vCloud Director

Supported versions

For details of VMware Cloud Director, see VMware Cloud Director.

VMware vCloud Director in Abiquo

Abiquo supports VMware Cloud Director as an Abiquo public cloud. VCD can be a public or private cloud, but it best fits the public cloud model in Abiquo. This is because it is a self-contained cloud with an endpoint for access, and an API to manage it. Abiquo works with VMware Cloud Director organizations as Abiquo public cloud regions.

Configure VMware vCloud Director in Abiquo

1. Configure VMware vCloud Director with properties.  See Abiquo Configuration Properties#vcd

   • By default the platform configures a private network connection to allow outgoing VDC traffic in VMware vCloud Director via edge-uplink with the abiquo.vcd.parentnetwork property. You can remove this connection.

     • If you configure a parentnetwork, then by default, the platform will fence the VMware vCloud Director vApp. To change this configuration, set the abiquo.vcd.fenceVapp property to "false" 

   • You can change the number of IPs to use for load balancers, which by default is 20. 

   • You can configure the type of metrics to use

   • You can tune timeouts for your environment

2. To display VMware vCloud Director regions in groups by endpoint, configure the UI to group public cloud regions by provider

Add VMware vCloud Director to Abiquo

To add VMware vCloud Director to Abiquo, the basic steps are as follows:

1. Create public cloud regions for VMware vCloud Director:
   1. Enter the URL for VMware vCloud Director (e.g. https://myvclouddirector.example.com)
   2. Enter credentials for ONE of the following models:
      1. To add a provider VDC, enter Administrator credentials (user@System)
      2. To add an organization VDC, enter Organization administrator credentials (user@orgName). This region will be exclusive to the organization
2. Edit each enterprise that will work in a VMware vCloud Director region (provider VDC or org VDC)
   1. Go to Allowed datacenters and add the region
   2. Go to Credentials and select VMware vCloud Director. Enter the organization administrator identity and credential
      

For complete instructions, see VMware vCloud Director integration

Add a new VMware vCloud Director organization to Abiquo

When the system administrator adds a new organization in VMware vCloud Director, this will create a new organization vDC.

To add the org vDC in Abiquo:

1. Go to Infrastructure → Public
2. Click the + button and select Create a public cloud region to update the available regions 
   • This will add metadata for this model to the organization virtual datacenter.

General features

The platform offers these VMware Cloud Director and Abiquo features in the private cloud integration using VCD API.

VMware Cloud Director Feature	Support	Comments
Configure and remove VMs		Using CPU and RAM values or Abiquo hardware profiles.
Reconfigure VMs		For VMs deployed in VMware Cloud Director, you can always change the configuration when the VM is powered off.
Hot reconfigure VMs		If your OS supports hot-reconfigure and if it is enabled for your VM template on VMware Cloud Director. Edit the template and select the hot-reconfigure option. You can use this feature without redeploying your VMs. The platform supports hot-reconfigure of CPU, RAM, SCSI disks, and NICs.
Power on VM
Power off VM
Reset VM
Pause and resume VM
Take a VM snapshot
Storage		The platform supports auxiliary hard disks for VMware Cloud Director Users can add and remove hard disks (and hot reconfigure SCSI disks) Users cannot change the boot sequence or the bus/unit number VMware Cloud Director does not support storage reconfigure for organization virtual datacenters that use fast provisioning
Remote access		Click on the Abiquo console icon to open a remote console
Reset guest password
Manage networks		Users of the platform can work with VMware vCloud Director networks as follows: Manage private networks vApp networks, which may be isolated or have an external connection Synchronize these external networks: External networks outside the Org VDC but connected to the Edge, for use by load balancers but not VM vNICs External networks outside the Org VDC with a direct connection to OrgVDC as OrgVDCNetwork Isolated Org VDC networks, for use by VM vNICs but not load balancers Synchronize and create and delete these external networks in the Virtual datacenters view OrgVDC networks inside the OrgVDC and routed through the Edge Configure external connections for private networks For private networks, the property "vcd.parentnetwork" will determine if there is a connection to allow outgoing traffic. This can be set for the platform and the enterprise. The value can be any existing orgNetwork name or "none" for isolated private networks. The default value is "edge-uplink", which uses the external network connected to the orgVdc Edge gateway. If you configure a parent network, then by default, the platform will fence the VCD vApp, which means that the configuration is "natrouted" and VCD will retain the IP and MAC addresses of the Edge gateway across deployments. To prevent the platform from creating fenced VCD vApps, set the "vcd.fenceVapp" property to false on the Remote Services server. Onboarding external networks In VCD when you create an external network that can support load balancers (direct or routed), you must create a static IP pool with the number of IP addresses to reserve for load balancers. The platform uses a configuration property to set the number of addresses to reserve for load balancers. If you do not create the static IP pool, the platform's onboarding process will ignore the network. The number of static IPs reserved for load balancers is also a limit on the number of load balancers that users can create in a network. Administrators can create NAT networks for public cloud regions and users can manage NAT rules for their VMs. The platform does not discover or onboard NAT networks. The platform does not onboard or manage static routes for VCD networks.
Manage VDCs		Synchronize VCD regions and and manage VDCs. When you remove a virtual datacenter from VCD and it still exists in platform, when synchronizing, an error is displayed that the resource no longer exists. The user can then manually delete the VDC from the platform.
Classic firewalls and firewall policies		Create and manage Edge firewalls in VCD as classic firewalls Create and manage security groups for VMs at Edge level or vApp level (and for fenced vApps (see Network section)) as firewall policies
Use Chef	-
Use Chef attributes	-
VM bootstrap scripts		Using cloud-init, see Guest setup
VM variables		Using cloud-init, see Guest setup
Load balancing		Create load balancers in the platform. Use public addresses that are on an available external network in VCD Known issue: Cannot create load balancing rules between VCD vApps, which are VDCs in the platform
Import and synchronize VMs		When you onboard a VM, the platform creates a placeholder template. In the Apps library, this template will be marked as Unavailable because it cannot be used to create a VM. Before you undeploy the VM you MUST create an Instance template, which will clone the VM disks. Otherwise, you will not be able to recreate the VM. When you undeploy an onboarded VM, the platform will destroy the VM and the placeholder template. After you create an instance template, the platform will update the VM template in the Apps library to point to this template and put it in the Available state. The platform will correctly save VMs with multiple disks as templates in the VCD registry, but they will appear to have a single disk. If you undeploy a VM with a saved instance template, when you deploy the VM again, the platform will use the saved instance template. Remember to check your VM configuration
VM monitoring and metrics		Abiquo retrieves the built-in metrics. You can also use Abiquo collectd plugin, which can be installed using the Abiquo Chef cookbook. See Collectd plugin documentation
Manage VM templates	-	Abiquo uses VCD template repository and obtains the operating system type from the template. If the template has no vCPU and RAM values, the platform sets a default of 1 CPU and 1024 MB of RAM. Abiquo requires VMware tools installed on the template in order to specify the administrator password and for the guest to recognize the IPs assigned to the NICs. Users cannot deploy VMs without VMware tools installed The platform will not import templates without tools. After upgrade, users cannot deploy templates without tools and the platform will eventually classify them as unavailable templates
Abiquo autoscaling		Driven by action plans, triggered by schedules or alarms
Abiquo alarms and alerts
Abiquo action plans		Create vertical and horizontal auto-scaling
Abiquo hardware profiles		You can use Abiquo hardware profiles or CPU and RAM values
Abiquo VApp spec blueprints		Save configurations and share them with users in appropriate locations