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What is a Cloud Control Panel

A 'Control Panel' is the face of any cloud service provider. This is what enables the applications running in the cloud to be offered 'as a Service'; whether Infrastructure as a Service or Software as a Service.

All big public clouds offer exclusive control panels to users

Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Google Cloud Platform and other public cloud providers, all offer their control panels which provide the interfaces used by end-customers on one side and integrate with all their backend systems and applications on the other side.

  • All applications provide their own interfaces for end-users to use them.
  • Web based applications provide browser based interfaces.
  • Databases offer database management GUI tools to their clients.
  • Virtual Machines are accessed using other protocols.
  • Communications apps use Voice and Video over IP.

But all applications have 'Control Actions' which are carried out through the Control Panel.

Enterprise IT departments; with and without a 'Control Panel'

When there is no control panel, there is no unified interface for end-users to carry on their control operations on all applications. With a control panel in place, all normal users are provided with GUI based menus to conduct their control operations on the applications.


The Requirement for 'Control Operations'

Control Operations for infrastructure and virtualization applications are to create virtual machines resize them, take snapshots etc. Control Operations for other software applications like database servers would be to create new database, set their security permissions, resize them, backup and purge them etc. Control Operations for email servers are to create new mail boxes, make them part of different groups and shared settings, resize their capacity, apply rules and purge them when not needed.

When there is no control panel, the end users are required to communicate their requirements to IT out-of-band through some means and the IT conducts them. The access to systems lies only with the IT staff who are trained in all the common operations on applications.

With a control panel in place, the end users have GUI based menus to conduct their control operations on applications. The IT personnel also get more efficient as the Control Panel provides APIs for all control tasks and they can spend their time in automation using those APIs.

Control Panel is also a single pane for all 'Control Actions'. Every user whether human user or machine user will be authenticated through credentials and then properly authorized to check if it is allowed to conduct the operation. Since all actions are passing through the Control Panel, it also maintains an audit trail of every control action performed.

Control Panel provides north-bound APIs that enable other systems to invoke all actions programmatically. This is a powerful tool for creating workflows and automating other tasks as single transaction. Control Panel provides SDKs for the IT and development team to integrate other systems and bring their control actions into the control panel.

End-Users find their experience much better, not having to go to their IT departments. They are empowered by the self-serve menus that work on the click of a button and render results in seconds.

IT empowered by the API for all control actions, quickly evolves into DevOps and are freed from spending their time running Ops. This puts them in their natural place as 'developers' rather than staff running operations.
with and without a Control Panel

Use Cases

Hosting Controller enables IT departments to offer 'Everything as a Service'. This includes offering virtual machines and enterprise software applications; for your Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings.


'Cloud-First' Digital Transformation through Hosting Controller

'Cloud-First' Digital Transformation through Hosting Controller

Putting in a Hybrid Cloud Control Panel is the first step towards an organization's journey to 'cloud-first digital transformation'. It controls all the IT infrastructure and applications in a way cloud computing requires; whether on-premises or in public clouds.


IT as a Service Provider

IT Departments within an organization are traditionally seen as cost centers; as a necessary cost of doing business. The IT department manages the basic compute infrastructure and other software applications which are all critical to running the business on behalf of all other interdepartmental consumers. But they are classified as 'cost centers' because no revenue can be directly attributed to their services.

Single Access Point for all Operations

A Single Pane for All Control Activity

A Single Pane for All Control Activity

When it comes to IT and its operations, 'Control Operations' is an umbrella term for multiple types of operations but which are separate from the 'User Operations'. Typically called the Control Plane and User Plane operations, Control Plane operations are what is 'other than usual User operations'.


Bring the Cloud to Where Your Data is

Public clouds like Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Office 365, Google Cloud Platform and others provide a lucrative offer to simplify computing needs. All the applications are already configured. Administration and self-care dashboards are available. Redundant hardware and networks are all there. But it comes with a big caveat. They require organizations to move their data into their public cloud.

Bring the Cloud to Where Your Data is

Transform IT from Ops to DevOps using Control Panel

Transform IT from Ops to DevOps using Control Panel

Availability of APIs enable the IT personnel to automate their tasks where possible. Their primary role shifts from running day to day operations to automating them through development.

Features

Fully automated operations

Substantially reduce man-power used for running day to day operations.

Reduce shadow-IT

Everything is done through GUI or APIs through professionally written and maintained scripts.

Improve compliance to security and other policies

APIs conform to security best practices.

Maintain an audit trail of activity

All actions performed are logged and documented.

Comply to deployment best practices

All applications are deployed and monitored through vendor's best practices e.g. MS Exchange and others.

Assign quotas to working groups

Best balance between allow unchecked on-demand provisioning to everyone and / or requiring approvals for all small items.

Easy integration with other applications and workflows through granular APIs

APIs are provided for each supported application for every individual task.

Delegate self-serve

Let users login to different self-serve portals to perform their respective tasks themselves all through user friendly graphical menus.

Easy on-boarding

Import tools to get existing resources into the control panel.

Reporting and analytics

Extensive reports and insights from both database items and system configurations.

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