Smart Virtual Appliances Made Easy with IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool

®

Smart Virtual Appliances Made Easy with IBM Image
Construction and Composition Tool
IBM Redbooks Solution Guide
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.

Smart Virtual Appliances Made Easy with IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool

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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.


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

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.

Business value
Creating virtual appliances with IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool and deploying them to
cloud environments provides the following benefits.
Faster time-to-value and lower skills requirements


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.

Quicker transition to a Cloud Enabled Data Center with lower initial investment





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.

Achieve vendor independence


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.

Solution overview
Even when you use the tool as a single user, IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool takes
multiple user roles into consideration.
Operating system specialist
The operating system (OS) specialist is responsible for generating base OS disk images, which are one of
the most important raw materials that are used in the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool build
process.


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Software specialist
The software specialist creates software artifacts that are called software bundles. The software bundle is
another raw material that the virtual appliance builder uses to generate complete solutions as virtual
appliances. The software specialist needs skills on the software components (for example, IBM
WebSphere® Application Server, IBM DB2®, or your tools, applications, and solutions) that are packaged
into a software bundle.
Virtual appliance builder
The virtual appliance builder assembles the base image and one or more software bundles, which
constitute a solution, into a self-contained virtual appliance. The virtual appliance is the end product that
the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool constructs. It is a cloud artifact that can then be used
to deploy software solutions into a public or private infrastructure as a service (IaaS) environment.
Figure 2 shows the end-to-end process of creating a virtual appliance with the IBM Image Construction
and Composition Tool.

Figure 2. Building a virtual appliance - end-to-end process
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.


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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.

Solution architecture
The IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool has three components:


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

The engine has two roles:


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.


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Figure 3 shows a component-level view of the tool.

Figure 3. High-level component view of the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool
The Model
The IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool is a model-driven tool. It relies on the model to tie the
tool artifacts into a logical entity. The following artifacts of the tool are described by the model:




Base OS images
Software bundles
Cloud providers


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


Media images
Base OS image instances

Package generators
The package generator is a piece of code that can automatically generate a package that contains all the
artifacts in all the bundles that are added to a base OS image. Package generators are OS-specific. For
example, one package generator might be for Linux and a different one might be for IBM AIX®.
Cloud providers
A cloud provider is responsible for all necessary operations to manage the lifecycle of a VM. A cloud
provider must have the following minimum capabilities:





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.

IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool supports the following cloud providers:









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

Note: Figure 3 shows only the cloud providers that are covered in Creating Smart Virtual Appliances with

IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool, SG24-8042-01.

Usage scenarios
IBM uses IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool software bundles to install and configure several
IBM products and solutions, including the OS and middleware products that are required. You can find
several examples in the IBM Integrated Service Mangement Library, found at
https://www.ibm.com/software/brandcatalog/ismlibrary/. Enter "ICCT software bundle" in the Search field
to see a list of virtual appliances that install and configure IBM software.


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Figure 4 shows a view of IBM solutions that are pre-packaged as virtual appliances that can be
downloaded from the IBM Integrated Service Management Library.

Figure 4. List of IBM solutions that are packaged as virtual appliances with ICCT
Hundreds of ISVs use virtual appliances that are created with IBM Image Construction and Composition
Tool to pre-package solutions that combine an ISV's application with middleware components and the
operating system for rapid deployment with minimal customization. Virtual appliances for PureFlex are
built by ISVs with tools that are provided by the Virtual Appliance Factory (VAF) with support from IBM
Innovation Centers (IICs). PureFlex virtual appliances that are Ready for IBM PureSystems™ require
either PowerVM or KVM hypervisors. At the IBM PureSystems Center, found at
https://www-304.ibm.com/software/brandcatalog/puresystems/centre/, you can access solutions from IBM
and IBM Business Partners and updates to systems and solutions that were pre-packaged as virtual
appliances using IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool.
Enterprises use virtual appliances that are built with IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool to
pre-package development and test environments. They can reduce the time that it takes to set up a
development and test environment from weeks to minutes and, in the process, eliminate errors and
improve the usage of physical resources that are dedicated to development and test tasks.


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Integration
Virtual appliance patterns are needed when you want to deploy complex software architectures. For
example, a WebSphere Application Server deployment might require a Deployment Manager node,
several custom nodes, HTTP Server nodes, and one or more DB2 nodes. Each node can be implemented
as a single-virtual-machine appliance. Then, a solution architect uses a pattern editor to assemble a
collection of virtual appliances into a virtual appliance pattern. IBM Workload Deployer implements a fully
functional pattern editor that can use virtual appliances that are created with the IBM Image Construction
and Composition Tool.
The new, tighter integration between IBM Workload Deployer and IBM Image Construction and
Composition Tool takes place over a cloud provider connection that is defined in the tool interface. This
link allows images in the IBM Workload Deployer image catalog to be viewable from the tool.
Figure 5 illustrates a typical use case for virtual appliance patterns.

Figure 5. IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool and IBM Workload Deployer integration creating virtual appliance patterns
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.


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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.

Supported platforms
The IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool is shipped with IBM cloud offerings, such as IBM
SmartCloud Provisioning, IBM SmartCloud Entry, IBM SmartCloud Orchestrator, and IBM Workload
Deployer, but it is a separately installable tool. The way that you can obtain the installable image of the
tool depends on the cloud management product that you implement in your organization.
The IBM Installation Manager is used to install the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool.
Typically, the installable image contains both components. However, the Installation Manager is
platform-dependent. Therefore, to successfully install it, you need a version that supports the OS on
which you are installing the tool. Therefore, the installation process is split into the following parts:



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

IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool can be installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
64-bit and on AIX.

Ordering information
IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool is included in the cloud management solutions that are
listed in Table 1. Ordering information is shown in that table.
Table 1. Ordering part numbers and feature codes
Program name

PID number

IBM Workload Deployer
IBM Cloud Capacity Entitlement
(in PVU)
IBM Workload Deployer Image
for x86 Systems V1.0
IBM OS image for AIX Systems
V1.0:

7199 72X
9231 200
5725-D64
5725-F60

1000 PVUs (bundled with initial purchase)
Required for each PVU of hardware capacity
that is used to run a virtual application on X86
hardware
Required for each PVU of hardware capacity
that is used to run a virtual application on IBM
Power Systems hardware

IBM SmartCloud Entry for IBM
Flex System V3.x with 1 Year
S&S
IBM SmartCloud Entry for IBM
Flex System V3.x with 3 Year
S&S

5641-SC4
5641-SC6

Per Managed Chassis

IBM SmartCloud Provisioning
V2.1

5725-C88

IBM SmartCloud Orchestrator
5725-H28
V2.2 (only available through IBM
Passport Advantage)

Charge unit description

Resource Value Units (RVUs)


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Related information
For more information, see the following documents:


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.


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© Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2013. All rights reserved .
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GSA ADP Schedule Contract with IBM Corp.


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This document was created or updated on August 19, 2013.
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
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