Overview:
Functions
- Application Lifecycle Management
- Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and Application-as-Code (AaC)
- Native Self-Service
- Multi-Cloud Orchestration
- Unified VM and Container Management
- Governance with Approvals, Quotas and Scheduler
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Self-Service (formerly Calm) is a multi-cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service framework, that creates a Cloud-like self-service portal for consumption of IT resources. It also provides application automation to provision complex services and lifecycle management with day 2 operations. With NCM Self-Service, Sysadmins and Architects can define VMs and applications via simple blueprints and control all aspects of the application lifecycle, such as provisioning, scaling, and cleanup. These blueprints can be created through the UI or via code with a Python-based DSL, including seamless conversion between the CLI and UI formats. Once created, a blueprint can be easily published to end users through the Nutanix Marketplace, instantly transforming a complex provisioning ticket into a simple one-click request.
Key Benefits
- Automated Self-Service for users with the Nutanix Marketplace
- Unified Management and governance across clouds, hypervisors, and application types
- Single Language for Application Modeling with flexibility to integrate with each team’s tool of choice
- Removes IT bottlenecks by turning specialized operations into push- button automation
- Orchestrate across VMs, containers, and cloud resources to build any application
Benefits:
Streamline Application Management
Simple, repeatable, and automated management of application creation, consumption, and governance.
Self-service provisioning
One-click self-service with centralized role-based IT governance across private and public clouds.
Application lifecycle management
End-to-end automation of application provisioning, scaling, and management.
Hybrid cloud orchestration
Deploy applications with centralized visibility across private and public clouds.
Features:
Blueprint creation
Blueprints can be published directly to end users through the Nutanix Marketplace and be created in a UI or via Python code enabling self-service provisioning of complex applications.
Automate lifecycle activities
Provision, configure, scale, upgrade and delete applications across cloud environments. Begin with automation of common lifecycle activities and eventually design complex blueprints.
Single control plane management
Automate the provisioning of hybrid cloud architectures and manage multi-tiered and distributed applications across different cloud environments, from a single control plane.
Automated Self-Service with Centralized Control
Empower different groups in the organization to provision and manage their own VMs and applications, giving application owners and developers an attractive alternative to public cloud services. NCM Self-Service provides powerful self-service capabilities with role-based access control. It also offers an orchestration framework to automate routine tasks and procedures called Runbooks, which can span across multiple VM endpoints without the involvement of a blueprint or an application. All activities and changes are logged for end-to-end traceability, aiding security teams with key compliance initiatives.
Improve It Agility and Eliminate Human Errors
Simplify the set-up and management of everything from simple IaaS VMs to custom enterprise applications by incorporating all elements of each app, including VMs, configurations and related binaries, into an easy-to use- blueprint that is managed by the infrastructure team. All aspects of NCM Self-Service, including blueprints, can be managed via the GUI or CLI, depending on a user’s preference. By making the deployment and lifecycle management of common applications both automated and easily repeatable, infrastructure teams can eliminate the hours and days currently devoted to routine provisioning and management.
Application Development and Modernization
Combined with Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) or your choice of certified Kubernetes, NCM Self-Service provides the tools required to modernize applications without losing control of policy. Additionally, NCM Self-Service natively integrates with Jenkins to empower CI/CD pipelines with automatic infrastructure provisioning or upgrades for all applications.
Approvals and Scheduler
To simplify the delivery of applications, NCM Self-Service offers plugins and API support with popular ITSM vendors like the free ServiceNow plugin. It also has a build-in Approvals feature to create policies for launching Day-2 Actions and Runbooks and supports various user personas. The NCM Self-Service scheduler feature can schedule jobs on a one-time (specified date and time) or recurring (cron expressions) basis. Jobs can be used to trigger Runbook runs or Action runs on existing applications.
Unified Multi-Cloud Orchestration
NCM Self-Service unifies the management of all your clouds into a single pane-of glass, removing the need to jump between portals. It automates the provisioning of multi-cloud architectures, scaling both multi-tiered and distributed applications across different cloud environments. With native integration into NCM Cost Governance, it even shows the overall utilization and true cost of consumption at a glance, providing the information required to make deployment decisions with confidence.
Availability:
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NCM Pro |
NCM Ultimate |
| Ideal for |
IaaS across private and public clouds plus cost governance |
Enterprise deployments, supporting complex app automation, security features and governance workflows |
| Self-Service Marketplace |
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| Infrastructure as a Service Blueprint |
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| Advanced Orchestration with Runbooks |
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| App Blueprints |
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| Governance Approvals & Scheduler |
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| Plugin for ServiceNow and Jenkins |
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How to license
NCM Self-Service is available for
- NCI (AHV or ESXi), NC2 and non-NCI (ESXi). Metered per core at a cluster level.
- Public Cloud provider accounts require a Cloud add-on. Metered by the number of Virtual Instances (VI) in the cloud account.
- NCM licenses can be purchased and applied on the number of physical CPU cores in the cluster. Licenses are portable across hardware platforms and are available in 1 through 5-year term options.
- NCM Self-service is also available as a fully managed SaaS option, providing coverage for all providers, and Metered by the number of Virtual Instances (VI) managed.
- NCM Self-Service fits into NCM tiers: NCM tiers also includes additional NCM features for Intelligent Ops, Cost Governance and Security. To see how these features are broken into tiers, please go to the Nutanix Cloud Platform Software Options page.
