HyperCloud VM Agent

Overview

HyperCloud™ Platform (HCP) VM Agent is a small Java program that runs under admin login, packaged as an executable jar. HCP VM Agent is optional, but its presence greatly enhance manageability and monitoring of Virtual Machine from within VM. HCP VM Agent is required to enable containerized application deployment and HCP-Kube vms status is sent back to the queue. Management Service picks up the status and records the status. If HCP VM-Agent is installed, the agent periodically sends “i-am-alive”, its IP, and metrics to a Queue which then gets picked up by Management Service for recording as displayed in VM Monitoring. HCP VM-Agent communicates over secure (TLS) connection with RabbitMQ.

Deployment

HCP supports the deployment of HCP Agent over Linux and Windows platform via SSH and cloud-init.
Installation of Agent is done via shell script on Linux and PowerShell over windows platform.
Currently, deployment is supported on:
- All flavor of Linux: RHEL, Centos, Ubuntu, Fedora, Oracle.
- All flavor of Windows: Win10x, Win2012, Win2K16.

VM Agent Purpose

Purpose	Description

Purpose	Description
Performance Monitoring	HCP VM Agent provides an inside-view of VM performance for CPU, Memory and Disk. Additionally, captures VM system information such as mounted volumes, OS etc.
VM Heart Beat or Keep Alive to HCP	HCP VM Agent sends “i-am-alive” periodically. This allows HCP to handle scenarios where VM OS is hanged but VM state is still running on hypervisor
Plugin Execution	HCP VM Agent allows platform agnostic execution of HCP plugins on virtual machine. HCP plugins allows HCP to perform application workflow executed at various application lifecycle hooks such as adding addition web-tier application configuring LB to route traffic to this.
Script Execution	HCP VM Agent allows execution of raw script with VM for custom script execution.
Disk / Volume mounting	HCP VM Agent allows file-system mounting/dismounting of disk attached. Upon mounting it also creates a file-system on the newly attached disk or vol. Works across OS platform Linux or Windows
VM Storage Resize	HCP VM Agent allows resizing of root or attached volumes for cases where VM is resized for storage. Otherwise, it has to be done manually.
Container Life cycle Management	With the help of Agent, HCP provides complete Application lifecycle management of containerized application on VM.

HCP VM Functionality Agent comparison

HCP VM Functionality	With Agent	Without Agent

HCP VM Functionality	With Agent	Without Agent
VM Provisioning	Yes	Yes
VM Start/Stop/Resize/Move	Yes	Yes
VM Disk / Volume - attached / detach	Yes	Yes
Performance Monitoring	Yes	No
VM Heart Beat or Keep Alive to HCP	Yes	No
Plugin Execution	Yes	No
Script Execution	Yes	No
Disk / Volume FS Mounting	Yes	No
VM Storage Resize	Yes	No (Yes with certain VM template)
Container Lifecycle Management	Yes	No

Technology Stack

Technology/ Framework	Usage

Technology/ Framework	Usage
Java/ JVM	Primary Programming Language / Runtime environment.
Spring	Widely used for dependency Injection, REST template and Spring Boot.
Logging	Using slf4j API specification with log back-classic implementation (uses Native implementation),
Performance Monitoring	OSHI is a free JNA-based (native) Operating System and Hardware Information library for Java. Sigar (software).
Rabbit MQ Client	HCP Agent communicate with HCP Substem over TLS connection with rabbitMQ.
Deployment support	All flavor of Linux: RHEL, Centos, Ubuntu, Fedora, Oracle. All flavor of Windows: Win10x, Win2012, Win2K16.