Exploring IBM Cloud Foundry
IBM Cloud Private represents IBM’s new vision for our Cloud Foundry Platform as a Service (PaaS). This locally managed offering can be deployed faster than ever before. Instead of locking customers into set configurations, tested configurations are provided for you. You can also modify the environment to meet the specific needs of your organization. This new delivery of PaaS allows for an unparalleled level of customization and extension.
A platform operations console that provides Bosh infused dashboards is included for you to view the health of your environment at a glance. IBM Built-in and ready for immediate use, Cloud Private 2.1.0.3 also includes shared monitoring, alerts and logging. You can also leverage existing enterprise ELK, Splunk or Prometheus systems to capture platform and application, logs, and metrics. All the information that is needed to run an enterprise PaaS is made available at your fingertips.
Local PaaS was notoriously short of on-premises services, but IBM Cloud Private changes that. Our Kubernetes-based services use the Open Service Broker specification, which makes them fully compatible with our local Cloud Foundry Marketplace. Even services that do not include an Open Service Broker can be leveraged in seconds by using user-defined services. Provisioning a service, pushing an application, or connecting with a user-defined service takes only minutes and takes place while remaining inside your corporate-monitored and secured data centers.
The new delivery method for IBM Cloud Private Cloud Foundry leverages industry-standard Docker registries and tools. Now you can download a single update from Passport Advantage, then, leveraging local or corporate repositories, install or update the Cloud Foundry installations across your organization. You can deploy Cloud Foundry in a completely air-gapped environment so you can isolate mission critical applications that require a secure network.
With the new offering, you have full administrative privilege over the platform, which gives your operations team full access and control of all aspects of the platform deployment. This level of control allows you to tailor the environment to your specific application needs. It also allows you to extend and customize the platform, allowing you to truly leverage all aspects of the PaaS. Developers are also empowered with the Cloud Foundry CLI and the new developer console. Using CLI and API, developers can now integrate with DevOps pipelines, while still visualizing their work on the console. The console works directly with the Cloud Foundry API, to bring you many of the CLI features on a web-based interface that is easy to visualize and use.
So how does the new solution differ from Bluemix Local? The core application capabilities are still very similar. The full complement of buildpacks is available, and you can still use public service syndication. What has changed is the speed at which changes can be made in the system. By streamlining the offering, and containerizing the update mechanism, you can start systems faster and decrease your maintenance time. Extension and customization of the PaaS is now possible in many ways that were not previously available . Yet with all these new capabilities, you are getting a Cloud Foundry recipe that is validated through our Public IBM Cloud pipelines and tested on a massive scale. All of these features combine to create a solution that is ready to serve your enterprise needs.
