Abiquo quick walkthrough of private cloud

This walkthrough:

• Looks at private cloud infrastructure, templates, and tenants and users
• Describes how to create a virtual datacenter and deploy a VM

This guide assumes that the Abiquo platform demonstration environment already has a datacenter with two hypervisors.

1. Log In

Log in as Cloud Administrator using the default account with the following data:

• Username: admin
• Password: (Your demo password supplied by Customer Service)

Let's start with a quick overview of the private cloud datacenter.

2. Display an overview of your cloud in Home view

After you log in, you will probably be in the Home view. This view will display an overview of your cloud resources.

3. Display infrastructure details in private cloud

In the Infrastructure view, the cloud administrator will manage the datacenters, with racks and servers.

1. Open Infrastructure View by clicking the Servers icon at the top of the main menu on the left-hand side of the screen
   
   Tip: to display the section names, move the mouse over the main menu
2. As shown in the image below, go to the Private tab
3. In the list on the left, select a datacenter. The platform will open datacenter at the Servers tab
4. In the Physical servers list, click on an expansion arrow to open a rack to display the servers
5. Select a server to display the server details panel and the virtual machines running on the server

The hypervisors will be organised on racks and the cloud administrator will be able to manage all aspects of the infrastructure in this view.

4. Display the VM Templates in the Apps Library

The Appliance library (Apps library) stores VM templates so that users can easily create VMs from them. VM templates can be imported from a remote repository or uploaded from a local machine. You can allow users to upload VM templates and the platform will convert them to the appropriate formats.

1. Open the Apps library view by clicking the Apps library icon
2. Select the datacenter
3. If VM templates do not display, beside the datacenter name, click the Refresh round arrow button

The platform makes the Apps library templates available in the virtual datacenters for users to create VMs.

5. Create a cloud tenant

In Abiquo, cloud tenants are called Enterprises and you can manage them in Users view.

1. Open the Users View by clicking the Users icon.
2. At the bottom of the Enterprises list, click the + add button to add a new enterprise
   
3. Enter the Name of the tenant and select Global scope 
   
4. To allow your users to deploy, enable a datacenter for the enterprise. Go to Datacenters, select a datacenter, and drag it into the Allowed datacenters list.
   
5. Click Save

6. Create users

In a new environment there is always the default Cloud Administrator user and the default cloud User. The other default user profile is the tenant administrator. Abiquo enables you to optionally delegate the creation of virtual resources and users to tenant administrators. When you log in as a tenant administrator or cloud user, the user interface displays the appropriate options according to your user privileges.

To create a user:

1. In Users view, select your enterprise, and go to Users, then click the + add button
   
2. Enter the user's details, including the Name
3. Select a role, for example ENTERPRISE_ADMIN, and select the Global scope
4. Enter other details, such as the Password and click Save.

Optionally, create a cloud administrator, and optionally, log in as a tenant administrator and create a cloud user.

7. Create a virtual datacenter

Virtual datacenters contain the virtual resources for providing the cloud service. From here users can create VMs in virtual appliances and the Abiquo platform will deploy them to the infrastructure. Within virtual datacenters, users can manage their VMs, networks, storage, and more.

1. Open the Virtual Datacenters view by clicking the cloud icon. Your demo environment may already contain a virtual datacenter and a virtual appliance
2. At the bottom of the V. Datacenters list, click the + add button and select Create virtual datacenter
   
3. Enter a Name, select the Datacenter. Then, if required, select the Hypervisor. Finally, click Save
   

8. Create a virtual appliance

A virtual appliance is a container for a group of VMs running in a virtual datacenter. It is like a folder that can contain a related set of VMs that are used to provide a service. For example, a web stack. At the virtual appliance level, you can deploy these VMs together, view their performance statistics, create anti-affinity layers for VM high availability, and so on.

Screenshot: Example of VMs running inside a virtual appliance, like the ones you will create in this section of the tutorial

To manage a new group of VMs, create a virtual appliance:

1. Select the virtual datacenter
2. Go to the Virtual Appliances tab, and at the bottom of the screen, click the + add button
3. If a menu displays, select "Create virtual appliance"
   
4. Enter the Name, and optionally, enter a Description
   
   
5. Click Save.

The virtual appliance you create will appear in the V. Appliances list. For more details, see Manage Virtual Appliances.

9. Create VMs from VM templates

When you open a virtual appliance, the platform displays a list of available and compatible templates in the left pane.

1. On the virtual appliance icon, click on Open
   
2. Click Create virtual machine
   
3. Select a VM template
   
   
4. For the Name, enter a user-friendly name for the VM and click Save
   1. Note that some hypervisors do not accept duplicate VM names
      

You can now optionally configure your VMs by going to the options menu at the top right of the VM icon and selecting Edit

After you save your changes to the VM, to close the virtual appliance and go back to the Virtual datacenters view, click the virtual datacenters cloud icon again. Or at the top of the screen in the black bar, click the VIRTUAL DATACENTER name.

10. Deploy a virtual appliance

To deploy a virtual appliance:

• In Virtual datacenters view, on the Virtual appliance card, from the Options menu, select Deploy
  
  OR
• Inside the Virtual appliance, click the Deploy virtual appliance button
  

Deploying the virtual appliance will provision the VMs and launch them in the cloud. You can also deploy each individual VM within the virtual appliance.

The platform will deploy all the VMs and power them on. You can select the VMs and manage them with the control buttons in the lower panel.