What do specs save and create

Manage VApp specs in the user interface

Users work with spec blueprints in different parts of the UI.

To create VApp specs, go to Virtual datacenters → Virtual appliances
From the Virtual appliance spec button, select Create new spec
To create a version of a spec, log in to the owner enterprise (that created the spec). Then go to Virtual datacenters and open a virtual appliance created from the spec
From the Virtual appliance spec button, select Create new spec version
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Screenshot: create a spec or spec version
To create a virtual appliance based on a spec, go to Virtual datacenters → V. Appliances list → select Create virtual appliance based on spec.
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Screenshot: create a virtual appliance based on a spec
To manage specs, go to the owner enterprise → Apps library → Virtual appliance specs.
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Screenshot: Apps library specs tab

What do virtual appliance specs save and create?

When creating the new virtual appliance based on the spec, the platform will:

Try to use the same VM template or offer a selection of VM templates with similar names
Create:
- VMs in layers
- storage in appropriate matching tiers
  - template disks
  - empty volumes in the available storage device
  - empty hard disks
- networks allowing the user to select from existing or replace:
  - private network
  - private IPs
  - public IPs (either tenant's pre-purchased or automatically purchased)
  - external IPs (basic support)
- firewalls with available integration
- load balancers with available integration

Click here to show/hide table of what specs save and create

The following VM configuration elements are saved and created by virtual appliance specs. Support for elements is marked for datacenters (DC) and public cloud regions (PCR). When creating a virtual appliance from a spec, the platform will assign the spec icon to the virtual appliance.

Element	Save in Spec	Create in VApp from saved configuration
VMs	General information: hardware profiles, CPU, RAM, remote access and description	Same. If a matching hardware profile is not found, the platform will activate or create one, or the user can select another available hardware profile
Anti-affinity layers	VMs in layers	Same
Scaling groups	Scaling groups are not supported
VM templates	Template name is saved	The system matches the spec template name against the Apps library template name. The user selects from a list of templates with names that contain the spec template name. The match is done with an SQL %LIKE% command from the spec to the template, so spec template "m0n0" will match with "m0n0" and "m0n0wall" in the Apps library. But spec template "m0n0wall" will not match with "m0n0" in the Apps library
Template auxiliary hard disks	Template system disks and other datastore hard disks and their tiers are saved	The platform will create template disks in order as in the template with no gaps in the sequence. Then empty additional hard drives and volumes will be added in the same order as in the base virtual appliance. The platform will search for datastore tiers by name, as for templates
Persistent VMs	Persistent VMs are not supported. To create a spec from a persistent VM, first create an instance, which is a non-persistent template
Private network, Private IPs	Save private network characteristics: network address and mask only. Save private IPs	The materialize process will present the addresses of the spec private networks. Abiquo will display matching networks in the virtual datacenter in green text, and ones that are not present in red text. Abiquo will display the number of private IPs to use in each network. The user can choose to change any private network, even if it matches the spec network. The user can choose to create a new network (specifying the IP address, mask and gateway), or replace the network with an existing VDC network.
Network gateways	Abiquo will determine if a NIC has a gateway IP address and save this information in the spec	If a NIC has a gateway IP address, when using an existing network, the materialize process will attempt to assign the network's gateway address to the NIC Abiquo will not assign the gateway IP address to a NIC that did not have this address in the original configuration If the materialize process is creating a new network, it will attempt to assign the same gateway address from the spec to the gateway NIC in the new network
Public network	Number of public IPs is saved	The materialize process will try to use public IPs that were already purchased by the enterprise. These public IPs will be momentarily quarantined during the materialization process. If not, the materialize process will purchase new public IPs. The public networks will be used in the order returned by the API. In public cloud, the platform will use floating IPs
External IPs	Not supported, except for basic support in vCloud	If you create a spec containing an external IP, the materialize process will fail because the external IP is unsupported. In vCloud, specs have basic support for external networks. The validation process will list the network, and you can select it and then continue with the process. The platform will create the VApp correctly. Remember to ensure that there are enough external IP addresses available for the new virtual appliance
Unmanaged IPs	Not supported	If you create a spec containing an unmanaged IP, the materialize process will fail because the unmanaged IP is unsupported.
Volume (data)	Data on external storage volumes is not included. To use data on a volume, create an instance to save it to a template disk	Empty volumes with the same specifications as the attached volumes are created. Empty volumes are named vappName-UUID
Volume (specifications)	The specifications, disk controller types, and tiers of the volumes are saved in private cloud	Empty volumes with the same specifications as the attached volumes are created. Empty volumes are named vappName-UUID Volumes are attached to the same disk controller type as in the original VM. If this controller type is not compatible with the target hypervisor, then the platform will use the hypervisor default Matches tier names as for VM templates. If no storage tier is found, then the validate will fail. If the storage tier does not contain pools, then the volume create will fail.
Hard disk (data)	Data on hard disks attached to the VM is not included. To use data on a hard disk, create an instance to save it to the template	Empty hard disks with the same specifications as the attached hard disks are created. Empty disks are named Empty disk-UUID
Hard disk (specifications)	The specifications, disk controller types and tiers of the hard disks are saved in private cloud	Empty hard disks with the same specifications as the attached hard disks are created. Empty disks are named Empty disk-UUID Hard disks are attached to the same disk controller type as in the original VM. If this controller type is not compatible with the target hypervisor, then the platform will use the hypervisor default Matches tier names as for VM templates. If no datastore tier is found, then the validate will fail. If the datastore tier does not contain datastores, then the deploy will fail.
Backup configuration	Configured backups are stored in private cloud	Backups are configured
Firewalls	Firewalls attached to VMs or load balancers are saved	Access to a firewall integration is required to create firewalls in the new virtual appliance Users can edit firewall rules during virtual appliance creation Users should be aware of compatibility issues between providers If a VM has no firewall in the spec, and the virtual datacenter has a default firewall, then the platform will assign the default firewall to the VM
Load balancers	Load balancers attached to VMs are saved, including health checks and so on	Access to a load balancer integration is required to create load balancers in the new virtual appliance Users should be aware of compatibility issues between providers
Monitoring (status)	Monitoring status of fetch metrics is saved The selected metrics are saved	Access to a monitoring server is required to retrieve metrics The materialize process creates built-in metrics of the exact same name ONLY and creates all custom metrics
Alarms and Alerts	Alarms and alerts are saved	The materialize process creates all existing alarms and alerts, regardless of the existence of their corresponding metrics
VM variables	VM variables are saved	The materialize process creates VMs with VM variables During the materialize process, users can edit the VM variables
Chef	Chef status, runlist and attributes are stored	The materialize process sets the status and recipes During the materialize process, users can edit the runlist and the attributes
VM bootstrap script	The VM startup script is saved	The startup script is added to the new VM at the end of the materialize process After the materialize process, the user can edit the VM to modify the startup script