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An alarm activates when a metric passes a certain threshold. If you imagine a dashboard for your metrics, alarms are like red lights that light up when conditions change, for example, when there is a problem. 

Alerts

Alerts enable Alerts enable you to configure notifications or actions for the VMs in a virtual appliance. Alerts are like a worker monitoring a group of alarms; when all the lights for the group are lit up, the alert is activated. Abiquo alerts can also trigger action plans.

Action plans

A sequence of actions to perform on a virtual appliance. An action plan is run by a trigger.

Trigger

A trigger is an alert or a schedule that an alert or a schedule that will run the action plan, for example, during times of increased demand. 

Scaling group

For horizontal autoscaling, create a scaling group for a VM with rules to define how the platform should scale it out. You can then include scaling operations in an action plan.

Vertical scaling

Vertical scaling means adding more resources to an existing VM, for example, boosting your CPU and or RAM capacity.

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Horizontal scaling means deploying more VMs when you need more resources. In Abiquo, this is configured with a scaling group and scaling actions, which are part of an action plan that is run by a trigger. 

Monitor virtual appliances

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To manage an alarm that is not in an alert, go to the VM Alarms section, which requires the Access alarms section privilege

Manage scaling groups

Horizontal scaling of VMs enables users to configure an automatic response to changing demands for resources. To scale out, the platform clones the base VM and deploys the clones. To scale in, Abiquo will delete clone machines but it will just undeploy the base machine. Scaling operations are subject to all standard Abiquo constraints, such as privileges and allocation limits.

To use autoscaling do these steps:

1. Create a base VM, which can be deployed or undeployed
2. Define a scaling group with rules for scaling the VM
3. Create an action plan with scaling actions for the VM. Create triggers for the action plan, which are either monitoring alerts for virtual appliances or schedules for planned scaling

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Create a scaling group

Before you begin:

1. Configure the base VM
2. Ensure that you have enough resources in your virtual datacenter to deploy up to the maximum number of cloned VMs, especially IP addresses

To create a scaling group:

1. In virtual appliance view, select the VM, and from the menu on the VM icon, select the Create scaling group option
2. Enter the scaling parameters and rules
3. Click Save

When you save the scaling group, Abiquo will mark the VM icon with the scaling group symbol and display the scaling group name. If necessary, Abiquo will create clones of the base machine and deploy them in order to reach the minimum size. The number in the bottom right-hand corner of the icon is the number of running VMs in the scaling group, including the base machine.

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To open the scaling group and check its parameters, click the scaling group symbol in the top right-hand corner of the VM icon.

Triggering autoscaling

To trigger autoscaling operations, create an action plan for the VM with the scaling group, and then create triggers to run the action plan. See Manage action plans and triggers. When scaling, the platform will search for a rule that is valid for the specific time range, or for a default rule. It will create or delete/undeploy the number of VMs in the rule, then wait for the cooldown period before accepting another scaling request. 

To scale out, the platform does not deploy VMs that are undeployed in the scaling group. To clone the base VM, the platform will do the following:

1. Create disks using the following:
   
   1. Copies of content of disks from the VM template
   2. Empty disks or volumes for each additional disk used in the VM
   3. Disk controllers used in the VM
2. Apply ALL configuration used in the VM, for example:
   
   1. CPU and RAM
   2. Network connections of the same type (e.g. private network)
   3. Assignment of firewall policies and attachment to load balancers
   4. Chef recipes, backups, cloud-init, variables, and so on
   5. Metrics. The group of metrics from clone machines and the base machine (if it is deployed) can activate alarms in the base machine, even if it is not deployed
   6. Exception – Alarms: the scaling group has only one set of alarms in the base machine

To scale in,  Abiquo currently selects the VMs to delete or undeploy using first in, first out (FIFO). The platform deletes and undeploys VMs without requesting user confirmation when there are disks that are not stored in the Apps library (ISO configuration drive or additional hard disk). 

Perform maintenance on the scaling group

Maintenance mode temporarily disables autoscaling and enables you to make changes to your VMs (deploy, undeploy, delete etc.) and edit the scaling group. Note that you cannot delete the base VM without deleting the scaling group. Also you cannot create alarms for cloned VMs that are part of a scaling group, because the scaling group alarms are in the base VM. When you leave maintenance mode, Abiquo will apply your modifications to the scaling group, e.g. adding new rules. Then Abiquo will adjust the number of VMs in the group to within the minimum and maximum size range.

• To put the scaling group in maintenance mode, click the "cog" maintenance button or trigger an action plan with the action "Scaling group: start maintenance mode"
• To leave maintenance mode, click the "cog" maintenance button again or trigger an action plan with the action "Scaling group: end maintenance mode".

Delete a scaling group

When you delete a scaling group, Abiquo will place all the VMs in the virtual appliance as regular VMs and the scaling group constraints will no longer exist. To delete a scaling group, first put it into maintenance mode, then click the delete button.

Create action plans

To enable more control over cloud operations, users can create VM action plans to run tasks for VMs and Docker workloads. 

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