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Table Of Contents
Introducing Application
Services 1
VMware vRealize Automation Application Services, formerly VMware vCloud Application Director, is a
model-based application provisioning solution that simplifies creating and standardizing application
deployment topologies on multiple infrastructure clouds. Application architects can use a graphic-based
canvas with a drag-and-drop interface to model application deployment topologies called application
blueprints.
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. Application blueprints are logical deployment topologies that are
portable across VMware-based IaaS clouds such as vCloud Director, vRealize Automation, and across
public clouds such as VMware vCloud Air and Amazon EC2.
This chapter includes the following topics:
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Application Services Overview
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Core Architectural Principles
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Key Concepts
Application Services Overview
VMware vRealize Automation Application Services has a model-driven, open, and extensible architecture.
With its library of standard components, or services, Application Services automates and manages the
update life cycle of deployments for multitier enterprise applications in hybrid cloud environments.
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.
Application Services uses vRealize Automation for user and group support, access control, and catalog
management. A vRealize Automation instance can have multiple tenants, a tenant can contain multiple
business groups, and a business group can contain multiple users and objects such as applications and
services. A user must be a member of a business group to add or edit objects in that business group. To
view a private object in a business group, a user must belong to that group. To view a shared object, a
user can belong to any business group in the same tenant. Applications deployed in Application Services
become catalog items in vRealize Automation where users can request them for provisioning.
VMware, Inc.
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