Cloud Structure Generator (CSG)

Overview

Typically, cloud resources do not ‘know’ their context, for example the IT business service for which they are used. In addition to the nomenclature of the cloud providers, this often makes it difficult to maintain the ‘connection’ and manage the cloud resources to the necessary extent. This is where the Cloud Structure Generator comes in and helps to keep the connection between the cloud resources and the IT business services up to date.

The Cloud Structure Generator ensures that cloud resources can be identified at any time in the context of an IT Business Service. The service structures that are managed in the service portfolio can be explicitly released for control via the Cloud Structure Generator.

An assignment structure (tagging) is created for the IT Business Services managed in this way for the software-based provision of resources in the cloud. Each cloud resource managed in this way automatically receives assignment information (tags) for the business services and is ‘personalised’ with service information (service ID, service owner, etc.). Other service-based information such as cost centres, operating environments and resource managers can also be added as tags for the resource.

The new cloud deployment function enables end-to-end service-orientated control of cloud resources. The existing processes, including existing CI / CD pipelines, can be used for this. With the help of process automation in USU Service Management, the described processes can be highly automated and the provision or modification of resources in the cloud is possible at the ‘push of a button’. The Cloud Deployment Manager ensures that the desired cloud resources and their configurations described in the Terraform modules are always implemented in the cloud for a service.