Installation Overview

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This topic provides an overview of how to install and configure Pivotal Platform.

Pivotal Platform Installation Sequence

Pivotal Platform is a suite of products that runs on multiple IaaSes. Planning and installing Pivotal Platform means building layers from the bottom up, starting with the details of your IaaS and ending with “Day 2” configurations that you perform on a installed and running Pivotal Platform deployment.

The typical Pivotal Platform planning and installation process is:

  1. Plan

    • Review the requirements for your IaaS:
    • See the Reference Architecture for your IaaS.
    • Assess your platform needs, including capacity, availability, container support, host OS, resource isolation, and geographical distribution. Discuss with your Pivotal contact.

  2. Deploy BOSH and Ops Manager

    • BOSH is an open-source tool that lets you run software systems in the cloud.
      • BOSH and its IaaS-specific Cloud Provider Interfaces (CPIs) are what enable Pivotal Platform to run on multiple IaaSes.
      • See Deploying with BOSH for a description of how BOSH deploys cloud software.
    • Ops Manager is a graphical dashboard that deploys with BOSH. Ops Manager works with the BOSH Director to manage, configure, and upgrade Pivotal Platform products such as Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Enterprise Pivotal Container Service (Enterprise PKS), and Pivotal Platform services and partner products.
      • Ops Manager represents Pivotal Platform products as tiles with multiple configuration panes that let you input or select configuration values needed for the product.
      • Ops Manager generates BOSH manifests containing the user-supplied configuration values, and sends them to the BOSH Director.
      • After you install Ops Manager and BOSH, you use Ops Manager to deploy almost all Pivotal Platform products.
    • Deploying Ops Manager deploys both BOSH and Ops Manager with a single procedure.
      • On AWS, you can deploy Ops Manager manually, or automatically with a Terraform template.
      • On Azure, you can deploy Ops Manager manually, or automatically with a Terraform template. On Azure Government Cloud and Azure Germany, you can only deploy Ops Manager manually.

  3. Deploy BOSH Add-ons (Optional)

    • BOSH add-ons include the IPsec, ClamAV, and File Integrity Monitoring, which enhance Pivotal Platform platform security and security logging.
    • You deploy these add-ons via BOSH rather than installing them with Ops Manager tiles.

  4. Install Runtimes

    • Pivotal Application Service (PAS) lets developers develop and manage cloud-native apps and software services.
      • PAS is based on the Cloud Foundry Foundation’s open-source Application Runtime (formerly Elastic Runtime) project.
    • Enterprise Pivotal Container Service (Enterprise PKS) uses BOSH to run and manage Kubernetes container clusters.
      • Enterprise PKS is based on the Cloud Foundry Foundation’s open-source Container Runtime (formerly Kubo) project.
    • Pivotal Isolation Segment lets a single PAS deployment run apps from separate, isolated pools of computing, routing, and logging resources.
      • Operators replicate and configure an Pivotal Isolation Segment tile for each new resource pool they want to create.
      • You must install PAS before you can install Pivotal Isolation Segment.
    • Pivotal Application Service for Windows (PASW) enables PAS to manage Windows Server 2016 (1709) stemcells hosting .NET apps, and can also be replicated to create multiple isolated resource pools.
      • Operators replicate and configure a PASW tile for each new resource pool they want to create.
      • You must install PAS before you can install PASW.
    • Small Footprint PAS is an alternative to PAS that uses far fewer VMs than PAS but has limitations.

  5. Day 2 Configurations

    • Day 2 configurations set up internal operations and external integrations on a running Pivotal Platform platform.
      • Examples include front end configuration, user accounts, logging and monitoring, internal security, and container and stemcell images.

  6. Install Services

    • Install software services for Pivotal Platform developers to use in their apps.
      • Services include the databases, caches, and message brokers that stateless cloud apps rely on to save information.
      • Installing and managing software services on Pivotal Platform is an ongoing process, and is covered in the Pivotal Platform Operator Guide.

Deploying with BOSH

The following describes how you can use BOSH to run software in the cloud:

  1. To use BOSH, you create a manifest .yml file that specifies your software system’s component processes, the VMs they run on, how they communicate, and anything else they need.

  2. The BOSH command-line interface (CLI) or API sends the manifest to the BOSH Director, BOSH’s executive process.

  3. The BOSH Director provisions what it needs from the IaaS, deploys your software to run in the cloud, and heals automatically when VMs go down.

  4. BOSH CLI and API commands let you control BOSH-managed processes and allocate or release IaaS resources.

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Monitoring, Logging, and Troubleshooting