The Blacksmith Genesis Kit gives you the ability to deploy on-demand services in Cloud Foundry, using the Open Service Broker API. These services will be backed by real VMs, running under the watchful eye of a dedicated BOSH director.
Blacksmith is an on-demand service broker that uses BOSH to provision dedicated service instances for Cloud Foundry applications. When a user requests a service instance through the CF marketplace, Blacksmith:
- Receives the request through the Open Service Broker API
- Provisions a dedicated BOSH deployment for that service instance
- Creates and manages credentials for the service
- Makes the service available to applications
- Multiple IaaS Support: Deploy Blacksmith on vSphere, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, OpenStack, or STACKIT
- Comprehensive Service Support: Deploy a variety of data services including:
- PostgreSQL databases
- RabbitMQ message brokers (with TLS, clustering, and autoscaling)
- Redis key-value stores (with persistence and TLS)
- MariaDB databases
- Kubernetes clusters
- Security Features: TLS support, credential management, and role-based access control
- Integration Options: CF route registration, SHIELD backups, and external BOSH directors
- Management Interface: Web UI for service instance monitoring and management
Blacksmith provides:
- An Open Service Broker (OSB) API endpoint for Cloud Foundry integration
- An internal BOSH director (or connection to external BOSH) for VM orchestration
- Service plans that define VM sizes, networks, and configurations
- Service instance lifecycle management
- Credential generation and rotation
To use it, you don't even need to clone this repository! Just run the following (using Genesis v2):
# create a blacksmith-deployments repo using the latest version of the blacksmith kit
genesis init --kit blacksmith
# create a blacksmith-deployments repo using v1.0.0 of the blacksmith kit
genesis init --kit blacksmith/1.0.0
# create a my-blacksmith-configs repo using the latest version of the blacksmith kit
genesis init --kit blacksmith -d my-blacksmith-configs
Once created, refer to the deployment repo's README for information on creating new environments.
Blacksmith comes with several useful addons to simplify management:
- visit - Opens the Blacksmith Web Management Console in your browser (macOS only)
- register - Registers the Blacksmith Broker with a Cloud Foundry instance
- bosh - Sets up a local alias for the Blacksmith's internal BOSH director
- boss - Runs the boss CLI to interact with Blacksmith directly
- curl - Makes direct API calls to the Blacksmith Broker
Run genesis do <env> list to see all available commands.
Blacksmith provides "forges" that know how to deploy specific data services:
- Standalone and clustered deployments
- Configurable VM sizes and disk allocations
- Automated backups (with SHIELD integration)
- Single-node and clustered deployments
- TLS encryption for secure messaging
- Dashboard registration with Cloud Foundry routes
- Autoscaling based on queue depth
- See rabbitmq-walkthrough.md for details
- Standalone instances with optional persistence
- TLS encryption for secure communication
- Cache and data store configurations
- MySQL-compatible database deployments
- Configurable VM sizes and disk allocations
- Containerized application platform
- Dedicated clusters for application teams
For more in-depth documentation, check out the manual.
This Genesis Kit is released under the MIT License.