Ensim Product Architecture

1
Ensim Product Architecture

• S. Keshav
• 7/18/02

2
Why, Who, When, What

• Why?
• Need to retrofit resellers into existing product
  line
• Who?
• Team of seven engineers one from each product
  group
• Amit, Paul, Snorri, Chris, Prasad, Girish, Keshav
• When?
• Started in 3rd week of May
• 1.4 version of architecture document ready 6/19
• API documents ready in the coming weeks
• What?
• Rest of presentation

3
Desired architecture features

• Multi-tier delegated administration (reseller)
  support across the product line
• When a reseller or a resellers customer accesses
  the system, its privileges have to be restricted
• Brandable (private-label) control panels at all
  levels
• When a reseller or a resellers customer accesses
  the system, its GUIs have to be rebranded
• Ease of integration using industry-standard
  protocols
• Front end and back end independently scaleable
• Centralized usage, troubleshooting and alert
  management
• Ability to quickly add new SME services
• Ability to manage external ASP services and
  bundle with hosted services
• Single GUI framework
• None of these can be accomplished with the
  current architecture!

4
Todays architecture
Proprietary API
CLI/XML-RPC
Making apps hostable
BSS
End user control panel
Provisioning and management(OSS)
OXC control panel
Site admin control panel
Control panel
Service provisioning, usage, status agents
CBM
OxC
Service configuration
Control panel
Control panel
Application virtualization
DM
RAS
Application
Application
SxC
Other OSS BSS
OS
OS
Server
Server
Control panel
This architecture is common to both WP and
offerings
Ensim value add
5
Proposed non-standalone architecture
All APIs are Ensim Proprietary
SOAP/CLI API
SOAP
SOAP
Provisioning and management(OSS)
Module
Making apps hostable
BSS
End user/admin Control panelserver
Non-Ensim Hosted Service
Exports multi-level APIs from WP/services
Non-Ensim BSS
Provisioning, usage, status agents
Site Admin Control panelserver
OxC
Configuration mgmt.
SxC
Telco Control panelserver
Virtualization
CBM
Non-Ensim Control panels
Reseller Control panelserver
Application
Application
OS
OS
Non-Ensim Control panels
Log manager
Permissions/Quotas (AAA) Manager
DB connector
Permissions/Quotas (AAA) Manager
Server
Server
IP addr. manager
Account, Usage, and Ops Databases
Directory server
6
What changed?

• Entire infrastructure virtualized to deal with
  resellers
• every backend call is associated with a reseller
  ID
• Permissions Manager authenticates and checks
  permissions
• creates/manages/upgrades resellers
• External APIs are all SOAP
• Move CP back ends out of platform only access is
  through XML/SOAP (headless platform)
• Single DB and directory with local caches
• Merge DM and OxC
• Treat offerings and Webppliances similarly
• Rearchitecture for standalone products

7
Proposed standalone architecture
Making apps hostable
OxC
End user Control panel
Provisioning, usage, status agents
Mini-CBM (plan defn.)
Site admin user Control panel
Configuration mgmt.
Reseller Control panel
Virtualization
Appliance admin Control panel
Non-Ensim Control panels
Permissions Manager
Log manager
Applications
Account, Usage, and Ops Database
IP addr. manager
OS
Server
8
A little more detail
9
Roles are used as containers that map to
permissions. Any user, identified by a UID, can
be added to any role and thus inherits the
permissions associated with that role. A role
automatically has permissions granted to all
sub-roles unless this permission is explicitly
revoked.
Roles
Example
ISP
ISP
Reseller
Reseller allowed to sell up to 10 servers for
linux shared site hosting
Reseller
Reseller allowed to sell 1server for linux shared
site hosting
Reseller
Reseller allowed to sell 100 shared sites

Admin
User
Reseller
Admin
User
10
Platform
creates
creates
Server factory
creates
IP address factory
Server
creates
creates
IP address
creates
Private server factory
Module
hosts
creates
creates
Private server
set of
hosts
set of
Service-component
Service factory
creates
Service
creates
Virtual Service factory
set of
creates
Virtual service
Virtual service component
creates
Virtual Service user factory
Virtual service user
Virtual service component user
creates
set of
11
Permissions manager manages the permissions
granted to a role to carry out some actions on a
set of object instances that correspond to
architectural elements. Each permission is
expressed as an access control list of the form
ACL(role, objectID, action, permit/deny)
Roles
Platform object
Private server factory object
ISP
Object instances
Linux Web Site Hosting Module object
Private server object
Private server object
Webppliance service object
Reseller allowed to sell up to 10 WPs
Apache service component object (one per server)
Reseller allowed to sell 1 WP
Reseller allowed to sell 100 domains
Apache virtual domain factory object (one per
reseller)
Apache service object (one per server)
Apache virtual domain object (one per site)
Admin
User
Apache virtual domain object (one per site)
Apache RPM object (one per server)
Apache management plugin for service manager and
server and app manager object (one per service
object)
Apache virtual domain user object (one per user)
Apache virtual domain user object (one per user)
12
SDP 4.0 Architecture
All APIs are Ensim Proprietary
SOAP/CLI API
XML
XML
Provisioning and management(OSS)
Module
BSS
Non-Ensim Hosted Service
Exports multi-level APIs from WP/services
Non-Ensim BSS
End user/admin Control panel
Site Admin Control panel
OxC-SS
OxC-SI
Provisioning, usage, status agents
SxC
Configuration mgmt.
Telco Control panelserver
Virtualization
CBM
Non-Ensim Control panels
Reseller Control panelserver
Application
Application
OS
OS
Non-Ensim Control panels
Log manager
Permissions/Quotas (AAA) Manager
DB connector
Permissions/Quotas (AAA) Manager
Server
Server
IP addr. manager
Account, Usage, and Ops Databases
Directory server
13
Platform
creates
creates
Server factory
creates
IP address factory
Server
creates
creates
IP address
creates
Private server factory
Module
hosts
creates
creates
Private server
set of
hosts
set of
Service-component
Service factory
creates
Service
Objects managed by permission manager in 4.0
creates
Objects managed on server/ appliance
Virtual Service factory
set of
creates
Virtual service
Virtual service component
Hardcoded or ignored
creates
Virtual Service user factory
Virtual service user
Virtual service component user
creates
set of