Consume a Shared Service Instance in Cloud Foundry

In this step, you create a reference instance in your target Cloud Foundry space. This reference instance is a lightweight pointer to the shared source instance. Applications bind to the reference instance and receive credentials for the original.

1. To create the reference instance, run the following command. Replace <REFERENCE_NAME> with a name for the reference instance and <SOURCE_INSTANCE_ID> with the id from Create and Share a Source Service Instance.

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   cf create-service <SERVICE_NAME> reference-instance <REFERENCE_NAME> -c '{"referenced_instance_id": "<SOURCE_INSTANCE_ID>"}'

   For example, to create a reference to a shared SAP Cloud Logging instance, run:

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   cf create-service cloud-logging reference-instance cls-reference -c '{"referenced_instance_id": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890"}'

2. To verify that the reference instance was created, run:

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   cf service <REFERENCE_NAME>

   The output shows the reference instance with the plan reference-instance.

To give your application access to the shared service, bind it to the reference instance. The binding credentials connect to the original shared instance.

1. To bind an application, run:

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   cf bind-service <APP_NAME> <REFERENCE_NAME>

2. After binding, restage the application so it loads the new credentials:

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   cf restage <APP_NAME>

3. To verify the binding, run:

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   cf env <APP_NAME>

   The VCAP_SERVICES section contains the credentials for the shared service instance.

Note: cf share-service is a CF-native alternative to the reference instances in the previous steps. It only works within Cloud Foundry - you can’t share across runtimes. For limitations and security considerations, see the Cloud Foundry documentation on sharing service instances.

You can share the services within one Cloud Foundry org, or even across orgs:

The following table summarizes what happens when you modify shared resources in Cloud Foundry.

You have successfully consumed a shared service instance in Cloud Foundry. If you want to share other services that don’t support instance sharing, see Share Service Credentials Manually Across Boundaries.

Question 1: What is the difference between cf share-service and creating a reference instance with the reference-instance plan?

• They are the same mechanism with different names.
• cf share-service is a CF-native feature. The reference-instance plan uses SAP Service Manager and works across environments. [CORRECT]
• cf share-service works in both Cloud Foundry and Kyma environments.
• cf share-service is deprecated.

Question 2: What parameter in cf create-service links the reference instance to the shared source?

• --offering-name
• -c '{"referenced_instance_id": "<SOURCE_INSTANCE_ID>"}' [CORRECT]
• --plan-name reference-instance
• -s <TARGET_SPACE>

Question 3: After binding a CF app to a reference instance, what must you do for the application to pick up the new credentials?

• Delete and recreate the application
• Run cf restage <APP_NAME> [CORRECT]
• Run cf unbind-service first, then bind again
• Update the VCAP_SERVICES environment variable manually