Onboarding a virtual server image for VPC with a plan

Before you begin

Before you can start onboarding a virtual server image for VPC with a plan, complete the following steps:

1. Verify that you're using a Pay-As-You-Go or Subscription account. See Viewing your account type for more details.
2. Virtual server images for VPC must first be imported and validated in your VPC. If your virtual server image is already imported and validated in your VPC, you can skip these steps:
   1. Create your VPC.
   2. Create an instance of IBM Cloud Object Storage and upload your image to a bucket.
   3. Import and validate your custom image in your VPC. Do this for each region in which you want your software to be available and verify that the SHA or checksum matches for the imported image in each region.
3. Make sure you're assigned the IBM Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM) editor role or higher on the catalog management service and Software Instance. See Assigning access to account management services for more information.

Create a private catalog

1. In the IBM Cloud console, go to Manage > Catalogs, and click Create a catalog.
2. Select Product default as the catalog type.
3. Enter the name of your catalog, for example, Sample virtual server image.
4. Select No products to exclude all products in the IBM Cloud® catalog from your catalog.
5. Click Create.

Add the image to your private catalog

1. In the Products section, click Add product.

2. Select Software as the product type.

3. Select Virtual server image for VPC as the delivery method.

4. Select the image that you want to onboard.

   If the virtual server image you want to add is not included in the list of available images, click Import a new image to import it. Your image must be imported into IBM Cloud VPC, in an available status, with an x86 or s390x architecture in order for you to onboard it to a private catalog. Also, your image can't be used with a bare metal profile or instance groups, or encrypted. An image can be added to one product only within one private catalog at a time. If the image you want to import is already imported into another product, you must remove the image from that product or delete the product before you add the image to a new product. Only images with an x86 architecture support plans.

5. Enter the software version, for example, 1.0.0.

6. Select Developer tools as the product category.

7. Click Add product.

Import the product to Partner Center

You can easily import the product that your team has created from a private catalog to Partner Center and start defining your product details. To import a product from a private catalog, complete the following steps:

1. In the IBM Cloud console, click the Navigation Menu icon > Partner Center > My products.
2. From the My products page, click Create.
3. Select Import existing product, and click Next.
4. Select the private catalog that contains your product and click Select catalog.
5. Select the product that you want to import and click Import.

Submit programmatic name for review

After you import your product to Partner Center, you must get approval for your product's programmatic name to complete further onboarding tasks, such as creating pricing plans. The programmatic name is different than the product's display name. This is your product’s unique ID that is used within all IBM services and tools.

Your programmatic name can't be updated after you submit it for review.

Submit your programmatic name for review by completing the following step:

• From the Product details page, review your programmatic name, and click Submit programmatic name > Yes.

Create a plan

When you onboard your product to IBM Cloud, you must define a pricing model for your software in Partner Center. Currently, IBM Cloud supports free, usage-based, and bring your own license (BYOL) plans. For more information, see Defining your pricing model for software. For this tutorial, we create a usage-based plan. By adding a usage-based pricing plan, you are indicating that you offer your product as a paid integrated product, and customers need to pay to use it.

When you add a usage-based pricing plan, you provide your suggested retail pricing information. However, IBM reserves the right to set the final pricing for any product that is offered to customers in the IBM Cloud catalog.

To add a usage-based pricing plan to your software, complete the following steps:

1. In the IBM Cloud console, click the Navigation Menu icon > Partner Center > My products.
2. Select the product that you're onboarding, and click Pricing.
3. Click Add plan > Usage-based.
4. Provide a name for your pricing plan. This name refers to the plan name that appears in the pricing plan list on your product's catalog page when your customers select a pricing plan.
5. Provide a programmatic name for your pricing plan.
6. Select your software type. Usage metrics available within your plan depend on the type of software that is deployed under the plan.
7. Enter your software version. You must select whether you want to validate only one version or a range of versions, or add a semantic version string to match the versions you want to validate.
8. Provide a description for your pricing plan.
9. Click Save.

After you add a pricing plan to your software version in Partner Center, you can manage it in your catalog as well. This means that you can change the state of your plan to publish it, add features to it, deprecate it, or update certain plan details. For more information, see Managing software plans in catalogs.

Add metrics to a plan

If you offer a paid integrated product and add a paid pricing plan that requires customers to pay for their usage, you must add metrics to your pricing plan to aggregate your product's usage. After you add metrics to your plan, you must request an initial metering approval, so you can submit your resource usage and start reviewing your metrics.

To add metrics to your pricing plan, complete the following steps:

1. In the IBM Cloud console, click the Navigation Menu icon > Partner Center > My products.
2. Select the product that you're onboarding, and click Pricing.
3. Select a usage-based plan from the table and click Add metrics.
4. In the Usage metrics section, click Add metrics.
5. Complete the required fields.
6. Click Done.

Submit your pricing plan for review

After you create a usage-based pricing plan and add metrics to it, you must submit your plan for review and receive approval for the pricing details. By requesting approval, the changes to your metering will be reviewed, approved, and published. When the changes are approved, they are immediately available to users of your product.

To submit your pricing plan and metering for review, complete the following steps:

1. In the IBM Cloud console, click the Navigation Menu icon > Partner Center > My products.
2. Select the product that you're onboarding, and click Pricing.
3. Select the pricing plan that you want to request approval for, and click Add metrics.
4. Click Request approval > Yes in the Metering approval section.

