Hardware capacity management in a multi-cloud computing system

1 . A method of managing hardware capacity in a multi-cloud computing system, comprising:

obtaining, by a hardware inventory service executing in the multi-cloud computing system, hardware information for physical servers, in a public cloud, for which a customer has a subscription entitling bare-metal management of the physical servers;

maintaining, by the hardware inventory service, an inventory of hardware capacity comprising a physical server pool that includes the physical servers;

receiving, at the hardware inventory service, a request to consume the hardware capacity;

providing, by the hardware inventory service, a response to the request that identifies the physical server pool for deploying software to execute therein; and

deploying, by the hardware inventory service, the software to execute in the physical server pool as identified, the software including a hypervisor to execute on each of the physical servers in the physical server pool.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the hardware inventory service receives the request from a managed service control plane and the software comprises a software-defined data center (SDDC) managed by the managed service control plane for the customer.

3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising:

receiving, at the hardware inventory service, a hardware reservation policy that dictates an amount of reserved capacity of the hardware capacity;

wherein the SDDC is deployed using the hardware capacity other than the reserved capacity.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the hardware capacity includes reserved capacity in the physical server pool, wherein the hardware inventory service receives the request from a managed service control plane for a lifecycle management (LCM) operation or a break-fix operation in the multi-cloud computing system, and wherein the software is deployed by the managed service control plane in the reserved capacity.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of obtaining comprises:

receiving, from the customer, information describing the subscription; and

invoking, by the hardware inventory service, an application programming interface (API) of the public cloud to obtain the hardware information.

6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining, by the hardware inventory service, that the physical servers of the hardware capacity are insufficient for the request; and

augmenting, by the hardware inventory service, the hardware capacity with additional capacity comprising additional physical servers added to the physical server pool.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the additional capacity is provided by a managed service provider to the customer and the additional physical servers are disposed in the public cloud for which the managed service provider has a subscription entitling bare-metal management of the additional physical servers.

8 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the additional capacity is provided by a vendor of the public cloud to the customer based on a subscription by the customer to a scaling service of the public cloud.

9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining, by the hardware inventory service, that the physical servers of the hardware capacity are insufficient for the request;

notifying the customer that additional capacity is needed to perform the request;

obtaining, by the hardware inventory service, hardware information for additional physical servers, in the public cloud, for which the customer has added to the subscription; and

adding, by the hardware inventory service, the additional physical servers to the physical server pool to expand the hardware capacity with the additional capacity.

10 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

validating, by the hardware inventory service, the hardware information for the physical servers against a hardware certification.

11 . A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions to be executed in a computing device to cause the computing device to carry out a method of managing hardware capacity in a multi-cloud computing system, comprising:

obtaining, by a hardware inventory service executing in the multi-cloud computing system, hardware information for physical servers, in a public cloud, for which a customer has a subscription entitling bare-metal management of the physical servers;

maintaining, by the hardware inventory service, an inventory of hardware capacity comprising a physical server pool that includes the physical servers;

receiving, at the hardware inventory service, a request to consume the hardware capacity;

providing, by the hardware inventory service, a response to the request that identifies the physical server pool for deploying software to execute therein; and

deploying, by the hardware inventory service, the software to execute in the physical server pool as identified, the software including a hypervisor to execute on each of the physical servers in the physical server pool.

12 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the hardware inventory service receives the request from a managed service control plane and the software comprises a software-defined data center (SDDC) managed by the managed service control plane for the customer.

13 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the hardware capacity includes reserved capacity in the physical server pool, wherein the hardware inventory service receives the request from a managed service control plane for a lifecycle management (LCM) operation or a break-fix operation in the multi-cloud computing system, and wherein the software is deployed by the managed service control plane in the reserved capacity.

14 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11 , further comprising:

determining, by the hardware inventory service, that the physical servers of the hardware capacity are insufficient for the request; and

augmenting, by the hardware inventory service, the hardware capacity with additional capacity comprising additional physical servers added to the physical server pool.

15 . A computing system, comprising:

a public cloud of a multi-cloud computing system, the public cloud including physical servers for which a customer has a subscription entitling bare-metal management of the physical servers;

a hardware inventory service, executing in the public cloud, configured to:

obtain hardware information for the physical servers;

maintain an inventory of hardware capacity comprising a physical server pool that includes the physical servers;

receive a request to consume the hardware capacity;

provide a response to the request that identifies the physical server pool for deploying software to execute therein; and

deploy the software to execute in the physical server pool as identified, the software including a hypervisor to execute on each of the physical servers in the physical server pool.

16 . The computing system of claim 15 , wherein the hardware inventory service receives the request from a managed service control plane and the software comprises a software-defined data center (SDDC) managed by the managed service control plane for the customer.

17 . The computing system of claim 15 , wherein the hardware capacity includes reserved capacity in the physical server pool, wherein the hardware inventory service receives the request from a managed service control plane for a lifecycle management (LCM) operation or a break-fix operation in the multi-cloud computing system, and wherein the software is deployed by the managed service control plane in the reserved capacity.

18 . The computing system of claim 15 , wherein the hardware inventory service is configured to:

receive, from the customer, information describing the subscription; and

invoke an application programming interface (API) of the public cloud to obtain the hardware information.

19 . The computing system of claim 15 , wherein the hardware inventory service is configured to:

determine that the physical servers of the hardware capacity are insufficient for the request; and

augment the hardware capacity with additional capacity comprising additional physical servers added to the physical server pool.

20 . The computing system of claim 19 , wherein the additional capacity is provided by a managed service provider to the customer and the additional physical servers are disposed in the public cloud for which the managed service provider has a subscription entitling bare-metal management of the additional physical servers.