Allocation rules

Manage allocation rules to control resource scheduling in private cloud data centers while allowing your virtualization technology to take care of the details. This page describes how to configure rules for load balance, compute load level, storage load level, enterprise exclusion, and fit policies, to ensure that VMs will be allocated in the desired hosts

Introduction to allocation rules

The platform uses allocation rules to control the scheduling of resources in datacenters, although your virtualization technology must manage the use of the resources. For details of the allocation process, see the Virtual machine allocation section.

There are two types of allocation rules: Global rules apply to all datacenters and Datacenter rules apply to the selected datacenter.

Manage allocation rules with the API

API Documentation

For the Abiquo API documentation of this feature, see Abiquo API Resources and the page for this resource RulesResource.

Create a global load balance rule

The platform uses allocation rules to control the scheduling of resources in datacenters, although your virtualization technology must manage the use of the resources. For details of the allocation process, see the Virtual machine allocation section.

You can create the following types of load balance rules:

PERFORMANCE: select the machine with the most available resources. If more than one physical machine has the same resources available, use a round-robin algorithm to allocate each VM to a different physical machine.
PROGRESSIVE: select the same physical machine until it is full, then change to another one. Begin with the machine with the most available resources. Default rule

To create a global load balance rule:

Privileges: Access infrastructure view and Private DCs, View datacenter details, Manage allocation rules

Go to Infrastructure → Private → select a datacenter
If you are in Map view or Statistics view, click the Server symbol in top right-hand corner to go to Servers view
Go to Allocation rules
On the Global panel, click the + add button
As the Rule type select "Load balance"
Select the Load balance type

Create datacenter load balance rules

The platform uses allocation rules to control the scheduling of resources in datacenters, although your virtualization technology must manage the use of the resources. For details of the allocation process, see the Virtual machine allocation section.

You can create the following types of load balance rules:

PERFORMANCE: select the machine with the most available resources. If more than one physical machine has the same resources available, use a round-robin algorithm to allocate each VM to a different physical machine.
PROGRESSIVE: select the same physical machine until it is full, then change to another one. Begin with the machine with the most available resources. Default rule

A datacenter load balance rule will have priority over a global load balance rule.

To create a datacenter load balance rule:

Privileges: Access infrastructure view and Private DCs, View datacenter details, Manage allocation rules

Go to Infrastructure → Private → select datacenter
If you are in Map view or Statistics view, click the server symbol in top right-hand corner to go to Servers view
Go to Allocation rules
On the Datacenter panel, click the + add button
Select Load balance as the rule type
Select the load balance type

Create load level compute rules

To specify the CPU and RAM load on machines, use compute load level rules. The scheduler will use these rules to help determine if a physical machine is a candidate to hold a VM.

The platform uses Load level rules to specify the level that the scheduler can assign to the virtualization technology. The virtualization technology is responsible for managing the load that is assigned

You can create load level rules for the following elements:

a datacenter (all racks)
a rack (all servers on the selected rack)
a cluster (for supported hypervisors)
a specific server

You can only add one rule for an element at each level, but more than one rule may apply.

The priority order of rules is any cluster rule first (if it is present), then the other rules from the most specific rule to the least specific rule. A cluster rule affects all hosts in a cluster irrespective of their state, for example, it applies to hosts that are powered off.

To create a load level compute rule:

Privileges: Access infrastructure view and Private DCs, View datacenter details, Manage allocation rules

Go to Infrastructure → Private → select a datacenter
If you are in Map view or Statistics view, click the Server symbol in top right-hand corner to go to Servers view
Go to Allocation rules
On the Global pane, click the +add button
For the Rule type, select Load level compute
1. If you are using a cluster as a physical machine, to create rules for the cluster, select the Server option
Complete the dialog

Field	Value
Rule type	Select Load level compute
Rack	Select All or a specific rack
Server	Select All or a specific server. If you are using a cluster as a physical machine, to create rules for the cluster, select the Server option
Cluster	If you are using vCenter with ESXi, the platform detects the clusters. Select a specific cluster A cluster rule affects all hosts irrespective of their state, for example, it applies to hosts that are powered off.
Aggregate	Select to create a rule for the sum of all resources in a group (datacenters, racks, or clusters). This means that the platform will sum all of the resources in the group and calculate the load level percentage of the total in order to determine the available resources for the group.
Service Port	The port used by the cloud nodes to connect to the storage technology
RAM	Percentage usage of memory to allow. We DO NOT recommend the overallocation of RAM
CPU cores	Percentage usage of CPU cores to allow. We DO NOT recommend the oversubscription of CPU cores

Create load level storage rules

To specify the storage load on machine datastores, use storage load level rules. The scheduler will use these rules to help determine if a physical machine is a candidate to hold a VM.

You can create rules for the following elements:

A datacenter (all datastore tiers)
A tier (all datastores in a tier)
A specific datastore.

If there is more than one rule that applies to a datastore, the most specific rule takes precedence over more general rules.

To create a load level storage rule:

Privileges: Access infrastructure view and Private DCs, View datacenter details, Manage allocation rules

Go to Infrastructure → Private → select a datacenter
If you are in Map view or Statistics view, click the Server symbol in top right-hand corner to go to Servers view
Go to Allocation rules
On the Global panel, click the + add button and complete the dialog
1. For the Rule type, select Load level storage
2. For the Datastore and Datastore tier select All or a specific tier
3. For Storage, to limit the amount to use, enter a percentage (0 to 100%)
Click Save

The platform uses Load level rules to specify the level that the scheduler can assign to the virtualization technology. The virtualization technology is responsible for managing the load that is assigned

Restrict tenants from sharing servers

If a tenant does not want to deploy on the same physical machine as another tenant, use enterprise exclusion rules, which are called Restrict shared server rules. There is no limit on the amount of these rules you can create.

To create a restrict shared server rule:

Go to Infrastructure → Private
Select a datacenter
Go to Allocation rules → Global
Click the + add button
Select Restrict shared server rule
Select the two enterprises that must not share a physical server. The cloud admin must configure the rules properly to customize VM deployments.

Note that you can also restrict servers by editing an enterprise in Users view.

Redirect deployments with allocation rules

You can use allocation rules to redirect deployments. Here are some examples:

To gradually migrate users to a new empty hypervisor, set load balance rules to performance. This will ensure that new deployments will go to the new machine.
To stop VMs from deploying to a specific physical machine, set load level rules to 1% for RAM and CPU. This will ensure that users cannot deploy more VMs to this physical machine. However, it is also important to consider that users will not be able to reconfigure the VMs that were already deployed there.

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