Abiquo offers a single cloud console for your public clouds and private data centers. And it enables you to present your customers with a single cloud bill!
Moreover, Abiquo offers the building blocks for a customized cloud service, so you can select the features that best match your business goals.
Abiquo functional map
The Abiquo cloud management platform consists of an Abiquo Server (providing central management) and a set of Remote Services for each datacenter that can be shared with public cloud regions.
The platform presents a number of services to the cloud consumers to provide cloud services, and enable the use of integration and automation solutions on top of them:
The Server manages the platform and delivers service as defined by cloud administrators
The API provides access to the platform functionality, allowing integration or automation
The Apps library provides VM templates to run on the platform and use its resources
The UI allows cloud consumers to use the platform through the Abiquo Server
Reporting, Accounting, and Metering show how the platform is being used and enable billing
You can access the Abiquo functionality through the Abiquo UI and or create your own integrations with the integration points.
- Abiquo depends on the cloud infrastructure and it is important to understand where Abiquo sits in the overall environment.
- The platform manages resources in public cloud and private data centers, which may be distinct physical locations or logical groups of infrastructure within the same location
- Abiquo is a thin unintrusive management layer to the existing infrastructure and there is no impact on any VMs that are already running
- The Cloud Admins can add the physical and virtual infrastructure to Abiquo in a controlled way on their own timescales.
Abiquo does more than just cloud provisioning!
In addition to the basic concepts, the following diagram shows some of the specialized feature sets that Abiquo can provide as part of a cloud service!
Cloud administrator
On the Abiquo multi-cloud IaaS platform, Cloud Administrators control the resources.
- Administrators register physical resources and public cloud services in the platform, then grant virtual resources to users.
- Administrators allow users to have self-service in the cloud. Administrators remain in control of the physical resources and public cloud services.
- Administrators create Enterprises, which are the basic cloud tenants, and tenant hierarchies
- Administrators allocate resources to enterprises and use policy to control access to resources, including user roles and privileges.
Cloud Administrators can automate and delegate tasks to manage the platform to resellers, for example.
- Administrators create the Apps library, which contains VM templates and application blueprints.
- The Apps library is the key to self-service on the platform, enabling users to easily consume the cloud resources in the virtual datacenters. Administrators can share templates and blueprints using tenant access control lists. This enables you to provide Software as a Service (SaaS) on top of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). And you can allow tenant administrators to upload their own templates or create their own blueprints.
- Administrators create Virtual Datacenters (VDCs) where users will consume their cloud resources.
- VDCs are logical groups of resources bound to a single Abiquo datacenter and virtualization backend, or public cloud provider. The Cloud Administrator can provide different service levels by using different technology stacks for different VDCs. Administrators can apply policies to VDCs using allocation limits (controlling compute, network and storage) or defining the users within an enterprise who can work with each VDC, and their level of access. For example, read only access in public cloud.
- Administrators create pricing models
- They enter pricing information for billing that also enables them to offer pricing estimates to users.
Cloud user tasks
Abiquo users can log in to the user interface and easily consume virtual resources through their virtual datacenters.
- Users with self-service can create their own virtual appliances (VApps) within the VDCs.
- VApps are groups (like folders) with one or more virtual machines (VMs). Users can build their own configurations or take advantage of application blueprints to deploy ready-made configurations. They can then automate and scale their VM configurations.
- Users have controlled self-service because the entire platform is controlled by policy
- This enables the Cloud Administrator to maintain control of the physical infrastructure and public cloud services. Policy controls the amount of resources that are allocated to Enterprises and VDCs, where the resources are located, and how they can be used.
- Users can obtain charge-forward notifications of the cost of their VApps
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