enStratus supports an on-premise deployment model as well as the better known SaaS deployment model. Customers pursuing the on-premise deployment model typically have private cloud deployments that they would prefer to manage from inside their firewall. The on-premise functionality is the same as the functionality in the SaaS product (including multi-tenancy) except that you manage the on-premise deployment in your data center.
Private clouds are often the driving force behind a decision to deploy enStratus on-premise because of the communication channels that enStratus needs with some cloud virtual machines. With our SaaS product, enStratus requires either a VPN between our data center and yours or a server running an enStratus proxy that enables communication between enStratus and your private cloud. Both architectures work, but they often fail to fit the IT infrastructure model that organizations deploying private clouds are trying to achieve.
With the on-premise option, you can install a fully functional version of the enStratus software behind your firewall and it will manage your infrastructure just like the SaaS product. Instead of going to https://cloud.enstratus.com, you visit a URL hosted in your data center that may or may not be accessible from the public Internet. Everything else looks and acts just like the SaaS version of enStratus.
You will need to contact us to get an on-premise deployment license. We offer trial installations for qualified prospects, but we recommend leveraging the enStratus SaaS trial accounts if you are simply trying to get a feel for enStratus. For those doing an on-premise install, we will provide you with the software and a license key for your setup.
enStratus supports the following cloud platforms:
In addition, we provide cloud-like support for traditional vSphere environments with support for XenServer and Nimbula coming soon.
You will want enStratus to run in a separate network from the management components of your cloud platform with a network channel to the management layer and to the VMs enStratus will be managing. enStratus requires at least two servers (virtual or physical). The two server configuration is good for testing, but probably not appropriate for production. How many servers you will need depends on the number of virtual machines you expect to have running in your cloud.
enStratus has four main components:
- The console
- The provisioning system
- The monitoring system
- The credentials system
Each system except the monitoring system has a database with the console having two databases. enStratus should run against any SQL-92 database, though only MySQL is fully tested. Please contact us if you would like explicit support for another database engine.
In addition to a SQL database, you will need to install RabbitMQ and an SMTP service that enStratus can optionally route emails through. Finally, if you want support for SMS, you will need to install an SMS service and write an SMS service plug-in (or use the enStratus Twilio plug-in if you are using Twilio).
enStratus comes with installation instructions for setting up all of these components. We expect soon to have Chef recipes ready to enable easy installation via Chef.
