Problem

There are many ISVs, SaaS/PaaS vendors providing value-added products and services on IaaS clouds. Unlike public cloud hosting providers such as Amazon and Rackspace, CloudStack is not deployed by a single entity. There are multiple deployments of CloudStack by service providers, enterprises and individuals. It becomes a challenge for ISVs, SaaS/PaaS vendors to make their products visible and easily consumable by various CloudStack-based clouds. It also becomes a challenge for anyone who deploys CloudStack to know whose products and services work with CloudStack and how to get a hold of them.

Proposal

This proposal is to introduce a new component called CloudStack Marketplace. It enables ISVs and SaaS/PaaS vendors to list their product and service offerings which can be viewed and easily consumed by any CloudStack deployments. The functionalities are broken down into two parts: version 1.0 (minimum viable product) and future enhancements.

Version 1.0

The goal is to release version 1.0 with the subsequent release of CloudStack following v4.0. Below are core components of version 1.0:

1. Source code for the Marketplace client. Marketplace client is installed along with CloudStack management server and provides the Marketplace UI to the admins and users. The Marketplace client points to various listing repositories specified by the admin.
2. Listing repositories contain product listings. An Apache listing repository contains listings contributed by the vendors to Apache CloudStack. Any third party can set up its own private or public listing repositories. 

Use Cases

Version 1.0 will support vendor products and services distributed in the forms of image templates, bootable ISOs, non-bootable ISOs, and SaaS/PaaS offerings.

Vendors Make Listing Contribution

The listing repository contains a config.js file and vendor product folders. The config.js file contains an index of the listings, which will be read by the Marketplace UI to build the Marketplace Homepage. The Listing folders contain metadata and supporting files for each product listing, which will be read by the Marketplace UI to build the Details page for each listing.

For image templates and ISOs, vendors can contribute a product listing following these steps:

1. Create a listing folder for its product in the listing repository.
2. Create a listing.js file and place it in the folder. The listing.js file includes metadata for the listing:
   1. Product name
   2. Vendor name
   3. A brief description
   4. Location of the graphics
   5. Metadata for associated templates and ISOs. Templates and ISO metadata should include location of where the actual image template and ISO data file. Multiple template and ISO metadata can be included in the same product listing to cover multiple hypervisor support and multiple product versions. 
   6. Tags (TBD)
3. (Optional) Place any supporting files such as graphics and image template/ISO data files into the listing folder. Note that these files can be located in other places. In the case of the Apache Listing Repository, image template/ISO data files should be located outside of the listing repository and hosted by the vendor itself or third party.
4. Add an entry to the config.js file for the listing.

For PaaS/SaaS, vendors can contribute a service listing following these steps:

1. Create a listing folder for its service in the listing repository.
2. Create a listing.js file and place it in the folder. The listing.js file includes metadata for the listing:
   1. Service name
   2. Vendor name
   3. A brief description
   4. Location of the graphics
   5. (Optional) Admin instruction. Admin instruction are steps that admin needs to follow in order to set up services for users. It can be left blank if no initial set up is required.
   6. "use service" action. Vendor needs to specify what happens when user clicks on the action button "use service". It can lead to a URL or scripts that can be invoked by the web browser. 
   7. Tags (TBD)
3. (Optional) Place any supporting files such as graphics and scripts into the listing folder. Note that these files can be located in other places. 
4. (Optional) Place plugin in the CloudStack source code repository plugin folder. If a plugin is required for the CloudStack, you can place it in the CloudStack plugin folder in the source code tree. Or you can store it externally and instruct admins how to download and install the plugin as part of the admin instruction.
5. Add an entry to the config.js file for the listing.

Admins Install and Configure CloudStack Marketplace

CloudStack Marketplace client is installed along with CloudStack management server. After installation, admins can see all listings in the listing repository specified. Admins can configure the following global settings for the Marketplace client:

• Marketplace Enabled – When Marketplace is enabled, both admins and users can access it. Default setting is "TRUE" (i.e. enabled). By default, image template and ISO listings are enabled (i.e. accessible) to users when Marketplace is enabled, and SaaS and PaaS listings are not. Each SaaS and PaaS listing needs to be "enabled" by admin manually.
• Location and property of listing repositories – Admin can specify location of the listing repository and its property. When a listing repository is specified and "property" is set to "enabled", both admins and users can access listings from the repository. When a listing repository is specified and "property" is set to "disabled", only admin can access listings from the repository. Multiple listing repositories are supported.

Admins and Users Access CloudStack Marketplace

There are two ways admins and users can access CloudStack Marketplace UI:

1. From the CloudStack UI after login, link to Marketplace is on the left or top navigation bar.
2. From the http://<cloudstack management server>/marketplace. When accessing marketplace from here, no login is required until admin/user wants to take action on a listing (for example, create an instance). Without login, the user view of the marketplace is shown.
3. From the Apache CloudStack website. Web pages will be generated automatically from the Apache Listing Repository. They can be hosted on a Apache CloudStack website, so that anyone can view vendors, products and services that work with CloudStack. Users will not be able to take any actions on the listings.

