Summary
Acclaim Cloud Platform Plugin enables anyone with WordPress and modest Unix skills to run their own cloud infrastructure. Using the plugin, you will be able to spin up private server instances that are then accessible publicly via VPN.
As an infrastructure plugin, Acclaim Cloud Platform is more involved than other plugins. This is because ACP Plugin allows you to automate a rather complicated set of processes, namely, create and manage server instances, manage SSH, VPN, and Network provisioning (DevOps).
The packaging of the plugin is as follows:
(1) WordPress Plugin – We call this Acclaim Cloud Platform Plugin or ACP Plugin.
(2) A Bootable ISO Image. This is an Ubuntu Server image that you deploy in your server infrastructure. We call this Acclaim Cloud Platform or ACP Image or ACP Server or just ACP
In addition, the ACP Infrastructure contains the following components (which we term the ACP Sandbox)
- Openvpn server to allow VPN access to the instances
- WordPress (latest version as of release date)
- Mariadb server.
Operationally, the ACP Plugin talks to the ACP Server to create and manage the cloud server instances. There are two ways to get the ACP working as outlined below. For highly skilled WordPress admins, Plan B is recommended. For the rest of us, we would recommend Plan A.
Plan A – Easiest
The ACP Server is fully configured except for the plugin, which you can get from the official WordPress site. The steps as follows:
(1) Download and deploy the ACP Server. The Image is found here.
(a) We provide a bootable iso image. You may use the instructions here (Step #3) to deploy it in your infrastructure.
(b) Assign the server an IP address and DNS name.
(2) Configure the ACP Server. To do this, you only need to complete three steps:
(a) Access the ACP Image using DNS name from above and Install the Acclaim Cloud Platform Plugin from WordPress Official Site.
(b) Fill in ACP Plugin Settings as described here (Step #4). Starting from version 1.3, the default values are filled in, but you must save them.
(c) Set up any SMTP for WordPress (Registration requires email)
That is it. Access the ACP Image at this URL: http://acp.acclaimconsulting.com (or whatever the DNS name you configured for WordPress above)
Register a user and start spinning up cloud instances.
Plan B
(1) Install the ACP Plugin from WordPress official site onto your Web Server
(2) Download and Deploy the ACP Server. The image is found here.
(3) Configure your WordPress Server to talk to the ACP Server using the provided step by step by step instructions (Review all steps).