This page is a guide for cloud administrators to provision tenants in private cloud.
Before you provision tenants, provision infrastructure. See Infrastructure provisioning guide.
Flow chart
This flow chart describes the basic process for provisioning infrastructure and tenants.
Provision tenants
This section describes how to set up enterprises, which are basic cloud tenants.
Before you create tenants, you should do these steps:
Add infrastructure to the platform as described in the Infrastructure provisioning guide
Configure the platform in Configuration View including: Configure two factor authentication
Prepare enterprise themes for white-labelling following the Abiquo Branding Guide
Create roles and scopes
Create pricing models
Introduction to user roles
Create a user role
Introduction to user scopes
Create a scope
Manage scopes with the API
API Documentation
For the Abiquo API documentation of this feature, see Abiquo API Resources and the page for this resource ScopesResource.
Create a basic enterprise
Create a pricing model
See Create a new pricing model
Assign a pricing model to the enterprise
Create a tenant administrator user
To create a tenant administrator user:
Go to Users view
Optionally, select an enterprise
Go to the Users tab
Click the + add button to add a user and complete the dialog
Enter General information
Role: select
ENTERPRISE_ADMIN
or similarScope: select a scope that contains the enterprise/s that the administrator will manage, for example, to manage users
For more details see table of field descriptions below.
Limit access to VDCs and enter Advanced details as required
Click Save
The platform will create the user in the current enterprise.
Field descriptions for Create user
Field | Description |
---|---|
Enterprise | The enterprise that the user will belong to |
Full Name | The user's first name and family name |
Role | The Role of the user defining their set of privileges on the platform |
Scope | The Scope of a user defining the set of enterprise and datacenters that they can manage on the platform |
Username | The username for login. After you create the user, you cannot change the username |
Password | The user account password. Requirements are set by the options of Configuration → Security. See also Manually reset a user password |
Repeat password | Re-enter the password |
The contact e-mail address of the user for platform messages, including password reset. The platform will display a Gravatar icon associated with this address on the Users's card | |
Phone number | The phone number of the user. The platform will not validate this field. |
Provision networks
To create private cloud infrastructure networks, see Network provisioning guide.
Create virtual datacenters
The platform administrator will generally create virtual datacenters for tenants when accounting is by virtual datacenter.
You can automate the process of creating virtual datacenters using the Abiquo API. See How to create virtual datacenters and VMs via API
Import and capture VMs
You can import and capture VMs from private cloud manually and you can also automate the process of capturing VMs using the Abiquo API. See How to capture a remote virtual machine from a managed hypervisor
Introduction to import and capture VMs
Prepare to capture VMs
Retrieve VMs from a physical machine
Capture a VM
Configure backups
Abiquo offers optional backup plugins that support popular backup systems such as Veeam and Networker. For information about configuring these plugins, see Abiquo backup plugins. After the plugins are configured, you can manage Abiquo backups in Infrastructure view on the Backup policies tab as described here.
Create a backup manager
General info
Backup description
Field | Description |
---|---|
Name | Name of the backup policy that users can select |
Code | The Code that identifies the policy and that must be unique in the datacenter. Abiquo may use the Code attribute to match policies that the administrator already created in the backup system |
Description | Description of the backup policy to help users identify it |
After you enter the General info, select the backup type:
The Abiquo backup integrations only support Complete backups
Complete backup
Example backup configuration of Complete backup
Field | Description |
---|---|
Defined hour | Backup at a defined date and time. Date format is yyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss +0000. The Veeam backup integration does not support this option |
Daily | Backup every day at a defined time. Time format is HH:mm:ss +0000 |
Monthly | A backup every month at the defined time. When the user enters a time it is in the format HH:mm:ss, and the user must select the UTC offset. This option is designed to enable the system administrator to define the monthly backup day in the backup integration. |
Hourly | A backup at an interval of hours. Enter an integer less than 24. |
Weekly planned | A backup every week on defined days at a defined time. When the user enters a value, the format is HH:mm:ss, and the user must select the UTC offset. |
For each field in the backup type, the Cloud Admin can choose how to set the values:
Value | Description |
---|---|
Fixed | The value is set by the Cloud Admin as part of the backup policy |
Don't apply | The value is set by the backup system |
Define in VM | The user must set the value and will require the appropriate privileges |
Configure backup properties
Create a backup policy
Administrators create backup policies to present backups to cloud users for self-service. When users configure a VM, they can select a backup policy and they may be able to perform some additional configuration.
