Inventory Guide

Orca uses Cluster on Demand (COD) as a backend resource manager. Since COD is designed as an extension of the Shirako leasing core, Orca can support a ranger of resource managers, if needed. This guide focuses on inventory management as defined by COD. Please refer to this page for definitions of some of the terms used in this guide.

Ownership model

In the current COD model, the data center owns all inventory. Inventory is described in a central database, which is managed by the center administrator. The center administrator is responsible for creating one or more sites and transferring inventory to each site. Inventory can be transfered from the center to a site and vice versa. New inventory items can only be registered by the center administrator. Once an inventory item is added to the center database, it can be transferred to a site.

Inventory Types

COD supports a range of inventory types. This page lists all inventory types supported by the system. This page also provides detailed information about the steps to configure and register each inventory type. Here we summarize the configuration and registration process.

The steps required to start managing an inventory item are:

  • Install the inventory item
  • Determine what host will be responsible for the management of the inventory item. This can be either:
    • The item itself

      This option is suitable for inventory items that allow the installation of custom software on them, e.g., a virtual machine monitor.

    • A separate configuration server

      This options is suitable for inventory items that do not allow the installation of custom software on them, e.g., a NetApp filer.

  • Once the management host is determined, an instance of the Node Agent service must be installed on the management host. Sometimes the management host requires additional permissions to access the managed inventory item, e.g., NetApp filers use host-based authentication, which requires that the filer be configured with the address of the management host.

    You can find more information about installing the Node Agent service here

  • After the Node Agent service is installed, the center admin must establish control of the service. More information about this authentication/authorization step can be found here
  • Once the center admin can security connect to the Node Agent service, any required drivers must be installed .
  • Finally, a record in the center database about the inventory item must be added. This page contains detailed information about this step.

Configuration Tools

The Orca Configuraton Tools can be used to perform some of the tasks described in the previous section.