Product Introduction

This chapter introduces the platform positioning, key capabilities, overall architecture, and basic concepts of ZCF to help users understand the overall platform before reading the functional chapters.

What Is ZCF?

ZStack Cloud Foundation (ZCF) is a unified cloud infrastructure platform for the ZStack product portfolio. It covers compute, storage, container, network, unified access, and observability and operations capabilities to help users build and manage cloud infrastructure with a consistent architecture.

For infrastructure deployment and operations across multiple products and environments, ZCF organizes product environments, infrastructure resources, and operations data into a unified platform. It provides a consistent experience for access, management, and analysis, reducing the complexity of managing separate systems and improving the efficiency of delivering, operating, and scaling cloud infrastructure.

Key Capabilities

ZCF provides the following key capabilities:

Cloud infrastructure deployment: Provides compute, storage, and network virtualization capabilities to support unified deployment, delivery, and scaling of VM instances, volumes, service networks, highly available storage, and base network services.
Workload hosting: Provides infrastructure support from resource provisioning and network connectivity to application running for VM, container, AI computing, and data analytics workloads.
Unified access and governance: Provides unified entry, unified identity authentication, access control, and permission management, helping users access resources and services with a consistent experience.
Centralized operations management: Provides deployment, connection, licensing, resource views, Cloud Federation, and basic operations management capabilities to support the continuous operation of cloud infrastructure environments.
Security services: Provides audit, operations access control, and host protection capabilities for cloud infrastructure security governance, helping users establish a security assurance system that covers operation traceability, access boundaries, and runtime risk protection.
Observability and operations analytics: Aggregates resources, assets, metrics, logs, platform health, alarms, dashboards, and reports to support operating-status viewing, inspections, capacity analysis, alarm tracking, and troubleshooting.

Composition and Capabilities

ZCF capabilities cover cloud resource virtualization, distributed storage, containers, network services, Unified Portal, Cloud Federation, operations analytics, Alarm Center, Security Service, lifecycle management, and installation and deployment. The following table describes the major ZCF parts and their capabilities from a usage perspective.

Part	Capability Description
ZStack Cloud	Serves as the cloud platform foundation of ZCF, providing compute, storage, and network virtualization capabilities that turn data center infrastructure into cloud resources that can be centrally managed and delivered on demand. Provides base support for VM running, resource scheduling, network connectivity, and storage access in VM, AI computing, and data analytics scenarios. Supports automated resource delivery, continuous running, and secure management through resource orchestration, elastic scaling, high availability, migration, and permission control.
ZStack ZStone	Provides distributed storage capabilities in ZCF by pooling local or directly attached storage devices on servers into unified storage resources. Provides block storage, object storage, and bucket services for virtualization, cloud-native, and data service scenarios. Improves data reliability, storage access performance, and capacity expansion efficiency through replicas, erasure coding, cache acceleration, capacity expansion, and performance optimization.
ZStack Zaku	Provides cloud-native application hosting capabilities in ZCF based on Kubernetes, helping users build and manage clusters, nodes, workloads, container applications, and container resources. Provides application deployment, resource scheduling, lifecycle management, and operations capabilities for containerized workloads. Reduces Kubernetes and container complexity through multi-cluster, multi-tenant, quota, artifact repository, DevOps, and microservice governance capabilities.
ZCF Network Service (ZNS)	Provides software-defined network capabilities in ZCF by organizing hosts, transport zones, uplinks, and edge clusters into planned and manageable Fabric resources. Provides VLAN/Overlay segments, Tier-0/Tier-1 gateways, subnets, DHCP, routing, and network policies for VM and service networks. Uses ZNS Network Center to provide Layer 4 load balancing, NAT rules, Quick Start, templates, state view, QoS, and SpoofGuard for service publishing, north-south access, and routine network operations.
ZCF Unified Portal	Provides unified access and identity collaboration capabilities, including unified identity login, local login, management-view switching, and page navigation. Supports centralized management of users, user groups, projects, roles, and organizations, and constrains menus, operations, and resource access through role authorization. Organizes resource management and operations pages through views such as the default region and Global Management, so users can use resources and services in the unified management scope with a consistent experience.
ZCF Cloud Federation	Provides unified onboarding capabilities by maintaining connection information, ownership, enabled capabilities, and connection status for infrastructure and services. Brings cloud platforms, distributed storage, containers, virtualization platforms, network services, and Security Service into the unified ZCF management scope, providing the management foundation for unified authentication, asset views, operations analytics, and Security Service provisioning. Organizes the ownership and management boundaries of multiple environments by region and Global Management scope, helping users understand environment distribution and connection status from a unified view.
ZCF Observability	Provides operations analytics capabilities by aggregating assets, metrics, logs, platform health, dashboards, views, reports, and alarms in the unified management scope. Users can view global operating status, component health, asset queries, metric queries, and log queries in Operations, and can build reusable observation perspectives through dashboards and reports. Supports routine operations, risk discovery, and capacity planning through Alarm Center, inspections, capacity analysis, collection status management, and troubleshooting.
ZCF Installer	Provides deployment planning, installation execution, and initialization capabilities through a wizard that organizes package sources, deployment modes, nodes, networks, storage, ZStack Cloud connection, and License Server settings. Validates connections and parameters before deployment, and installs selected ZCF services and initializes base capabilities according to the deployment plan. Provides deployment progress, deployment result, failure retry, and configuration review capabilities for initial ZCF delivery and follow-up connection, authorization, and operations checks.
ZCF Lifecycle Management	Provides ZCF package management and visualized upgrade capabilities for preparing ZCF Bundles, checking upgrade prerequisites, and creating upgrade plans. Supports viewing plan status, execution progress, risk check results, and history during upgrades, helping administrators assess impact before upgrades and quickly locate recovery context when exceptions occur. Works with installation and deployment capabilities to cover major lifecycle management scenarios from initial delivery to later upgrade maintenance.