You can control user access to backup policies for each tenant.
You can select backup policy options and assign privileges to give users more or less control over backup policy configuration.
And of course, you can include backup as a service as part of your pricing models, to bill your cloud users for backup policies and backup storage by GB.
To create a new backup policy:
In Infrastructure, go your datacenter or public cloud region
Go to Backup policies
Click the + add button and enter the details
Code: this identifies the policy and it must be unique in the datacenter. Abiquo uses the Code attribute to match policies that the administrator already created in the backup system. For more details, see the backup plugin configuration documentation
Go to Complete backup. Abiquo backup plugins support complete backups only
Select from the backup options to include in the policy
Defined hour: The Veeam backup integration does not support this option
Hourly: A backup at an interval of hours. Enter an integer less than 24
For each field in the backup type, choose how to set the values:
Fixed: set in backup policy
Don't apply: set by backup system
Define in VM: the user must set the value and will require the appropriate privileges to save a VM with an advanced backup policy.
Veeam will always back up ALL disks when performing a backup. To prevent the display of the Select disks option, to let users select individual disks:
Remove the user privilege to
Manage virtual machine backup disks
Click Save
After you create a policy, you must allow the tenants to use the policy for their VMs:
Edit the enterprise and edit the Datacenter (or public cloud region) on the Backups tab. See
https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/doc/pages/311377504/Configure+an+enterprise+in+a+cloud+location#Allow-a-tenant-to-use-backup-polices-in-a-datacenterControl user VM backup access with privileges.
The default standard
USER
andENTERPRISE_ADMIN
roles do not have access to the Backups tab of the VM. If an administrator assign a backup to the VM, the backup symbol displays on the VM icon but there are no other details of the backup for these users.The backup privileges that you can assign to user roles are:
Manage virtual machine backup configuration
:Lets the user access the Backup tab of VM
Lets the user select backup policies and so on
Manage virtual machine backup schedule
Lets the user set specific backup dates and times (advanced configuration) for backup policies.
Required for users with
Manage virtual machine backup configuration
to save changes to VMs with policies with the Define in VM option. If the user can manage backup configuration but does not have this policy, saving the VM will fail with an error.
Restore virtual machine backups
Manage virtual machine backup disks
If the user does not have Manage virtual machine backup configuration
, and they save a VM that has a backup policy, the platform will remove the backup policy from the VM
The Abiquo backup plugins support the COMPLETE
backup type only and the Veeam backup plugin supports a backup of all VM disks only, so do not assign Manage virtual machine backup disks
to user roles. This option may cause confusion to users
Users with backup privileges can now add backups as described at VM backups.
Optional additional tenant configuration
To allow specific tenants to access backup policies and hardware profiles:
Go to Users → edit the enterprise
Go to Datacenters → select the Allowed datacenter or public cloud region
Go to Hardware profiles and/or Backups as required
Enable and/or select the desired options
For more details, see Configure an enterprise in a cloud location
General info
Backup description
Field | Description |
---|---|
Name | Name of the backup policy that users can select |
Code | The Code that identifies the policy and that must be unique in the datacenter. Abiquo may use the Code attribute to match policies that the administrator already created in the backup system |
Description | Description of the backup policy to help users identify it |
After you enter the General info, select the backup type:
The Abiquo backup integrations only support Complete backups
Complete backup
Example backup configuration of Complete backup
Field | Description |
---|---|
Defined hour | Backup at a defined date and time. Date format is yyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss +0000. The Veeam backup integration does not support this option |
Daily | Backup every day at a defined time. Time format is HH:mm:ss +0000 |
Monthly | A backup every month at the defined time. When the user enters a time it is in the format HH:mm:ss, and the user must select the UTC offset. This option is designed to enable the system administrator to define the monthly backup day in the backup integration. |
Hourly | A backup at an interval of hours. Enter an integer less than 24. |
Weekly planned | A backup every week on defined days at a defined time. When the user enters a value, the format is HH:mm:ss, and the user must select the UTC offset. |
For each field in the backup type, the Cloud Admin can choose how to set the values:
Value | Description |
---|---|
Fixed | The value is set by the Cloud Admin as part of the backup policy |
Don't apply | The value is set by the backup system |
Define in VM | The user must set the value and will require the appropriate privileges |