Managing Service Catalog resources

You can manage the Service Catalog from the command line interface (CLI) and the management console. The Service Catalog component adds five Kubernetes resources that you can use.

Service Catalog resource details

Resource Resource details
ClusterServiceBroker or ServiceBroker Manages a set of one or more services
ClusterServiceClass Describes the service and associated plans that the broker offers for each service
ClusterServicePlan Describes the plans that are offered for the service
ServiceInstance Creates an instance of a managed service that is available for use by one or more in-cluster applications
ServiceBinding ServiceBinding refers to and uses a ServiceInstance. It also creates a Kubernetes secret that contains the connection details and credentials for the service that is represented by the ServiceInstance

Managing the Service Catalog resources with command line interface

You can use the five resources from the kubectl command line interface. The following table describes the scope and usage of the resources:

Table 1. Kubernetes resources for the service catalog
Kubernetes Resource Scope Example usage
ClusterServiceBrokers cluster kubectl get clusterservicebrokers
ClusterServiceClasses cluster kubectl get clusterserviceclasses
ClusterServicePlans cluster kubectl get clusterserviceplans
ServiceInstances namespace kubectl get serviceinstances
ServiceBindings namespace kubectl get servicebindings

You can extend the capabilities of your IBM Cloud Private cluster by integrating with services that are deployed in your IBM Cloud Private cluster or external cluster.

Managing the Service Catalog resources from the IBM Cloud Private management console

You can load and deploy brokers as Helm charts from the IBM Cloud Private Catalog from the management console. The charts include the registration and authorized secret creation template. Helm charts can include the templates for deployment of a broker, if it needs to be deployed inside a cluster.

Broker services that are available for deployment are listed in the Catalog view along with Helm charts. Services can be identified with the service label.

After a service broker is registered with your operating system, you can select the services and internal plans of each service in the Catalog.

IBM Cloud Private supports the service details page. The service details page contains an overview of the service and lists the available plans, the process of deployment and creating an instance of the service, and the option of service binding.

Note: Under role-based access control (RBAC), only the cluster administrator has permission to deploy and register broker charts and get all ClusterServiceClasses and ClusterServicePlans. The ClusterServiceClasses and ClusterServicePlans resources are assigned to the team.

Adding a service broker

You can create an instance for a particular broker service and plan by completing the following steps:

  1. From the navigation menu, click Manage > Service Brokers.

  2. Click Add ClusterServiceBroker to register a Service Broker to your operating system by specifying the required fields in the dialog window.

  3. Select Create to create your service broker.

Viewing a brokered service

After you created an instance for a particular broker service and plan, that brokered service instance can be viewed.

  1. From the navigation menu, click Workloads > Brokered Services.

  2. Select a specific broker service instance to view the binding object that is created for the service instance.

Note: If you delete a broker service instance, be sure to remove the binding resources.

Dashboard URL

If a broker service instance defines a dashboard URL, you can click Launch, to launch the URL.

For more information about using Service Brokers, see Using ServiceBrokers.