Platform networks
The main platform networks to configure separately for the platform datacenters are:- Management Network: used by the Abiquo platform components to manage the virtual resources. It connects the Abiquo Server components to the hypervisors that are managed. Infrastructure and virtual machines are monitored on this network. Virtual machine templates are also deployed over this network.
- Service Network: contains the virtual networks (VLANs) for the cloud
- Storage Network: optionally used to connect the hypervisors to the iSCSI storage with user volumes and persistent virtual machine disks
- Public Network: used to connect virtual machines to the Internet. This network can include multiple public VLANs and different subnets of routable Internet addresses.
These networks are shown in the following network topology diagram
Cloud networks
In datacenters, cloud networks are the self-service virtual networks that admins and users can use and configure to deliver IP addresses to the virtual machines deployed by Abiquo.
The cloud network types supported by Abiquo are as follows:
- Private Networks within virtual datacenters (in private and public cloud)
- External Networks accessible from outside the virtual datacenter and outside the Abiquo platform, and ssigned to a single tenant
- Unmanaged Networks with IP addresses managed outside of Abiquo only, and assigned to a single tenant
- Public Networks with public IP addresses and Internet access and can be shared by multiple tenants
- Public IPs in public cloud, such as AWS Elastic IPs
For more detailed descriptions of each network, please see Cloud Tenant Networks
The external, unmanaged and public networks may be collectively referred to as datacenter networks because they are managed at the Abiquo datacenter level.
Cloud network configuration options
- Standard networking
- DHCP server
- Guest setup
- Software defined networking (SDN)
- Public cloud and cloud provider networking
Standard networking
In standard networking, cloud networks are VLANs in the 'service network' that runs on the Abiquo platform networks. For each datacenter, the network administrator should design the configuration (e.g. VLAN tags, switches, SDN) that will be required. For standard networks, the administrator must configure the cloud platform switches to support the VLANs that make up the service network.
When using standard networking there are many different ways to configure virtual machine network addresses:
- DHCP
- The default configuration is the DHCP server installed by Abiquo
- Own DHCP server
- Guest setup
- Abiquo supports cloud-init and hypervisor tools
- Own guest setup method
Software defined networking
Abiquo supports software defined networking (SDN) through integrations with network managers such as OpenStack Neutron and VMware NSX, providing SDN and firewalls and load balancers in private cloud datacenters or regions. Abiquo uses the SDN systems to manage private networks and to manage IPs of datacenter networks. You can use Neutron in private cloud datacenters and you can also use it with OpenStack cloud regions.
Public cloud and cloud provider networking
Abiquo supports many different public cloud providers with different types of networking. For example, in AWS, Abiquo creates datacenters with NAT support and manages Elastic IPs.
See the Public cloud provider features section for more information about specific providers.