In a traditional deployment model, software is installed on physical servers and it is configured for a particular data center environment. Deploying a business solution or provisioning a server to perform quality assurance testing can take days or weeks.

Cloud deployment models shorten the deployment time, but they require making the operating system, middleware software, and application deployment independent of a specific hardware configuration.

A smooth transition from traditional to cloud deployment models can be achieved by packaging the software stacks into industry standard virtual appliances. The IBM® Image Construction and Composition Tool can be used to construct custom virtual appliances that can be provisioned with several cloud deployment platforms.

This IBM Redbooks® Solution Guide introduces the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool and provides an overview if its features, benefits, and architecture. This information is intended for software architects, cloud solution architects, and cloud administrators who need to understand the business value of building virtual appliances and the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool.

In a traditional deployment model, software is installed on physical servers and it is configured for a particular data center environment. Deploying a business solution or provisioning a server to perform quality assurance testing can take days or weeks.

Cloud deployment models shorten the deployment time, but they require making the operating system, middleware software, and application deployment independent of a specific hardware configuration.

A smooth transition from traditional to cloud deployment models can be achieved by packaging the software stacks into industry standard virtual appliances. The IBM® Image Construction and Composition Tool can be used to construct custom virtual appliances that can be provisioned with several cloud deployment platforms.

This IBM Redbooks® Solution Guide introduces the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool and provides an overview if its features, benefits, and architecture. This information is intended for software architects, cloud solution architects, and cloud administrators who need to understand the business value of building virtual appliances and the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool.

As noted above, a smooth transition from traditional to cloud deployment models can be achieved by packaging the software stacks into industry standard virtual appliances. A key part of this transition involves using IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool. This tool is the IBM tool for creating virtualized workloads that target several private cloud deployment platforms, including both IBM and third-party platforms. This tool is unique in its ability to support a wide range of cloud offerings. It is also the only tool in the marketplace that can create virtual appliances for both x86 and IBM Power Systems™ hardware architectures.

Virtual appliances that are created with IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool can be deployed by several private cloud deployment platforms, such as IBM Systems Director VMControl™, IBM SmartCloud® Entry, IBM PureFlex™ System with Flex System Manager appliance, IBM SmartCloud Provisioning, and IBM SmartCloud Orchestrator.

Figure 1 shows the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool web-based user interface.


Figure 1. IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool Welcome page


Did you know?

• With the use of virtual appliances, deployment times can be reduced from weeks to hours or even minutes.
• With virtual appliances, software vendors can better control the integrity of their products. The software virtual appliance can be digitally signed. A digital signature ensures the integrity and the security of the content. The cloud deployment platform rejects the deployment of an appliance with a compromised digital signature.
• Packaging a solution as a virtual appliance allows you to use the expert integration skills of the specialist that built the ready-to-deploy package, requiring much less expertise from the people performing the deployments.
• IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool is the only tool in the marketplace that can create virtual appliances for both x86 and Power Systems hardware architectures.
• The IBM Virtual Appliance Factory is a self-enablement toolkit that provides automated tools to help independent software vendors (ISVs) pre-package application solutions for deployment in KVM and IBM PowerVM® environments. IBM makes it easy for ISVs to create virtual appliances by using a step-by-step factory approach with a proven methodology, preferred practices, and a downloadable set of Web 2.0 tools that includes IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool. For more information, see IBM Virtual Appliance Factory, found at http://www-304.ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHandler/stg_com_sys_virtual_appliance_factory.

• Shorter installation times. Software stacks that are packaged as virtual appliances can be deployed in minutes rather than days or weeks.
• Shorter configuration time. Self-configuration can be achieved by including an agent (activation engine) in the virtual appliance that accepts runtime parameters from the deployment platform.
• Eliminates the need for the post-deployment application reconfiguration. Data center personnel often do not have the domain knowledge that is necessary to perform advanced customization tasks, which are not required because a smart appliance can self-activate the entire software stack upon deployment.

