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This document refers to VMware hypervisors including vCenter clusters and vCenter hosts in private cloud datacenters.

Abiquo and VMware vCenter

Abiquo can manage VMware hypervisors in your multi-cloud platform with VMware hosts at different levels as:

  • vCenter server hosts

  • vCenter clusters as hosts

Abiquo can also work with NSX-T to create network configurations such as firewalls, load balancers, and NAT.

Supported versions

Abiquo has been tested with the following latest versions.

Product

Version

Build number

Notes and known issues

vSphere Client 

7.0.3m

ESXi /vCenter

7.0.3m

21784236

NSX-T

3.1.3.5

  • Tested with Abiquo 5.4.0+

3.2.1

  • Tested with Abiquo 6.1.1

NSX-V

6.4.6

14819921

NSX NAT

6.4.6

14819921

13252 - Cannot create a firewall on version prior to Abiquo 5.0

ESXi 6.x versions prior to 6.7 are supported by earlier versions of Abiquo.

ESXi 5.x versions are NOT supported in Abiquo 5.1.2 and higher versions.

VMware Features

This section describes the VMware ESXi features supported by Abiquo. You can manage VMware technology in Abiquo with vCenter (hosts or clusters) and vCloud Director.

Feature

Description

vCenter server

(tick) Add vCenter as a master hypervisor, then add hypervisors or clusters as hosts

dvSwitch

(tick) Abiquo will use the vCenter credentials. Detect all HostProxySwitch as DVS

High availability

(tick) Abiquo supports vSphere HA

Fault tolerance

(error) Abiquo does not support fault tolerance because it requires two VMs with the same name to be present in a cluster at the same time.

Replication

(tick) Abiquo supports replication with Zerto. Replicated VMs must be a in a separate cluster.

Clusters

(tick) For vCenter hosts, the platform automatically detects clusters and displays them. You can also set compute load level rules at the Cluster level
(tick) For vCenter clusters as hosts, set the compute load level rules at the Server level

VM live migration

(tick) For vCenter clusters as hosts, live migrations are transparent to Abiquo
(tick) For vCenter hosts, Abiquo supports vMotion of VMs, including those between hosts with different versions of ESXi. Abiquo supports vMotion between machines with different network service types if they are connected to a dvSwitch

Templates

(tick) VMDK fixed ((star) default format)
(tick) VMDK sparse
(tick) VMDK stream optimized (deployed directly)

DVD

The ISO feature supports DVDs, and you can import CD-ROM configurations on VMs with IDE and SATA controllers

Remote access

(tick) WebMKS - configure the WebMKS proxy. WebMKS will always be available.

Network drivers

E1000, PCNet32, VMXNET3

Boot

(tick) BIOS
(tick) UEFI with supported guest operating system and firmware, for virtual hardware versions 13 or later. The administrator must select UEFI on VM templates

CPU hot-add 
RAM hot-add 

(tick) With supported guest operating system. The user can mark supported templates and perform hot-add

Hot-reconfigure of NICs, disks 

(tick) With supported guest operating system. The user can mark supported templates and perform hot-reconfigure

SDN - NSX

Abiquo supports SDN using NSX-V with gateway, ECMP, and NAT configurations.

SDN - NSX-T

Abiquo supports SDN using NSX-T. See Configure the Abiquo NSX-T integration

Snapshots

Abiquo lets users obtain a snapshot of their VM through the UI.
See Abiquo and VM snapshots for VMware

GuestOS

Support in VM template for latest GuestOsIdentifier from vSphere. See Modify a VM template and Set the guest operating system for VMware

DRS rules

  • Rules for anti-affinity layers to deploy VMs separately

  • Abiquo can deploy VMs to separate clusters by operating system. See DRS rules for license affinity

Metrics

Customize the built-in metrics to obtain from ESXi

Hardware version

Property to specify downgrade of hardwareVersion for new VMs

Storage features

Feature

Description

Datastores

VMFS, NFS, vVol

You can use any storage protocol, such as iSCSI, NFS, FC, FCoE, or direct attached.

VM disk controller types

  • IDE (default for compatibility reasons),

  • SCSI

  • SATA

VM SCSI controllers

  • VirtualLsiLogicController (default) 

  • ParaVirtualSCSIController

  • VirtualBusLogicController

  • VirtualLsiLogicSASController

VM system disks

By default, for VMs deployed on ESX/ESXi hypervisors:

  • If disks are deployed from VMDK Sparse templates, they will be in Sparse format

  • If disks are deployed from VMDK templates or conversions from formats other than VMDK Sparse, they will be in flat/fixed formats with thin provisioning enabled

Disk resize

(tick) (warning) System disk resize
(tick) (warning) Hard disk resize

See Configure VM disks for VMware

Storage live migration

For vCenter hosts, Abiquo detects storage vMotion on all datastores

Host configuration

This section describes configuration of ESXi hosts.

VMware clusters as hosts

You can add VMware vCenter clusters directly, so Abiquo will use vCenter clusters instead of individual vCenter servers. When you create a physical machine/hypervisor host in Abiquo for a cluster, select VMware vCenter cluster.

