As a true hybrid cloud system, Abiquo can manage both 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.
Cloud resources are allocated to Abiquo enterprises. Enterprises 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 virtual datacenters (VDCs). A VDC is a logical unit that is linked 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 different technology stacks, 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 be applied to VDCs through the use of resource allocation limits (controlling compute, network and storage resources) and by controlling 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 take advantage of self-service by creating their own virtual appliances (vApps). Virtual appliances are simply containers that allow the consumer to create an application or service consisting of one or more virtual machines (VMs). The resources the 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 can change CPU and memory resources for a VM or add 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 virtual machine templates 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 a group of virtual machines to make it easy for users to create new applications. Tenant and administrator access to resources such as virtual machine templates and blueprints can be controlled by resource scopes, which are tenant access lists.
For the Service Provider the application opens up possibilities for providing Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings on top of the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform, or providing platform resources to resellers who may provide their own software applications. Enterprise Administrators can also 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 policy that allows the 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 how the infrastructure is being used and where virtual machines exist on the platform.
Finally operations on the Abiquo platform are all metered. Meaning that all resources allocated or consumed by Enterprises, VDCs and vApps are measured and tracked. This allows for chargeback reporting or billing of the cloud services. The Abiquo pricing information also enables a charge-forward notification to the user of how much they are likely to be charged for a vApp that they create through self-service, and pricing is also used by the billing system.
Abiquo 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 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 datacenters, which may be distinct physical locations, but could also be logical groups of infrastructure within a large datacenter. Abiquo can also manage resources in the public cloud, such as Amazon EC2.
The Abiquo Cloud Management platform itself consists of the Abiquo Server (providing central management) and Remote Services for each Datacenter. See Introducing the Architecture. The platform provides a number of services that are presented to the Cloud consumers or third party integrations:
- The Abiquo Server provides the central management of 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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Introduction
Abiquo is a fully integrated multi-cloud management platform with a single cloud console for resource management, and cloud budget and cost control.
The Abiquo platform is a cloud-agnostic management layer that sits above your cloud infrastructure and cloud providers. Abiquo supports VMware, AWS, Azure, Google, Oracle, and more!
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Abiquo cloud architecture concepts
When you add Abiquo to your environment, it does not impact on any virtual resources that are already running. You can add your infrastructure and providers to Abiquo in a controlled way on your own timescales.
The Abiquo platform servers are an Abiquo API server for central management, a set of Abiquo Remote Services to manage each datacenter and public cloud region, and a Monitoring server to offer metrics on cloud resources. In production environments, you will usually also create a Services datanode cluster for your database and for the platform’s internal messaging and queueing services.
In private cloud, Abiquo will also use a Service catalogue disk folder on an NFS server to store software templates.
The Abiquo platform makes changes to your cloud resources from user actions and/or automations only. When Abiquo checks your infrastructure and providers, it updates its database but it doesn’t make any changes to your cloud resources. You can easily check who has done what in the Events view!
For a more detailed introduction to the Abiquo cloud architecture, see the Abiquo components section.
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Abiquo summary
The Abiquo platform is a true multi-cloud system that manages private data centers and public clouds through a single console, and enables you to offer your customers a single cloud bill and billing dashboard.
In addition to the core platform, Abiquo has the building blocks for your customized cloud service, using the Abiquo UI, REST API, and integration points
Abiquo let you manage resources in hybrid and multi-cloud environments, in an agent-free environment that supports progressive onboarding
Abiquo cloud users can easily obtain resources by self-service but always under the cloud policy and governance that you define
Abiquo's cost management and resource optimization system has billing dashboards with estimated bills, and budgets that can trigger automation
Abiquo provides inventory and classification with multi-cloud tags, the virtual resource inventory screens, as well as reports that show how infrastructure is used and where VMs exist on the platform
Abiquo meters all operations to measure and track all resources allocated or consumed. This lets you bill the usage of your cloud services
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Abiquo CMP features
Abiquo offers cloud boosting features that work across private and public clouds and provide a true multi-cloud experience. Abiquo's features are adapted to the cloud providers but function independently of them.
Abiquo fulfills the Gartner CMP functional requirements in the areas of cloud management, and the following sections describe the cloud management platform and its features.
Source: Gartner ®, “Solution Criteria for Cloud Management Tools”, Marco Meinardi, Alan Waite, Brian Adler, 20 August 2020. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission
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Abiquo features for managed services providers
The Abiquo platform has many built-in features to support managed service providers, which include the following.
White-label the UI per reseller with support for separate access URLs
Restrict user access to selected virtual datacenters
Create read-only access, and other overrides of user roles per provider or virtual datacenter
Let users outsource systems that will still run on their virtual resources and are included in their single cloud bill
Deliver datacenter services through restricted networks and reserved IP addresses
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Abiquo features for resource management
For cloud resource management, to help you more easily manage complex technology without using different portals, Abiquo offers the following features.
Simple, unified, provisioning, and orchestration that you can automate
Centralized multi-cloud inventory views for administrators and users
Multi-cloud tag management to help you find and manage inventory across the cloud and drive a FinOps culture with multi-cloud cost and usage, and billing dashboards
BaaS and DRaaS to directly offer your users local backup and disaster recovery without creating your own integrations, and automatically add services to the customer's bill!
Prepackaged application configurations as blueprints (specs) that users can select, customize, and launch in any cloud
Multi-cloud monitoring and observability with support for custom application metrics. Users can receive notifications and create automation based on monitoring data.
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Business features with multicloud budgets and cost control
For cloud budget and cost control, Abiquo has a clear centralized dashboard that displays all costs broken down by service and recommends how users can optimize their resources.
The billing dashboard helps make your cloud costs visible with estimated bills for all providers, and with multi-cloud budgets, you can easily apply spending limits for different providers, which can help to avoid stray resources that lead to giant bill surprises!
Abiquo is designed for business use, and it meets your identity, security, and compliance needs with features such as:
Single sign on support
Role based access control
Policy for all clouds
Under these controls, Abiquo service enablement can provide more or less self-service as required, and also support managed services and service automation.
Administrators can manage multiple accounts, roles, and policies across multiple clouds. You can easily create and add accounts under your partner account in public cloud, onboard cost and usage data, and create a single cloud bill for your users.
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Abiquo integrates with your business and cloud systems
Abiquo is a complete cloud platform out of the box, with dashboards, event logs, event streaming, and built-in and custom reports. Abiquo is also extensible by integration. You can integrate Abiquo with your business processes, DevOps, and other systems to create the right cloud to meet your business objectives. For example:
Configure and launch systems from an ITSM integration
Access ticketing systems through an ITSM integration
Automate your VM configurations with cloud-init, cloudbase-init, and guest tools
And with Abiquo’s XaaS feature, you can easily integrate PAAS and your own systems and services to create your unique multi-cloud platform. Abiquo has plugins available for you to easily offer Amazon RDS, Amazon Route 53, Microsoft Products, AWX, and more.
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Related pages
This page belongs to the Get started section
For a more detailed description of Abiquo cloud architecture and installation types, see Abiquo components
To try Abiquo in a PoC or other test environment, do these walkthroughs:
To try Abiquo from scratch, with no infrastructure in the platform, do Abiquo quick tutorial
For Abiquo manuals, see Abiquo cloud guides
For a full description of the platform and examples of administrator tasks, see Abiquo walkthrough
If you have a demo license, see Configure licenses
To get some sample images into your Service catalogue, see Add virtual machine templates to Abiquo
For guides to Abiquo features, see Abiquo features by version