Use Image Templates and ISOs in CloudStack Marketplace

The following figure shows an example of how a product Detailed page looks like for image templates.

• Admin perspective - Admin will see an action button "Create Template". Admin can select an image template from the list and click "Create Template" button to create a template within CloudStack. Admin can set the  template to be "public", so that any subsequent user request to "create instance" from this image template in the Marketplace can leverage it. In addition, the public template will be accessible to all users in the CloudStack UI.
• User perspective - User will see an action button "Create Instance". If a template has already been created within CloudStack previously (by admin or this user) and is accessible, this user will be able to create an instance directly. If the template has not yet been created or is not accessible, this user will be asked to create a template before creating instance.

Bootable ISOs will be handled similarly. For non-bootable ISOs, instead of "create instance", user will be asked to "attach ISO" to an existing instance.

Use SaaS/PaaS in CloudStack Marketplace

The following figure shows an example of how a service Detailed page looks like.

• Admin perspective - Admin will see the admin instruction on how to set up the service. Admin will follow the instruction to set up the service. Admin will click on the the button "Enable Service" to make the listing visible to users.
• User perspective - User will not see admin instruction, and will see an action button "Use Service". What happens when "Use Service" is clicked is defined by the vendor.

Design Choices

Where to host Apache Listing Repository?

There have been some discussions on the cloudstack-dev mailing list on where to host the Apache Listing Repository a few months ago. Given that additional resources will be required to create a separate governance body for a community managed listing repository, hosting the Apache Listing Repository within CloudStack source code tree for v1.0 seems to be a more viable option. The following is an analysis of pros and cons for each option. This was presented at the CloudStack Collaboration Conference and feedback was that as long as the actual vendor software is not open source, and vendor can continue to update the image template off release cycle, option 1 (CloudStack source code tree) is fine.

What should be the name of this new component?

This has been discussed on the cloudstack-dev mailing list. There has not been overwhelming response to any of the names. "Marketplace" was proposed because it is well known and used by multiple commercial cloud providers, and this is different enough from "Template" in the left navigation so that no confusion will be caused. During the CloudStack Collaboration Conference, "Catalog" was brought up as a potential alternative because there is currently no plan to handle $ transaction by the marketplace feature. 

Future Enhancement

The following are potential future enhancements:

• A web portal for vendors to publish listings
• Workflow for cloud admins to choose which listings are enabled, and for which users
• User reviews and ratings
• Listing version and update notification
• Usage tracking

FAQ

This proposal was presented at the CloudStack Collaboration Conference. Presentation slides can be found at: http://www.slideshare.net/buildacloud/cloudstack-marketplace-v10. Here is a list of frequently asked questions from attendees at the presentation and the conference in general.

1. How does software licensing work for listings in Apache Listing Repository?  Software licensing is handled outside of the CloudStack Marketplace. If the software delivery formats are image templates or ISOs, the image files should be made available for download. Software licensing can be enforced by the vendor application itself once user launches the VM and application. This is similar to how traditional software licensing is handled today. For SaaS and PaaS, licensing will be handled by the vendor.
2. How do vendor specify pricing for its software?  Vendors can put pricing information in the listing description, which will be visible to both admins and users viewing the listing details.
3. If Apache Listing Repository is part of the CloudStack source code, does this mean vendors' software is open sourced (for vendors who contributed listing)?  No, only the listing itself is open sourced. Vendors' software is not automatically open sourced.
4. If Apache Listing Repository is part of the CloudStack source code, can the image templates and ISOs be updated off release cycle?  Yes. The listing will include location to the image templates and ISOs. The actual content of the image templates and ISOs can be updated off released cycle. When admins and users create an image template or ISO within CloudStack after the update, they will get the new image files.
5. How does CloudStack Marketplace work with UI plugins?  When the UI plugin framework becomes available, vendors have two options to provide CloudStack UI plugins. Option 1 is to place it in the CloudStack source code tree plugins folder. Option 2 is to place it externally and provide a link in the Marketplace listing to instruct the admin to download the plugin and configure it. UI plugin can be installed and configured independent of the CloudStack Marketplace.
6. How does admin track usage of a listing?  v1.0 of the CloudStack Marketplace will not provide built-in usage tracking. Admin can list VM by template or ISO ID to track usages for each template and ISO. Admin can also use web stats tools to track the views and clicks on each listing.
7. Can we align the listing file format with other open source cloud marketplace?  The marketplace feature is implemented (or plan to be implemented) a little differently by each open source cloud community. We will align as much as we can. In addition, we will enable tags to the listing to make it easier for other marketplace to consume our listings.