This topic describes the distribution management feature.
Feature description
Service providers can authorize distributors to distribute the published services. After the distributors are authorized to distribute services, the distributors can directly distribute the services. The distributors can also create new services based on the authorized services and then distribute the new services. Distributors only distribute services and provide hosted O&M services. Service providers perform operations such as updates for service iteration.
After a service is distributed, the service can also be published as an Alibaba Cloud Marketplace product, and shares the name with the original service. The same service may have multiple URLs provided by different service providers in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace. Distributors only sell services to customers based on the URLs in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace. After orders are complete and the services are deployed, customers do not need to place the orders in Compute Nest.
Distribution process
Step 1: A service provider authorizes a distributor to distribute a service
You can authorize distributors as a service provider to distribute services by using one of the following methods: authorizing distributors to distribute services and approving distribution applications from distributors.
A service provider authorizes a distributor to distribute a service
Log on to the Compute Nest console.
In the left-side navigation pane, click My Services. On the Created Services tab of the My Services page, find the service that you want to authorize distributors to distribute and click the service name to go to the Service Details page.
NoteThe service that you want to authorize a distributor to distribute must be a published service.
On the Service Details page, click the Permissions tab.
On the Permissions tab, click Grant Permissions. In the Grant Permissions panel, select the distributors who you want to authorize to distribute the service and click Grant.
After the authorization is complete, you can wait until the distributor reviews the authorization or contact the distributor to review the authorization. After the review is complete, the distributor can distribute the service.
A distributor applies for the permissions to distribute a service
This section describes how to apply for the permissions to distribute a service as a distributor.
Log on to the Compute Nest console.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Distribution Management. On the Unauthorized Services tab, select the service on which you want to apply for the distribution permission and click Apply for Authorization.
In the message that appears, click OK.
After the service provider approves your application, you can view or modify the service on the Authorized Services tab.
Step 2: The distributor modifies the authorized service
After the service provider completes the authorization, the service of the latest version is displayed on the Distribution Management page in the Compute Nest console of the distributor. You can determine whether to modify the service and publish the service as a new service based on your business requirements before you distribute the service.
The service template defines information such as the service software of the service provider. Therefore, you cannot modify the content of the service template. You can only modify the cloud resources and O&M-related configurations of the service. For more information, see Create a fully managed service.
Step 3: The distributor publishes and performs O&M operations on the service
Publish the service
After the distributor modifies the service, the distributor submits the service for review, and publishes the service after the service passes the review. Then, the distributor can publish the service as an Alibaba Cloud Marketplace product and sell the product to customers. For more information, see Publish a service.
Perform O&M operations on the service
Operation | Description |
Update the service | If the service provider updates the service, the distributor receives a notification, which indicates that a new version of the service is available, on the Distribution Management page. The distributor can update the service to the new version provided by the service provider. |
Unpublish the service | The service provider and distributor can unpublish the service.
If the service is unpublished, the service instances that are deployed are not affected. |
Revoke permissions to distribute the service from the distributor | If the service provider revokes the permissions to distribute the service from the distributor, the distributor receives a review message. If the distributor agrees to revoke the permissions to distribute the service, the service that is distributed by the distributor is unpublished. If the service is published as an Alibaba Cloud Marketplace product and the service provider revokes the permissions to distribute the service from the distributor, the service provider and distributor need to communicate offline to unpublish or retain the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace product. |