Deploying BOSH and Ops Manager

This topic explains how you can deploy BOSH and VMware Tanzu Operations Manager.

BOSH and Tanzu Operations Manager provide the foundation for VMware Tanzu Application Service for VMs (TAS for VMs) and its associated products. When you install TAS for VMs, you install the following components first.

• 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 let TAS for VMs run on multiple IaaSes.
  • See Deploying Software with BOSH for a mini overview of how you use BOSH to run software in the cloud.

• Tanzu Operations Manager is a GUI application that streamlines deploying subsequent software to the cloud via BOSH. Tanzu Operations Manager features are also accessible by API endpoints. For more information, see Using the Tanzu Operations Manager API.

  • For routine tasks, you can use the Tanzu Operations Manager interface instead of the BOSH command-line interface (CLI), Tanzu Operations Manager API, or BOSH API.
  • Tanzu Operations Manager represents products as tiles with multiple configuration panes that let you input or select configuration values needed for the product.
  • Tanzu Operations Manager generates BOSH manifests containing the user-supplied configuration values, and sends them to the Director.
  • After you install Tanzu Operations Manager and BOSH, you use Tanzu Operations Manager to deploy almost all products.

• Deploying Tanzu Operations Manager deploys both BOSH and Tanzu Operations Manager with a single procedure.

  • You deploy BOSH and Tanzu Operations Manager by logging into your IaaS and allocating the network addresses, VMs, user accounts, and other resources needed to support TAS for VMs and other products.

For all of the above, the specifics depend on the IaaS on which you are deploying Tanzu Operations Manager. The contents of this documentation are organized by IaaS.

IaaS-specific deployment guidelines

For information on deploying Tanzu Operations Manager to your IaaS, choose one of the following:

• Deploying to AWS: Installing Tanzu Operations Manager on AWS

• Deploying to GCP: Installing Tanzu Operations Manager on GCP

• Deploying to OpenStack: Installing Tanzu Operations Manager on OpenStack

• Deploying to vSphere: Installing Tanzu Operations Manager on vSphere

Deploying software with BOSH

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

1. You create one or more BOSH releases, a directory that contains your software and anything that it depends on or needs to run on generic, empty VMs. For more information about using multiple BOSH releases, see Including Multiple BOSH Releases in A Deployment.

2. You create a manifest .yml file that identifies the component processes in the BOSH release, specifies the VMs they run on, how they communicate, how to start them up and shut them down, and any other configuration specifics that they need.

3. Using the BOSH command-line interface (CLI) or API, you upload the BOSH release and send the manifest to the Director, BOSH’s executive process.

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

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

Including multiple BOSH releases in a deployment

You can include additional features in the BOSH Director through targeted customization of the manifest.yml. The only software you can include in the BOSH Director is additional BOSH releases. All additional releases must be available at an HTTP address that Tanzu Operations Manager can reach. You cannot host or store additional BOSH releases on Tanzu Operations Manager or the BOSH Director.

To include custom BOSH releases in the BOSH Director, create as many BOSH releases as you need and use the Tanzu Operations Manager API to the location and necessary configuration properties each release.

For more information, see [Adding a job to the Director](https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Tanzu-Operations-Manager/2.10/vmware-tanzu-ops-manager/install-ops-man-api.html in the Tanzu Operations Manager API documentation.

Caution Customizing the Director manifest incorrectly can cause deployment downtime or failure. Tanzu Operations Manager does not perform any validations on software introduced to a deployment through manifest customizations. This feature is for advanced Tanzu Operations Manager operators only.

For more information about writing the manifest.yml file, see the BOSH documentation.