• Addresses key issues: standardization and software licensing.
• Hides the complexity of the virtualization infrastructure.
• Enables advanced automation and provisioning.
• Enables core cloud-computing attributes: automation, self-service, agility, metering, and charge back, with faster time to value.

• The virtual appliances can be ported across management stacks, making migration among virtualization vendors and among data centers fairly easy and nondisruptive.
• Vendor independence can be achieved by adopting a software stack installation and activation methodology that works unchanged on all target deployment platforms. The IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool shines in this area.

1. The operating system specialist creates one or more virtual machines (possibly with different processor, memory, and disk combinations) and installs the required operating system and latest fixes.
2. Capture that virtual machine as an extendable and reusable base virtual appliance image by using the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool.
3. The software specialists use the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool to create software bundles for each software package, middleware, or tool that is needed.
4. The virtual appliance builder extends the base image and adds software bundles to create an image.
5. The software specialists write and test special installation scripts that are used during synchronization time. These scripts give the smart virtual appliances the intelligence to reconfigure themselves based on the environment so that the software solution is up and running when deployed. You can use software bundles to include additional software content in a virtual image. Synchronization is the process of creating a VM by deploying the virtual image, deploying all the software bundles, and then, in order, running the defined installation script of each bundle. The software bundles installation script is run according to the order that is specified in the virtual image.
6. After the virtual image is synchronized, the capture process takes a snapshot of the VM and saves it as a new image in the IBM Systems Director VMControl repository. Reset scripts are run just before the virtual image is captured to reset the virtual image state to ensure that any unplanned content is not captured.
7. Export the image as an Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) archive. This step entails capturing an image from the IBM Systems Director VMControl repository and transferring a compressed version of the image to a target system.
8. The ova.zip file is decompressed and imported from a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server.
9. Deploy the virtual appliance. This task is performed outside IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool as many times as required. You can deploy virtual appliances by using any of the following products: IBM Systems Director VMControl, IBM Flex System™ Manager, IBM SmartCloud Entry, IBM SmartCloud Provisioning, or IBM SmartCloud Orchestrator.

• The GUI, which is a web-based interface with which the tool user interacts
• The REST API, which is implemented by a RESTful web service that runs on top of HTTP and connects the GUI with the engine of the tool
• The engine, which is the brain of the tool and where all the business logic runs

• Provisions base images.
• Connects to the guest OS after the VM is running to install the packages that are described in the model that is associated with the image.

• Base OS images
• Software bundles
• Cloud providers
• Media images
• Base OS image instances

• Deploy a VM from a base OS image.
• Start or stop a VM.
• Capture a VM as an extended base OS image.
• Delete a VM.

• VMware
• KVM
• PowerVM
• IBM Workload Deployer
• IBM PureApplication™ System
• IBM SmartCloud Enterprise
• IBM SmartCloud Provisioning 2.1 or higher
• OpenStack

1. Import a running VM image into the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool (ICCT), which creates a base virtual appliance (image) that can be extended.
2. Extend the imported images with bundles to add the wanted software components, such as middleware and user applications.
3. Export the resulting, synchronized image in a standard compliant Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) archive (an OVA .tar file).
4. Import the OVA .tar file into the IBM Workload Deployer virtual image catalog.
5. Use the IBM Workload Deployer Pattern Editor to compose a virtual appliance deployment pattern.
6. The image is now available in the IBM Workload Deployer image catalog and can be included in virtual system patterns and deployed to the cloud.

• Installing the IBM Installation Manager
• Installing the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool

• IBM Redbooks publication Creating Smart Virtual Appliances with IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool, SG24-8042
  http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg248042.html
• IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool Information Center
  http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v48r1/topic/com.ibm.sco.doc_2.2/ICON/topics/iwd_cicn_overview.html
• IBM Offering Information page (announcement letters and sales manuals):

http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/index.wss?request_locale=en

On this page, enter the program name from Table 1, select the information type, and then click Search. On the next page, narrow your search results by geography and language.