Bitnami has been around for long time but in 2019 was acquired by VMware as part of their cloud and containers strategy. This was announced on the company website https://www.vmware.com/latam/company/acquisitions/bitnami.html
The interesting part is before VMware bought the Bitnami it was possible to deploy applications only on public clouds: Google, AWS and Azure and the downloading the OVA files was the only option to get these templates into other hypervisors
Time ago a had the initiative to make Bitnami and Turnkey linux applications available in vCloud Director using this steps https://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2015/06/creating-your-own-3rd-party-content-library-for-vsphere-6-0-vcloud-director-5-x.html
With Bitnami being part of VMware catalogs in vCloud Director can be sync directly from VMware Cloud for free.
Now down to the work of configuring a Bitnami catalog for vCloud Director
Configuration steps
- Browse https://marketplace.cloud.vmware.com/ and click sign in on top right corner
- Enter your user and password or create your account
- Once you long in you need to create your organisation for your services.
- You can ‘request access’ to a service and will ask you to create the organisation before you can access selected service.
In my previous demo I selected ‘Skyline Collector’ as 1st service to use and create the organisation
- After the organisation is created and service access is configured you can add more services. Now I selected VMware Cloud Marketplace
Follow the edit roles link to configure your user with Marketplace role
- Browse the catalog and filter applications for VCD
- Select templates you want to subscribe then click subscribe
- Configure your subscription and platform access to get the catalog created in vCloud Director with selected templates
Catalog Name selected should not be from an existing catalog in VCD. New catalog will be created with selected name
Accept EULA and complete subscription
Check subscription tab to validate your configuration
Check vCloud Director
Once subscription is completed credentials you provided will be used to connect to your vCloud Director Org, create the catalog and subscribe to created catalog in the marketplace
From catalog properties you can notice content is on AWS S3 bucket
You can find VMware documentation on this topic here
Frequently Asked Questions
Published by VMware on this document. Follow the link for more details
Q.What is Bitnami Community Catalog?
A. Bitnami Community Catalog is a service that enables Managed Service Providers (MSPs) in the VMware Cloud Provider Program (VCPP) to offer validated open-source applications to their tenants at scale and with ease.
Bitnami is a leader in application packaging solutions providing the largest catalog of click-to-deploy applications and development stacks for every major cloud environment.
Bitnami is a leader in application packaging solutions providing the largest catalog of click-to-deploy applications and development stacks for every major cloud environment.
Q. How can MSPs best leverage the Bitnami Community
Catalog?
A. Bitnami offers application content to developers, that can be easily deployed across any cloud – public and hybrid – and in the most optimal format – virtual machines (VM), containers and Kubernetes helm charts. Thus, MSPs can differentiate their business by utilising the Bitnami packaged applications through the Bitnami Community Catalog. Read our Program Handbook to learn more about joining the MSP Program.
Q.How does Bitnami add value to VCPP Cloud Providers?
A. VCPP Cloud Providers can now offer any application in the Bitnami Application Catalog on their managed clouds, on-prem, hosted private and public clouds. With the addition of the Bitnami catalog into VMware Cloud Marketplace and integration with vCloud Director and Cloud Provider Hub, all the applications and components in the Bitnami Application Catalog are now available for VCPP Cloud Providers to offer as managed services. Further, with Enterprise PKS, VMware’s container orchestration solution, VCPP Cloud Providers can also offer managed container services. Enterprises can BYOA (Bring Your Own Application) or build their applications from the Open Source and micro-services on offer from Bitnami and deploy them as containers across multiclouds in VCPP Cloud Provider environments with Enterprise PKS. With Bitnami Application Catalog integrated into the Cloud Provider Platform, VCPP Cloud Providers are now able to move beyond IaaS and offer managed application services. With applications and components available as cloud, virtual machine, and container images, VCPP Cloud Providers offer the flexibility of deploying Bitnami applications as VMs or containers to suit the digital transformation needs of enterprises
Q. How much does Bitnami Community Catalog cost?
A. Bitnami Community Catalog consists of two tiers: Standard and Premium. The two tiers are separated by where the Bitnami Community Catalog gets deployed: Standard edition is only for VMware end points (VMware vSphere, VMware vCloud Director, and VMware Cloud on AWS) and the Premium edition is for both VMware and non-VMware end points. Please contact our sales team for further pricing information.
Q. Which endpoints are supported for the Bitnami Community Catalog?
A. Endpoint enablement for Bitnami Community Catalog depends on the purchased tier. In the Standard tier, VMware endpoints such as VMware Cloud on AWS, VMware vCloud Director and VMware vSphere are supported. In the Premium tier, non-VMware endpoints are also supported.
Q. How does Bitnami test and validate the open-source
applications in the Bitnami Community Catalog?
A. Bitnami certifies all images for every platform before releasing them in the marketplace to ensure the best user experience. The Bitnami certification process includes: • Verification and application functional tests, and • Security tests (virus and CVE scanning) Tests are executed in native environments. For example, VM images (OVAs) are validated in vSphere, vCloud Director, VMware Cloud on AWS; and containers / Helm Charts in different Kubernetes versions (PKS, AKS, EKS and so on). Tests are continuously improved and updated to optimise for target environments and ensure all assets “just work”. Bitnami runs verification (file system, configuration, processes management, security), functional tests at an application level, and virus & CVE scanning.
Q. Why is it better for MSPs to consume open-source
solutions directly from the Bitnami Community Catalog,
rather than from other available repositories?
A. Bitnami applications and stacks are pre-configured and ready-to-use immediately on any platform. The Bitnami application catalog delivers the applications you need in the formats you require.
How to use Bitnami Catalog for vCloud Director