VMware vCloud Director integration

Abiquo manages VMware vCloud Director as part of the hybrid cloud platform, and this page describes the features and management model

Credentials models for VMware vCloud Director

You can create a public cloud region for use by many organizations with one vDC or one organization with multiple vDCs.

To enable many organizations to use the same public cloud region, with one organization virtual datacenter per tenant, enter administrator (system) credentials to register the provider virtual datacenter as the public cloud region.

To allow only one organization to use the public cloud region, enter the organization credentials. 

Create a public cloud region for VMware vCloud Director

Before you begin, see features and configuration at VMware vCloud Director

To create a public cloud region for VMware vCloud Director:

1. Go to Infrastructure → Public → Create public cloud region
   1. Enter the Endpoint URL for VMware vCloud Director (e.g. https://myvclouddirector.example.com)
   2. Enter Identity and Credential for ONE of the following models:
      1. To add a provider VDC, enter Administrator credentials (user@System)
      2. To add an organization VDC, enter Organization administrator credentials (user@orgName). This region will be exclusive to the organization
   3. Click Retrieve regions and select the region
      
   4. Click Next and enter the details of the Remote services

To enable enterprises to work in the region:

1. Edit each enterprise that will work in a VMware vCloud Director region (provider VDC or org VDC)
   1. Go to Datacenters and drag the provider or region/s to the Allowed datacenters column
      
   2. Go to Credentials and select vCloud Director. Enter the organization administrator identity and credential.
      To associate the Org vDC with the Provider vDC in the platform, enter the VMware vCloud Director system user and password 

Optionally activate hardware profiles

By default VMware vCloud Director works with CPU and RAM values and administrators can activate Abiquo hardware profiles as in private cloud. See Hardware profiles.

Configure import of VMs

When the platform onboards a virtual datacenter, it can onboard the VMs into a single Abiquo VApp or multiple VApps, depending on the enterprise properties of each tenant.

Import templates

When searching for templates, to retrieve templates from the enterprise's vCD organization, select the private checkbox. To retrieve templates from other organizations, select the public checkbox.

The platform can manage templates that have multiple disks, but it will display one disk only with the total size of all disks. The user can deploy multi-disk templates, add and remove additional hard disks, and create instances.

Administrators can select hot-reconfigure options for their templates if the vCD operating system and template supports these options. They can also select the network driver, which by default is now VMXNET3.

Abiquo manages VDCs and networks

Abiquo onboards and synchronizes the virtual datacenters and networks of a vCD organization.

Users in Abiquo can work with VMware vCloud Director networks as follows:

• Manage private networks
  • vApp networks, which may be isolated or have an external connection
• Synchronize these external networks:

  • External networks outside the Org VDC but connected to the Edge, for use by load balancers but not VM vNICs

  • External networks outside the Org VDC with a direct connection to OrgVDC as OrgVDCNetwork

  • Isolated Org VDC networks, for use by VM vNICs but not load balancers

• Synchronize and create and delete these external networks in the Virtual datacenters view
  • OrgVDC networks inside the OrgVDC and routed through the Edge

Administrators can create NAT networks for public cloud regions and users can manage NAT rules for their VMs.

The platform does not onboard or manage static routes for VMware vCloud Director networks.

Screenshot: Selecting a vCD virtual appliance to onboard as an Abiquo virtual datacenter.   

Screenshot: The user has created a private network in the VDC

Users onboard firewalls

The user can onboard Edge firewalls as Abiquo classic firewalls. In VMware vCloud Director, classic firewalls can span vApps, so to access these firewalls in the platform, select All VDCs, then select the VMware vCloud Director region.

The classic firewalls support TCP and UDP protocols, and with a source or destination that can be an IP, a range of IPs, or “any”. See Manage classic firewalls. 

The integration manages firewalls on private and external networks.

NAT networks and rules

The administrator can create a NAT network using an external network that is connected to the orgVdc Edge gateway or a subnet of this network. Note that the platform does not detect NAT configurations in VMware vCloud Director so the administrator must provide appropriate values to prevent errors in the virtual datacenters.

You can then obtain NAT IPs for your virtual datacenters and create NAT rules for your VMs. The platform will automatically create a firewall rule for each NAT rule. To display this rule, the user will need to synchronize the classic firewall. The platform does not create a default SNAT rule for the virtual datacenter as in the NSX NAT integration so users should create SNAT rules in their VMs.

VM firewall policies

When the virtual datacenter (VMware vCloud Director vApp) has an external (fenced) connection through an Edge gateway, users can create firewall policies in their virtual datacenter and assign them to their VMs. 

Users onboard and create load balancers

The user can onboard and create load balancer policies. In VMware vCloud Director, load balancers can span vApps, so to access all load balancers in the platform, select All VDCs and then select the VMware vCloud Director region.

The integration creates load balancers on external networks. 

See vCloud Director load balancers table and Manage Load Balancers

For OrgVDC networks created using Abiquo, an initial limitation is that you can only use the gateway address for load balancers.

Onboard VMs into Abiquo

When you onboard VMs, the platform creates a placeholder template for each VM, but this template is unavailable, which means that the user cannot undeploy and deploy the VM again from it.

To create a standard VM template for the VM, before you undeploy, power off and create an instance template to clone the VM disks. The platform will automatically assign the VM to the new template, and the user can then undeploy and redeploy the VM.   

Users deploy VMs

Users can create VMs using VM templates registered in the platform from the VMware vCloud Director registry. 

Users can add IPs and select firewalls and load balancers for their VMs.

Users can create additional disks and attach and detach additional disks from their VMs, and for SCSI disks they can do this with hot reconfigure. Users can resize disks if their organization virtual datacenter is not using the fast provisioning. Users cannot change the boot sequence or the bus/unit number, but the platform will recognize changes made directly in vCD. Hard disks belong to one VM only and you cannot reuse them in another VM.

Notes about creating a VM from a template with multiple disks

• The platform only displays one disk with the total size of all disks. When you add an additional disk and deploy, the platform will display two disks. After the deploy, the platform will synchronize the VM with the cloud and update the VM to display all disks
• If you undeploy and remove a disk created from the template and then deploy again, the disk you removed will still be present (copied from the template), so you should remove it after the platform creates it.

Abiquo creates VMs within an Abiquo virtual datacenter and Abiquo virtual appliance. 

Abiquo can provide internet access or external access from private networks through an external network.

Users can create Abiquo instance templates from VM disks.

The user can request a remote console, by clicking the console button, and the platform will open it using WebMKS. See Branding WMKS.