Product/Patch Releases

This section covers the release information for Jamcracker Appliance. It describes new capabilities, changed and migrated features, fixed features, technical updates, and known limitations for each version.

Release Version 8.0

Jamcracker CSB for Service providers appliance provides a unified cloud management solution to manage the disparate Public & Private cloud environments by offering catalog management, Application Stack provisioning, orchestration and infrastructure lifecycle management with seamless automation and in-built approval workflows.

Enterprise users can review the cloud resource cost and consumption patterns while gaining visibility into the granular details with interactive set of dashboards and usage reporting. The portal also supports governance of cloud resources with security and policy management, user and subscription administration, roles and privileges, while enforcing accountability based on resource based tagging.

Document Version

The release includes enhancements and resolved issues that were noticed during our general testing of the platform.

  • Release Details - Appliance Release 1
  • Platform Version - 7.12.8

Pre-requisites

System should be up and running with a genuine license.

Supported Cloud Providers

  • Amazon AWS
  • Microsoft Azure Public
  • CSP Model
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • VMware vCenter and vCloud Director

Whats New?

Business Use-Cases Supported

The following business use-cases are supported as part of the Jamcracker CSB for Service Providers Appliance:

Infrastructure Management

  • Create the Application stack architecture, define the applications for each of the servers (instances) of the stack, and publish the same to be used by the DevOps team.
  • Enterprise users can view stack templates from the catalog and proceed to launch them after viewing estimated cost based on the selected parameters.
  • Automated provisioning of virtual machines and Application Stacks.
  • Associate block storage and network interfaces with VMs.
  • Create a custom bootable image from an existing VM along with the applications installed and launch a new instance from the image.
  • Create a backup of the VM along with the applications installed from a custom bootable image.
  • Single Sign-On and SSH into IaaS compute instances from within the portal.
  • Import details of cloud resources into the portal to have a single pane of glass to manage and orchestrate multi- cloud infrastructure services.
  • Enable Resource based tagging to facilitate accountability and accurate cost chargeback.
  • JDF Framework i.e Jamcracker DevOps framework is a new and easy way of setting up resources across various public and private clouds.

User Administration

  • Administrators and users can be created and maintained with the required roles and privileges.
  • Maintain Department specific catalogs to meet the unique needs of every individual department? E.g. - Sales department catalog meeting services needs of sales team vs. QA department catalog to meet services needs of QA team create a sub-catalog.
  • Supports approval workflows where every employee request would have to be approved by admin, before provisioning is initiated.

Governance through automated rules, alerts and policies

  • Automated policies can be configured to optimize the use of cloud resources.
  • Alerts and notifications are generated when cost thresholds are reached or when maximum limits are breached.
  • Allows automatic scheduling of operational hours and automatic shutdown of virtual machine instances.
  • Alerts administrators on volumes that have been disassociated from Virtual machines (standalone VMs) for more than a set number of days.
  • Server failure alerts and automated recovery using VM backup(images).
  • Restrict the options while launching the Appstack based on the user’s department.
  • Admins can now configure the usage policy to receive alerts based on the consolidated data for all the accounts of the store and also get notified in case the variance exceeds a predefined value.
  • Admin can view aggregated analytics pertaining to store, along with the combined data of all the customers, or for a specific customer.

Gain visibility on Cloud Costs and Consumption

  • Ability to compare different IaaS provider offerings based on the cost for the same/similar type of VM. This comparison shall ensure to aid in the decision making for choosing a desired vendor.
  • Review the recommendations provided based on Industry best practices for AWS and Azure resources
  • Gain visibility of the resources using the ‘IaaS Resources Dashboard’ and efficiently manage them
  • Visualize the costs and consumption patterns and their granular details from the Executive Summary, Cost analytics and tag Analytics dashboard and take informed decisions for cost optimization.
  • Get insights into your private cloud usage and cost, side by side with your public cloud usage and cost with the Migration Dashboard. It enables you to quickly track, analyze and plan your datacenter migration.
  • Admin can view aggregated analytics pertaining to store, along with the combined data of various provider accounts.
  • Cost Comparator functionality provides users of a store to compare different IaaS provider offerings based on the cost for the same/similar type of VM.
  • Review the resources for AWS and Azure using the ‘IaaS Resources Dashboard’ and efficiently manage new as well as legacy resources
  • Visualize the costs and consumption patterns and their granular details from the Executive Summary, Cost analytics and tag Analytics dashboard and take informed decisions for cost optimization.
  • Granular details on the services consumed, including the region, flavour, type, tags, quantity and cost is available as a custom report that can be accessed daily.

Manage Cloud Spend

  • Define budgetary limits per Department or cost centre and receive alerts when thresholds and limits are reached.
  • Ensure stricter control by enforcing an additional layer of budget approval when the cumulative costs are likely to be breached.
  • Review the ‘Showback Report’ to monitor the budgetary allocations versus actual utilization and take required actions.
  • Use the resource based tagging data available in the dashboard to charge internal Departments based on their actual consumption.

Additional Features

  • Ability to map Azure Multi Subscription on to Jamcracer Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Tire 2 Support
    • Distributors - Who like to have multiple store for each resellers.
    • Reseller - Who like to resell to its end customers.
  • End User Journey
  • Microsoft Cloud agreement
  • Security Fixes
  • Performance Fixes

Enhancements

N/A

Limitation

N/A

Support Details

For any queries please contact Jamcracker Appliance Support team @

Email – jc.appliance@jamcracker.com

Phone - +1 844-353-8777