Azure features table

Abiquo offers these features in the public cloud integration with Microsoft Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Compute.

Azure may require separate credentials for groups of regions. For example, for regions in China the user will need separate credentials and they should select the appropriate provider, such as Azure (CHINA).

Azure uses the VM Name and the Resource Group to identify a VM.

You cannot change the VM Name of a VM that is running in Azure
The VM Name must be unique in the Resource Group

The platform creates the Azure VM Name as follows:

When you create a VM, the default Name is the VM template name
Before you deploy, you can edit the VM Name
The platform will check that it meets the Azure naming criteria

Azure ARM feature	Support	Comments
Configure and remove VMs		When you create a VM, you’ll select the hardware profile. The Name of the VM in Azure is the platform's VM label (friendly name). It must meet the Azure naming criteria and you cannot change it after deployment.
Onboard templates		To search for templates in Azure ARM, the format for a template ID is `/Subscriptions/{subscription}/Providers/Microsoft.Compute/Locations/{region}/Publishers/Canonical/ArtifactTypes/VMImage/Offers/{offer}/Skus/{sku}/Versions/{version}`
Reconfigure VMs		You can edit deployed VMs to: attach and detach firewalls and load balancers, change hardware profiles, and reconfigure NICs The platform may require you to power off a VM to make changes to multiple vNIC configurations that were created in the Azure portal You cannot change the order of NICs on an Azure VM after you deploy the VM
Power on VM
Power off VM		Abiquo supports power off and deallocate of VMs. A deallocated VM is in the powered `OFF` state, and it has the `deallocated` attribute is set to `true`.
Reset VM
Pause and resume VM
Storage		Volumes are Azure Managed Disks. Users can onboard and create volumes, and attach them to VMs After users detach volumes from VMs or delete VMs, the synchronization process will make the volumes available in the public cloud region Users can move volumes between virtual datacenters and release them to the region Azure does not support premium storage for some hardware profiles. The platform does not enable you to configure VMs with premium storage Abiquo does not onboard VMs with Azure Unmanaged Disks but it will log a warning message
Take a VM snapshot		The Abiquo instance functionality was disabled in Abiquo 4.7.0 pending further development. To create snapshots and recreate VMs from snapshots use the Azure console.
Remote access		Depending on template type, for example: RedHat: template user/password Ubuntu: Using your SSH key registered in Abiquo, or template user/password
Create and delete networks		Each Abiquo VDC will map to an Azure ARM virtual network An Abiquo private network will map to a subnet in the VDC network Users can allocate and assign public IPs The platform will onboard and synchronize dynamic public IPs The platform supports standard SKU public IPs and basic SKU public IPs
Create and delete VPNs		Site-to-site VPNs, for example, from private cloud (NSX) to Azure, and from Azure to Azure
Create and delete VDCs		Abiquo VDCs will not be locked to a single resource group and will be able to manage and onboard existing resources from any resource group Each Abiquo VDC will map to an Azure ARM virtual network
Create and manage firewall policies		The platform supports one firewall per VM When onboarding VMs, if the VM and firewall are not in the same VDC, the platform will not assign the firewall to the VM Azure allows users to create deny rules in their VM firewalls. Abiquo synchronizes firewall policies with deny rules but it does not display the deny rules, and it will not allow you to edit the firewall rules. Abiquo does not synchronize Azure firewalls that use application security groups Abiquo supports rules with multiple source IPs/destination IPs
Use Chef		Enterprise Chef or your own server
Use Chef attributes
VM bootstrap scripts
VM variables		Stored as node metadata.
Load balancing		The platform supports Standard SKU load balancers and Basic SKU load balancers. See Azure load balancers table
Import and synchronize VMs		To onboard VMs, the enterprise must have credentials registered. Abiquo onboards VMs that were created using disk snapshots but it does not onboard the VM template into the Catalogue. To recreate a VM (for example, from a snapshot) use the Azure console.
VM monitoring and metrics		Abiquo supports monitoring with Azure built-in metrics You can also use the Abiquo monitoring server and Abiquo collectd plugin. See Use collectd plugin for custom metrics
Dashboard billing widgets		The Home view dashboard view can display public cloud billing information, including the latest bills and estimated bill. For the default tab display, see Hybrid and Home view. This data will display when an Azure reseller is configured with pricing credentials
High availability		Requires the privileges to Manage availability sets and Assign availability set to VM All of the VMs in an availability set must be in the same Azure Virtual Network, which means they must be in the same Abiquo virtual datacenter. To attach Azure VMs to a load balancer, you must add them to the same Availability set.
Resource groups		Requires the privilege to Manage resource groups, also Delete resource groups When you synchronize (or onboard) a virtual datacenter (an Azure Virtual Network), Abiquo onboards all resource groups in your Azure account When you synchronize a virtual resource (firewall, load balancer, availability set, and so on), Abiquo will onboard its resource group (if it wasn't already in Abiquo) When Abiquo periodically onboards and synchronizes volumes (Azure Managed Disks), then Abiquo will onboard the resource groups of the volumes. This may mean that some volumes and their resource groups may be automatically onboarded before the user onboards their resources in the platform
Tags		Requires the privilege to Manage tags