CloudBox is an extension of Alibaba Cloud public cloud in data centers. A cloud box consists of various resources such as computing resources, storage resources, and network 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 that work with CloudBox.
Alibaba Cloud services deployed with the hardware devices of cloud boxes
After you purchase a cloud box, Alibaba Cloud deploys infrastructure such as computing resources, storage resources, and network resources to your data center. The following table describes the supported Alibaba Cloud services.
Category | Alibaba Cloud service | Description | References |
Computing resources | Elastic Compute Service (ECS) | ECS is an easy-to-use, efficient, and scalable computing service provided by Alibaba Cloud. CloudBox provides vCPUs and memory resources for servers in the form of compute stock keeping units (SKUs). The following ECS instance families are supported:
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Storage resources | Elastic Block Storage (EBS) | 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. CloudBox supports PL0 enhanced SSDs (ESSDs). | |
Object Storage Service (OSS) | OSS is a secure, cost-effective, and highly reliable cloud storage service. OSS allows you to store large amounts of data in the cloud. OSS resources deployed together with the hardware resources of a cloud box allow you to store, access, and process unstructured data in your data center. You can also create buckets in your cloud box. | ||
Network resources | Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) | VPC allows you to build a custom and private network on Alibaba Cloud. Layer 2 logical isolation between VPCs is ensured. | |
Server Load Balancer (SLB) | SLB distributes inbound network traffic across multiple ECS instances that serve as backend servers based on forwarding rules. SLB provides the following types of services: Application Load Balancer (ALB), Network Load Balancer (NLB) and Classic Load Balancer (CLB). CloudBox supports only CLB. |
Alibaba Cloud services whose infrastructures are deployed in cloud boxes
CloudBox provides basic computing and storage resources. You can use CloudBox to deploy PaaS services that are provided by Alibaba Cloud, such as container services. The following table describes the supported Alibaba Cloud services.
Category | Alibaba Cloud service | Description | References |
Container services | Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) | ACK Pro clusters are developed based on ACK Basic 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 who require higher stability and security for large-scale workloads. You can create a CloudBox node pool in an ACK cluster to use the resources in a deployed cloud box. |
Alibaba Cloud services reused by cloud boxes
CloudBox completely reuses the management and service nodes of Alibaba Cloud public cloud. You can use Alibaba Cloud public cloud services 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 cloud boxes.
Category | Alibaba Cloud service | Description | References |
Networking | 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. | |
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 threat detection, alerting, response, and threat tracing, and better meet regulatory compliance requirements. | |
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 ensure that cloud O&M permissions are controlled and operations are audited in a secure and compliant manner. | ||
O&M | Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS) | ARMS is an application performance management (APM) service provided by Alibaba Cloud. ARMS allows you to build application monitoring capabilities that can respond within seconds for enterprises from custom dimensions such as the browser, application, and business. | |
CloudMonitor | CloudMonitor is a service that monitors Alibaba Cloud resources and Internet applications. CloudMonitor collects the metrics of Alibaba Cloud resources. You can use CloudMonitor to monitor the availability of your network and configure alert rules for specific metrics. | ||
Middleware | Enterprise Distributed Application Service (EDAS) | EDAS is a 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. | |
Tools | Resource Orchestration Service (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 instances 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. | |
CloudOps Orchestration Service (OOS) | 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, SLB, and VPC. | ||
Server Migration Center (SMC) | 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. | ||
Auto Scaling | Auto Scaling is an Alibaba Cloud service that can automatically adjust the computing power based on your 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. | ||
Cloud Assistant | Cloud Assistant is a cloud-native automated O&M tool developed for ECS. Cloud Assistant allows you to perform operations on multiple ECS instances at a time in a password-free and logon-free manner without the use of jump servers. For example, you can maintain ECS instances, run commands on ECS instances, and send files to ECS instances. 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. | ||
Deployment set | A deployment set is a policy that controls the distribution of ECS instances. You can use a deployment set to distribute your ECS instances across different physical servers to ensure service availability and implement disaster recovery. |