rPath Appliance Platform/Entitlement Service:Appliance Considerations

From rPath Wiki

An ISV should consider the following concepts when deploying an Entitlement Service appliance:

Products

An ISV creates its own rPath-derived products (such as software appliances) to sell to buyers. These buyers could be on direct channels, in which the buyer is also the consumer. These buyers could also be value-added resellers (VARs) whose consumers are not directly associated with the ISV. In both cases, the Entitlement Service appliance can automate entitlement management for the product for all parties involved.

Entitlements

An entitlement is a software access key that provides access to a product managed with rAP Entitlement Service. This key provides access to certain spaces on a Conary repository or to certain services on another Entitlement Service appliance. The Entitlement Service appliance can be used to create and revoke entitlements and view current usage information for the entitlements.

Permissions

An product built with rPath technologies requires access to certain parts of Conary repositories which provide the product's building blocks. Each product should be limited to accessing only those parts of the repository from which those building blocks reside. In the case of entitlements, an Update Service appliance provides a mirror of project repositories that reside on an internal rBuilder Appliance, and using entitlements ensures that the product has the access and limitation it requires for the Update Service appliance.