This page describes the key platform components and their installation on different appliances in production and test environments.
Abiquo platform servers
The Abiquo UI lets cloud consumers interact with the resource cloud through the Abiquo platform servers. You can install each of the following components on one or more appliances in a production environment or on fewer appliances in a test environment.
Platform server | Description |
|---|---|
Server | The Abiquo Server contains the business logic and it manages all the private datacenters and public cloud regions. Also, It handles and stores all of the information and events created in the cloud environment, using the database on the Datanode server or in a test environment on this server. |
Remote Services | The Remote Services server performs operations requested by the Abiquo Server on the infrastructure, such as deploying a VM, or duplicating a VM template. Each private datacenter and public cloud region has one Remote Services server. For example, when a cloud user creates a volume in public cloud, Abiquo communicates with the discovery manager, which communicates with the API of the public cloud provider to create the volume. |
V2V Services | The V2V (Virtual to Virtual conversion) services server has one of the remote services (BPM) but you will usually install it on a separate server for performance reasons. The process runs when users download VM templates, create VM instances, or when they upload new templates, to convert them to hypervisor formats. |
Monitoring Server | The Monitoring Server contains the Abiquo Watchtower monitoring services (Emmett, Delorean, KairosDB and Cassandra) for the platform. You can deploy monitoring as a standalone service or with a Cassandra cluster (for large installations). |
Datanode | The Datanode server contains the Abiquo database and services, such as RabbitMQ for queues, Redis for datacenter subscriptions, and Zookeeper (for API load balancing). These components may also be installed on the Abiquo Server in a test environment. |
Catalogue
A key element in private cloud is the catalogue. In private cloud, the cloud and tenant administrators upload VM templates to the catalogue, for users to easily create their own VMs. The catalogue stores disks on NFS shares called NFS repositories. Each private cloud datacenter must have its own private NFS repository. In public cloud regions, Abiquo caches the details of the cloud provider templates but it does not store the disks, so you do not require an NFS repository.
Production installations
In production installations, the servers are configured as Distributed environments. This means that there are separate Abiquo components for improved performance and reliability. Distributed environments require at least one Server, one Remote Services, one V2V appliance, at least one datanode (database and services), and most environments will also have a monitoring appliance or cluster. The following diagram shows a distributed environment.
In production environments for public cloud only, the platform does not require the V2V Services or the NFS repository.
For more information, see Distributed HA cluster environment.
Datacenters and public cloud regions
The diagram below shows an Abiquo Server managing several private datacenters in a distributed environment. The main point to note is that each private cloud datacenter has its own NFS repository and Remote Services server.
Test installations
Test installations can be Monolithic environments that have all of the Abiquo components on the same appliance. This is useful for proof of concept and other testing. A standard test environment can also include a monitoring appliance as in a production installation.
For all the requirements to install a monolithic test environment, see Monolithic environment
High availability cluster installations
Abiquo components are modular and it is possible to install them on multiple servers according to your requirements. The HA cluster installation can consist of multiple load balanced API nodes with separate data nodes for high performance and high availability. It is also possible to install the Datanode (database and services) and Monitoring node with cluster configurations.
For more details, see Distributed HA cluster environment
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