Introduction

The purpose of this document is to provide guidelines for testing and certification of APS packages – this is SaaS applications being packaged in accordance with the Application Packaging Standard. The Certification procedure is a required step in the process of publishing APS packages in APS Catalog.

The document is intended for application vendors.

The guide covers the following matters:

Application Testing section contains instructions for verification of APS package with Parallels Automation and Parallels Plesk Panels.
Package Certification section provides guideline for APS package certification and publication.

Abbreviations, Definitions and Conventions

APS is used instead of Application Packaging Standard in some long sentences where using it will not change the meaning of the sentence.
Application Package, APS Package or Package is a web-based application which includes all application and application-related files created, structured and packed according to APS.
Application Instance is a web-based application installed from an APS package on a particular website and accessible at a unique URL.
POA (Parallels Operations Automation) - a customizable multi-server management system offering automated back-office provisioning and service management for large-scale cloud service delivery. Part of Parallels Automation suite.
PBA (Parallels Business Automation) - a customizable management and control system covering the full life cycle of business and marketing operations for selling cloud services and applications. Part of Parallels Automation suite.
Control panel - a web-based component comprising a separate management tier in Parallels Automation and offering related controls for a certain role (see also PCP, MyCP, CCP and PPP).
APS Catalog - a public web source for APS packages.
MyCP - a control panel providing a Service User with access to applications, websites and mailboxes.
PCP (Provider Control Panel) - a control panel, part of Parallels Automation offering access to provider-related tools and tasks, such as: reseller and customer management, allocation of hardware resources and import of APS packages.
CCP (Customer Control Panel) - a control panel, part of Parallels Automation, providing access to customer-related tools and products purchased by the customer.
PKA (Parallels Key Administrator) - a license management service.
PPP (Parallels Plesk Panel) - a control panel for application and service management running on a single server.
Provisioning Gateway - a host machine, part of POA infrastructure, where files of APS application instances are located.
Resource - a specific countable entity that may be consumed by users: traffic, databases, applications, etc.
Resource type - a configurable template for provisioning of resource. Contains configuration of APS application.
Service template - group of Resource Types with provisioning rules and limits for each Resource Type. Service Templates enable POA to automatically provision resources and services on millions of customer accounts.
Subscription - a group of Resource Types with usage information based on a single Service Template.
Service Plan – a commercial offer of a computer resource package. When customers buy Service Plans, they accrue a right to use up certain amount of hosting resources at a certain rate over a certain period of time in the future, usually starting from the day of purchase. Purchasing a Service Plan is equivalent to subscribing to the services listed in the plan.
Certification Level - a grade assigned to APS package based on its compliance to Application Packaging Standard (see APS Application Certification Criteria for details).