CloudBox is an extension of Alibaba Cloud public cloud in data centers. CloudBox consists of computing resources, storage resources, and networking resources. CloudBox inherits the basic capabilities and a marketplace with abundant ecological applications from Alibaba Cloud public cloud. You can use Alibaba Cloud services to manage resources in CloudBox. This topic describes the Alibaba Cloud services supported by CloudBox.
Alibaba Cloud services deployed with CloudBox hardware
After you purchase a cloud box, Alibaba Cloud deploys infrastructure such as computing, storage, and networking resources to your data center. The following table describes the supported Alibaba Cloud services.
| Category | Alibaba Cloud service | Description | References |
|---|---|---|---|
| Computing resource | ECS | Elastic Compute Service (ECS) is an easy-to-use, efficient, and scalable computing service provided by Alibaba Cloud. CloudBox provides the vCPU and memory resources for the servers in the form of compute stock keeping unit (SKU). The following ECS instance families are supported:
| Compute SKU specifications |
| Storage resources | EBS | Elastic Block Storage (EBS) is a high-performance, low-latency block storage service. EBS supports random read and write operations and meets the data storage requirements in most scenarios. The following two types of EBS devices are supported:
| EBS resources |
| OSS | Object Storage Service (OSS) is a secure, cost-effective, and highly reliable cloud storage service. OSS allows you to store a large amount of data in the cloud. OSS deployed together with CloudBox hardware allows you to store, access, and process unstructured data in the on-premises data center. You can also create buckets in CloudBox. | OSS resources | |
| Network | VPC | Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) allows you to build a custom, private network on Alibaba Cloud. Layer 2 logical isolation between VPCs is ensured. | Networking of cloud boxes |
| CLB | Classic Load Balancer (CLB) distributes inbound network traffic across multiple ECS instances that serve as backend servers based on forwarding rules. CLB helps improve the performance and availability of your applications. | What is CLB? |
The infrastructure of cloud services deployed in CloudBox
| Category | Alibaba Cloud service | Description | References |
|---|---|---|---|
| Container | Container Service for Kubernetes(ACK Pro) | Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) Pro clusters are developed based on ACK standard clusters. ACK Pro clusters are covered by the service level agreement (SLA) that supports compensation clauses. This type of cluster is suitable for enterprise users that require higher stability and security for large-scale production environments. You can create a CloudBox node pool in a Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) cluster to use the resources that are deployed in the CloudBox. | Use CloudBox resources in an ACK cluster |
Alibaba Cloud services reused by CloudBox
CloudBox completely reuses the management and service nodes of Alibaba Cloud public cloud. You can use cloud services of Alibaba Cloud public cloud to manage resources in CloudBox. For example, you can use Security Center to protect ECS instances and use Resource Orchestration Service (ROS) to implement automated deployment of ECS instances. The following table describes the common Alibaba Cloud public cloud services that are reused by CloudBox.
| Category | Alibaba Cloud service | Description | References |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network | Express Connect | Express Connect helps you establish a fast, stable, secure, and private connection between your data center and a VPC. Express Connect circuits ensure secure data transmission, prevent network jitters, and reduce the potential for data breaches. | What is Express Connect? |
| SAG | Smart Access Gateway (SAG) is a one-stop solution for connecting private networks to Alibaba Cloud. SAG allows enterprises to connect to the nearest devices of VPCs by using encrypted connections over the Internet. SAG provides more intelligent, reliable, and secure connections for cloud deployment. | What is SAG? | |
| Security | Security Center | Security Center is a centralized security management system that identifies, analyzes, and sends real-time alerts about security threats. Security Center provides multiple features to ensure the security of cloud resources and servers in data centers. The features include anti-ransomware, antivirus, web tamper proofing, and compliance check. You can use Security Center to automate security operations, responses, and threat tracing, and better meet regulatory compliance requirements. | What is Security Center? |
| Bastionhost | Bastionhost is a comprehensive O&M management platform that integrates core system O&M and security audit. It provides multiple features such as O&M identity authentication, account management, and operation audit to help you ensure that cloud O&M permissions are controlled and operations are audited in a secure and compliant manner. | What is Bastionhost? | |
| O&M | ARMS | Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS) is an application performance management (APM) service that is provided by Alibaba Cloud. ARMS allows you to build application monitoring capabilities that feature response time within seconds for enterprises from custom dimensions such as the browser, application, and business. | What is ARMS? |
| Middleware | EDAS | Enterprise Distributed Application Service (EDAS) is a platform as a service (PaaS) that is used to host applications and manage microservices. EDAS provides full-stack solutions to develop, deploy, monitor, and maintain applications. EDAS supports hybrid cloud ECS clusters. You can use CloudBox and Alibaba Cloud public cloud ECS instances to build EDAS hybrid cloud ECS clusters. This helps meet the data security, local data processing, and low latency requirements of business applications in hybrid cloud scenarios. You can manage different ECS instances and applications in hybrid cloud environments in a centralized manner. | What is EDAS? |
| Tool | ROS | ROS is an Alibaba Cloud service that can help you manage cloud computing resources in a simplified manner. You can compile stack templates to describe cloud computing resources such as ECS and ApsaraDB RDS instances, as well as the dependencies between resources in the templates. The ROS engine automatically creates and configures all resources in a stack based on a template, which enables automatic deployment and O&M. | What is ROS? |
| OOS | Operation Orchestration Service (OOS) is an automated O&M service provided by Alibaba Cloud to help you manage and execute O&M tasks. You can create templates to define execution tasks, the execution sequence of the tasks, input parameters, and output parameters, and use the templates to automatically execute O&M tasks. OOS can be used to manage diverse Alibaba Cloud services, such as ECS, ApsaraDB RDS, Server Load Balancer (SLB), and VPC. | Introduction to OOS | |
| SMC | Server Migration Center (SMC) is a server migration platform developed by Alibaba Cloud. SMC allows you to migrate one or more source servers to Alibaba Cloud. Source servers can be servers in data centers, VMs, cloud hosts on other cloud platforms, and servers of other types. | What is SMC? | |
| Auto Scaling | Auto Scaling is an Alibaba Cloud service that can automatically adjust the computing power based on the business requirements and policies. You can use Auto Scaling to add ECS instances to your scaling group during peak hours to ensure sufficient computing power and remove ECS instances from your scaling group during off-peak hours to minimize resource costs. | What is Auto Scaling? | |
| Cloud Assistant | Cloud Assistant is a cloud-native automated O&M tool developed for ECS. Cloud Assistant allows you to batch maintain ECS instances and batch run commands on and send files to ECS instances in a password-free, logon-free manner without the use of jump servers. These commands can consist of shell, PowerShell, or batch scripts. In most cases, you can use Cloud Assistant to install and uninstall software, distribute configuration files, and run common commands or scripts. | Overview | |
| Deployment set | A deployment set is a policy that controls the distribution of ECS instances. You can use a deployment set to distribute your instances across different physical servers to ensure service availability and implement disaster recovery. | Overview |