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Documentation Enhancements

This section describes enhancements to the CA AppLogic documentation.

Note: This topic only describes general enhancements to the documentation. For details about the technical changes to the documentation, see the Documentation Changes.

User Role / Access Level Diagram

We added a new diagram that shows how User Roles relate to RBAC access levels and the typical interfaces they use.

Links to Videos on YouTube

We posted many videos on YouTube and organized them into playlists.

Appliance Developer Guide Restructure

The restructure of the Appliance Developer Guide lets you easily locate information about creating, configuring, and finalizing appliances. You can create appliances by branching an appliance with similar functionality, branching a generic appliance, importing from VMware, installing an operating system, or creating an assembly.

How-To Articles

We added How-To articles to better explain how to do specific tasks. These How-To articles include a graphic, multiple procedures, and examples.

We added the following How-To articles since the last release:

Installing the BFC
How to Validate Your Hardware with a Bootable USB Drive

This scenario describes how a Backbone Administrator validates that the BFC hardware meets the minimum requirements as a Xen node for the CA AppLogic grid. The CA AppLogic Hardware Validation Tool lets you use a USB drive to complete the validation. This drive simulates the same discovery process that the BFC uses when you inventory a new server.

How to Install the BFC on an Existing CentOS System

This scenario describes how a Backbone Administrator installs the Backbone Fabric Controller on an existing CentOS system. This process enables you to run the installation in an environment you already configured with the CentOS operating system. If you do not have CentOS installed, or do not want to install CentOS as a separate step, refer to the scenario for installing CentOS and the BFC from ISO images.

How to Use the Bare Metal Installer to Install CentOS and the BFC from ISO Images

This scenario describes how a Backbone Administrator can install the Backbone Fabric Controller in a bare metal environment. This feature improves installation efficiency and accuracy by distributing the CentOS operating system and the BFC installer together. You download two ISO install images from the CA download site to install both from the bare metal (from the minimum BFC system requirements).

How to Create a BFC Install Image Using the Bare Metal ISO Tool and Install the BFC

This scenario describes how a Backbone Administrator can install the Backbone Fabric Controller in a bare metal environment from a single ISO image. You use the Bare Metal ISO tool to create the single ISO install image which you then use to install CentOS and the BFC. Configuration options include setting up the image for an attended or unattended installation. Use these installation features if you want to work with a portable, single ISO install image, customized to your needs.

Using the BFC
How to Retrieve Information about the BFC

This scenario describes how a Backbone Administrator retrieves information about the BFC environment before they make changes to the BFC environment.

How to Configure Networks with the BFC API

This scenario describes how a Backbone Administrator configures networks with the BFC API instead of using the BFC GUI, so that they can create grids.

Managing Grids
How to Create a Grid

This scenario describes how a Backbone Administrator sets up a grid on the BFC. You use the New Grid Wizard, and then you add users and configure group privileges to the grid.

How to Configure a Grid

This scenario describes how a Backbone Administrator configures a grid after installation, such as setting up email notifications, automatic volume repair, and grid authentication.

How to Maintain a Grid

This scenario describes how a Backbone Administrator performs administrative tasks and advanced operations on a grid, such as checking the network health and reviewing grid failures.

How to Enable High Availability on Networks with Tagged VLANs

This scenario describes how a Backbone Administrator enables High Availability (HA) on a grid with VLAN tagging. You review the backbone network and infrastructure configuration requirements, configure a basic, working grid, set up the switches, ports, and VLAN tagging, and enable network HA.

How to Copy Data to the Grid

This scenario describes how an Operator copies data to the same grid as a backup, including appliance classes, catalogs, and applications.

How to Migrate Data to Another Grid

This scenario describes how an Operator migrates data to another grid, including appliance classes, catalogs, and applications.

How to Add Hardware Resources to a Grid

This scenario describes how a Backbone Administrator adds hardware resources to an existing grid to, increase storage capacity, increase memory space, and add more IPs to the existing grid.

How to Use Quotas

This scenario provides a practical example of how an Operator uses quotas to limit the system resource allocation in CA AppLogic.

Managing Applications
How to Provision an Application

In this scenario, you use the provisioning wizard to create an instance from the SugarCRM template application.

How to Migrate an Application

This scenario describes how an operator migrates applications to or from a remote grid.

How to Install and Configure Metering Gateway Application

This scenario describes how an Operator can install and configure the metering gateway application.

How to Install or Upgrade an Appliance or Application using Cloud Commons

This scenario describes how an Application Developer uses Cloud Commons to download and install newer versions of appliances.

Creating Appliances
How to Create an Appliance by Branching a Generic Appliance

This scenario describes how a Developer creates an appliance by branching a generic appliance.

How to Create an Appliance by Branching an Appliance with Similar Functionality

This scenario describes how a Developer creates an appliance by branching an appliance with similar functionality. The similar appliance could be located in the catalog or downloaded from Cloud Commons.

How to Create an Appliance by Importing an OVF Image

This scenario describes how a Developer creates an appliance by importing a Linux or Windows OVF image.

BFC API Reference Guide Restructure

The restructure of the BFC API Reference Guide lets you easily locate detailed API information about the configuration and management of networks, the discovery process, and power control of servers.

Linux Distro Installation Procedures

We added procedures for how to install and configure Linux distros for 26 varieties of Linux, including multiple versions of Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, and SUSE.

Marketplace Catalog Reference Guide

We added a guide that describes the appliances and catalogs that are now distributed on the Cloud Commons Marketplace. This guide complements our other catalog reference guides.