Abiquo Technical Specification

1. Introduction

1.1. Purpose

This section is a basic technical specification document for the Abiquo Cloud Management Platform, outlining its key features, architecture, and system requirements.

1.2. Scope

The document covers both functional and non-functional aspects of the Abiquo Cloud Management Platform, ensuring a thorough understanding of its capabilities and deployment considerations.

2. Overview

2.1. Product Description

The Abiquo Cloud Management Platform is a comprehensive cloud management solution that enables organizations to efficiently manage and optimize their virtualized infrastructure. It provides a centralized platform for deploying, monitoring, and scaling virtual machines across multiple cloud environments.

2.2. Key Features

2.2.1. Manage virtual resources in a multi-cloud environment

• Create, deploy, and manage VMs and virtual resources.

• Support for multiple hypervisors, including VMware, KVM, and Hyper-V

• Support for multiple public clouds, including AWS, Azure, Google, OCI.

• Seamless management of resources across public and private cloud environments.

• Progressively onboard existing resources into the agent-free environment

• Abiquo cloud users can easily obtain resources by self-service but always under the cloud policy and governance that you define

2.2.2. Marketplace catalogue

• Catalogue of configurable software templates for self-service deployment

• Prepackaged application configurations as blueprints (specs) that users can select, customize, and launch in any cloud

• Custom services with XaaS

2.2.3. Cost Monitoring and Resource Optimization

• Real-time monitoring of resource utilization.

• Automated scaling and optimization of resources based on demand.

• Resource optimization and billing dashboards, with estimated bills

• Create alarms and alerts for metric thresholds that can trigger action plans

• Budgets that can trigger automation with alerts

• Cost and usage reports

Inventory and Classification

• Single cloud console with virtual resource inventory screens

• Multi-cloud tags, tag policies, and compliance reports, and cost and usage reports by tags

2.2.4. User and Role Management

• Granular control over user access and permissions.

• Role-based access control for secure administration.

2.2.5. Automation

• Automate your VM configurations with cloud-init, cloudbase-init, and guest tools

• Use no-code action plans to automate actions on the platform, including autoscaling. Action plans can be triggered by monitoring alerts or on schedule

2.2.6. Backup and Disaster Recovery

• BaaS and DRaaS to directly offer your users local backup and disaster recovery without creating your own integrations, and automatically add services to the customer's bill!

2.2.7. APIs and Integration

• RESTful API for easy integration with third-party tools and systems.

• Extensive documentation for developers and administrators.

• XaaS (Everything as a Service) framework to integrate your custom services and PaaS, using plugins such as Amazon RDS, Amazon Route 53, Microsoft Products, Ansible AWX, and more.

• Example integrations are to configure and launch systems from an ITSM integration, and to access ticketing systems through an ITSM integration

2.3. MSP features

The following features were developed for MSPs

• White-label the UI per reseller with support for separate access URLs

• Restrict user access to selected virtual datacenters

• Create read-only access, and other overrides of user roles per provider or virtual datacenter

• Let users outsource systems that will still run on their virtual resources and are included in their single cloud bill

• Deliver datacenter services through restricted networks and reserved IP addresses

2.4. Reseller Features

The following features were developed for multi-cloud resellers

• Reseller hierarchy to manage reseller tenants and share resources

• Cloud reseller white labelling

• Reseller pricing models and billing dashboards for customers

• Manage public cloud reseller accounts (Azure CSP, AWS partner, and organization)

• Create users and reseller customer accounts in public cloud

• Create a customer enterprise with XaaS and Abiquo Setup Service

3. Architecture

3.1. Component Overview

The Abiquo Cloud Management Platform has the following key components:

• Abiquo Server: The central server responsible for managing and orchestrating virtualized resources.

• Abiquo Remote Services: Components distributed across the infrastructure to enable communication with hypervisors and other resources.

• Web UI: User interface for administrators and users to interact with the platform.

3.2. Integration Points

Abiquo integrates with various external systems, including:

• authentication providers

• monitoring tools

• backup systems

• disaster recovery systems

• SDN systems

Detailed integration points and protocols are documented in the official integration guide.

3.3. System Requirements

3.3.1. VM Requirements

A production deployment of the Abiquo platform in HA cluster mode requires you to deploy VMs with the following minimum specifications.

3.3.2. Software Requirements

Abiquo is packaged on a standard Linux environment.

• Abiquo 6.1 runs on CentOS 7

• Abiquo 6.2 is available on CentOS 7 and Ubuntu

• Abiquo 6.3 will run on Ubuntu

3.3.3. Database requirements

• The main Abiquo DB is with MariaDB and Galera

• The monitoring system also uses KairosDB and Cassandra

3.3.4. Supported web browsers for the user interface

• Abiquo UI requires a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768 for productive work. It is based on HTML5 and you must use browsers that support these HTML5 features: Forms block, Drag and drop

4. Installation and Configuration

4.1. Installation Steps

Download and install the Abiquo OVAs following the instructions at Installation

4.2. Post-Installation Tasks

Configure the platform following the instructions at https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/doc/pages/311375424

The main configuration steps are:

1. Configure the platform within the Abiquo UI, e.g. enable billing, define defaults

2. Configure the platform with Abiquo Configuration properties in abiquo.properties file for API, Remote services, V2V server, integrations such as NSX-T, SAML, etc

3. Configure the UI in the client-config file

4. Customize and translate UI text and labels, in UI language files

5. Define your Backup system for the integration in backup.properties, for Veeam or Networker

6. Configure your monitoring system on the Watchtower server and kairosDB properties, and cassandra properties

7. Configure logs in logback.xml, including the main Catalina log

5. Security Considerations

5.1. Authentication and Authorization

• Abiquo offers 2FA, OAuth, complex passwords, and integrations with LDAP, SAML, and OpenID.

5.2. Data Encryption

• Users connect to the Abiquo UI with HTTPS

• Connections between platform servers and services can also be made with TLS

• Password encryption is used on the Abiquo platform

5.3. Compliance

• Abiquo can assist customers in obtaining security certifications for their multi-cloud platforms.

6. Support and Documentation

6.1. Technical Support

Abiquo customers can contact Abiquo Platform and Customer Services Team through the Abiquo Support Portal.

6.2. Documentation

• User guide to the Abiquo GUI

• Abiquo infrastructure guide

• Abiquo API Reference