As a a true hybrid cloud system, Abiquo can manage both Abiquo manages private and public clouds through a single pane of glass. In private datacenters, Abiquo allows you to Manage the Complexity of compute , networking and storage resources. Those resources can exist in multiple private datacenters, with each datacenter forming a logical unit, so that the use of those resources can also be controlled by Abiquo’s policy. Abiquo can manage datacenters with supported hypervisors and container servers, and public cloud regions with public cloud resources such as Amazon EC2 and VPC, and Azure Cloud Services.
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user interface. It enables cloud administrators to manage the complexity of dealing with resources in multiple private datacenters and public cloud regions, and to control their use by policies. Cloud Administrators deliver simplicity to cloud consumers by granting them resources and allowing self-service in the cloud. This way, administrators remain in control of the physical resources, and consumers are abstracted from the location of the resources.
Cloud resources are allocated to Abiquo enterprises. Enterprises , which are the basic cloud tenant. For a private cloud, enterprises will be the business units, project teams or cost centers, or for service providers the enterprise will simply be a customer or reseller.
Abiquo offers customers the building blocks for a unique cloud service, with functionality delivered through the Abiquo client UI and integration points.
Abiquo enterprises consume cloud resources through the use of Enterprises consume the cloud resources through virtual datacenters (VDCs). A VDC is a logical unit that is linked , which are logical units bound to a single Abiquo datacenter and to a single hypervisor technology or a single public cloud. Through the use of different compute hardware, different hypervisors and virtualization backend. By using different technology stacks in each VDC, the Cloud Administrator can use VDCs to provide different service levels. Perhaps by running a development environment on commodity hardware and a free hypervisor such as KVM versus running a production environment on better hardware and an ESX hypervisor with backup, HA and other features enabled.
Abiquo policy can also
Policies can be applied to VDCs through the use of to impose resource allocation limits (controlling compute, network and storage resources) and by controlling or define which users within an enterprise can use a particular VDC. Networking and storage resources can also be defined by the Enterprise Administrator at the VDC level and made available to the cloud consumer.
Within the VDC the cloud consumers Users take advantage of self-service by creating their own virtual appliances (vAppsVApps) within the VDCs. Virtual appliances VApps are simply containers that allow the consumer to create an application or service consisting of one or more virtual machines (VMs). The The resources the a consumer can use are controlled by the administrator using policy and what the consumer is able to do with those resources is controlled through granular privileges that can be grouped into roles. For example, privileges may determine whether the consumer consumers can change CPU and memory resources for a VM VMs or add create additional storage volumes to their configurations.
Simplicity is ultimately delivered to the cloud consumer through the Apps Library (Application and Appliance Library). The Apps library enables the Cloud Administrator to deliver provides virtual machine templates to users to the consumer so that self-service simply becomes a drag-and-drop operation. The Apps Library means that the Administrators can provide images and templates that are approved for running on the platform. Administrators can also provide application blueprints that save the configuration of consume the cloud resources in the virtual datacenters. It also provides application blueprints for a group of virtual machines to make it easy for users to create new applications. Tenant and administrator access to resources such as Access to virtual machine templates and blueprints can be is controlled by resource scopesresource scopes, which are tenant access control lists . For the Service Provider the application opens up possibilities for providing defined by cloud administrators. This enables the Abiquo platform to provide Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings on top of the Infrastructure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform, or providing platform resources to resellers who may provide their own software applications. Enterprise Administrators can also . Enterprise administrators may upload their own images to the Apps Library, allowing them to bring their own software onto the Infrastructure platform. Service providers can use administration scopes to define the tenants and datacenters and public cloud regions that an administrator can manage.
The entire Abiquo platform is controlled through by policy that allows enables the Cloud Administrator cloud administrator to maintain control of the physical infrastructure whilst delivering controlled self-service to the consumers. Policy controls how much of any resource is allocated to an Enterprise or VDC, where that resource is located, and (through privileges) how that resource can be used by the end consumer. Governance is also provided through dashboards and other data in the Abiquo GUI as well as reports that provide insight into the amount of resources that are allocated to Enterprises and VDCs, where the resources are located, and how they can be used. Abiquo provides governance through dashboards in UI as well as reports showing how the infrastructure is being used and where virtual machines exist on the platform.
Finally all operations on the Abiquo platform are all metered. Meaning , meaning that all resources allocated or consumed by Enterprises, VDCs and vApps are measured and tracked. This allows for chargeback reporting or accounting and billing of the cloud services. The Abiquo pricing information also enables a service usage. Pricing information enables charge-forward notification notifications to the user users of how much they are likely to be charged for a vApp that the vApps they create through self-service, and pricing is also used by the billing system.
Abiquo
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functional map
Abiquo provides a Cloud Management platform that enables administrators to Manage Complexity and Deliver Simplicity. However, there is much more to the Cloud infrastructure than the Abiquo platform alone offers the building blocks for a customized cloud service, with functionality delivered through the Abiquo UI and integration points. However, Abiquo depends on the cloud infrastructure and it is important to understand where Abiquo sits in the overall environment.
The Cloud platform is dependent on existing infrastructure, or new infrastructure will be required to build the Cloud Service. Abiquo can manage infrastructure in multiple Abiquo manages resources in public cloud and private datacenters, which may be distinct physical locations , but could also be or logical groups of infrastructure within a large datacenter. Abiquo can also manage resources in the public cloud, such as Amazon EC2.
the same location.
The Abiquo Cloud Management platform itself consists of the an Abiquo Server (providing central management) and a Remote Services Server for each Datacenter. See Introducing the Architecture. The platform provides presents a number of services that are presented to the Cloud consumers or third party integrationscloud consumers to provide cloud services, and enable the use of integration and automation solutions on top of them:
The
AbiquoServer
provides the central management ofmanages the
entire platform and may host some of the other services- Image Libraries that provide VM templates to run on the platform
- Reports that provide insight into how the platform is being used
- Self-service UIs that provide the main interface for Cloud Consumers to use the platform
- APIs that provide access to all of the platform's functionality and allow integration or automation possibilities
- Metering of the Cloud resources
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platform and delivers service as defined by cloud administrators
The API provides access to the platform functionality, allowing integration or automation
The Apps library provides VM templates to run on the platform and use its resources
The UI allows cloud consumers to use the platform through the Abiquo Server
Reporting, Accounting and Metering show how the platform is being used