How to create a Cloud Application Template from existing infrastructure

Cloud Application Templates (CATs) are descriptions of the infrastructure and software configuration needed to deploy a cloud application. They are based on the TOSCA Simple Profile in YAML standard.

The easiest way to create a CAT is by exporting an infrastructure that you created in the Orchestrator.


  • You need to have one or more servers created in Multi-Cloud Orchestrator and configured with the corresponding template. In addition, you have created all the related infrastructure, like VPC, subnets, floating IPs, firewalls, etc.

Note: The export will not include infrastructure that is not directly related to the server. If you need additional infrastructure in the CAT, you will have to define it manually using TOSCA.

  • You need some basic knowledge of TOSCA and in particular, familiarity with YAML.

  • You need a tool to compress and uncompress a ZIP file, and a text editor with YAML support.

Export cloud infrastructure

  1. Go to Compute -> Servers

  2. Select one or more servers that you want to export. The button "Actions for x Item(s)" appears. Select servers to export

  3. Press this button and select "Export to csar file".

  4. Once the export finished, you will be able to download the file to your local file system by pressing "Download csar file".

    Download file

Edit csar file contents

  1. Unzip the resulting csar file (it is a standard ZIP archive).

  2. Open the file definitions/main.yaml in your favourite text editor

    Editor view of CSAR archive

  3. Below the first line, add a YAML mapping with key metadata and nested mappings for keys templatename, templateauthor, and template_version.

    tosca_definitions_version: tosca_simple_yaml_1_0
      template_name: My first CAT
      template_author: John Doe
      template_version: 0.1
  4. Decide, which aspects of your exported infrastructure should vary with each deployment and make them input parameters of the CAT, by adding a nested mapping with key inputs to the topologytemplate mapping. In the example below, we define two parameters region and serverplan:

          type: ingrammicro.orchestrator.datatypes.Region
          required: true
          description: Region in Azure/AWS
            order: 1
          type: ingrammicro.orchestrator.datatypes.ServerPlan
          required: true
          description: Server plan for my server
            dependency: region
            order: 2

    Note that by choosing the appropriate types like in the example, you will get the Orchestrator to show a dropdown selection during CAT deployment. But be careful that a server plan depends on the region.

  5. Within your nodetemplates, relationshiptemplates, and policies, make sure to replace the corresponding values by TOSCA get_input functions.

    See, how in the following example, the VPC's region property and the server's region and server_plan properties make reference to the input parameter names:

          ip_version: 4
          region: {get_input: region}
        attributes: {}
      Magento Backend:
        type: ingrammicro.orchestrator.nodes.Compute
          obtain_credentials: false
          private: true
          region: {get_input: region}
          server_plan: {get_input: server_plan}
        attributes: {}
  6. Recreate the csar file by creating a ZIP archive from the top-level folders definitions, TOSCA-Metadata, etc. Make sure that the archive has the .csar file suffix.

Test your CAT

Follow the instructions in How to deploy a cloud application from a template to deploy your CAT. Enjoy!

Deploy your first CAT

Additional Resources