The main advantages of vCenter clusters as hosts are:

  • You can make more efficient use of your infrastructure, because when users deploy VMs, Abiquo will allocate them to VMware clusters, and VMware will allocate them to hosts

  • Abiquo does not need to track VMs within the cluster, because it considers that they are all on the same host.

All of the VMs in the cluster will be directly listed under the cluster.

General details about a VMware cluster on the details panel

Even in a test system, do not add the same VMware servers in more than one mode (for example, do not add a vCenter server, and then add the same server in a vCenter cluster)

Host networking

On the ESXi host, the vNICs must be attached to a vSwitch.

For vCenter clusters, you must use dvSwitches (VMware distributed virtual switches or VDSs). Abiquo will retrieve the dVSwitches from the cluster itself, not from the individual hosts. Optionally, configure the properties for the dVSwitches (see Abiquo configuration properties and search for .dvs.).

Abiquo will automatically create a port group for the host.

If your host has already been configured with another vSwitch, you may need to delete the port group before adding a host to Abiquo.

Host datastores

For vCenter clusters, you should use shared datastores, so when VMs move, they will always be accessible to all hosts.

For vCenter hosts, when you use a shared datastore, the platform creates a different datastore on each physical machine that is using the datastore. This means that a shared datastore can be enabled on one host and disabled on another, either as a result of user configuration or an issue (e.g. an NFS communication error on one host).

If you need to work with local datastores, create a datastore tier for the host, and add local datastores with shared datastores. This will ensure that the platform can always create or access VMs on a valid datastore. Do not create a tier containing local datastores from different hosts.

Datastore discovery

Abiquo should discover and list all of the datastores that you will use for deploying VMs. Abiquo expects to be able to identify each datastore with a UUID so it will try to create a UUID folder on each datastore.

By default, Abiquo retrieves a datastore if it is accessible and not in maintenance mode on all the hosts in the cluster that mount it. So by default, if there is a host that has all the datastores mounted, but Abiquo cannot access them (e.g. because the host is down), Abiquo will not return any datastores. You can configure Abiquo to avoid this situation.

Allow datastores mounted on at least one host

You can configure Abiquo to retrieve a datastore if it is mounted, not in maintenance mode, and accessible on at least one host in the cluster.

To allow datastores if they are mounted on at least one host:

  1. On the Remote Services server, edit the abiquo.properties file and add the following property

    com.abiquo.esxi.clusterdatastore.atleastone=true

  2. To activate the properties, restart the tomcat service of the Remote Services

Ignore datastores by name

You can configure Abiquo to ignore datastores by name when you add a host or on an existing host, so that Abiquo will not check or use the datastores. You can still use these datastores outside of the platform. 

To ignore datastores by name:

  1. On the Remote Services server, in the abiquo.properties file, set the following property to a Java regular expression string to match the name of the datastores to ignore. 
    For example, to add an ESXi host or cluster with multiple datastores and ignore two datastores called Backup_1 and Backup_2, set the property as follows.

    com.abiquo.esxi.discovery.datastore.ignorebyname=Backup_.*

  2. To activate the properties, restart the tomcat service of the Remote Services

Ignore datastores that are not writeable

To configure Abiquo to ignore datastores that are not writeable:

  1. On the Remote Services server, in the abiquo.properties file, set the following property.

    com.abiquo.esxi.experimental.unsafe.ignorebaddatastore=true

  2. To activate the properties, restart the tomcat service of the Remote Services

If you activate this property, the platform may remove inaccessible datastores during an infrastructure check

Datastore checks

As part of the infrastructure check, Abiquo will check datastores to ensure that it can deploy VMs.

Abiquo checks for the following conditions:

  • datastore is accessible

  • datastore is mounted as read/write on all hosts in the cluster or the current host

  • datastore is not in maintenance mode

If you activated a datastore, but it fails the datastore check, then Abiquo will automatically deactivate it. If it passes a future check, then Abiquo will automatically activate it again. If a deactivated datastore fails the datastore check, Abiquo will ignore it!

Manage datastores in Abiquo

To add, update, and delete datastores, refresh the datastores on the host in Abiquo:

Edit the physical machine, go to the Datastores page and click the round arrow refresh button. 

To delete a datastore, make sure it is empty and not attached to the host.

Configuration of VM disks

See https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/doc/pages/560988173/Configure+VM+disks+on+VMware.

VM snapshots

Abiquo enables users to manage VM snapshots in the user interface. For a full feature description and configuration details, see Abiquo and VM snapshots for VMware.

Advanced VM configuration

See Advanced configuration of VMs on ESXi

Capture VMs

To prepare and onboard existing VMs into the platform, see About import and capture virtual machines and Import and capture virtual machines.

Remote access to VMs

The platform supports remote access through WebMKS using a WebMKS proxy.

This is included in the install process. See Install WebMKS proxy and configure WebMKS

Configure VMware specific properties

Log in to the Abiquo Remote Services server (or for a Monolithic installation, log in to the Abiquo Server) and set the appropriate properties for your system to appropriate values in the /opt/abiquo/config/abiquo.properties file.

Search in the properties documentation table for the following text strings:

  • .esxi.

  • .dvs.

  • vmx_04

  • vcenter_cluster

For a list of properties filtered from the main table for Abiquo 6.1.2, see VMware vCenter host and cluster properties table.

For full details of all properties, see Abiquo configuration properties.

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