Abiquo platform networks
The main platform networks to configure separately for the Abiquo 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 cloud tenants
- Storage Network: 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
Abiquo Cloud Tenant Networks
The self-service virtual networks that admins and users can use and configure to deliver IP addresses to the virtual machines deployed by Abiquo. In private cloud datacenters, these networks are VLANs in the 'service network' that runs on the Abiquo platform networks. Abiquo uses DHCP or guest setup to provide IP addresses to virtual machines. And Abiquo supports software defined networking with integrations with SDN systems such as OpenStack Neutron and VMware NSX. Abiquo also supports networking in public cloud regions, creating private networks and public IP addresses.
For each datacenter, the network administrator should design the configuration (e.g. VLAN tags, switches, SDN) that will be required and configure the cloud platform switches to support the VLANs that make up the service network.
The cloud tenant networks supported by Abiquo are as follows:
- Private Networks within virtual datacenters only and can have internet access using SDN
- External Networks accessible from outside the virtual datacenter and outside the Abiquo platform. Assigned to a single tenant
- Unmanaged Networks with IP addresses managed outside of Abiquo only. Assigned to a single tenant
- Public Networks with public IP addresses and Internet access. Shared by multiple tenants
For more detailed descriptions of each network, please see Cloud Tenant Networks
DHCP or guest setup
To configure VMs in virtual networks (private, external and public), you can use the Abiquo DHCP server or supply your own. Abiquo creates leases and sends them to the DHCP Server over the management network using the OMAPI protocol, when the user deploys the virtual machine, and before it powers on. The lease contains the MAC address that Abiquo assigned to the VM and the IP address that the user or Abiquo selected. If no DHCP server is found, Abiquo will inject the network configuration using guest setup. See Guest setup
DHCP relay server
A DHCP Server can be configured to listen on VLANs, where VMs will request their addresses. However, a standard DHCP Server with VLAN configuration can only listen on 200 VLANs. For this reason, Abiquo recommends that you use a DHCP Relay Server, which is a proxy that forwards DHCP requests and responses between the VLANs and the DHCP Server. This configuration can support up to around 1000 VLANs and can also be configured in a hierarchy.
Network service types
To tag multiple network interfaces on your hypervisors and match them to Abiquo datacenter networks (external, unmanaged, public). See Manage Network Service Types