisioning plan.
Chapter 2 Architecture Overview
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