Product Terminology¶
The terminology around products in CrateDB Cloud is confusing due to the use of the same or similar terms for multiple things.
There are multiple layers and each of them have their own terms:
UI / Marketing Layer¶
This layer spans from the website to the CrateDB Cloud web UI (aka Console). It is the layer that is visible to the end users.
- CrateDB Cloud
CrateDB Cloud is a fully managed database-as-a-service (DaaS). It comes in two flavours: CrateDB Cloud and CrateDB Cloud Premium.
- CrateDB Cloud (Product)
CrateDB Cloud is fully hosted and managed by Crate.io.
- CrateDB Cloud Premium (Product)
CrateDB Cloud Premium is hosted by the customer but managed by Crate.io.
- Plan
A plan is a type of configurations with a specific purpose in mind, e.g. General Purpose or I/O Optimized. A plan has usually one tier, but may also have multiple tiers, e.g. Basic and Pro.
- Tier
A tier is a predefined resource configuration of a CrateDB cluster for a plan. A tier can have one or more scale units.
- Scale Unit
A scale unit allows to to scale a specific configuration (tier). Scale units are consecutively numbered in ascending order and start at
1.
CrateDB Cloud Product Layer¶
This layer maps onto the cloud.api.product module of the Cloud API.
- Product
A CrateDB Cloud product is uniquely defined by its kind, name, and tier.
- Kind
The type of product CrateDB Cloud offers. The common kind is cluster (CrateDB cluster), however, there is also a consumer (Azure EventHub consumer) kind.
- Name
The name (identifier) of the CrateDB Cloud product, which usually serves a specific purpose, e.g. dev, gp or io. It is equivalent to the term Plan in the UI / Marketing Layer.
- Tier
The tier of the CrateDB Cloud product defines the underlying hardware configuration of a product. Different tiers of a product come with different resource specifications. A product may contain one or more tiers, e.g. basic or pro.
- Scale Unit
A tier can have one or more scale units, which are consecutively numbered and 0-indexed. They define the amount of nodes of a specific configuration (tier).
CrateDB Cloud SaaS Layer¶
This layer maps to the cloud.api.saas module of the Cloud API.
- Subscription
A subscription is a container resource that contains all relevant information about a subscribed offer on the marketplace provider. Depending on the implementation of the marketplace provider (AWS, Azure, GCP), this subscription may either be a direct reference to a resource within the customer’s account, or just a generic reference to the offer on the marketplace of the provider with additional customer information.
- Offer
An offer refers to the (unique) name (or ID) of the SaaS offer in the marketplace of a provider. There is usually a single offer CrateDB Cloud, but there may be multiple, e.g. CrateDB Cloud Development (for the development environment). An offer may contain one or more plans.
- AWS Marketplace
ProductCode- Azure Marketplace
offerId
- Plan
A plan refers to the (unique) name (or ID) of the SaaS plan of an offer in the marketplace of a provider.
The unique combination of offer and plan maps to a specific CrateDB Cloud product (defined by its kind, name, and tier).
A plan is only present in case the marketplace provider’s implementation allows for subscribing to multiple offers/plans (e.g. Azure Marketplace). In case the provider’s implementation allows only for an “offer subscription” (e.g. AWS Marketplace) the plan is initially not present, but needs to be selected on the CrateDB Cloud side.
- AWS Marketplace
not present
- Azure Marketplace
planId
SaaS Provider Layer¶
AWS Marketplace¶
The AWS Marketplace allows you to subscribe to a SaaS offer exactly once. Once you’re subscribed you can use the offer as you wish and you will be paid by usage. Individual parts of the SaaS offer need to be mapped to billing dimensions.
Azure Marketplace¶
The Azure Marketplace allows you to subscribe to a SaaS offer multiple times. The subscription resource defines not only the offer, but also the plan associated with the SaaS offer.