Manage datacenters and public cloud regions

When you create a datacenter in the multi-cloud platform, you register the remote services that will manage the physical and virtual infrastructure in the cloud location.

The most common production configuration is a distributed or distributed HA cluster installation with a separate Remote Services server for each location. A common trial configuration is the monolithic installation, where the remote services for a single datacenter run on the same server as the API.

• For more details see Abiquo components

If you are terminating TLS outside of the Abiquo environment, then if you wish to offer template upload and download, users will need to access to this remote service, and you should configure the Appliance manage remote service to use HTTPS.

• For more details see Configure Abiquo Tomcat with HTTPS for Remote RS

If you are using Abiquo standard networking with DHCP, then you will need to register the fully qualified domain name of the DHCP or DHCPv6 remote service running with Omapi or Dnsmasq. If you are using SDN integrations, such as NSX-T, then Abiquo will automatically use the DHCP server of the SDN system. You can also configure the IP addresses of your VMs with guest tools or cloud-init and similar, and then you do not need to register a DHCP service.

Before you begin:

1. Obtain the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address of the server/s where the Remote Services are running

2. Check if you will require the DHCP service and check the protocol to use (Omapi or Dnsmasq)

To create a datacenter do these steps:

1. Go to Infrastructure → Private

2. At the bottom of the Datacenters list, click the + add button

3. On the Create datacenter dialog, enter the Name of the datacenter and its Location to plot the datacenter on the Infrastructure view map. Then click Next.
   

   

4. To create the datacenter remote services, enter the FQDN or IP address of the remote services server

   1. If they are all running on the same server, for the Virtualization manager, enter the FQDN or IP address of the Remote services server. To copy the remote service location, click Duplicate IP addresses 

   2. If your environment was a Monolithic OVA install or you have configured it, to use Catalogue features such as OVA upload, for the Appliance manager, change the protocol to HTTPS and the port to 443.
      

      

After the platform creates the datacenter, do these steps:

• To allow users to deploy in the datacenter, edit your enterprises to add the new datacenter to the Allowed datacenters list 

• To allow administrators to manage the datacenter, edit your administration scopes and add the new datacenter 

Related pages

• Troubleshoot when you create a datacenter

A public cloud region represents a region of a cloud provider in Abiquo, to enable users to have compute access: to use virtual resources and deploy VMs in the cloud, and/or billing access: to display cloud billing data on the dashboard.

Before you begin:

• For vCloud Director, obtain credentials for the Administrator or Organization. For more details see VMware vCloud Director integration

To create a public cloud region:

1. Go to Infrastructure → Public

2. Click the + add button at the bottom of the Public cloud regions list 

3. On the Create public cloud region dialog, enter the base Name and select the Provider.

4. Select the Regions

   • The platform will create a region with Name, and for the next regions it will add a suffix of _1, _2, and so on, and the region’s location.  

   • If the platform cannot create a region, it will go on to the next region on the list.

     

5. Click Next

6. For the Virtualization manager, in the remote services IP address field, enter the domain name of the Remote Services server.

   1. You can share the remote services with multiple public cloud regions or private cloud.

      1. You can select the Remote Services server from the pulldown, and click Duplicate IP address

   2. We recommend that you Check the remote services before you save your regions

      

7. Click Save

   The platform will create your public cloud region.

To allow users to deploy in the public cloud region, edit your enterprises to:

1. Edit Datacenters and add the new region to the Allowed datacenters list

2. Add Credentials for the cloud provider API. See Obtain public cloud credentials

   1. You will require one separate account for each enterprise using a public cloud region, which means one account or subscription per enterprise

   2. For certain regions, such as those in China, you will require separate credentials, which you can enter separately after you select the appropriate provider, such as Amazon CHINA

   3. For vCloud Director, you will require Organization and Administrator credentials 

To allow administrators to manage the public cloud region, edit your user scopes and add the new region

Display remote services

To manage remote services, go to Infrastructure → Remote Services.

Create a remote service

To add a remote service for a new feature to your platform, such as to add the XaaS feature, do these steps.

1. Go to Infrastructure → Remote services

2. Click the + add button 

3. For the General information, select the Type and check the URI is correct for your environment
   

   

4. Optionally, to add the Locations that will use the remote service, click the + add button and select them.

   

You can also add the remote service directly when you create a new datacenter or public cloud region.

Modify a remote service

To edit a remote service,

1. Go to Infrastructure → Remote services

2. In the Remote services list, select the remote service type

3. In the Remote service pane, select the remote service

4. Click the pencil edit button

To change the location of a remote service, which is not the Appliance manager or the Business process manager:

1. Edit the remote service

2. Go to Locations and remove or add the remote service from the location

To remove a remote service from a location (but not delete it from the platform):

• Next to the location, click the trash bin button

To add a remote service to a location:

• Click the + add button and select the location

Click Save

Edit an appliance manager or business process manager

Usually, you can only add the Appliance manager and Business process manager (V2V) when you create a location and delete it when you delete the location. This is because you can use these remote services in ONE location only. These remote services are linked to the NFS repository in the location.

If you wish to change the Appliance manager, you must maintain the same NFS repository, which means that it must have the same files and the same repository ID. See Troubleshooting NFS server configuration in Abiquo.

To change the location of the Appliance manager or the Business process manager, you must replace these remote services in their current location:

1. Go to Infrastructure → Private → Remote services

2. Edit the remote service

3. On the General information tab, for the Appliance manager or the Business process manager, enter the URL for the replacement remote service

4. Click Save

Delete a remote service

To delete a remote service, first remove it from any locations where it is in use. If you wish to delete an Appliance manager or a Business process manager remote service, you must replace it in the location where it is in use or delete the datacenter or public cloud region.

Modify remote services of a datacenter or public cloud region

To modify the remote services in an existing location:

1. Edit the datacenter or public cloud region, and go to Remote services

   • To add an existing remote service, click on the pulldown arrow to the right of the Remote service and select the new remote service

   • To remove a remote service, click the black x beside it

   • To display the status of the remote service from the last manual or automatic infrastructure check, click the Check button. The status indicator will show green or red (not available).Do not save a location when any of the remote services are not available in the location.

2. When you have edited all the Remote services, click Save.

Pages related to datacenters and public cloud regions

• Compute in public cloud regions

• Public cloud providers  for details of public cloud features supported

• Onboard from public cloud

• Public cloud integrations

• Manage datacenters and public cloud regions

• Create a public cloud region