This page describes how you can easily save and create a typical set of VMs using the virtual appliance specs (blueprints) feature.
This page describes blueprints for a cloud administrator or reseller administrator, including the Catalogue functionalities, and sharing.
For a description of this feature for a tenant administrator, see https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/resumedraft.action?draftId=326598709.
Introduction to virtual appliance specifications
The virtual appliance specifications (VApp specs) feature enables administrators to save complex configurations and present them to users for simple, self-service deployment across their virtual datacenters. Specs are similar to blueprints because the platform uses them to define the configurations to recreate. Administrators select the locations where users can work with each spec, including datacenters and public cloud regions, such as AWS and Azure ARM.With specs, you can save the configuration of virtual appliances including VMs, storage, networks, monitoring, Chef, firewalls, and load balancers. When users create a new virtual appliance based on a spec (also referred to as to "materialize" a spec), the platform will automatically use existing virtual resources or create new ones for this virtual appliance.The limitations of specs are as follows:
Specs do not store data from VM disks; they use template disks only
Specs do not support external networks and NICs or unmanaged networks and NICs
In vCloud, specs have basic support for external networks
Specs do not support scaling groups
Users should also be aware of differences in features between private and public cloud environments.
Save a VApp configuration as a blueprint spec
To save a configuration of a group of VMs as a blueprint (virtual appliance spec):Privileges: Manage virtual appliance specs
Go to myCloud → Virtual datacenters → Virtual appliances
Open the virtual appliance
Go to the virtual appliance options menu → select Create new spec
Enter spec details
The Description should identify the spec and the current version for the user
For the Icon, enter a URL
This URL must have a public IP address, not localhost or 127.0.0.1. It may contain the IP address of the API server. Use the same protocol as the server to avoid mixed content errors
Square icon images with a size of 128x128 pixels and a transparent background look best. The compatible image formats are PNG, JPG, and GIF.
Click Validate to check the display of the Icon
Optionally, go to Scopes and select scopes to share the spec with the tenants in those scopes
Optionally, go to Locations and select datacenters and public cloud regions where the user can work with the spec
Click Save
The platform will create the new spec for your tenant. This spec will be the default, but an administrator can change or remove the default.
When designing a virtual appliance for use in more than one location, please consider the following differences between private and public cloud:
Private cloud datacenters allow multiple disk templates and additional disks. In public cloud, the platform may support only a single disk or use all disks
Public networks in private cloud will be translated to floating IPs in public cloud and vice versa
A range of IP addresses may be reserved by an SDN system or the cloud provider
The number of NICs allowed or required per VM may vary
Firewall and load balancer configurations may differ
To save VM disks as templates, see Create instances to save VM disks to templates.
What do virtual appliance specs save and create
Manage VApp specs in the user interface
Create a new version of a virtual appliance spec
Display virtual appliance specs in the catalogue
Share virtual appliance specs with other tenants
Define the locations where users can work with a spec
Define the version of a spec to use
The platform presents users with a single version of a virtual appliance spec. The administrator can configure this to be the default version or the latest version.
When you create a virtual appliance spec, the platform automatically sets this first version as the default version.
When you create another version you can choose to make this version the default.
To change the default version of a spec:
Go to Catalogue → Virtual appliance specs
Select the VApp spec icon, click the options button, and select Versions
Click on the Version you want users to work with
On the top, right-hand side of the dialog, click Mark as default version
To unset the default, so that users will always work with the latest version:
Select the VApp spec version and click the pencil Edit button
Clear the Default checkbox
To delete a version of a spec, select it and click the Delete button. If you delete the default version, then the platform will return the latest version to users.