Create Platform Group inventory Pools

You can create platform instances as they are needed, or you can create and maintain an inventory of prepared instances. Platform Manager provides the ability to maintain a (predefined) minimum count of ready instances.

You can use an inventory pool even if the platform blueprint is not capable of producing an instance that is ready for your end customer. Inventory is configured as a set of pools, one per platform blueprint. You define low and high water marks per pool. If the count of ready instances falls below the low water mark then Platform Manager automatically builds instances to bring the count to the high water mark. For a list of existing inventory pools, navigate to the Platform Manager Inventory tab.

The basis of an inventory pool is a platform blueprint. The pool maintains an inventory of instances of the indicated blueprint. You configure the pool properties to indicate when to build new instances and what to do in the event of failure. There can be only one inventory pool per blueprint.

You define the pool behavior through the pool properties.

Inventory pool properties

You define the inventory pool behavior using the inventory pool properties.

Property behavior
Low Water Automatically build new platform instances if the ready instance count falls below this number. Set Low Water to zero to disable automatic refilling of inventory. Ready instances include those in states: INVENTORY_READY or INVENTORY_STAGING_READY.
High Water When creating new instances due to inventory falling below the Low Water mark, Platform Manager creates new instances to bring the inventory count to the High Water level.
Retry Limit If a build fails, this setting defines the number of retries. If Retry Limit is set to o (zero) then there will be no retries.
Delete on Fail If a build fails, this setting defines whether to delete the instance. A build is considered to have failed after all retries are exhausted up to the limit set in Retry Limit.
Max Consecutive Fail If a build fail, this setting defines whether builds should continue to be tried. Platform Manager stops building new instances after this number of consecutive failures. Failures during retry are counted by the consecutive fail counter, so Retry Limit should be set to a value lower than Max Consecutive Fail.
State Assigned when Completed This setting specifies the state that the instance will be assigned after a successful build. If the instance is intended to be ready for end customers after the build is complete, set this to INVENTORY_READY. If manual steps are required after the build is completed, you should set this to INVENTORY_STAGING_READY.
Stop After Build This setting specifies what to do after a build is successful. If the blueprint is set to produce a stopped instance, disable Stop After Build. If Stop After Build is enabled, the Stop is performed before the instance is transitioned to the completed state. Note: Disabling Stop After Build does not imply that the instance is started if it is not running.
Start After Build This setting specifies what to do after a build is successful. If the blueprint is set to produce a running instance, disable Start After Build. If Start After Build is enabled, the Start is performed before the instance is transitioned to the completed state. Note: Disabling Start After Build does not imply that the instance is stopped if it is running.
Delay After Start Inject the specified delay prior to transitioning to completed state in seconds.

CAUTION: For the purposes of determining if current availability is below Low Water, all instances in INVENTORY_STAGING_READY are considered to be available.

 

CAUTION: When you create a new inventory pool or modify the Low Water property, new instances may start to be created within one minute of the new Low Water mark being below the current available count.

View, Disable, and Delete inventory pools

View and modify: To view or modify an existing inventory pool, click the pool ID on the Inventory tab.

Disable: You can disable the creation of new instances by changing the Low Water property to 0. To enable creation of new instances again, change the Low Water setting to a non-zero value.

Disabling a pool prevents the creation of new instances. It does not disable instances that are ready for allocation and it does not stop any builds in progress.

Delete: You can delete an inventory pool from the detail page of the inventory pool. Deleting a pool does not change any instances that were created by that pool. If the pool has instances in one of the _READY states, you will need to deal with these yourself. Either delete them or manually change their names to indicate the owner to which the instance is assigned.

Instance states

Instances managed by the inventory pool are denoted by names drawn from the inventory state table.

State Description
INVENTORY_BUILDING This status indicates that the Instance is currently building. This instance is not ready for use by customers.
INVENTORY_BUILD_FAIL This status indicates that the instance build has failed. Retries continue until applicable retries have been exhausted. This instance is not ready for use by customers. This instance should be examined for the cause of the failure.
INVENTORY_STAGING_READY This status indicates that the instance build is complete, but that some manual steps are required to make this instance ready for customer use. This instance is not ready for use by customers.
INVENTORY_READY This status indicates that the instance is available and ready to be assigned to a customer.

Note: There is a Platform Manager API that can be used to allocate an instance from inventory to a customer. This API will allocate only instances that are in INVENTORY_READY state.

 

CAUTION: The API stores the inventory state in the instance name property. If you manually modify an instance name property to a name that is not in the Inventory State table, the instance will no longer be managed by the inventory pool.

Instances that need manual adjustments

The build complete state, INVENTORY_STAGING_READY, is provided for the case where an instance created using the blueprint is not yet ready for customer assignment.

Use this state if you need to make manual configuration changes after the base instance has been created. Set the pool property, State Assigned when Completed to INVENTORY_STAGING_READY.

After manual changes are complete, change the instance state to INVENTORY_READY.

If you have multiple manual steps to perform, you can log your progress in the Notes property of the instance.

CAUTION: When editing the instance record, do not change the Name property. The Name property should be changed only when the instance is assigned to the customer.

To transition to INVENTORY_READY state

After completing the manual changes, you can transition the instance to the INVENTORY_READY state on the Inventory Pool Detail page, available from the Inventory tab.

1. On the Inventory tab, click the Inventory Pool ID. The Inventory Pool Detail page for the inventory pool is displayed.

2. On the inventory pool detail page, click the Staging Ready tab. This tab displays all instances of this pool that are in INVENTORY_STAGING_READY state.

3. Select the row containing the inventory pool to change.

4. Click Move to INVENTORY_READY.