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Table of Contents


Abiquo is a hypervisor-independent cloud solution that can manage multiple virtualization technologies. It is able to deploy virtual appliances to many different hypervisors, and manage them from a rich web interface. The following sections describe the template disk formats supported by the Abiquo platform, and the formats supported by the hypervisors Abiquo manages.

Tip
titleAPI Feature

To retrieve the information about Supported Disk Format Types from the Abiquo API, use the requests of the DiskFormatTypes Resource


Supported Disk Format Types

Abiquo supports the disk format types given in this table for OVF import or OVA import.

Abiquo identifies the disk formats by their URIs as given in the following table. These URIs were found in OVF files exported in these formats. However, over time vendors may change their reference information and URIs. Therefore customers who wish to import OVF files should check that their file formats will be correctly identified by Abiquo.

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Disk formatURITechnical ReferenceDescription

RAW

http://raw/

 Device disk format

VMDK_STREAM_OPTIMIZED

http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/interfaces/vmdk_access.html#streamOptimized

vmdk_50_technote.pdf
see Stream-Optimized p11
VMware stream optimized format

VMDK_FLAT

http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/interfaces/vmdk_access.html#monolithic_flat

vmdk_50_technote.pdf
see Simple Extents p5
VMware fixed disk

VMDK_SPARSE

http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/interfaces/vmdk_access.html#monolithic_sparse

vmdk_50_technote.pdf 
see Hosted Sparse Extents p6
/ ESXi Host Sparse Extents on p9
VMware sparse disk

VHD_FLAT

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualserver/bb676673.aspx#monolithic_flat

VHD specification Word file
see Fixed Hard Disk Image p3
VHD fixed disk

VHD_SPARSE

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualserver/bb676673.aspx#monolithic_sparse

see Dynamic Hard Disk Image p3
VHD sparse disk
VHDX_FLAT http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831446.aspx#monolithic_flat  VHDX fixed disk
VHDX_SPARSE http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831446.aspx#monolithic_sparse  VHDX sparse disk

VDI_FLAT

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=8046#monolithic_flat

 VDI fixed disk

VDI_SPARSE

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=8046#monolithic_sparse

 VDI sparse disk

QCOW2_FLAT

http://people.gnome.org/~markmc/qcow-image-format.html#monolithic_flat

 QCOW2 fixed disk

QCOW2_SPARSE

http://people.gnome.org/~markmc/qcow-image-format.html#monolithic_sparse

 QCOW2 sparse disk
AMI http://amiprotocol.sourceforge.net/ami-specif.html#1.9.2.user.xml  AMIDOCKER_IMAGE https://docs.docker.com/terms/image/  Docker image
ISOhttp://iso ISO format

Abiquo will record UNKNOWN as the format for disks that are not in one of the above formats and the user will not be able to deploy these disks.


Hypervisor Compatibility Table

The following table shows the different formats supported by the hypervisors. If you upload a template in a format not supported by your hypervisor to the Appliance Library view, Abiquo will convert it to the most suitable format.

The hypervisor default format (also called the base format) for each hypervisor is marked with a  (star)

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titleChange base format and formats offered

You can configure the list of formats offered and the base format using Abiquo Configuration Properties. See Abiquo Configuration Properties#pluginmetadata


 
FormatAWSESX/ESXiHyper-VKVMXenServerDocker

RAW

(error)  

(tick)

(tick)

(tick)

(error)

 

VMDK_FLAT

 

(tick) (star)

 

(tick) (star)

 

 

VMDK_SPARSE

 

(tick)

 

 

 
VMDK_STREAM_OPTIMIZED (tick)    

VHD_FLAT

 

 (tick)

(tick)

 

VHD_SPARSE

 

 

(tick) (star)

(tick) (star)

 
VHDX_FLAT  

(tick) Deploy VHDX templates
(error) No conversions TO or
FROM VHDX
(error) No persistent VHDX templates

  

 
VHDX _SPARSE  

(tick) Deploy VHDX templates
(error)   No conversions TO or
FROM VHDX
(error) No persistent VHDX templates

 

  

VDI_FLAT

 

 

 

 

 

 

VDI_SPARSE

 

 

 

 

 

 

QCOW2_FLAT

 

 

 

(tick)

 

 

QCOW2_SPARSE

 

 

 

(tick)

 

 
AMI

(tick)
(error) no conversions

    

 

DOCKER_IMAGE 

    (tick)
(error) no conversions
ISO (tick)(tick)(tick)(tick) 


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Hypervisor default format and conversions

In the above table, the hypervisor default format (also called the base format) for each hypervisor is marked with a  (star). This is the preferred deployment format for this hypervisor, and if there is a disk in the base format, Abiquo will deploy this disk.

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See also Appliance library concepts.


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Raw format for persistent VMs

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titleRaw format for persistent virtual machine templates

The Disk from device or raw format is used for persistent VM templates. Before creating a persistent VM template, Abiquo converts the template's disks to raw format and then dumps them to a volume on the selected storage

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Note about ISO

Abiquo supports ISO disks, which may be bootable installation disks (added to templates) or data disks (added to VMs). See:

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