Validate the product version in your private catalog

When you add a pricing plan to your software, you must select the product versions that you want to validate. Pricing plans that you add to a product are tied to specific versions of your software, not to the overall product. Validating your virtual server image involves running a test deployment of your software. Validating your image proves that it's provisionable with your VPC. The first image that you added to your product is validated. Additional regions are not included in this validation.

To validate a product version in your catalog, complete the following steps:

1. In the IBM Cloud console, click the Navigation Menu icon > Partner Center > My products.

2. Select the product that you're onboarding, and click Software.

3. From the Versions table, click the version that you want to validate. This step takes you to the private catalog that you initially created in Step 1.

4. Confirm your version details and click Next.

5. Add end user license agreements that users are required to accept when they install your product. Click Next.

6. Make the required readme file updates and click Next.

7. Validate your version by completing the following steps:

   1. Configure the validation target by selecting a VPC, an SSH key, a subnet, and a profile. Then, click Next.
   2. Optionally, configure the Schematics workspace by specifying a name and selecting a resource group and a Schematics region. Then, click Next.
   3. Select a pricing plan to validate with your version. You can validate against plans only that are approved to be published.

8. In the Validation version section, select I have read and agree to the end user license agreements.

9. Click Validate.

   To monitor the progress of the validation process, click Actions... > View logs.

Review the software instance and VSI instance

You can find the software instance and the VSI instance in the IBM Cloud Resource List to review the details from the software instance details page. The details page for your software instance includes information about the installed version, CRN (cloud resource name), and pricing plan.

To review your software instance details, complete the following steps:

1. In the IBM Cloud console, click the Navigation Menu icon > Resource list to view your list of resources.
2. Find your VSI and software instance in the Resource list table. You can filter by your product name to find your software instance more easily.
3. Select your software instance and click View full details to review product details.

Gather usage information from the running software instance

To review how customers understand and experience your pricing plan, and validate that your metered plans are correctly configured, you must submit the resource usage for your software instance. Submitting your resource usage includes calling the Usage Metering API and providing the evidence of your testing. For more information, see Adding metrics to your software.

To gather usage information for your pricing plan, complete the following steps:

1. In the IBM Cloud console, click the Navigation Menu icon > Partner Center > My products.
2. Go to Pricing, and click Add metrics for the pricing plan that you want to gather usage information for.
3. Click Test estimation and metering.
4. Click Go to your catalog preview to preview your product in its draft state in the catalog and estimate a price that incorporates all the metrics that you added.
   1. Select virtual private cloud as your deployment target and select the pricing plan that you want to generate an estimate for.
   2. Select I have read and agree to the following third party terms:, and click Continue.
   3. Click Add to estimate and select and estimate. Then, click Save.
   4. Click View estimate. This step takes you to the cost estimator, where you can review your estimate.
   5. Take a screen capture of the usage data that is generated by the estimator.
5. Click Add file to upload the screen capture of the usage data that was generated by the estimator.
6. Complete the steps in Submitting resource usage to the IBM Cloud Usage Metering API to generate usage.
   1. After you generate usage for all metrics of your plan, review that usage on the Usage page in your account, and take a screen capture of the rated usage.
7. Click Add file to upload the screen capture of the rated usage that you reviewed on the Usage page.
8. Take a screen capture of the resource usage data that you previously submitted to the IBM Cloud Usage Metering API.

You can upload files in .jpeg, .pdf, or .png file format only.

Publish the plan

After your plan details are approved in Partner Center and you added features to your plan, you can make your plan available for use and change its state to published. To publish your plan, complete the following steps:

1. In the IBM Cloud console, click Manage > Catalogs > Private catalogs.
2. Select the private catalog that contains your software.
3. Select the product in your catalog with the pricing plan that you want to publish.
4. Click Pricing plans and select the plan that you want to publish.
5. Click Actions... > Publish plan > Yes.

Submit your product for review

Before you can publish your product, you must submit your software for approval with a version in the ready state. To submit a request to publish your product and make a version ready, complete the following steps:

1. In the IBM Cloud console, click the Navigation Menu icon > Partner Center > My products.
2. Select your product.
3. Review the details on each page to ensure that everything is accurate.
4. From the Onboarding checklist, click Request approval, and select the product version that you want to submit for publishing approval.
5. To make a specific product version ready for publishing approval, click Make ready.
6. Select I confirm that my company is authorized to use all materials.
7. Click Request approval.

Your request is reviewed by IBM to ensure the required details, such as the product name, catalog entry, product page, pricing model, and support experience are complete and accurate. When your request is approved, you receive an email that notifies you that you can share your product.

If updates are required, you receive a separate email with details about the required updates. If you have questions about the feedback, from the My products page click the Help icon , and then click Contact us. After you address all review feedback, you can submit another publishing request.

Publish your product

To publish your software to the IBM Cloud catalog after you receive approval, complete the following steps:

1. In the IBM Cloud console, click the Navigation Menu icon > Partner Center > My products.
2. Select the product that you want to publish.
3. Click Publish.
4. Select IBM Cloud catalog.
5. Click Publish version.

After you publish your product to the IBM Cloud catalog, it will be publicly available to all IBM Cloud users.