Concept Model

ZCF uses a unified management model to organize infrastructure resources, identity objects, operations data, alarms, and lifecycle objects. Users can perform unified onboarding, access control, operations analytics, alarm management, and upgrade maintenance in Global Management, and can switch to a specific region to view and manage the corresponding infrastructure resources.

Concept	Description
ZCF Environment	A ZCF platform environment deployed and used by users. A ZCF environment can include cloud resource virtualization, distributed storage, containers, network services, Unified Portal, Cloud Federation, operations analytics, Alarm Center, lifecycle management, licensing, and installation and deployment capabilities.
Global Management	A management scope for cross-region and cross-environment capabilities. After switching to Global Management, users can perform environment connection, access control, operations analytics, alarm management, lifecycle management, and network service management.
Region	A management scope for infrastructure resources. Users can switch to a specific region to view and manage cloud platform, storage, container, and other resources in that region.
Connected Environment	An infrastructure environment brought into the unified ZCF management scope. After connection, its resources, metrics, logs, identity configuration, or Security Service capabilities can work with ZCF according to the scenario.
ZCF Cloud Federation	A capability for bringing different infrastructure environments into the unified ZCF management scope and maintaining ownership, access credentials, connection status, and version context. With ZCF Cloud Federation, production, test, disaster recovery, or remote-site environments can be organized by region or Global Management scope, and basic information can be provided for pre-upgrade checks in Lifecycle Management.
Unified Portal	The unified access interface used after users log in to ZCF. It is used to switch management views and access resources and services in the unified management scope.
Unified Identity Source	The source that stores user accounts and authentication information. After a unified identity source is connected, users can log in to ZCF and resources or services configured with unified authentication through unified identity login.
Access Control	A capability for managing authorization relationships among users, user groups, projects, roles, and organizations. Administrators can view permission distribution, identify inherited roles, and maintain access boundaries for resources and functions.
Operations Data	Assets, metrics, logs, platform health, dashboards, views, and reports collected or aggregated in the unified management scope for operating-status observation, troubleshooting, and capacity analysis.
Alarm Center	A capability for centrally handling alarms. Users can view alarm messages, maintain alarm rules and notification settings, and track risk discovery and notification delivery in one place.
Platform Health	A health view for key platform services, health domains, component details, and external dependencies. It helps users discover platform capacity, service, and pipeline risks early.
Security Service	Security capability extensions provided by ZCF. Current scenarios include log audit, bastion host, and host security EDR, supporting VM audit, operations access, and host protection.
ZCF Bundle	A package set used for ZCF installation or later-version upgrade. Administrators can prepare and manage ZCF Bundles in Lifecycle Management, and the system uses package status, version constraints, and component status in Cloud Federation to determine whether an upgrade plan can be created.
Upgrade Plan	An upgrade execution object created from a ZCF Bundle. It connects upgrade processes such as risk checks, pre-upgrade preparation, execution monitoring, failure diagnosis, and history tracking.

Quick Start

When using ZCF for the first time, you can follow the path below to prepare the environment, deploy the platform, configure licensing, connect environments, configure access control, perform routine operations, and maintain later upgrades. The table provides a recommended reading order and chapter entry points.

Stage	Goal	Main Tasks	Reference Chapters
Understand ZCF	Build an overall understanding	Understand the platform positioning and overall capabilities of ZCF. Understand the capability composition and management model of ZCF.	What Is ZCF? Composition and Capabilities Concept Model
Prepare the environment	Meet deployment prerequisites	Prepare the ZStack Cloud environment, deployment media, servers, networks, storage, and License Server information. Confirm whether ZStack ZStone, ZStack Zaku, or network services need to be connected based on the business plan.	Installation and Deployment
Deploy ZCF	Complete platform deployment	Install ZCF by using Installer or from the ZStack Cloud Application Market based on the deployment scenario. Deploy and initialize Unified Portal, Cloud Federation, operations analytics, and related base services.	Installation and Deployment
Configure licensing	Prepare authorization	Prepare the License Server. Apply for and upload licenses. Connect services that need license quotas to the License Server. Confirm license status, usage, and validity period.	License
Connect environments	Build the unified management scope	Use ZCF Cloud Federation to bring cloud platforms, distributed storage, containers, virtualization platforms, network services, and Security Service into the unified management scope. Maintain connection information, region ownership, connection status, and version context to provide the foundation for unified authentication, asset views, operations analytics, Security Service provisioning, and pre-upgrade checks for later versions.	Cloud Federation
Configure access and identity	Build a unified access experience	Use Unified Portal to configure login, navigation, users, user groups, projects, roles, organizations, and other identity objects. After logging in through the unified identity entry, administrators can view permission distribution and maintain role authorization in Access Control, so users access resources and services in the unified management scope based on permissions.	Unified Portal
Use resources and services	Manage business resources	Use cloud platform, distributed storage, container, and network service capabilities. Create and manage resources, configure service networks, and host applications.	ZStack Cloud ZStack ZStone ZStack Zaku Network Service
Operations analytics	Continuously view operating status	Use the Operations homepage, asset query, dashboards, views, reports, metric queries, log queries, and Alarm Center to view operating status. Continuously follow resource health, capacity, performance, logs, and alarms.	Observability
Upgrade maintenance	Manage later version upgrades	Upload and manage ZCF Bundles in Lifecycle Management as the entry for later platform upgrade capabilities. Create upgrade plans and view risk checks, execution progress, and history. The actual upgrade path depends on Bundle declarations and page check results.	Lifecycle Management

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