Understanding the Virtual Machine Clouds architecture

 

Applies To: Windows Azure Pack

The Windows Azure Pack for Windows Server aims to have parity of experiences across different deployment locations such as enterprise datacenters, hosting providers, and Windows Azure. To achieve this, Windows Azure Pack delivers Windows Azure technologies to run inside datacenters, enabling you to offer rich, self-service, multi-tenant services that are consistent with Windows Azure. The following illustration depicts how Windows Azure Pack delivers an experience on par with Windows Azure.

System Center 2012 R2 along with Service Provider Foundation provides the basis for enabling Windows Azure technologies on Windows Server. In this section, we look at the detailed architecture of how System Center 2012 R2 and Service Provider Foundation enable the VM Clouds service in Windows Azure Pack. For the overall Windows Azure Pack architecture, see Windows Azure Pack architecture.

Note

For a list of topics that contain more details about the information covered here, see VM Cloud architecture topics.

Using Service Provider Foundation with System Center to deliver VM Clouds

There are two parts to the VM Clouds in Windows Azure Pack – management portal for administrators and management portal for tenants. The management portal for administrators enables hosting or enterprise service providers to set up the infrastructure against which virtual machines can be provisioned. End users use the management portal for tenants to sign up for plans that include the VM Clouds service, enabling them to provision virtual machines. In this section we look at how the management portal for administrators is associated with the underlying System Center 2012 R2 and Service Provider Foundation to enable the VM Clouds in Windows Azure Pack.

There are four key areas to look at with respect to the VM Clouds architecture.

• How does the management portal for administrators associate with Service Provider Foundation?

• How does Service Provider Foundation associate with the Usage Service for Windows Azure Pack?

• How does Service Provider Foundation associate with Service Management Automation?

• How is the communication secured between the different pieces in the technology stack?

Each topic in this section describes the architecture for VM Clouds with the aim to answer these questions.

VM Cloud architecture topics

• How is the management portal for administrators associated with Service Provider Foundation?

  Describes how the management portal for administrators ties up with Service Provider Foundation and VMM to deliver the VM Clouds service.

• How is Service Provider Foundation associated with Windows Azure Pack Usage Service?

  Describes how Service Provider Foundation is associated with the Usage Service in management portal for administrators to collect and report usage data.

• How is Service Provider Foundation associated with Service Management Automation?

  Describes how Service Provider Foundation works with Service Management Automation (SMA) to associate VM Clouds with Runbooks.

• How is communication secured between the portal, Service Provider Foundation, and other components?

  Describes how a secure communication channel is established between management portal for administrators, Service Management API, Service Provider Foundation, and the VMM server.