Before we start with Citrix CloudPortal, let us understand what cloud computing is and how its business model works.
Cloud computing is a solution that provides "Computing as a Service" over the Internet and delivers on-demand computing resources. Resources include everything from desktop to data center and the most essential characteristics of every cloud product are self-service, pay-for-use, elastic resources, and so on.
Cloud computing services are defined and classified into three major categories: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).
I believe that by now you're very excited to know about CloudPortal. Let us now look at the basic functionality of Citrix CloudPortal.
Citrix CloudPortal is a product from Citrix Systems Inc. As a product, it aims to fulfill the cloud computing essentials, such as automated operations, business support for cloud providers, and cloud services delivery platform for self-service IT.
CloudPortal Business Manager (CPBM): This wide-ranging business operations product qualifies cloud builders to run any cloud through all-inclusive cloud services platforms. This is coupled with consumer management, provisioning services, and operational features for running a cloud. IT consumers can combine any cloud, IT services, or value-added services, and qualify consumers to provision services themselves, while running accounts through a trouble-free, self-service portal. The flexible architecture makes it effortless to deliver a broad array of in-house, off-premise, and third-party cloud services, while being joined together with current business services and service models.
CloudPortal Services Manager (CPSM): This user-friendly web portal helps service providers manage the delivery of cloud services and offerings to their clients. It also converts cloud offerings into money-spinning cloud businesses with all-inclusive platforms to manage business services, operations support services, clients, and cloud offerings. It provides out of the box support for Desktop as a Service (DaaS) and Windows apps (powered by Citrix® XenApp®/XenDesktop®), as well as popular business applications such as Lync, Exchange, Office, SharePoint, web hosting, and more. With no IT expertise, customers can add, remove, or modify any service.