Manage Virtual Appliance Specs

Introduction to virtual appliance specifications

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Manage virtual appliance specs in the Apps library

If users have access to the Apps library, then virtual appliance spec privileges will enable them to manage specs in the Apps library. However, extra privileges will be required to manage spec scopes.

Display the details of a spec

A user with privileges to work in the Apps library view and to manage specs can use the Virtual appliance specs tab.

To display the details of a spec and its versions, on the spec's icon, click the option button and select Versions. The Manage spec versions dialog will open. Click on a version to display its details.

The cloud user can retrieve this information with the API. This will be available through the UI in future versions

Define the users who can work with a spec

To define the users who can work with the spec, you can select scopes to allow access to users of tenants listed in these scopes.

Edit the spec and open the Scopes tab. You can assign the following scopes:

Your own scope
A child scope beneath your scope in the hierarchy

Select one or more scopes as required.

Define the locations where a spec can be used

To define where a spec can be used, you can select locations. Users of enterprises that are allowed to access a location can work with the specs allowed in the location.

Edit the spec and open the Locations tab
- Another user may have already assigned locations that you cannot administer and access. In this case, you can maintain or deselect these locations. If you deselect them, you cannot add them again
If the spec should be available in all current and future locations, select Use all locations OR
If you want to restrict the spec to a group of current locations, deselect Use all locations and select the locations where the spec will be available for use
Click Accept

Spec Location Compatibility Notes

The following table provides some general guidelines about using Specs in hybrid cloud. You should consider these guidelines when designing a virtual appliance for use in more than one location.

Element	Notes
Template	Private cloud may allow multiple disk templates. In public cloud, Abiquo templates always have a single disk
Additional disks	Private cloud may allow additional disks. In public cloud the user may not add external disks within Abiquo
Networks	Private networks in private cloud will be translated to external networks in providers supporting external networks (e.g. Azure) and vice versa In public cloud, Abiquo will look for the default VLAN's globalNetwork in the target VDC to use or create an external network (subnet) of this network Public networks in private cloud will be translated to floating IPs in public cloud and vice versa.
Network gateways	When creating an internal network for use in hybrid cloud specs, check that your network gateway address is not a reserved IP address in the public cloud provider. If the gateway address is reserved, the Spec will fail when the user tries to deploy it. The default gateway in AWS and Azure is address 5, which is a reserved address in Neutron and NSX The default gateway in Neutron and NSX is address 1, which is a reserved address in AWS and Azure A gateway that is compatible with all providers and the default reserved addresses in SDN solutions is address 22
NICs	Note that some IP addresses may be reserved by the provider Azure and AWS reserve the first 4 IP addresses and the last IP address of private networks (Azure external networks) By default, Neutron and NSX reserve 20 IP addresses from address 1 to address 21 but this range is configurable by the system administrator The number of NICs allowed per virtual machine may vary across different private and public cloud environments.

Define the version of a spec to use

When you create a virtual appliance spec, the platform automatically sets this first version as the default version.

When you create another version you can choose to make this version the default.

To update a spec configuration you can create a new version of a spec. Use a virtual appliance created from the spec and save a new version of the spec or save a new spec.

To change the default version of a spec:

In the Apps library open the Virtual appliance specs tab
On the spec's icon, click the option button and select Versions
Click on the version you want users to work with
On the top right hand side of the dialog, click Mark as default version

To unset the default, so that users will always work with the latest version:

Edit the spec version
Remove the mark of the default version

Delete virtual appliance specs or versions

When you delete a virtual appliance spec, the platform will also delete all its versions.

If you delete the default version, then the platform will return the latest version.

When you delete an enterprise, the platform will delete all its specs, regardless of their scopes.

To delete configurations saved in specs:

Open the Apps library and open the Virtual appliance specs tab:
To delete a version of a spec
1. Select the version and click the delete button
  - If you delete the default version and don't set another version, the latest version will be used
To delete a spec
1. Select the spec and click the delete button. The platform will delete all versions of the spec, even shared versions

What virtual resources are required for creating a virtual appliance based on a spec?

A virtual appliance can be created from a spec in another virtual datacenter or datacenter. The administrator should prepare a compatible environment before allowing users to work with a spec. For example, the datacenters should have the same storage tiers

When creating the new virtual appliance based on the spec, the platform will:

Try to use the same template. If the same template is not available, the user can select from the list of suggested templates with matching names (based on a database LIKE match)
Automatically reuse:
- private networks with the same specifications as the ones in the spec
Automatically create:
- virtual machines in layers
- storage
  - in appropriate matching tiers
    - volumes in the available storage device
    - empty hard disks
- networks:
  - private network
  - private IPs
  - public IPs (either tenant's pre-purchased or automatically purchased)
- firewalls with available integration
- load balancers with available integration

Remember that specs can only currently be used in private cloud datacenters. They do not save or configure:

persistent system disks or template volumes on external storage devices
IPs in external networks
IPs in unmanaged networks